With Hillary Clinton’s sights on the White House in 2008 and Bill’s hopes of holding the UN’s Secretary General position once Kofi Annan steps down in 2006, this country could be in for some serious trouble. It’s no secret that the Clintons are not exactly the most gun friendly politicians this country has ever seen and the UN doesn’t even try to hide the fact that they want a world wide ban on firearms. The Clintons ending up in those positions would be a dream come true for the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun groups. If we’re not paying attention, what is happening in England and other places around the world could happen here.Over the past several years, the people of England have fell victim to radical legislators and courts who pass and uphold the most absurd laws restricting a person’s right to defend his home, his family and himself. A man’s home in England is no longer his castle, where he could use reasonable force to defend it. In England, there is a police force that either can’t or won’t protect its citizens, who are defenseless to protect themselves.

The media in England has made phrases, such as “a robbery gone wrong” and “alleged murder” commonplace when referring to murdered homeowners who confront intruders in their homes. So I guess had a robbery “gone right”, the homeowners would awake to find that an “alleged robbery” had taken place. Ridiculous!

An elderly woman in England who fell victim to several burglaries, decided she would put barbed wire around her home, with hopes that it would deter future break-ins. Unfortunately, she was ordered to take it down because “it could injure someone who foolishly tries to climb it.” (I’m not kidding about this one either, as nuts as it may sound. Check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1479852.stm for the story).

So why am I harping on England?

British citizens lost their right to legally keep and bear arms, but not because it was a popular sentiment among the people. They lost their right because of radical left wing lawyers, judges and members of federal and local government. I fear for our rights now more than ever, as we have seen our own share of radical leftists in America who have tried to make gay marriage legal and to keep God out of every public facility. It’s just a matter of time before they come after our guns, and more importantly than that, our right to defend our families, our homes and ourselves.

As I said before, the Clinton’s have their sights on your right to bear arms. So what needs to be done? First, we need to make sure that the Supreme Court justices are replaced with pro-Second Amendment justices. Secondly, we have to get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US.

How can you help? Start by writing letters to both houses of Congress, the President and State Government officials. If you think your letters won’t be read, you’re wrong. I’ve written letters to my state’s senators, representatives and the President, and have almost always gotten some response back. You can be sure that at a minimum these politicians know how many people write to them, either for or against a particular topic, because they need to know what issues are important to the people who will vote for their re-election.

I’ll even make it easy on you. Visit http://www.congress.org/ and type in your zip code. It will give you links with information on how you can contact your congressmen and other elected officials. Then just sit down one afternoon and write a letter. It doesn’t have to be a long letter, just a few short paragraphs explaining how strong you feel about our right to bear arms.

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Finally, after 10 long years, the Clinton gun ban has expired. This means that starting tomorrow morning, law abiding citizens across the country will be able to go out and purchase firearms, and higher capacity magazines that they were unable to purchase for the past 10 years.Why is this a good thing? Well, for starters, the Clinton gun ban did nothing to reduce crime. The same people who were allowed to purchase firearms over the weekend (like me, with my new Glock 23) are able to purchase firearms tomorrow morning. That means that if someone wanted to commit a crime with a firearm, and they could legally acquire it, nothing was stopping them. So who was hurt by this law? Well, again it was people like me, who are law abiding citizens, using firearms for nothing but legal purposes. Gun owners like myself were unable to buy certain guns because they looked like “military style” firearms. The appearance however, had absolutely nothing to do with the actual operation of the gun.

For example, certain rifles in a .223 caliber were banned under the Clinton gun ban. Eight years into the Clinton gun ban, my Dad bought a .223 rifle. Why were some banned and not others? It’s because the whole law was arbitrary, banning guns purely for cosmetic purposes (i.e. they looked like they were more dangerous than others). The guns that were banned were given the name “assault weapons”, for no other reason than because the name sounds scarry. Some of the guns that were banned shot a smaller caliber than did some of the legal guns. Again, this was arbitrary.

The other thing that was banned was “high capacity magazines”. “High capacity” meant any magazine that held more than 10 rounds. Why 10, you might ask? Well, again it was a decision that wasn’t really based on much. My guess is that when drafting the bill, the lawmakers probably figured that if they went too low, say 5 rounds, the law would never pass, and if they went too high, say 15, the anti-gunners wouldn’t be happy with the law. Ten was the [un]happy medium. But once again, this part of the law had its flaws. The law only said that a private citizen couldn’t possess an ammunition magazine, manufactured after September 13, 1994, that holds more than 10 rounds. It never said that if you already owned one you couldn’t keep it, or if you were to see a used one (manufactured pre-ban) in a gun store, or at a gun show you couldn’t buy it, which is why my Dad had owns a 30 round magazine for that same .223 caliber rifle I was discussing earlier, as well as one for a pistol.

Look, this article could go on forever, discussing the benefits of this law expiring. But the bottom line is this, law abiding citizens now have the right to own a wider variety of firearms. Firearms, which criminals would have possessed anyway, despite the presence of Clinton’s ban. If you’re looking for a way to truly reduce crime, banning guns on arbitrary measures is not the way to do it. Harsher penalties, like longer jail sentences for those who commit crimes with guns is the way to go.

For those of you who still are not convinced, here are the top 10 reasons that this ban should expire according to the NRA’s ClintonGunBan.com:
• Number 10: The ban was never intended to reduce crime.
• Number 9: The shape of a gun`s grip is not a reason to ban it.
• Number 8: The claim that the guns are “high-powered” is a lie.
• Number 7: The guns are not machine guns or “weapons of war.”
• Number 6: Some of the guns are widely used for sports and hunting.
• Number 5: Gun control supporters lie about police officers.
• Number 4: The ban has had no effect on crime.
• Number 3: The guns have never been criminals` “weapon of choice.”
• Number 2: More guns equal less crime.
• Number 1: The ban interferes with the right of self-defense.

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I was watching a stand up comedian the other night on Comedy Central who was talking about how Rosie O’Donnell had Tom Selleck on her show a while back, and how she started bashing him for being an NRA member. According to the comedian, she asked Selleck “don’t you know that guns kill people”, or something to that effect, I don’t recall exactly what was said. The comedian’s response to her statement was, “if you can blame guns for killing people, then I guess I can blame my pencil for misspelling a word.” Just think about that, and if you’re a liberal, you may want to go back and read that again.I think if there was only one thing I could change with the liberal philosophy, it would be for them to accept the idea of personal responsibility, and stop blaming others for their own personal mistakes. If you go back and think about that comedian’s quote, isn’t it true that when I spell the word “water” as “wattah”, I made the mistake. My keyboard, or my computer didn’t make any error, they did just what they were supposed to do. I typed a certain set of letters, and the keyboard told the computer that I wanted those letters displayed in a particular order on the screen. Should I sue the computer or keyboard manufacturer, because I made the mistake? No, of course not, that would just be ridiculous. Their product worked just fine.

So, back to Rosie’s comment about how guns kill people. Do you still buy it? Should gun manufacturers be sued because some jerk decided to pick up a gun and kill someone? Or is it that jerk’s fault that he made the decision to fire the gun? Remember, the gun has no hypnotic powers over someone forcing them to shoot at anyone, or anything. It is just a bunch of metal, whose sole purpose is to make another piece of metal travel from point A to point B. The person holding the gun has complete control over whether or not the gun will go off, and what point B will be. Unless of course there is a legitimate manufacturing flaw in the gun, in which case there may actually be a legit lawsuit.

Once we start legitimizing these junk lawsuits that place the blame on businesses for their customer’s mistakes, we’ll wind up having every business in America on trial for one thing or another. It already started with the lawsuits against the tobacco companies. People who started smoking years ago, back before it was determined that smoking was bad for you, sued the tobacco companies for “misleading” them. I don’t care when you started smoking, you should be able to use common sense to determine that inhaling smoke of any kind isn’t good for you. Why do you think people hold a cloth, or something to filter out smoke when they are caught in a fire? Common sense just tells you that smoke isn’t supposed to be in your lungs. But the anti-personal responsibility folks in this country decided that it’s best to award these idiots millions of dollars, for their incompetence, not the tobacco companies.

Since the tobacco lawsuits were won based on the argument that people were ignorant to the fact that smoking is a hazard to their health, I would be curious to see what argument the lawyers will come up with for the cases against the gun industry. Maybe it will be that there wasn’t a warning saying that if you point a gun at someone and pull the trigger, it may kill them. Oh, wait, every gun I’ve ever bought has had that warning come with it. So much for the ignorance plea. Looks like the lawyers are going to have to work overtime on this one.

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I recently read an article by Thomas Sowell titled The left’s vision. He wrote about how in England, the right to defend yourself is virtually nonexistent. Not only are gun control laws so strict in England that it is virtually impossible for a citizen to own a firearm, people actually get arrested for detaining criminals with toy pistols, or anything that remotely resembles a gun.Now, anyone who knows me or has ever read anything that I have ever written knows that I am all for personal responsibility. I believe that everyone should earn their own money and not take government hand outs. I believe that everyone should pay for the crimes that they commit. And I believe that everyone has the right to defend themselves – a right, which unfortunately is not looked upon favorably by some people.

The British people are some of those who look down upon that right, being forced to rely on the government for protection. Thomas Sowell continued in his article with the following: “To the collectivist mind set, independent self-help of any sort is a threat to their vision of the government as the sole source of protection and direction.” If a citizen knocks down an attacker, they can’t even strike the attacker again, because the attacker is deemed to be defenseless. Even the media in England is going along with this mind set by suggesting to citizens that they no longer call for “help” when being attacked. Instead, they say, you are to yell “call the police”!

According to Sowell, self-defense and assisting others who are being attacked is looked at as a “vigilante” action in England. To me, defending one’s self and coming to the aid of others is a morally responsible thing to do. Personally, I don’t think I could just stand there and watch as a person was being beaten, raped, or murdered. It would sicken me to think that I could have helped that individual, but instead chose to stand there and watch while their life slipped away. Even if I were to call the police, the attacker would most likely have finished attacking the victim, and ran away long before the police had arrived. The sad thing is, if all I did was called the police, I would probably be praised for doing all I could to save the victim’s life.

Even in America, the liberal media views self-defense as a vigilante act. They water down true acts of bravery and self-defense, or choose to not report when the “good guys” win at all. The NRA makes an attempt to combat the watered down reporting of self-defense cases in their monthly magazines and website, by including a section called The Armed Citizen. While it’s good that this resource is available, it will likely reach few people who firmly believe in gun control. More likely than not, its message will reach a predominantly pro-gun audience.

Liberals constantly claim that their policies benefit society, but I see no benefit to a disarmed, defenseless citizenry. Violent crime rates are on the rise in England and elsewhere where restrictive gun laws exist. You can even see the difference in America between regions with lesser restrictions on gun ownership, and regions with higher restrictions. States like Vermont, with very few gun laws has a very low rate of violent crime, when compared to an area like Los Angeles, CA where there are more restrictions on legal gun ownership, and a much higher violent crime rate.

The other problem Americans have with guns is that it has become politically incorrect to be a gun owner – at least from what I’ve observed in my neck of the woods. Whenever I’ve talked about owning a gun to a non-gun owner I always get the sense that they perceive me as either being a bad guy, or a redneck. Even when I explain my many reasons for being a gun owner, they never really see my point. Their minds are so clouded by the notion that gun owners are dangerous, irresponsible individuals. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, the reason why this notion is dangerous to our free society is that once an idea like this becomes main stream, more gun laws will be allowed to pass, without much public resistance.

I don’t care if you choose to own a gun or not. I don’t care if you choose to be a passive individual, who doesn’t care about defending themselves. What I do care about is that my right to defend myself and my family, as well as everyone else’s right to do the same remains a right, and not a crime.

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Many politicians, government lobbyists and members of the “elite” media try very hard to make us think that we are better off without firearms. Unfortunately, they are succeeding in making many people believe these lies.Why are firearms targeted as the topic of such debate? No single item has ever been used in so few crimes yet come under such heavy scrutiny. Think about it: motor vehicles are used to break the law everyday, just think about how fast you and countless other people drive compared to the speed limit. That’s a crime, isn’t it? People can die from others who use their motor vehicle irresponsibly. But there are far fewer people who are lobbying to ban motor vehicles than to ban firearms. This is because a ban on motor vehicles would be an inconvenience to them, and since they don’t want anyone to own firearms, it’s all of a sudden OK.

Well it’s not OK, and in my book it never will be. If their true agenda was public safety like they claim, why are they just targeting guns? Why not other things like bans on driving motor vehicles, using anything electric, anything flammable, or any sharp instruments like scissors and knives, riding bicycles, swimming, flying kites (you could get struck by lightning), or walking down stairs, just to name a few of the everyday hazards we face. All of these actions have the potential to be very deadly if done irresponsibly, but why isn’t anyone trying to ban these actions? If they’re not banned, why not at least require licenses to use them. It should be obvious (I hope) that the anti-gun lobby has another motive, other than public safety. To me, it seems that just because a ban on guns isn’t an inconvenience to them it’s OK for them to lobby for it, after all only criminals use guns, right?

Wrong. I have been a recreational and competitive shooter for several years. I also carry a pistol with me wherever I am legally permitted to do so. Prior to even using a firearm, I went through an NRA safety course, which taught me how to use a firearm safely. I have never had an accident, never pointed my gun at anyone, nor have I ever used a firearm to commit a crime. And, surprise, I am not the only one who has this track record with guns either. There are many other law abiding citizens who have taken the time to educate and train themselves to use a firearm safely.

Now I am not claiming that everyone who owns a gun is 100% safe, and only uses it for legal purposes. But that doesn’t justify a ban on guns. Like I said before, not everyone uses their cars for legal purposes; does that justify a ban on cars (even though you hear about a lot more fatal car accidents in the news than fatal shootings)?

My father told me a good story once, about a friend of his who was in England (where all guns are illegal) talking to an armed police officer. He said, “why do you need to carry a gun if all guns are illegal?” The officer responded “well the criminals could still have guns.” If that doesn’t prove my point about gun control, nothing will. CRIMINALS DON’T CARE WHAT THE LAW IS! They will go wild if there is a gun ban, because they will find ways to arm themselves, knowing that law abiding citizens will be unarmed, while they go around stealing our valuables and raping and killing our friends and family, just because we are unable to arm and defend ourselves. Keeping guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens does nothing but increase crime. Just look at the violent crime statistics in England and Australia both before and after they banned guns. The difference is like night and day.

Some people say “well if you’re that paranoid, why don’t you just carry mace around with you?” Well, the effective distance for pepper spray is only a few feet, where a gun has a much farther effective distance (depending on what type of gun). Also mace isn’t very accurate, since you have to hit a very small target (the eyes) in order for it to be effective. And on top of that, once you spray an armed attacker with mace, it can’t stop them from shooting off a few more rounds in your direction.

But that’s not the point. Gun ownership is a right, not a privilege like some would like you to think. If you take away the right to bear arms, what’s next? Maybe it will be something that’s an inconvenience to you.

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Imagine this:
What if one day someone was to exercise their First Amendment rights to speech and it killed someone (maybe they said to someone jokingly, “go ahead and jump see if I care”). What if, because of that person’s speech the government decided to start issuing permits to make sure people used their speech responsibly? In order to get this speech permit, you must be at least 21 years of age and have no felony convictions on your record. You must fill out an application attesting to the fact that you have passed various courses to prove that you can use your speech in a safe manner. You must provide previous employment information, as well as information about your relatives. Also you will be fingerprinted for your background investigation, as if you were a criminal. After this process is completed you must wait 8 weeks for the FBI to finish processing your background investigation in order to obtain your permit. Once you have obtained your permit, you are free to speak your mind, except of course in government buildings (schools, post offices, etc.), some public parks, some municipalities, and by the way this permit is only valid in the state that granted it to you. Don’t even think of speaking freely once you have crossed state lines, if caught using your free speech in another state, you could be thrown in jail and charged with a felony. Also, you are not able to speak on behalf of anyone who does not have a speech permit, and they may not use your permit in order to freely speak their mind.You may be thinking right now that this guy is nuts. It is impossible for the government to put such harsh restrictions upon rights granted to you by the First Amendment. I would agree.

That is until I considered the very next Amendment to our Constitution. It reads “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed“. Who is the militia that this Amendment talks about? It is you and I. Consider 10 USC § 311 (a), which says “The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and…under 45 years of age who are…citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.” And § 311 (b) “The classes of the militia are (1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and (2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”

Why then, did I have to wait until I was 21 to obtain my State Permit to Carry a Concealed pistol/revolver? Why did I have to go through the 8 week long application process to obtain the permit? Why was I fingerprinted as if I were a criminal? I don’t even have a speeding ticket on my record! Most importantly though, why can’t I carry my gun outside of the state that issued the permit? Just because I live in State ‘A’, does that mean that I won’t ever have the need to defend myself in State ‘B’, ‘C’, or ‘D’? It seems like my right to keep and bear arms has been infringed.

To explain, consider the following situation:
A businessman is traveling from Boston to New York City. The man owns several firearms for self defense that are registered in Massachusetts, but is unable to bring his protection with him since he will be crossing state lines. When he arrives in New York City, he parks his car and gets out to find that a man with a knife has snuck up on him. Thinking that the man only wants money, the businessman reaches for his wallet. After he hands the thief the money, the thief kindly thanks the businessman with several stabs to the chest. The thief walks away from the situation unharmed while the businessman lay next to his car bleeding to death. Not only isn’t the thief harmed, he most likely won’t even be caught. All for a few dollars.

James Madison once said, “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” Indeed, this is what we are seeing here. Local governments have the sole authority to grant/deny concealed carry permits, and in most cases without one of these permits you can’t be in possession of a firearm within that territory. They claim that it is for safety that they don’t want unregistered people carrying firearms in their territory. Who is protected by this? Is it the law abiding gun owner, who only wants to carry a gun to defend himself, or is it the criminals who will use a gun against an unarmed citizen? It seems to me as if the criminals, who are going to carry a weapon regardless of what the law says, receive the most protection from this law (just a few paragraphs earlier I was the one who was nuts!).

The thing that lawmakers have to understand is that guns are not dangerous by themselves. It is always the operator, the person in possession of the gun, who will determine if a gun will be dangerous or not. If the FBI has determined in my background investigation that I am not a threat to society when I am armed in my home state, how then am I a threat to society once I cross state lines? And if I’m not then why am I not allowed to be in possession of a firearm elsewhere?

If you agree, contact your lawmakers, and be sure to cast your vote in next year’s election for President Bush, someone who recognizes your right to keep and bear arms.

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