From: cdt@sw.stratus.com (C. D. Tavares)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.elections,alt.fan.dan-quayle,talk.politics.guns,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Re: Have you heard of the Religious Left?
Date: 16 Sep 92 03:34:53 GMT
Followup-To: alt.politics.bush
Distribution: usa
Organization: Stratus Computer, Inc.

In article <pt79jmk@twilight.wpd.sgi.com>, coolidge@speaker.wpd.sgi.com (Don Coolidge) writes:

> I have no argument with rifles, and Kent hasn't a total
> argument with them, but we're both opposed to handguns. How can you
> possibly defend handguns? - other than with typical rabid NRA yammering, 
> that is. As we all can see.

I don't understand.  Are you deader when shot with a handgun than when
shot by a rifle?

> Idiot. You are talking about unambiguous guaranteed rights in the first
> ten amendments. Kent was talking about lethal weapons. There is no congruence
> between your "ideas" and his. There is no right to endanger the public.

This is the argument that all gun owners are criminals or incompetents,
right?  Otherwise no one is endangering the public.

> The 
> constitution guarantees a right to have an armed militia in order to ensure
> the general welfare.

Go back and read it.  It's really simple.  If you need assistance in
interpreting it, be aware that the Supreme Court disagrees with you.
Every Supreme Court ruling to even MENTION the Second Amendment has
treated it as an individual right (see below).

> The Supreme Court has seen fit to extend that guarantee
> to cover private ownership of weapons without a militia. But handgun
> registration laws, and even outright bans, have never been judged to be
> unconstitutional purely on the basis of the ban, despite the Court's
> interpretations of the Second Amendment.

It's obvious you're no authority on Supreme Court rulings on gun control.
Perhaps you've just swallowed other people's lies without checking for
yourself, but that's no excuse for ignorance.

As early as the Dred Scott decision, the Court ruled that if blacks
were to be recognized as full-fledged citizens,

        ...It would give to persons of the negro race, who are
        recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union, the
        right to enter every other state, whenever they
        pleased. . . . and it would give them full liberty of speech
        in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its
        own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon
        political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they
        went. [Dred Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 691, 705.]"

In Patsone v. Pennsylvania (1914), the Court (O. W. Homes writting the 
decision) said that, while non-citizens could be restricted from owning
hunting weapons in order to enforce prohibitions against hunting, "The 
prohibition does not extend to weapons such as pistols that may be 
supposed to be needed occasionally for self-defense."

In United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 110 S. Ct. 1839 (1990),
Chief Justice Rehnquist writes:

     ...'the people' seems to have been a term of art employed in 
     select parts of the Constitution.  The Preamble declares that 
     the Constitution is ordained, and established by 'the people 
     of the U.S.' The Second Amendment protects "the right of the
     people to keep and bear Arms," and the Ninth and Tenth
     Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are
     retained by and reserved to "the people."  See also U.S.
     Const., Amdt. 1, ("Congress shall make no law ...
     abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to
     assemble"); Art. I, s 2, cl. 1 ("The House of
     Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every
     second Year by the People of the several States")
     (emphasis added).  While this textual exegesis is by no
     means conclusive, it suggests that "the people" protected
     by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and Second
     Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are reserved
     in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a class of
     persons who are part of a national community or who have
     otherwise developed sufficient connection with this
     country to be considered part of that community.  110 S.
     Ct. at 1061.

Also instructive is the Report of the Subcommittee on the
Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States
Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982):

     The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history,
     concept, and wording of the second amendment to the
     Constitution of the United States, as well as its
     interpretation by every major commentator and court in
     the first half-century after its ratification, indicates
     that what is protected is an individual right of a
     private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful
     manner.

> How much freedom does an inner-city teenager have to walk the streets at
> night in his or her own neighborhood? How much freedom does the convenience-
> store clerk have when a .45 is being held to his head? - or the young 
> housewife whose husband is out of town when confronted by a gun-wielding
> rapist? (We had one of those happen here just last week.) Seems to me that
> they are being denied at least the pursuit of happiness, often liberty, and
> frequently life. What are you willing to do to guarantee _those_ freedoms, eh?

If I were a mugger, an armed robber, or a rapist out to ply my trade or
my pleasure, you can bet I would target citizens who couldn't shoot back.
And the more gun control there is, the more victims there will be out there
for me.  After all, your silly laws will never keep ME from getting a gun,
any more than it can keep me from getting drugs, which are TOTALLY illegal 
EVERYWHERE in the US.

So the real question here is, as a gun control advocate, what the hell
do you think YOU'RE doing to their freedoms?
-- 

cdt@pdp.sw.stratus.com      --If you believe that I speak for my company,
OR cdt@vos.stratus.com        write today for my special Investors' Packet...
Newsgroups: alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,alt.politics.elections