-
- He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take
it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and
buy one.
-
- http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible
-
- (I'll start with a piece from the Washington Post that
states ...)."[In that case, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled that the Second Amendment restricts federal authority in this area,
not that of state and local governments. The court stated, "We conclude
that the right to keep and bear handguns is not guaranteed by the Second
Amendment."] Link
-
- Opinions of Congressmen:
-
- WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S.
Senator Russ Feingold today weighed in on the hotly debated constitutional
question of whether or not the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
guarantees an individual's right to bear arms or if that right is reserved
solely for states.
-
- "The Second Amendment was clearly intended to counterbalance
a distrust of a potentially oppressive federal government and to protect
the right to defend against an oppressive government. The question arises
over whether that right rests with the states alone or with the states
and the people of those states," said Feingold. "I have always
believed the Second Amendment clearly guarantees the people themselves
the right to bear arms." http://www.senate.gov/~feingold/980923b.html
- http://www.house.gov/hostettler/issues/2ndamen.htm
-
-
- "The Second Amendment"
- Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee on the Constitution
Senator John Ashcroft, Chairman
Opening Statement September 24, 1998 http://www.senate.gov/~ashcroft/sp9-24-98-fl.htm
-
- "Mr. Chairman, there have been varying interpretations
of the word "militia" in the Second Amendment. I believe its
is an individual right guaranteed by our Founding Fathers. Throughout the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the words "people," "persons,"
or "citizens," denote that right is enumerated for all individuals,
not for a collective group. For example, the right of free speech was not
meant as a collective right, but a right guaranteed to the individual.
Therefore, the use of the words "the right of the people to keep and
bear arms" indicates that it is one of the individual rights set forth
in the Constitution." http://www.senate.gov/~grams/crsp92398.html
-
- "I believe the original intent of the Second Amendment
was to protect each individual's right to keep and bear arms, and to guarantee
that individuals acting collectively could cast away the harness of any
oppressive government that may arise. Unfortunately, there are individuals
and advocacy groups who take the position that the Second Amendment merely
protects the state's right to an organized military ("well-regulated
militia") while rejecting any notion that the Second Amendment protects
an individual right. I find it hypocritical and distressing when civil
libertarians who support the individual rights recognized in the First,
Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments and defend these rights against governmental
abuse are overcome by their own fear of one another when the subject turns
to the Second Amendment." Link
-
- "I believe we need to honor and uphold an individual's
right to keep and bear arms. I also believe we need to focus our efforts
on crime control instead of on gun control. Regardless of how strict our
laws are, criminals have always been able to illegally acquire weapons.
After all, private citizens cannot possess guns in Washington, D.C., yet
this city has one of the highest murder rates in the country." http://www.senate.gov/~thomas/html/issue19.html
-
- (A new quote I read for the first time can be found at
link below),"...the second amendment is not for killing little ducks
and leaving Huey and Dewey and Louie without an aunt and uncle. It is for
hunting politicians, like [in] Grozny, [and in] 1776, when they take your
independence away."__ Representative Bob Dornan, US House of Representatives,
January 25, 1995 http://home.epix.net/~stevekrz/amend2.html
-
- (And then you have this piece, POSSIBLY THE MOST IMPORTANT
PIECE YOU CAN READ ON GUN CONTROL, from the 103rd Congress.........)
-
- http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/rva/1032/1032294.htm
-
- The so-called assault weapon ban violates the second
amendment to the Constitution. The ban is based on hysterical fear that
is unjustified in both law and in fact. The result of the ban will be to
infringe seriously on a constitutional right without having even the slightest
impact on crime.
-
- Our Founding Fathers knew the right to keep and bear
arms was so fundamental that they made it the second amendment to our Constitution.
They did not add this amendment to the Bill of Rights because they wanted
to ensure that Americans would forever have an unfettered right to shoot
squirrels or tin cans. Our colleagues who constantly prattle on about hunting
and target shooting as if the second amendment were aimed at protecting
such activities are missing the point. TheSecond Amendment is about democracy
and liberty.
-
- The amendment, in whole, reads as follows, "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."
The wording of this amendment has been twisted in modern times by anti-gun
commentators who suffer from willful ignorance. They have suggested that
our Founding Fathers used the words "State" and "well regulated
militia" because they meant to protect the right to have what has
evolved into our National Guard. We suggest they pick up a history book.
If they do, they will find these words from our Founding Fathers:
-
- "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
(Thomas Jefferson)
-
- "Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual
discretion in private self-defense." (John Adams)
-
- "The Constitution preserves the advantage of being
armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation
where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." (James
Madison)
-
- "Arms discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer
in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property...horrid mischief
would ensue were citizens deprived of the use of them." (Thomas
Payne)
-
- "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only
those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws
make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they
serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man
may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." (Thomas
Jefferson)
-
- "A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the
people themselves." (Richard Henry Lee)
-
- "The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent
the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping
their own arms" (Sam Adams); "I ask, sir, what is the militia?
It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual
way to enslave them." (George Mason).
-
- These quotes illustrate that our Founding Fathers wrote
and passed the second amendment to guarantee individuals the right to protect
themselves, their property, and their loved ones from others and from the
government itself. They fully understood the danger of allowing power to
be concentrated in a government. Power corrupts; if the government were
given the power to be the sole guarantor of a person's life and property
(pursuit of happiness), it would have tremendous coercive power, and would
inevitably infringe upon his liberty as well. Such a democracy would not
be one in which the people elected their servants, but one in which they
elected their masters, by majority vote. Individuals would be at the mercy
of a government for all their protection, plus they would be defenseless
before their government.
-
- Supporting such an end is tantamount to an abandonment
of the great American experiment in democracy, which is based on the liberty
of the individual. By liberty, we certainly do not mean license--with freedom
come responsibilities. Civil order must be maintained, but it is the ultimate
duty of individuals to maintain it, not the government. In a government
of, by, and for the people, the people themselves must be responsible for
themselves, and must be held accountable for their actions. For this reason,
we have strongly, loudly, and repeatedly called for the absolutely toughest
possible penalties for those individuals who use firearms to violate others
basic constitutional rights instead of to defend their own.
-
- Unfortunately, those very Senators who call most loudly
for taking guns away from Americans are also the most strident in refusing
to punish people for misusing them. They make excuses--society has done
those criminals wrong, and we need to work on rehabilitating them instead
of holding them accountable. By our colleagues reasoning, the government
should reorder society to change behavior and eliminate crime instead of
punishing it. They do not believe people are responsible for their actions,
but instead believe that their actions are determined by social structures.
They reason that if people have guns, they will kill, so therefore people
should not have guns.
-
- Of course, none of our colleagues is entirely against
punishment, but we find it difficult to fathom why so many liberal politicians
fail to see that the social engineering policies they have pursued for
decades have failed for decades. We have spent $5 trillion on social programs
since the war on poverty began, including on numerous "crime"
bills like this one that were loaded with billions of dollars for programs
to prevent crime and rehabilitate criminals, but all that funding has managed
to do is create generations of broken families of government dependents
with little hope, few skills, and no responsibilities. Crime rates have
gone up, not down. Still, the vast majority of government dependents are
decent, law-abiding citizens. Any suggestion that people in difficult circumstances
are just victims of their circumstances when they commit crimes is a slap
in the face to the majority of poor people who are responsible citizens.
-
- Though politicians have yet to tire of their social engineering
solutions to crime, the American people are fed up. In poll after poll,
they favor locking up criminals and throwing away the key. They especially
favor strong penalties for anyone who uses a gun in the commission of a
crime. Unfortunately, politicians seem to be especially opposed to such
penalties. This bill proves no exception. When it passed the Senate it
contained numerous strict penalties for using guns to commit crimes, but
all of those provisions have been stripped out of the conference report
by Democratic conferees.
-
- Though the penalties for criminals have been dropped,
a ban on so-called assault weapons has been retained. This ban is the culmination
of a relentless campaign by liberal politicians and media pundits. Any
time Americans hear about a mass murderer with a rifle, they also hear
that the killer used an "assault rifle." An "assault rifle,"
as defined by the media and some politicians, seems to be any rifle that
is in the hands of a mass murderer (who is also typically labelled insane
because of his actions, and thus, in their judgment, not guilty by reason
of insanity--they blame the gun but never the killer).
-
- The other tact that has been taken in this campaign against
assault weapons has been to claim that they are only possessed by criminals,
who use them in 10 percent or more of all gun felonies. Politicians try
to back this claim by citing Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearm (BATF)
trace statistics, but their use of those statistics is faulty. (A "trace"
is an investigation of the sales history of a weapon that has been seized
by police.) While it is true that between 8 to 10 percent of all BATF traces
are of "assault" weapons, this fact does not mean that up to
10 percent of gun crimes are committed with them. The BATF is simply much
more likely to trace these weapons than it is to trace other weapons. It
only traces between 1 to 2 percent of all guns used in crimes, and it does
not randomly select those traces.
-
- To find an honest assessment of how often so-called assault
weapons are used by criminals one needs to look at other statistics. For
example, the fact that an average of less than 1 percent of all guns seized
from 1980 to 1992 were assault weapons indicates either that criminals
who use those weapons are exceptionally clever at evading arrest or that
those weapons are not used as frequently as claimed. Every law enforcement
jurisdiction in the country reports that it rarely confiscates these guns.
For example, in Denver only 14 of the 1,752 guns seized by the police in
1991 were assault weapons. Those jurisdictions that tabulate how often
these weapons are used in the commission of felonies have even lower numbers
to report. For instance, the Chief of Police in Trenton, New Jersey, reported
that, since New Jersey has been keeping records, assault weapons have been
used in an underwhelming twenty-six one-hundredths of 1 percent of crimes.
Statistically, police in New Jersey are more likely to be attacked by tigers
that have escaped from local zoos than they are to be confronted by criminals
with assault weapons.
-
- Even though it is based on falsehoods, the result of
this media and political campaign has been to convince the American public
that felons with assault weapons are running amok. We concede that most
Americans now favor banning these weapons. However, winning the debate
for public sentiment gave pro-ban Senators a practical dilemma--there is
really no such thing as an assault weapon. The one common feature these
weapons have is that they are semiautomatic (fully automatic weapons were
banned in 1934). This characteristic is hardly a distinguishing feature,
though, because virtually every rifle sold in America today is a semiautomatic.
Senators knew they could not get away with banning semiautomatics because
such a ban would be equal to banning nearly every rifle in America. To
solve this practical problem, they sat down and thumbed through gun catalogues
and picked out some 19 weapons that looked particularly scary to them.
These 19 rifles, shotguns, and pistols have cosmetic features on them that
make them look more dangerous to people who are unfamiliar with firearms,
but they possess no capabilities that are not possessed by other semiautomatic
weapons. They then studied these 19 pictures to decide what it was about
these particular weapons that made them look more dangerous, and they settled
on several cosmetic features, such as folding stocks, large pistol grips,
bayonet mounts, and flash suppressors. None of these features makes any
weapon any more dangerous, yet they decided any weapon with two or more
of these features is an assault weapon, and they have steadily insisted
that only a lunatic or a felon would possess one. To illustrate the absurdity
of this definition, we remind our colleagues that President Clinton recently
used a semiautomatic shotgun when he went duck hunting. Add a couple of
cosmetic changes to this weapon and our President would have been holding
an assault weapon. If those changes had been made, would our colleagues
have classified the President as a lunatic or a felon, or both?
-
- In an effort to make this gun ban look more reasonable,
our colleagues added an appendix of 670 weapons that would not be banned.
Less than 13 percent of those weapons, though, are even semiautomatic firearms,
and thus by definition were not affected by the Feinstein gun-ban language.
Of the remaining 85, many are repeatedly counted; for example, the Remington
Model 870 pump shotgun makes the list 16 times. The truth, according to
the BATF, is that this gun ban will make between 100 and 160 firearms currently
on the market illegal.
-
- It will also make 3.3 million of the 200 million firearms
currently owned by law-abiding Americans illegal. The crime rate will not
decline, though, simply because semiautomatic firearms are almost never
used by criminals. Thus, there will be no trade off between a loss of second
amendment rights and an increase in safety. The only result of this ban
will be to infringe on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.
When this ban fails, we suspect our colleagues will conclude that the problem
was that it did not go far enough. They will then turn their attention
to finding new firearms to ban. Slowly but surely, they will chip away
at the second amendment until they have made it meaningless.
-
- We have raised these objections against cloture knowing
we will lose on this vote. In fact, all week we have accepted our loss
on this issue. We voted for the Senate bill with this gun ban, and we were
willing to vote for this conference report with the ban intact if other
changes were first made. The Republican Leader's 10-amendment proposal
for consideration of this conference report did not address the issue of
guns. Those Senators who insist that we Senators who oppose this report
are solely motivated by our opposition to this violation of the second
amendment are wrong, and they are improperly questioning our motives. Their
suggestions that we should not even be allowed to speak on this matter
are even more offensive because they show a distinct contempt for the tradition
of the Senate of respecting minority viewpoints. We hope in the future
that our colleagues do not make such statements as we have heard today.
-
- We strongly oppose this bill's violation of the second
amendment, and we have demanded this cloture vote as a means of registering
our opposition. We know we will not prevail, but at least we will be heard.
-
- VOTING YEA:
-
- Republicans: (7 or 16%) Chafee Danforth Jeffords Kassebaum
Roth Specter Warner
-
- Democrats: (54 or 96%) Akaka Baucus Biden Bingaman Boren
Boxer Bradley Breaux Bryan Bumpers Byrd Campbell Conrad Daschle DeConcini
Dodd Dorgan Exon Feinstein Ford Glenn Graham Harkin Heflin Hollings Inouye
Johnston Kennedy Kerrey Kerry Kohl Lautenberg Leahy Levin Lieberman Mathews
Metzenbaum Mikulski Mitchell Moseley-Braun Moynihan Murray Nunn Pell Pryor
Reid Riegle Robb Rockefeller Sarbanes Sasser Simon Wellstone Wofford
-
- http://home.epix.net/~stevekrz/amend2.html
-
- Republicans: (36 or 84%) Bennett Bond Brown Burns Coats
Cochran Cohen Coverdell Craig D'Amato Dole Domenici Durenberger Faircloth
Gorton Gramm Grassley Gregg Hatch Hatfield Helms Hutchison Kempthorne Lott
Lugar Mack McCain McConnell Murkowski Nickles Packwood Pressler Simpson
Smith Stevens Thurmond
-
- Democrats: (2 or 4%) Feingold Shelby
-
- NOT VOTING:
-
- Republicans: (1) Wallop-2 Democrats: (0)
-
- ABSENCE CODE: 1-Official Business 2-Nec. absent 3-Illness
4-Other Symbols: AY-Announced Yea AN-Announced Nay PY-Paired Yea PN-Paired
Nay
-
-
- Compiled and written by the staff of the Republican Policy
Committee
-
- Don Nickles, Chairman
-
- SIGHTINGS HOMEPAGE
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