Many of my friends consider me a leftist. As evidence, they point to the fact that Barack Obama was my choice in the last two presidential elections. I certainly am left enough to think that crime has paid – and paid well – for many unprosecuted executives of corporations, Wall Street and the banking industry. I think Obamacare does not go far enough to provide health insurance that is the right of all. But the only way the government will ever get my gun is, as Charlton Heston so famously said: “You can have my guns when you take them from my cold, dead hands.”
I am a hunter and enjoy shooting skeet and at targets but that is not why I oppose additional controls on firearms ownership except, perhaps, for expanding the requirements for background checks. My constitutionally guaranteed right to own a firearm and, for that matter, equip it with a 30-round magazine if I wish is integral to my status as a free citizen of a free country. There is no right more important to me than that granted by the Second Amendment because, philosophically at least, unfettered gun ownership truly represents power to the people. It signifies that my government recognizes that it is aware that the responsible and able citizen has the right and wherewithal to protect his or her rights and, if necessary, protect the nation. Trite, perhaps, but true is what a bumper sticker popular among gun owners proclaims: "If there was gun control in 1775, we would all be British subjects.”
Speaking of Britain, it is virtually impossible for the ordinary subject there to have a firearm for self-defense. But you can bet your boots that the lords and ladies and other persons of privilege can pack heat if they wish. That is usually the way it is in countries with tight gun control. I am not adverse to the requirement that I have a permit for carrying a handgun on my person. I will not register long guns and the government has no business knowing what guns I own, period.
Not all law enforcement, by the way, favors stronger gun control. I think back to a dark, snowy night where there was a disturbance on the woods road near my home and a lone trooper who responded asked me to grab my shotgun and accompany me while he investigated.
I am sick of smug liberal commentators, who could not survive outside of their comfortable urban cocoons, smirking at gun ownership. They betray woeful lack of knowledge about firearms and firearms laws, such as equating a carry permit with a license to have a gun. They inhabit an elitist, urban bubble that leaves them culturally deprived when it comes to how the rest of us live. I stopped watching Fox News eons ago. Since the Newtown tragedy, I no longer watch MSNBC, either. I am tired of wealthy oligarchs like Mayor Bloomberg telling the masses how to live, what soda to drink and crying about how guns create crime in his city. If he wanted to walk his talk, he would disarm his bodyguards.
I am against virtually any new gun control measures because they are only the beginning. The gun grabbers do not want control. They want elimination of private firearms ownership. There is no better example of their intent than the bill proposed by Connecticut State Senator Ed Meyer that would limit gun ownership to single-shot firearms, making possession of guns that fire multiple rounds a crime. Meyer needs to add provisions to his bill providing funds for more police to enforce it and more prisons to house me and the others like me who would defy it and thus be classed as felons if it became law. His bill only provides fodder for extreme right wing visions of jackbooted enforcers breaking down doors to seize the guns of law-abiding citizens. It irks me no end that I voted for the guy.
I am secretary of a rod and gun club, many of whose members think President Obama has horns, to put it mildly, and not only because they view him as anti-gun. Since Obama first ran for office, I have argued with them his case for greatness. Now, I fear I will have to consume my own words in front of my fellow sportsmen. I pray that Vice President Biden and President Obama realize that, like me, many of their supporters revere the Second Amendment. I was a Democrat who turned Republican because my party had fallen under the rule of special interests. I quit the Republicans because the party is dominated by oligarchs using Tea Party dupes to work their evil. I should note that I have allowed my NRA membership to expire because I believe that that organization now exists to promote right wing causes and is no longer focused solely, as in the past, on keeping America a “nation of riflemen.” I hope my president does not create a situation that will force me to pay dues to the NRA once again.
Edward R. Ricciuti
Killingworth, CT
The 2nd Ammendment was written by the very same men that had just fought a Revolutionary War against the British Army. They wanted to make sure that "We the Pepole" had "Arms" to defend the country and the constitution, they fought their war with the same weapons that the British were using against them, had the technology existed in 1775, I'm sure both sides would have been using the most effective tool to defend themselves. I understand that 200 years can make memories of war on our home soil hard to imagine, or just go back 150 years, or so ago, the people that fought in those wars brought the guns that they had at their disposal... If you don't think that a government would turn on it's own citizens, just look at the atrocities commited by Germany during WWII, if you say, that could never happen here, ask a Japanese US Citizen what their government did to them during the war...
Today, I did not find Pres. Obama's remarks totally unreasonable, other than his giving the murder for entertainment media a free pass, but then again they were big donors. I'm willing to be reasonable and compromise as a gun owner. But my point is here that it's hard to have a thoughtful dialog when people like "Big K" are so clueless about what they are talking about!
Good grief what part of people need to wake up and realize we are just being fed mindless propaganda from the democrats am i not explaining properly?
Actually why arent you angry? Meyers lied through his teeth to you too when he told you he was only going to ban assault weapons to get you to support it when he was fully intending to ban deer rifles cowboy guns and pretty much everything except flintlocks. Is that the kind of politician you want representing you?
YOU read the definition below prior to making any comments. You are the one that is clueless. Definition of ASSAULT WEAPON : any of various automatic or semiautomatic firearms; especially: assault rifle First Known Use of ASSAULT WEAPON 1973
radio comms disruption and 'detection of sources' is common first year tactical training for the basic intel officers and grunts, and they have the most advanced means to do so, here or in any other 'theatre'. what may seem like a great advantage in numbers, armed civilians would be decimated by the disciplined trained units we have in the force, as once they sense their own life is endangered, they will kill, not out of loyalty, & but for simple self survival. where the USA has misjudged, is the capacity of criminal organizations to effectively perform their business WITH complicit civilian cooperation, mostly out of desire for drugs, contraband and with the use of ILLEGAL guns of ANY SORT. (see following comment for continuation)
that segment of society (criminals) , does not adhere to what is being promoted as 'gun control', in the way these legal blabbermouths seem to think. they are already 'on the other side' and have no desire to accommodate or cede any profit or gain from use of illegal and tactical methods of manipulating the people who actually are peaceful (the nice folks that work, play nice and don't beat each other to hell) . criminals thrive on creating fear, anxiety and pursue any means (including political/financial corruption) to seek their ends. the few imbeciles that hyper-react by mass murdering innocents are few, but seem to find the media as a foolish associate with only one goal, to increase their market share and visibility.
These 297 people, in their winter camp, were murdered by federal agents and members of the 7th Cavalry who had come to confiscate their firearms “for their own safety and protection”. The slaughter began AFTER the majority of the Sioux had peacefully turned in their firearms. When the final round had flown, of the 297 dead or dying, two thirds (200) were women and children. Around 40 members of the 7th Cavalry were killed, over half cut down by friendly fire from the Hotchkiss guns of their overzealous comrades-in-arms. Twenty members of the 7th Cavalry were deemed “National Heroes” and awarded the Medal of Honor for their acts. We do not hear of Wounded Knee today. It is not mentioned in our history classes or books. What little does exist about Wounded Knee is normally the sanitized “Official Government Explanation” or the historically and factually inaccurate depictions of the events leading up to the massacre on the movie screen. Wounded Knee was among the first federally backed gun confiscation attempts in United States history. It ended in the senseless murder of 297 people.
As time goes on the average citizen in the United States continues to lose personal freedom or “liberty”. Far too many times unjust bills are passed and signed into law under the guise of “for your safety” or “for protection”. The Patriot Act signed into law by G.W. Bush, then expanded and continued by Barack Obama is just one of many examples of American citizens being stripped of their rights and privacy for “safety”. Now, the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is on the table, and will, most likely be taken away for “our safety”.
Evil does exist in our world. It always has and always will. Throughout history evil people have committed evil acts. In the Bible one of the first stories is that of Cain killing Abel. We cannot legislate “evil” into extinction. Good people will abide by the law, defective people will always find a way around it. And another thought Evil exists all around us, but looking back at the historical record of the past 200 years across the globe, where is “evil” and “malevolence” most often found? In the hands of those with the power- governments. That greatest human tragedies on record and the largest loss of innocent human life can be attributed to governments. Who do governments target? “Scapegoats” and “enemies” within their own borders…but only after they have been disarmed to the point where they are no longer a threat. Ask any Native American, and they will tell you it was inferior technology and lack of arms that contributed to their demise. Ask any Armenian why it was so easy for the Turks to exterminate millions of them, and they will answer “We were disarmed before it happened”. Ask any Jew what Hitler’s first step prior to the mass murders of the Holocaust was- confiscation of firearms from the people.