[Vision2020] And just something to think about......

[Joe Campbell]

Scott,

We have restrictions on speech -- and many who take a radical
interpretation of the 2nd amendment have no problem with even further
restrictions, censoring video games, for instance. That is the 1st
amendment. There is NO such thing as an unrestricted right. All rights can
be restricted certainly when they push up against other rights and arguably
when they push up against other harms (think of libel, for instance).

It is reasonable to consider and discuss -- in a calm, reasonable fashion
-- whether there might be less harm to our longterm rights and interests by
placing better controls on semi-automatic weapons. This is not a lot to ask
for. That conservatives won't budge even this much will only push them
further away from the mainstream.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2012 at 1:03 PM, Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com>wrote:

> <Senator Diane Feinstein will bring a permanent (as in no "sunset")
> anti-assault weapons bill before the senate in January.>
>
> <Whatayasay we wait and see how that debate goes, ok?>
>
> It'll go much the same way you see the 'debate' going here on v2020.
>  Those who are behind the eight ball will believe in their own minds that
> they can streamroll those who in reality are positioned to more easily run
> the table. And it will conclude with the all too familiar 'no consensus'.
> Politics as usual.
>
> -Scott
>
> On Dec 23, 2012, at 11:17 AM, "Moscow Cares" <moscowcares at moscow.com>
> wrote:
>
> Senator Diane Feinstein will bring a permanent (as in no "sunset")
> anti-assault weapons bill before the senate in January.
>
> Whatayasay we wait and see how that debate goes, ok?
>
> This will occur, of course, AFTER Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren submits a
> bill (on the very first day of session) reforming the filibuster rule,
> which is expected to pass by a simple majority.  The filibuster reform will
> return filibustering to the old ways, where if a legislator decides to
> filibuster a bill, (s)he better pack some heavy reading material and lots
> of meals . . . 'cuz it's gonna take a while.
>
> The days of simply sayin', "I'm filibusterin' this bill," then walking off
> . . . are over!
>
> The senate discussion, followed by the house debate, of Feinstein's anti-assault
> weapons bill should prove very interesting (pack a lunch and whip out the
> cot), and the house debate should be a knock-down-drag-out for Boehner (or
> whoever the new Speaker will be).
>
> Toss in the "fiscal cliff" and we've got ringside seats the WWE can't
> match!
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .
>
> "Moscow Cares"
> http://www.MoscowCares.com
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
> On Dec 23, 2012, at 10:14 AM, Joe Campbell <philosopher.joe at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> Not the sole problem, of course. How many real life examples of curtailing
> gun violence are there? Australia stands out, which is why this needs to be
> discussed.
>
> On Dec 23, 2012, at 10:09 AM, Matt Decker <mattd2107 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Like  I mentioned before, I would like to see all avenues discussed. I am
> more then willing to listen to why assualt style weapons should be banned,
> as well as why and how we can stop more deaths besides the small fraction
> killed from non assualt style weapons. Buy back programs, mental health,
> strict applications for purchasing weapons, Social aspects, and much more
> should all be discussed. I am not willing to jump on semi auto owners as
> the sole problem. To lump them into a hated category.
>
> MD
>
>  ------------------------------
> CC: thansen at moscow.com; jampot at roadrunner.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
> From: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] And just something to think about......
> Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 09:30:49 -0800
> To: mattd2107 at hotmail.com
>
> Should have said semi-. My point is they are too much for protection
> against crime -- I'd be interested in the number of people who thwart crime
> each year with a semiautomatic weapon; my guess is it is very small -- too
> little for protection against tyranny. Joe
>
> On Dec 23, 2012, at 8:47 AM, Matt Decker <mattd2107 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>  I never was asked the question. But, people who have automatic weapons
> have special licenses. Some of these license holders make specialty weapons
> designed for the military. So, I would have to disagree.
>
>  ------------------------------
> CC: thansen at moscow.com; jampot at roadrunner.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
> From: philosopher.joe at gmail.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] And just something to think about......
> Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2012 02:11:20 -0800
> To: mattd2107 at hotmail.com
>
> And why can't you admit that folks buy automatic weapons for toys and
> nothing more. Regular guns will provide just as much personal protection.
> There is no need, not one that I can see, for automatic weapons. You are
> certainly not going to form militias to overtake the tyrannical US
> government if all you have are automatic weapons. You'll need a lot more
> than that, right? Name one practical use of an automatic weapon that you
> don't have with plan old rifles and handguns?
>
> On Dec 23, 2012, at 12:20 AM, Matt Decker <mattd2107 at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Tom,
>
> Getting rid of all high capacity magazines and "assualt weapons" will not
> solve the growing death rate from gun fatalities. We need to look into
> alternative ideas. Taking away one aspect of the problem is a band-aid.
> Looking up gun related fatalities for 2012, assualt rifles and weapons with
> higher capcity magazines accounted for around fifteen percent of the
> deaths. Most of those were gang and drug related.
>
> Recently in sports, two players have commited suicide with weapons that
> you would account for as "OK". We need to discuss alternative
> measures. Such as mental health, stronger regulations when purchasing
> weapons, stonger applications for CWP permits. Stuff like that. Actual
> problem solvers. We have citzens who have a license to carry and or sell
> fully automatic weapons. They have to apply and gain those licenses through
> a strict application period. I have yet to hear of a "rambo" with two m60
> machine guns walking into a food co-op and slaughtering 54 peacenics.
>
> Let's all work together and solve this problem.
>
> Just my thought.
>
> Matt
>
>  ------------------------------
> From: thansen at moscow.com
> Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2012 18:11:20 -0800
> To: jampot at roadrunner.com
> CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] And just something to think about......
>
> For the umpteenth-plus time . . .
>
> CRIMINALIZE THE SALE AND/OR POSSESSION OF . . . DO AWAY WITH . . . MAKE
> ILLEGAL . . . COLLECT AND DESTROY ALL . . . SEMI-AUTOMATIC ASSAULT RIFLES
> AND HIGH-CAPACITY AMMUNITION MAGAZINES (more than ten rounds).
>
> Understand?  Comprende?  Verstehen sie?
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .
>
> "Moscow Cares"
> http://www.MoscowCares.com <http://www.moscowcares.com/>
>
>  Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
> On Dec 22, 2012, at 5:58 PM, "Gary Crabtree" <jampot at roadrunner.com>
> wrote:
>
>  Since I have to suppose that I am numbered amongst the "ilk," before I
> walk away I would just love to hear the imagined remedy for the "concerns."
> Please tell me in no uncertain terms just exactly what measures you imagine
> would solve the problem of "semi-automatic weapons and/or high-capacity
> ammunition magazines."
>
> g
>
>  *From:* Scott Dredge <scooterd408 at hotmail.com>
> *Sent:* Saturday, December 22, 2012 5:24 PM
> *To:* thansen at moscow.com ; bear at moscow.com
> *Cc:* viz <vision2020 at moscow.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Vision2020] And just something to think about......
>
> Tom,
>
> I'm guessing at some point, Wayne and others you clump in with his ilk
> will simply just walk away and leave you hanging with your 'concerns with semi-automatic
> weapons and/or high-capacity ammunition magazines'.  You can all agree (or
> not agree) to disagree with each other which is tantamount to status quo.
> Area Man already summed it up in one word: 'Impasse'.
>
> -Scott
>
>  ------------------------------
> From: thansen at moscow.com
> Date: Sat, 22 Dec 2012 16:58:32 -0800
> To: bear at moscow.com
> CC: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: Re: [Vision2020] And just something to think about......
>
> Mr. Price -
>
> Fascinating article, but . . .
>
> What has it got to do with semi-automatic weapons and/or high-capacity
> ammunition magazines?
>
> I have absolutely no argument against hunting rifles and/or shotguns.
>  Heck!  I own a 12-gauge shotgun (great home security) and a single-shot
> .410/.22 over-under, for which I am still trying to locate a retainer
> spring for the hand guard, that my grandfather used to hunt with 100+ years
> ago.
>
> This article simply doesn't address my concerns with semi-automatic
> weapons and/or high-capacity ammunition magazines.
>
> Good read, though.
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow, because . . .
>
> "Moscow Cares"
> http://www.MoscowCares.com <http://www.moscowcares.com/>
>
>  Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
>
> On Dec 22, 2012, at 4:38 PM, Wayne Price <bear at moscow.com> wrote:
>
>  This was sent to me by someone that I hold in high regards and often
> disagree with, but listen to and respect their opinions.
>
>  <iilogo.jpg> <http://davekopel.org/>
> The American Revolution against British Gun ControlBy David B. Kopel*<http://www.davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/american-revolution-against-british-gun-control.html#_ftn1>
> *Administrative and Regulatory Law News *(American Bar Association). Vol.
> 37, no. 4, Summer 2012. More by Kopel on the right to arms in the
> Founding Era <http://www.davekopel.org/RKBA-Law-History.htm#Founding_Era>.
> This Article reviews the British gun control program that precipitated the
> American Revolution: the 1774 import ban on firearms and gunpowder; the
> 1774-75 confiscations of firearms and gunpowder; and the use of violence to
> effectuate the confiscations. It was these events that changed a situation
> of political tension into a shooting war. Each of these British abuses
> provides insights into the scope of the modern Second Amendment.
> Furious at the December 1773 Boston Tea Party, Parliament in 1774 passed
> the Coercive Acts. The particular provisions of the Coercive Acts were
> offensive to Americans, but it was the possibility that the British might
> deploy the army to enforce them that primed many colonists for armed
> resistance. The Patriots of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, resolved: “That
> in the event of Great Britain attempting to force unjust laws upon us by
> the strength of arms, our cause we leave to heaven and our rifles.” A South
> Carolina newspaper essay, reprinted in Virginia, urged that any law that
> had to be enforced by the military was necessarily illegitimate.
> The Royal Governor of Massachusetts, General Thomas Gage, had forbidden
> town meetings from taking place more than once a year. When he dispatched
> the Redcoats to break up an illegal town meeting in Salem, 3000 armed
> Americans appeared in response, and the British retreated. Gage’s aide John
> Andrews explained that everyone in the area aged 16 years or older owned a
> gun and plenty of gunpowder.
> Military rule would be difficult to impose on an armed populace. Gage had
> only 2,000 troops in Boston. There were thousands of armed men in Boston
> alone, and more in the surrounding area. One response to the problem was to
> deprive the Americans of gunpowder.
> Modern “smokeless” gunpowder is stable under most conditions. The “black
> powder” of the 18th Century was far more volatile. Accordingly, large
> quantities of black powder were often stored in a town’s “powder house,”
> typically a reinforced brick building. The powder house would hold
> merchants’ reserves, large quantities stored by individuals, as well as
> powder for use by the local militia. Although colonial laws generally
> required militiamen (and sometimes all householders, too) to have their own
> firearm and a minimum quantity of powder, not everyone could afford it.
> Consequently, the government sometimes supplied “public arms” and powder to
> individual militiamen. Policies varied on whether militiamen who had been
> given public arms would keep them at home. Public arms would often be
> stored in a special armory, which might also be the powder house.
> Before dawn on September 1, 1774, 260 of Gage’s Redcoats sailed up the
> Mystic River and seized hundreds of barrels of powder from the Charlestown
> powder house.
> The “Powder Alarm,” as it became known, was a serious provocation. By the
> end of the day, 20,000 militiamen had mobilized and started marching
> towards Boston. In Connecticut and Western Massachusetts, rumors quickly
> spread that the Powder Alarm had actually involved fighting in the streets
> of Boston. More accurate reports reached the militia companies before that
> militia reached Boston, and so the war did not begin in September. The
> message, though, was unmistakable: If the British used violence to seize
> arms or powder, the Americans would treat that violent seizure as an act of
> war, and would fight. And that is exactly what happened several months
> later, on April 19, 1775.
> Five days after the Powder Alarm, on September 6, the militia of the towns
> of Worcester County assembled on the Worcester Common. Backed by the
> formidable array, the Worcester Convention took over the reins of
> government, and ordered the resignations of all militia officers, who had
> received their commissions from the Royal Governor. The officers promptly
> resigned and then received new commissions from the Worcester Convention.
> That same day, the people of Suffolk County (which includes Boston)
> assembled and adopted the Suffolk Resolves. The 19-point Resolves
> complained about the Powder Alarm, and then took control of the local
> militia away from the Royal Governor (by replacing the Governor’s appointed
> officers with officers elected by the militia) and resolved to engage in
> group practice with arms at least weekly.
> The First Continental Congress, which had just assembled in Philadelphia,
> unanimously endorsed the Suffolk Resolves and urged all the other colonies
> to send supplies to help the Bostonians.
> Governor Gage directed the Redcoats to begin general, warrantless searches
> for arms and ammunition. According to the *Boston Gazette*, of all
> General Gage’s offenses, “what most irritated the People” was “seizing
> their Arms and Ammunition.”
> When the Massachusetts Assembly convened, General Gage declared it
> illegal, so the representatives reassembled as the “Provincial Congress.”
> On October 26, 1774, the Massachusetts Provincial Congress adopted a
> resolution condemning military rule, and criticizing Gage for “unlawfully
> seizing and retaining large quantities of ammunition in the arsenal at
> Boston.” The Provincial Congress urged all militia companies to organize
> and elect their own officers. At least a quarter of the militia (the famous
> Minute Men) were directed to “equip and hold themselves in readiness to
> march at the shortest notice.” The Provincial Congress further declared
> that everyone who did not already have a gun should get one, and start
> practicing with it diligently.
> In flagrant defiance of royal authority, the Provincial Congress appointed
> a Committee of Safety and vested it with the power to call forth the
> militia. The militia of Massachusetts was now the instrument of what was
> becoming an independent government of Massachusetts.
> Lord Dartmouth, the Royal Secretary of State for America, sent Gage a
> letter on October 17, 1774, urging him to disarm New England. Gage replied
> that he would like to do so, but it was impossible without the use of
> force. After Gage’s letter was made public by a reading in the British
> House of Commons, it was publicized in America as proof of Britain’s malign
> intentions.
> Two days after Lord Dartmouth dispatched his disarmament recommendation,
> King George III and his ministers blocked importation of arms and
> ammunition to America. Read literally, the order merely required a permit
> to export arms or ammunition from Great Britain to America. In practice, no
> permits were granted.
> Meanwhile, Benjamin Franklin was masterminding the surreptitious import of
> arms and ammunition from the Netherlands, France, and Spain.
> The patriotic Boston Committee of Correspondence learned of the arms
> embargo and promptly dispatched Paul Revere to New Hampshire, with the
> warning that two British ships were headed to Fort William and Mary, near
> Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to seize firearms, cannons, and gunpowder. On
> December 14, 1774, 400 New Hampshire patriots preemptively captured all the
> material at the fort. A New Hampshire newspaper argued that the capture was
> prudent and proper, reminding readers that the ancient Carthaginians had
> consented to “deliver up all their Arms to the Romans” and were decimated
> by the Romans soon after.
> In Parliament, a moderate minority favored conciliation with America.
> Among the moderates was the Duke of Manchester, who warned that America now
> had three million people, and most of them were trained to use arms. He was
> certain they could produce a stronger army than Great Britain.
> The Massachusetts Provincial Congress offered to purchase as many arms and
> bayonets as could be delivered to the next session of the Congress.
> Massachusetts also urged American gunsmiths “diligently to apply
> themselves” to making guns for everyone who did not already have a gun. A
> few weeks earlier, the Congress had resolved: “That it be strongly
> recommended, to all the inhabitants of this colony, to be diligently
> attentive to learning the use of arms . . . .”
> Derived from political and legal philosophers such as John Locke, Hugo
> Grotius, and Edward Coke, the ideology underlying all forms of American
> resistance was explicitly premised on the right of self-defense of all
> inalienable rights; from the self-defense foundation was constructed a
> political theory in which the people were the masters and government the
> servant, so that the people have the right to remove a disobedient servant.
> The British government was not, in a purely formal sense, attempting to
> abolish the Americans’ common law right of self-defense. Yet in practice,
> that was precisely what the British were attempting. First, by disarming
> the Americans, the British were attempting to make the practical exercise
> of the right of personal self-defense much more difficult. Second, and more
> fundamentally, the Americans made no distinction between self-defense
> against a lone criminal or against a criminal government. To the Americans,
> and to their British Whig ancestors, the right of self-defense necessarily
> implied the right of armed self-defense against tyranny.
> The troubles in New England inflamed the other colonies. Patrick Henry’s
> great speech to the Virginia legislature on March 23, 1775, argued that the
> British plainly meant to subjugate America by force. Because every attempt
> by the Americans at peaceful reconciliation had been rebuffed, the only
> remaining alternatives for the Americans were to accept slavery or to take
> up arms. If the Americans did not act soon, the British would soon disarm
> them, and all hope would be lost. “The millions of people, armed in the
> holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are
> invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us,” he promised.
> The Convention formed a committee—including Patrick Henry, Richard Henry
> Lee, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson—“to prepare a plan for the
> embodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of men as may be
> sufficient” to defend the commonwealth. The Convention urged “that every
> Man be provided with a good Rifle” and “that every Horseman be provided . .
> . with Pistols and Holsters, a Carbine, or other Firelock.” When the
> Virginia militiamen assembled a few weeks later, many wore canvas hunting
> shirts adorned with the motto “Liberty or Death.”
> In South Carolina, patriots established a government, headed by the
> “General Committee.” The Committee described the British arms embargo as a
> plot to disarm the Americans in order to enslave them. Thus, the Committee
> recommended that “all persons” should “immediately” provide themselves with
> a large quantity of ammunition.
> Without formal legal authorization, Americans began to form independent
> militia, outside the traditional chain of command of the royal governors.
> In Virginia, George Washington and George Mason organized the Fairfax
> Independent Militia Company. The Fairfax militiamen pledged that “we will,
> each of us, constantly keep by us” a firelock, six pounds of gunpowder, and
> twenty pounds of lead. Other independent militia embodied in Virginia along
> the same model. Independent militia also formed in Connecticut, Rhode
> Island, New Hampshire, Maryland, and South Carolina, choosing their own
> officers.
> John Adams praised the newly constituted Massachusetts militia, “commanded
> through the province, not by men who procured their commissions from a
> governor as a reward for making themselves pimps to his tools.”
> The American War of Independence began on April 19, 1775, when 700
> Redcoats under the command of Major John Pitcairn left Boston to seize
> American arms at Lexington and Concord.
> The militia that assembled at the Lexington Green and the Concord Bridge
> consisted of able-bodied men aged 16 to 60. They supplied their own
> firearms, although a few poor men had to borrow a gun. Warned by Paul
> Revere and Samuel Dawes of the British advance, the young women of
> Lexington assembled cartridges late into the evening of April 18.
> At dawn, the British confronted about 200 militiamen at Lexington.
> “Disperse you Rebels—Damn you, throw down your Arms and disperse!” ordered
> Major Pitcairn. The Americans were quickly routed.
> With a “huzzah” of victory, the Redcoats marched on to Concord, where one
> of Gage’s spies had told him that the largest Patriot reserve of gunpowder
> was stored. At Concord’s North Bridge, the town militia met with some of
> the British force, and after a battle of two or three minutes, drove off
> the British.
> Notwithstanding the setback at the bridge, the Redcoats had sufficient
> force to search the town for arms and ammunition. But the main powder
> stores at Concord had been hauled to safety before the Redcoats arrived.
> When the British began to withdraw back to Boston, things got much worse
> for them. Armed Americans were swarming in from nearby towns. They would
> soon outnumber the British 2:1. Although some of the Americans cohered in
> militia units, a great many fought on their own, taking sniper positions
> wherever opportunity presented itself. Only British reinforcements
> dispatched from Boston saved the British expedition from annihilation—and
> the fact that the Americans started running out of ammunition and gun
> powder.
> One British officer reported: “These fellows were generally good marksmen,
> and many of them used long guns made for Duck-Shooting.” On a per-shot
> basis, the Americans inflicted higher casualties than had the British
> regulars.
> That night, the American militiamen began laying siege to Boston, where
> General Gage’s standing army was located. At dawn, Boston had been the base
> from which the King’s army could project force into New England. Now, it
> was trapped in the city, surrounded by people in arms.
> Two days later in Virginia, royal authorities confiscated 20 barrels of
> gunpowder from the public magazine in Williamsburg and destroyed the public
> firearms there by removing their firing mechanisms. In response to
> complaints, manifested most visibly by the mustering of a large independent
> militia led by Patrick Henry, Governor Dunmore delivered a legal note
> promising to pay restitution.
> At Lexington and Concord, forcible disarmament had not worked out for the
> British. So back in Boston, Gage set out to disarm the Bostonians a
> different way.
> On April 23, 1775, Gage offered the Bostonians the opportunity to leave
> town if they surrendered their arms. The Boston Selectmen voted to accept
> the offer, and within days, 2,674 guns were deposited, one gun for every
> two adult male Bostonians.
> Gage thought that many Bostonians still had guns, and he refused to allow
> the Bostonians to leave. Indeed, a large proportion of the surrendered guns
> were “training arms”—large muskets with bayonets, that would be difficult
> to hide. After several months, food shortages in Boston convinced Gage to
> allow easier emigration from the city.
> Gage’s disarmament program incited other Americans to take up arms.
> Benjamin Franklin, returning to Philadelphia after an unsuccessful
> diplomatic trip to London, “was highly pleased to find the Americans arming
> and preparing for the worst events.”
> The government in London dispatched more troops and three more generals to
> America: William Howe, Henry Clinton, and John Burgoyne. The generals
> arrived on May 25, 1775, with orders from Lord Dartmouth to seize all arms
> in public armories, or which had been “secretly collected together for the
> purpose of aiding Rebellions.”
> The war underway, the Americans captured Fort Ticonderoga in upstate New
> York. At the June 17 Battle of Bunker Hill, the militia held its ground
> against the British regulars and inflicted heavy casualties, until they ran
> out of gunpowder and were finally driven back. (Had Gage not confiscated
> the gunpowder from the Charleston Powder House the previous September, the
> Battle of Bunker Hill probably would have resulted in an outright defeat of
> the British.)
> On June 19, Gage renewed his demand that the Bostonians surrender their
> arms, and he declared that anyone found in possession of arms would be
> deemed guilty of treason.
> Meanwhile, the Continental Congress had voted to send ten companies of
> riflemen from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia to aid the Massachusetts
> militia.
> On July 6, 1775, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of
> Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms, written by Thomas Jefferson and the
> great Pennsylvania lawyer John Dickinson. Among the grievances were General
> Gage’s efforts to disarm the people of Lexington, Concord, and Boston.
> Two days later, the Continental Congress sent an open letter to the people
> of Great Britain warning that “men trained to arms from their Infancy, and
> animated by the Love of Liberty, will afford neither a cheap or easy
> conquest.”
> The Swiss immigrant John Zubly, who was serving as a Georgia delegate to
> the Continental Congress, wrote a pamphlet entitled *Great Britain’s
> Right to Tax . . . By a Swiss*, which was published in London and
> Philadelphia. He warned that “in a strong sense of liberty, and the use of
> fire-arms almost from the cradle, the Americans have vastly the advantage
> over men of their rank almost every where else.” Indeed, children were
> “shouldering the resemblance of a gun before they are well able to walk.”
> “The Americans will fight like men, who have everything at stake,” and
> their motto was “DEATH OR FREEDOM.” The town of Gorham, Massachusetts (now
> part of the State of Maine), sent the British government a warning that
> even “many of our Women have been used to handle the Cartridge and load the
> Musquet.”
> It was feared that the Massachusetts gun confiscation was the prototype
> for the rest of America. For example, a newspaper article published in
> three colonies reported that when the new British generals arrived, they
> would order everyone in America “to deliver up their arms by a certain
> stipulated day.”
> The events of April 19 convinced many more Americans to arm themselves and
> to embody independent militia. A report from New York City observed that
> “the inhabitants there are arming themselves . . . forming companies, and
> taking every method to defend our rights. The like spirit prevails in the
> province of New Jersey, where a large and well disciplined militia are now
> fit for action.”
> In Virginia, Lord Dunmore observed: “Every County is now Arming a Company
> of men whom they call an independent Company for the avowed purpose of
> protecting their Committee, and to be employed against Government if
> occasion require.” North Carolina’s Royal Governor Josiah Martin issued a
> proclamation outlawing independent militia, but it had little effect.
> A Virginia gentleman wrote a letter to a Scottish friend explaining in
> America:
> We are all in arms, exercising and training old and young to the use of
> the gun. No person goes abroad without his sword, or gun, or pistols. . . .
> Every plain is full of armed men, who all wear a hunting shirt, on the left
> breast of which are sewed, in very legible letters, “*Liberty or Death*.”
> The British escalated the war. Royal Admiral Samuel Graves ordered that
> all seaports north of Boston be burned.
> When the British navy showed up at what was then known as Falmouth,
> Massachusetts (today’s Portland, Maine), the town attempted to negotiate.
> The townspeople gave up eight muskets, which was hardly sufficient, and so
> Falmouth was destroyed by naval bombardment.
> The next year, the 13 Colonies would adopt the Declaration of
> Independence. The Declaration listed the tyrannical acts of King George
> III, including his methods for carrying out gun control: “He has plundered
> our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our Towns, and destroyed the Lives of
> our people.”
> As the war went on, the British always remembered that without gun
> control, they could never control America. In 1777, with British victory
> seeming likely, Colonial Undersecretary William Knox drafted a plan
> entitled “What Is Fit to Be Done with America?” To ensure that there would
> be no future rebellions, “[t]he Militia Laws should be repealed and none
> suffered to be re-enacted, & the Arms of all the People should be taken
> away, . . . nor should any Foundery or manufactuary of Arms, Gunpowder, or
> Warlike Stores, be ever suffered in America, nor should any Gunpowder,
> Lead, Arms or Ordnance be imported into it without Licence . . . .”
> To the Americans of the Revolution and the Founding Era, the theory of
> some late-20th Century courts that the Second Amendment is a “collective
> right” and not an “individual right” might have seemed incomprehensible.
> The Americans owned guns individually, in their homes. They owned guns
> collectively, in their town armories and powder houses. They would not
> allow the British to confiscate their individual arms, nor their collective
> arms; and when the British tried to do both, the Revolution began. The
> Americans used their individual arms and their collective arms to fight
> against the confiscation of any arms. Americans fought to provide
> themselves a government that would never perpetrate the abuses that had
> provoked the Revolution.
> What are modern versions of such abuses? The reaction against the 1774
> import ban for firearms and gunpowder (via a discretionary licensing law)
> indicates that import restrictions are unconstitutional if their purpose is
> to make it more difficult for Americans to possess guns. The federal Gun
> Control Act of 1968 prohibits the import of any firearm that is not deemed
> “sporting” by federal regulators. That import ban seems difficult to
> justify based on the historical record of 1774-76.
> Laws disarming people who have proven themselves to be a particular threat
> to public safety are not implicated by the 1774-76 experience. In contrast,
> laws that aim to disarm the public at large are precisely what turned a
> political argument into the American Revolution.
> The most important lesson for today from the Revolution is about
> militaristic or violent search and seizure in the name of disarmament. As
> Hurricane Katrina bore down on Louisiana, police officers in St. Charles
> Parish confiscated firearms from people who were attempting to flee. After
> the hurricane passed, officers went house to house in New Orleans, breaking
> into homes and confiscating firearms at gunpoint. The firearms seizures
> were flagrantly illegal under existing state law. A federal district judge
> soon issued an order against the confiscation, ordering the return of the
> seized guns.
> When there is genuine evidence of potential danger—such as evidence that
> guns are in the possession of a violent gang—then the Fourth Amendment
> properly allows no-knock raids, flash-bang grenades, and similar violent
> tactics to carry out a search. Conversely, if there is no real evidence of
> danger—for example, if it is believed that a person who has no record of
> violence owns guns but has not registered them properly—then
> militaristically violent enforcement of a search warrant should never be
> allowed. Gun ownership *simpliciter *ought never to be a pretext for
> government violence. The Americans in 1775 fought a war because the king
> did not agree.
>  ------------------------------
>
> *<http://www.davekopel.org/2A/LawRev/american-revolution-against-british-gun-control.html#_ftnref1> Research
> Director, Independence Institute, and Adjunct Professor of Advanced
> Constitutional Law, Denver University, Sturm College of Law. This is
> article is adapted from *How the**British Gun Control Program
> Precipitated the American Revolution*, 6 Charleston L. Rev. 283 (2012), *available
> at* http://ssrn.com/abstract=1967702 <http://ssrn.com/abstract=1967702>.
>
>  =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com <Vision2020 at moscow.com>
> =======================================================
>
>
> ======================================================= List services made
> available by First Step Internet, serving the communities of the Palouse
> since 1994. http://www.fsr.net mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com<Vision2020 at moscow.com>=======================================================
>
> ------------------------------
>
> =======================================================
>  List services made available by First Step Internet,
>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>                http://www.fsr.net
>           mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com <Vision2020 at moscow.com>
> =======================================================
>
>
> ======================================================= List services made
> available by First Step Internet, serving the communities of the Palouse
> since 1994. http://www.fsr.net mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com<Vision2020 at moscow.com>=======================================================
>
>  =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com <Vision2020 at moscow.com>
> =======================================================
>
>  =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com <Vision2020 at moscow.com>
> =======================================================
>
> =======================================================
> List services made available by First Step Internet,
> serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
>               http://www.fsr.net
>          mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com <Vision2020 at moscow.com>
> =======================================================
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20121223/8ba0e9c8/attachment-0001.html>