Aug2000

The Armed M is a publication of the 2nd Amendment SIG, a special interest group of American Mensa Ltd. Opinions expressed herein are the opinions of the writers, and not of American Mensa, Ltd. which has no opinions. This newsletter is linked to the Mensa web page WWW.Mensa.org as WWW.webcatt.com/2ndAmend_SIG

I have moved and am now in Wilmington North Carolina. My E-Mail address is Smith13@Worldnet.att.net. I can always use contributions to the newsletter. If you write something or find something e-mail it to me I'll put it in the newsletter as space and theme allows. Bob Smith

You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door. Half awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the intruder brandishes it as if to strike, you raise the shotgun and fire. The blast knocks both thugs to the floor. One writhes and screams while the second man crawls to the front door and lurches outside. As you pick up the telephone to call police, you know you're in trouble. In your country, most guns were outlawed years before, and the few that are privately owned are so stringently regulated as to make them useless. Yours was never registered. Police arrive and inform you that the second burglar has died. They arrest you for First Degree Murder and Illegal Possession of a Firearm. When you talk to your attorney, he tells you not to worry: authorities will probably plea the case down to manslaughter. "What kind of sentence will I get?" you ask. "Only ten-to-twelve years,” he replies, as if that's nothing. "Behave yourself, and you'll be out in seven." The next day, the shooting is the lead story in the local newspaper. Somehow, you're portrayed as an eccentric vigilante while the two men you shot are represented as choirboys. Their friends and relatives can’t find an unkind word to say about them. Buried deep down in the article, authorities acknowledge that both "victims" have been arrested numerous times. But the next day's headline says it all: "Lovable Rogue Son Didn't Deserve to Die." The thieves have been transformed from career criminals into Robin Hood-type pranksters. As the days wear on, the story takes wings. The national media picks it up, then the international media. The surviving burglar has become a folk hero. Your attorney says the thief is preparing to sue you, and he’ll probably win. The media publishes reports that your home has been burglarized several times in the past and that you've been critical of local police for their lack of effort in apprehending the suspects. After the last break-in, you told your neighbor that you would be prepared next time. The District Attorney uses this to allege that you were lying in wait for the burglars. A few months later, you go to trial. The charges haven't been reduced, as your lawyer had so confidently predicted. When you take the stand, your anger at the injustice of it all works against you. Prosecutors paint a picture of you as a mean, vengeful man. It doesn't take long for the jury to convict you of all charges. The judge sentences you to life in prison. This case really happened. On August 22, 1999, Tony Martin of Emneth, Norfolk, England, killed one burglar and wounded a second. In April 2000, he was convicted and is now serving a life term. How did it become a crime to defend one's own life in the once great British Empire? It started with the Pistols Act of 1903. This seemingly reasonable law forbade selling pistols to minors or felons and established that handgun sales were to be made only to those who had a license. The Firearms Act of 1920 expanded licensing to include not only handguns but also all firearms except shotguns. Later laws passed in 1953 and 1967 outlawed the carrying of any weapon by private citizens and mandated the registration of all shotguns. Momentum for total handgun confiscation began in earnest after the Hunger ford mass shooting in 1987. Michael Ryan, a mentally disturbed man with a Kalashnikov rifle, walked downs the streets shooting everyone he saw. When the smoke cleared, 17 people were dead. The British public, already de-sensitized by eighty years of "gun control", demanded even tougher restrictions. (The seizure of all privately owned handguns was the objective even though Ryan used a rifle.) Nine years later, at Dunblane, Scotland, Thomas Hamilton used a semi-automatic weapon to murder 16 children and a teacher at a public school. For many years, the media had portrayed all gun owners as mentally unstable, or worse, criminals. Now the press had a real kook with which to beat up law-abiding gun owners. Day after day, week after week, the media gave up all pretense of objectivity and demanded a total ban on all handguns. The Dunblane Inquiry, a few months later, sealed the fate of the few sidearm still owned by private citizens. During the years in which the British government incrementally took away most gun rights, the notion that a citizen had the right to armed self-defense came to be seen as vigilantism. Authorities refused to grant gun licenses to people who were threatened, claiming that self-defense was no longer considered a reason to own a gun. Citizens who shot burglars or robbers or rapists were charged while the real criminals were released. Indeed, after the Martin shooting, a police spokesman was quoted as saying, "We cannot have people take the law into their own hands." All of Martin's neighbors had been robbed numerous times, and several elderly people were severely injured in beatings by young thugs who had no fear of the consequences. Martin himself, a collector of antiques, had seen most of his collection trashed or stolen by burglars. When the Dunblane Inquiry ended, citizens who owned handguns were given three months to turn them over to local authorities. Being good British subjects, most people obeyed the law. The few who didn't were visited by police and threatened with ten-year prison sentences if they didn't comply. Police later bragged that they'd taken nearly 200,000 handguns from private citizens. How did the authorities know who had handguns? The guns had been registered and licensed. Kinda like cars. Sound familiar? WAKE UP AMERICA, THIS IS WHY OUR FOUNDING FATHERS PUT THE SECOND AMENDMENT IN OUR CONSTITUTION. “. It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."

The British press, and a few grumpy American journalists, is unhappy with Mel Gibson's new movie, The Patriot. Gibson, whose family moved from New York to Australia when he was twelve, is accused of using the film to indulge nothing more than a crude anti-British prejudice. Among film critics, disregard for history is a fairly stock charge leveled against any Hollywood production, and that sentiment is sprinkled liberally through these reviews--as though the authors were rushing to re-baptize and re-credential themselves as good post-modernists.

It all stinks of the obligatory, contemporary view that "enlightened” history requires us to see all of the combatants as merely neutral coefficients in the calculus of the past. By this standard, any claim to heroism or villainy is suspect. Any appeal to principle is disregarded. Any virtue is made to stand in the shadow of some greater sin. Washington--we are told, with a self-righteous, wagging finger--was, after all, a slave-owner.

Well, were British soldiers monsters in the American Revolution? Were the Whig "rebels" all honest freedom fighters?

Let us, first of all, consider British Major John Pitcairn on the eve of the American Revolution, who wrote these words on March 4, 1775 to the Earl of Sandwich:

"Orders are anxiously expected from England to chastise those very bad people... I am satisfied that one active campaign, a smart action, and burning two or three of their towns, will set everything to rights. Nothing now, I am afraid, but this will ever convince those foolish bad people that England is in earnest..."

British Captain W.G. Evelyn was even more direct, if that is possible. In referring to the New Englanders, he wrote home advocating that the British ministry administer something just short of genocide:

"Lay aside that false humanity towards these wretches... They must permit us to restore. The dominion of the country by laying it waste, and almost extirpating the present rebellious race..."

Even the British "nobility" jumped into the act. Consider the words of Lord Rawdon, who, during the battle of Long Island, thought the Earl of Huntington, would be amused by the following accounts of rape:

"The fair nymphs of this isle are in wonderful tribulation, as the fresh meat our men have got here has made them as riotous as satyrs. A girl cannot step into the bushes to pluck a rose without running the most imminent risk of being ravished, and they are so little accustomed to these rigorous methods [referring here to the rape of American girls] that they don't bear them with the proper resignation..."

An American officer wrote the following accounts of encounters with the British Army, published in the Pennsylvania Gazette, June 28, 1780:

"On my arrival on the Farms, immediately after they left them, the first object that presented itself to my view was a handsome young country girl who had the night before been forcibly subjected to the brutal violence of seven or eight different officers of that army. - When we questioned her, she could only answer in broken accents of the most excessive grief - that she was ruined, and wished never again to be spoken to."

"We proceeded, and came where they burned Mr. Caldwell house, after shooting his wife through a window as she was sitting on her bed, with a brace of balls; one entered her left breast, and the other her waist. I saw her corpse, and was informed by the neighbors, it was with infinite pains they obtained leave to bring her body from the house, before they set fire to it."

That Mel Gibson and The Patriot are committing another "ludicrous travesty of British history." He writes:

To a man, the dastardly English are depicted as heartless toffs and machiavels, war criminals and child-killers. As Jason Isaacs, who plays the British baddie, Col William Tavington, remarked recently: "I'm Satan in this film. I'm a nasty, evil British officer and Mel comes after me like a warrior possessed."

Perhaps evil itself is a theoretical commodity to some of these people, something reserved for comic-book villains. A promotion for a History Channel special on The Patriot, asks the rhetorical question, "History or Hollywood?" With a tandem observation that the film might just be an 18th century version of Lethal Weapon.

So much for the talking tenured heads, let's return to the actual history. The actual PRIMARY history. The following is the first-hand account from a woman who was plundered by British troops in South Carolina:

"I ventured to speak to the inhuman monster who had my clothes. Represented to him the times were such we could no replace what they’d taken from us, and begged him to spare me only a suit or two; but I got nothing but a hearty curse for my pains; nay, so far was his callous heart from relenting that, casting his eyes towards my shoes, "I want them buckles," said he, and immediately knelt at my feet to take them out, which, while he was busy about, a brother villain, whose enormous mouth extended from ear to ear, bawled out, "Shares there! I say, shares!"

Or, perhaps, we should consider the story of a colonist jailed by the British during the siege of Boston. An old Dutchman was discharged from jail on the 25th of July 1775. According to one observer he had been:

“. Confined for complaining of the soldiers robbing his garden, which was his whole living, and because he had not a dollar to pay his fees, the soldiers on guard were ordered, each, to give him a kick as he went away."

One reviewer observed, a little too glibly, that Mel is simply out kicking the British in the rear again. Perhaps, that language would be a little less playful if the critic were to consider a survivor's account of the 1778 Cherry Valley massacre, in which Tory Rangers and Indians stormed the frontier west of Albany:

“. The enemy killed, scalp't, and most barbarously murdered thirty-two women and children...burnt twenty-four houses with all the grain, &c...They committed the most inhuman barbarities on most of the dead: Robert Henderson's head was cut off, his skull bone cut out with his scalp--Mr. Willis's sister was rip't up, a child of Mr. Willis's, two months old, scalp't and arm cut off--the clergyman's wife's leg and arm cut off, and many others as cruelly treated..."

C'mon. History is sensationalizing history. Enjoy the movie. The good guys win in the end.

WASHINGTON, July 25 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement by Sarah Brady on the Bush-Cheney ticket:

"Dick Cheney was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming. In 1989, he left to become President Bush's Secretary of Defense. During his time in the House, his record was not only pro-gun, it was extremely pro-gun. He was one of only four members to vote against the ban on plastic guns, and one of only 21 members to vote against the ban on cop-killer bullets. Here is a quick look at his record:

"On December 17, 1985, the House voted to ban cop killer bullets, HR 3132, 'The Law Officers Protection Act.' It passed 400-21. Cheney was one of the 21 to oppose the legislation.

"In 1986, Cheney cast a series of votes on the McClure/Volkmer Firearms Owners Protection Act and its amendments. McClure/Volkmer was an effort to gut the Gun Control Act of 1968, and to prevent the ATF from effectively investigating rogue gun dealers and traffickers. Cheney voted against all HCI positions on McClure/Volkmer and its amendments, and voted for final passage of McClure/Volkmer on April 10, 1986. The measure passed by a margin of 292-130. He voted against an amendment (Transportation amendment, 4/9/86) that would have allowed localities to regulate the transportation of handguns within their jurisdiction; and he voted against an amendment (Sales, 4/9/86) that would maintain current law prohibiting the interstate sale of handguns.

"On May 10, 1988, the House voted on HR 4445, 'The Terrorist Firearms Detection Act.' It passed 413-4. This legislation banned the production, importation, sale or delivery of non-detectable firearms made mostly of plastic. Cheney was one of the four votes against this measure. President Reagan signed this bill into law on November 10, 1988.

"On September 15, 1988, the House voted on an amendment by Rep. McCollum to strip the national seven-day waiting period for handgun purchases from the Omnibus Drug Initiative Act of 1988 (HR 5210). Cheney voted for the amendment, which was essentially a vote against an early version of the Brady Bill. It would take five more years, and hundreds of lives lost needlessly, for Congress and a new president to pass the Brady Bill.

"Clearly, the NRA had signoff on Governor Bush's choice of a running mate; there is no other way to account for the choice of one of the most extreme pro-gun legislators of the last twenty years. The NRA has already promised its members that, if Governor Bush is elected, they will be able to 'work right out of [his] office.' Certainly, if they get there, they'll find Vice-President Cheney welcoming them with open arms."

FBI Warning: Pro-Gun Bumper Stickers Indicate "Extremism” FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin warns police "pro-gun" bumper stickers are a sign of "extremism."

This is a must read! Go to the web site below and select the December 1999 issue. You have to download the entire issue (about 2.7 MB).

You also need Adobe Acrobat Reader. This is available for free from the Adobe web site. There's a link to the Adobe web site on the FBI web site, or click on the Adobe address at the end of this article.

This is long, but does an excellent job of pointing out the racist roots of gun control. Many historical references, and court decisions, are included. http://www.goa-texas.org/racism.htm

If you wanted proof that there is a difference between liberals/democrats and conservatives/republicans, look no further. And if you think the liberals actually care about anything other than amassing power, you need to read this. http://www.spectator.org/

A thoughtful and well-written piece on the many positive aspects of weapons instruction regarding delinquency, maturity, and safety. http://www.claremont.org/publications/wheeler000705.cfm

On June 26th, just eleven days ago, The California State Supreme court overturned the appeals court finding that the Roberti-Roos Assault Weapons Control Act (AWCA) was unconstitutional thereby reinstating the law and it’s subsequent confiscation's abilities as seen in the SKS Rifle confiscation orders.

For any of you who may be anti gun activists or supporters of such, I want you to see exactly just what you have done. The reason for this is that it is now only a matter of time before you realize that you are the subject of that attack against our rights by government. You have successfully outlawed all rights in the State of California with the words of the findings of the court as follows; (note: This is not a joke or a hoax)

"Although plaintiffs assert the AWCA fails to satisfy even the rational basis test, they contend it should be reviewed under the "intermediate or even strict scrutiny standards of legal review" because "portions of the [AWCA] touch upon [an] express fundamental constitutional right." This fundamental right plaintiffs locate in article 1, section 1 of the California Constitution, which provides: "All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy." If plaintiffs are implying that a right to bear arms is one of the rights recognized in the California Constitutions declaration of rights, they are simply wrong. No mention is made in it of a right to bear arms. (See In re Rameriz (1924) 193 Cal. 633, 651 ["The constitution of this state contains no provision on the subject."].) Moreover, "[I]t is long since settled in this state that regulation of firearms is a proper police function." (Galvan v. Superior Court (1969) 70 Cal.2d 851, 866.) We reject any suggestion that the regulations at issue here impermissibly infringe upon the right to defend life or protect property guaranteed by the California Constitution. Therefore, as the AWCA does not burden a fundamental right under either the federal or the state Constitutions, the rational basis test applies."

If you are an anti gun activist or supporter of such, did you miss it while you were reveling in your personal win? Did your hatred for my guns, and me whose only purpose was to protect rights, blind you to what was just quoted? If so, let me show you a closer look.

This fundamental right plaintiffs locate in article 1, section 1 of the California Constitution, which provides: "All people are by nature free and independent and have inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy."

Every facet of that paragraph has now been violated by the following words of the Judges in the very same finding from which I quoted above in the following quote;

"If plaintiffs are implying that a right to bear arms is one of the rights recognized in the California Constitution's declaration of rights, they are simply wrong. No mention is made in it of a right to bear arms."

On this basis one should consider that all things that the State Supreme court determines to be not explicitly contained within the State Constitution are mere privileges and not Rights. The intentional actions of the court to ignore the Ninth amendment to the Constitution of the United States as well as the Second Amendment and the supremacy clause is self evident. It then follows that if the State determines that they do not want you to have a pickup truck, a fireplace, a computer, or anything else that is not explicitly written in the State Constitution, the State has the authority to enforce such bans and subsequent confiscation's.

With these two sentences, the California State Supreme Court has declared at least two things. They claim there is no Right to keep and bear arms and because they based this on such a Right not being explicitly written in the State Constitution they have also declared that you have no Rights to anything if it is not explicitly written in the State Constitution. If the lawmakers claim you cannot have a wood-burning stove they now have the power to confiscate them from you. Maybe your washing machine doesn't fit their elitist ideals or even your house.

If you simply say that I am wrong as these Judges did, consider this. Go to the California Constitution and locate were it says that a person has the right to self-defense by force of arms if necessary. Look all you want. It isn’t there. My enjoying and defending life and liberty was protected by the Constitution up until this final ruling. Now the court has said that without the enumeration of methods and tools, I have no such right to arms. If that makes you happy, read on.

If you simply say that I am wrong as these Judges did, consider this. Go to the California Constitution and locate were it says that a person has the right to own or posses a pickup truck, car, boat, woodstove, clothing, money, or anything else you can think of including being secure in your effects. Look all you want. It isn't there. My "pursuing and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy" was protected by the Constitution up until this final ruling. Now the court has said that without the enumeration of items that fit such descriptions, we have no such right.

If you simply say that I am wrong as these Judges did, consider this. Go to the California Constitution and locate were it says that a person has the right to own or posses a house. Look all you want. It isn't there. My possession of property was protected by the Constitution up until this final ruling. Now the court has said that without the enumeration of property, we have no such right. There you have it folks. Democracy in action.

A court or representative who willfully attacks the Rights of the people and intentionally attempts to run a dictatorship by the above prescription is a criminal predator and a traitor. They represent a clear and present danger to our continued survival and self-defense is a must if we wish to remain free of their bondage and subsequent violent, life threatening, attacks.

With control of law enforcement at their beck and call unless on an individual basis they refuse to comply, it is now only a matter of time before the blood shed starts, as their attempt to enforce such a tyrannical prescription will undoubtedly be met with armed resistance. The law makers and courts responsible for this action new this would be the result as the degree of ignorance required not to know this would preclude the ability of those individuals to become Judges and Representatives in the first place. The only possibility left is that of a concerted, willful, and wanton intent to destroy our Republican form of government in favor of an ideological dictatorship. Such an effort is called, Treason.

The Clinton administration misappropriated at least $45 million dollars in taxes paid by gun owners, which were supposed to underwrite a "sportsmen’s trust fund," but were earmarked instead for a variety of pet causes -- including a group dedicated to the elimination of hunting.

The White House's shellgame with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service money was first uncovered when the General Accounting Office submitted the results of their investigation into conservation tax expenditures to the House Resources Committee earlier this year.

"In at least one instance, pressure was applied to an employee of the USF&WS," reported American Rifleman Magazine in March, "to fund a grant proposal submitted by a zealous animal rights group, The Fund for Animals, which is dedicated to the elimination of the very hunting heritage that those monies are collected to support."

USF&WS monies were also misspent to bankroll another type of "wildlife,” says the magazine, with tax dollars from gun owners going to pay for bureaucrats to travel to Brazil, Holland and Japan and reimbursement for lavish meals, liquor and limousine rentals.

Another Clinton-Gore proposal earmarked $30 million in Duck Stamp fees and hunting excise taxes turn Palmyra Atoll -- located 1,000 miles south of Hawaii -- into a national wildlife refuge. Total number of ducks to be saved: ten -- the entire duck population on Palmyra -- at $3 million per duck.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/readerservice/printer_friendly.php3?item=http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_excomm/20000706_xex_outside_gun_.shtml

Ex-cop gets jail, charges LAPD misconduct Glenn Yee: Undercover target Former Irwindale Reserve Police Officer Glenn Yee was sentenced to 16 months in prison on June 10 in Los Angeles, the stiffest sentence meted out so far in the case brought against four members of a gun club accused of plotting terrorist attacks around the Southland.

Yee, who patrolled Irwindale in uniform on a part-time basis, and two other men - Mark Grand and Timothy Swanson of Los Angeles - entered pleas of no contest to weapons charges. Grand and Swanson were sentenced just to probation, but all three contend they were falsely protrayed as militia plotters by officers in the LAPD's Anti-Terror Division (ATD). The fourth defendant, Alvin Ung, awaits trial in San Bernardino County.

The self-described gun enthusiasts were members of a shooting group called the Southern California Marksmen's Association (SCMA), which they assert professed no political philosophy. They were arrested after a dawn sweep of residences, work sites and a storage locker in May 1997. LAPD and ATD brass called a press conference to announce the bust, displaying an arsenal of seized weaponry, including several machine guns, which they said were stockpiled for violent terrorist attacks.

"Countless lives were saved as a result of these raids," police officials told Cable News Network, adding, "A militia cell has been brought to its knees." But prosecutors never pressed terrorism or conspiracy charges - and the defendants say the charges were trumped up solely to justify LAPD excess.

Glenn Yee faced yet another allegation at his sentencing hearing - that he had engaged in plots to assassinate a local militia activist. According to L.A. County Deputy District Attorney Eugene Monaghan Jr., Yee was captured on tape, "jokingly or not," saying, "Let's whack [the activist] either by a head shot at 40 yards or putting a grenade in his car." ____________________ ____________________