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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

In regards to Josh Sugarman's article in the New York Times calling for the banning of handguns, I must say, I concur. We should ban pistols. In fact, we should ban all firearms. Just like we did drugs. It will make getting firearms a lot easier, no background check, no fingerprints, no serials numbers, no traceability, no illegal retention of files by the BATF, no waiting periods, no questions asked, cash on the barrel head, delivered to your door 24/7- just like banned drugs. And it would eliminate the guesswork for the 500,000 paroled or otherwise released murderers walking the streets of America today. Not to mention the paroled rapists. They will be virtually sure their victims won't be able to maim or kill them in self-defense. Like Sammy Gravano, convicted mob assassin said, " "Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun." From the mouth of the expert. One need only to travel to a country, any country in the world with civilian firearms bans (and there is no other kind as criminals love "gun control") and see that the only people with firearms are the criminals, the cops (protection of the State) and the military. Great Britain has gun control and it opened the market to the KLA to sell their fully automatic (read properly defined "assault weapon") rifles on the streets right under the Queen's nose. Germany has gun control and I personally have seen German citizens proudly showing off their fully automatic AK-47,’s which the laughing acquired for $70 and a phone call. They even offered to get me one. I have personally lived in Japan. Getting a firearm there takes less than two hours of asking around and roughly $50 American dollars or the equivalent in Japanese yen. "Real gun control" as our ignorant little Sugarman puts it, is farce and one of America’s most ruthless killers, Sammy Gravano nailed it on the head and would nail Josh Sugarman on the head as well if told to do so by his mob bosses. And when Gravano arrived, Sugarman would be unarmed, and dead. If he was lucky, there would be some media coverage of his death used to forward his weak-hearted charge which is, don't stand up for yourself and defend your life against a criminal, let them have their way with you, let them rip you to shreds and whatever you do, don’t pull a gun on them and drop them in the tracks. At best, call 911 and see if the police decide to respond, as they are not required by law to do so and then if they do, see if they can get there in time to prevent the murder, which is already in progress. The day a Sammy Gravano comes calling on Josh Sugarman, he'd better hope an American like myself happens to be within shooting distance because with an average of one on-duty police officer for every 8,500 Americans, his chances of being next to a cop (and I think the murder would simply wait, if he were, don't you?) are virtually zero. I prefer to take the police approach to stopping murderers, head splitters and rapists and carry a firearm. A semi-automatic firearm with a high-capacity magazine, in the largest caliber, hardest hitting round I can shoot and shoot well with. Considering that the civilian shooting error rate numbers show that civilians with firearms are more than five times safer than American police officers, my civilian firearm represents a very good way to stay alive, Josh and I've used it twice to stop criminal attacks in New Orleans. Apologies for denying you the media hype job of "another victim of a senseless crime", but I felt like living. When was the last time you saw a crime of sense? Feel free to disarm yourself, Josh. Gun control Senators like your friends Feinstein, Schumer and Clinton all have armed bodyguards. In case you were unaware. What's with all the assault weapons and Saturday Night Specials and sniper rifles, Josh? What are the politicians afraid of? Can't they just call 911? You hear about the "wild west" days. I grew up in Kansas on a cattle ranch. We were all armed, as were our neighbors, we didn't lock our doors, nobody stole kids, nobody robbed anybody, nobody raped anybody, in short we never had a problem with weak-kneed criminals because they didn’t want to get shot. Don't forget it was armed civilians, not police, who put down the derided Dalton Gang. In the "Wild West” the only thing that was wild by today's ridiculous, shallow-gut standards was the average American's sincere belief that there life was worth defending.

After just one year of "gun control" in Australia, the Citizens are enjoying a 300% increase in homicide with a firearm, (seems the murderers forgot to turn in their firearms) in the state of Victoria, alone. Home invasions have nearly doubled. Maybe Josh should turn in his American passport and move to Australia. There he could enjoy the rewards of "gun control" fully and personally.

Why is it our nation's capital has a disgraceful record of crime while Miami, a city where civilians regularly go about armed has crime numbers that have continued to fall for years, starting at the time when concealed carry began? I have lived in Miami Beach as well, and you can watch supermodels stroll home from a dance club at 2 a.m., because many of them are armed with a handgun and because the citizens sitting in the local restaurants, walking down the street and in the dance clubs are also armed. Criminals must move to our nation’s capital to feel safe enough to rape or kill. And so they do.

Gun control? Why not just call it "the only people with guns are the killers"? It's longer, but it’s far more accurate. I'd like to end this article with one of the best quotes I’ve ever heard regarding gun control.

"You can't get around the image of people shooting at people to protect their stores and it working. This is damaging to the [gun control] movement." Center, in The Washington Post, May 18, 1993, referring to The Korean Shopkeepers who guarded their property with "assault weapons" during The LA riots.

It’s open season on the right to keep and bear arms as UN globocrats gear up for international gun controls.

The United Nations is very troubled that the United States has retained its Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Radical new UN proposals treat free people with the means to effect their own self-defense as a vital threat to the United Nations and its quest for what it calls the "peace-building process."

More troubling still is the fact that for the first time this radical UN agenda represents a clear and present danger to our right to keep and bear arms. This is in part because the Clinton State Department is collaborating with the UN and its proposals. But another, perhaps more dangerous, prong of the UN attack on the right to keep and bear arms comes from an insidious quasi-private institution heavily funded by socialist Northern European governments. This little-known, UN-backed organization charges itself with developing "message strategies" and "campaigning and advocacy strategies" to obtain an UN-managed global ban on the private ownership of firearms.

The United Nations "Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms" issued on August 19th bitterly complains that "there are wide differences among States [nations] as regards which types of arms are permitted for civilian possession, and as regards the circumstances under which they can legitimately be owned, carried and used. Such wide variation in national laws raise difficulties for effective regional or international coordination." That the UN "experts" are complaining mainly about the United States is made clear from the concluding recommendations in the report. Among the "coordination" proposals adopted by the panel enthusiastically seconded by UN secretary-general Kofi Annan in his foreword to the report are the following:

• "All States should ensure that they have in place adequate laws, regulations and administrative procedures to exercise effective control over the legal possession of small arms and light weapons and over their transfer...."

• "States should work toward the prohibition of unrestricted trade and private ownership of small arms and light weapons...."

The UN report defines small arms to include just about every category of firearms that exists: "The category of small arms includes revolvers and self-loading pistols, rifles and carbines, sub-machine guns, assault rifles and light machine guns." The United Nations call for banning even hunting rifles and antique revolvers from civilian possession demonstrates the radical and groundbreaking nature of the report.

Though the current United Nations attack on the Second Amendment fails to take aim at civilian possession of shotguns, shotgun owners should find no security in the current UN focus. The UN report in no way limits global firearm restrictions to "military"-related firearms such as "revolvers" and "rifles." The UN "experts" explain that the United Nations must deal with firearms on social as well as military criteria: "Virtually every part of the United Nations system is dealing in one way or another with the consequences of the armed conflicts, insecurity, violence, crime, social disruption, displaced peoples and human suffering that are directly or indirectly associated with the wide availability and the use of these weapons."

To implement their gun control measures, UN officials plan to ignore the reservation of national sovereignty guaranteed in the UN Charter the same way that the U.S. Congress often ignores the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The UN Charter bans UN intervention in "matters, which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state," but the UN is no longer concerned with legal niceties. Annan explained in his September 22nd address before the UN General Assembly that "state sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined.... A new, broader definition of national interest is needed in the new century [where] the collective interest is the national interest." In Annan’s view, the "collective interest" mandates that Americans and other peoples of the world should not own firearms and that the UN should be the key organ charged with collecting them. Annan emphasized in a September 24th speech that "controlling the easy availability of small arms is a prerequisite for a successful peace-building process," which is why the "United Nations has played a leading role in putting the issue of small arms firmly on the international agenda."

UN control over a global movement to ban private firearm ownership has already begun. According to a September 23rd UN press release, the United Nations convened a two-day workshop to set up a test arms register and "database" maintained by the UN for the entire continent of Africa. There have already been calls to make this regional database binding on all nations.

More troubling than the fact that a corrupt United Nations is seeking to attack the U.S. Bill of Rights and confiscate firearms legally owned by American citizens is the fact that the Clinton administration has been actively conspiring with the United Nations to accomplish this subversive goal. UN secretary-general Kofi Annan emphasizes in his foreword to the "Report of the Group of Governmental Experts on Small Arms" that it was "prepared, and adopted by consensus" and was the product of "unanimity" among the "expert" members of the group. Based upon Annan’s statement, we can presume that none of the "experts" object to such a naked attack on the right to bear arms. Yet among the "experts" who drafted the report was U.S. State Department Senior Foreign Affairs Specialist Herbert L. Calhoun.

State Department assistance to the UN global gun grab agenda dates back to at least 1994, when the Washington Times reported in its May 24th edition that "the Clinton administration has agreed to participate in a discussion of ways for the United Nations to control the manufacture of guns and their sales to civilians.... The UN working paper declares that governments individually are ‘impotent’ to deal with global arms trafficking and proposes ‘harmonization’ of gun control standards around the world to make trafficking easier to spot and prevent." The Times report noted that "any ‘harmonization’ would inevitably mean tightening controls on the loosely regulated U.S. gun business."

State Department officials have expressed general sympathies with the current UN proposals without mentioning the specific attack on citizen firearm ownership. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright told the first-ever UN Security Council Small Arms Ministerial on September 24th that "the United States strongly supports these steps," that we "welcome the important precedent which the UN has set," and that the U.S. would work to "commit to finishing negotiations on a firearms protocol to the UN Transnational Organized Crime Convention by the end of 2000."

"The United Nations’ call for gun control is an affront to our way of life and our constitutional government," Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) told The New American. "Mixing gun control with internationalism is certain to result in an assault on American rights and liberties." Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) pointed out to The New American that the UN’s escalating gun confiscation campaign "fits the pattern of a UN that’s become a refuge and a foundation for promoting socialism and undermining national sovereignty and individual freedom." The eager involvement of the Clinton/Albright State Department in that campaign illustrates anew the administration’s contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law, and our national independence.

Conspiring officials within the Clinton administration do not constitute the only prong of the UN assault on the right to keep and bear arms. The UN has established within its Department for Disarmament Affairs a department of Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA). According to an August 14th UN press release, CASA would be charged with coordinating all UN small arms control efforts, including a responsibility "to encourage civil society involvement in building societal resistance to violence." The reference to "civil society" suggests that the UN is trying to mobilize private sector Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and citizen pressure on behalf of its agenda.

The attempt to generate pressure from below as well as from above has already obtained results. In November 1998 the UNESCO Courier suggested that "the political tides may be changing. An international campaign is now underway with non-governmental organizations of all stripes and colours — disarmament and gun control groups along with development and human rights associations in the North and South — building common ground with the active support of governments like Mali, Canada, Norway and Japan."

This year the international campaign sought by the UNESCO Courier acquired an organizational face, although there is very little "non-governmental" about it. Annan specifically cited this new organization, as well as the UN-generated "momentum" justifying this impending power grab, in his September 24th address on small arms: "The momentum for combating small arms proliferation has also come from civil society, which has been increasingly active on this issue. The establishment early this year of the International Action Network on Small Arms [IANSA] has helped to sharpen public focus on small arms, which has helped us gain the public support necessary for success." IANSA is intended to "provide a transnational framework" for the mobilization of a broad citizen movement in favor of gun control, according to the organizational goals posted on its website. The services IANSA intends to provide the UN-led global gun control movement include "campaigning and advocacy strategies," "developing culturally appropriate ‘message’ strategies," "information sharing" among NGOs, and "constituency building."

Funding for this incipient propaganda campaign comes from the public trough of the taxpayers of the European socialist nations. IANSA notes on its website that its eight most significant financial donors include five government agencies: The Belgian Ministry for Development Cooperation; the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the United Kingdom Department for International Development; and the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. (The remaining three are small, pacifist, U.S.-based tax-exempt foundations.)

On September 9th, Bill Clinton unveiled a proposal that represents yet another prong of the UN-directed global gun grab: A $15 million federal gun "buy-back" initiative to be implemented by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Through subsidies from HUD, local police departments will be awarded up to $500,000 to collect and destroy an estimated 300,000 firearms. The UN Centre for Disarmament Affairs (UNCDA) refers to such "buy-backs" as a "practical method of micro-disarmament," which has been field-tested by municipal governments in the U.S. and by UN "peacekeeping" forces in Haiti, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and other countries. A 1995 UNCDA paper by Dr. Edward J. Laurance, a consultant to the UN Register of Conventional Arms since 1992, notes that the UNCDA has studied both "buy-back programs as practiced in many American cities" and those "conducted by the U.S. Army in Haiti" the latter being part of a "peacekeeping" mission carried out on orders from the UN Security Council.

According to Dr. Laurance, government "buy-backs" of small arms "must be conducted in parallel with other efforts," such as "seizure programs." He also points out that "buy-backs" have a propaganda benefit, in that they focus "attention on the link between weapons availability and crime" thereby preparing the public for more aggressive civilian disarmament measures. To illustrate an UN-supervised civilian "micro-disarmament" program that worked, he refers to El Salvador’s "new laws outlawing possession of military weapons and requiring all citizens to register hand guns and personal weapons. A new police force was created [and] trained under UN supervision … [which] received specialized training in searching for, confiscating and destroying … military-style weapons...."

Sami Faltas of the Bonn International Centre for Conversion, an international "think tank" that has advised UN officials on civilian disarmament programs around the world (and for which Dr. Laurance serves as a consultant), has laid out the program with stunning candor:

A subtle mix of rewards and penalties is needed for a weapons [confiscation] program to succeed. Ultimately, the ownership of arms should not be left to the personal choice of individuals. The state needs to preserve its monopoly of the legitimate use of force. So sanctions against the illegal possession and use of arms are necessary and should be imposed. However, during a weapons collection program, an amnesty is needed, and the emphasis should be on voluntary compliance and positive incentives.

The equation is quite easy to understand: Gun "buy-backs" prepare the public for uniform gun registration, which leads to universal gun confiscation and a state monopoly on lethal force. This was the process that led to mass murder of subject populations in Soviet Russia, National Socialist Germany, Communist China, and other despotisms. With the covert aid of the Clinton administration, the UN is now implementing this process on a global basis.

"But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet to warn the people and the sword comes and takes the life of one of them, that man will be taken away because of his sin, but I will hold the watchman accountable for his blood."

I am much afraid that schools will prove to be the great gates of hell unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures, engraving them in the hearts of youth.

I advise no one to place his child where the scriptures do not reign paramount. Every institution in which men are not increasingly occupied with the Word of God must become corrupt. Martin Luther [ 1483-1546 ]

"Blaming guns for Columbine is like blaming spoons for Rosie O'Donnell being fat.

THE TAMPA TRIBUNE 11/2/99 -- 2:05 AM Statistics not compiled on self-defense gun use

WASHINGTON - The FBI likely will never receive a police report on what Joe Megerle did during his morning run one day in August. Megerle, a retired electric- company worker, was jogging through Devou Park, a Covington, Ky., hilltop that overlooks the Ohio River and Cincinnati skyline, when a man brandished a pistol and demanded money. Megerle, who holds a Kentucky concealed-weapon permit, drew his own pistol and shot the man twice.

The gunman was hospitalized and charged with attempted robbery. He's now in jail. The emergency room made a record of his gunshot wounds; data later supplied to the Greater Cincinnati Health Council. The Covington police filed reports on the criminal charges, information that will be recorded in the FBI's annual crime statistics.

No government agency, however, is expected to record that Megerle used a firearm in self-defense.

``There's nothing ever filed when a firearm is used correctly,'' said Covington Assistant Police Chief Bill Dorsey, whose officers investigated the shooting and recommended that no charges be brought against Megerle.

Police departments, hospitals and federal agencies keep mounds of data about the misuse of firearms: the woundings, killings, suicides and accidents.

When it comes to the defensive use of guns, such as saving a life or protecting a home, no one tallies those statistics. Attempts to come up with such figures, however, have grown into a hotly contested part of the public debate over regulating guns.

Researchers seem to agree on two major points. First, the frequency of defensive gun use has little to do with the gun control issues being debated, such as criminal background checks and high-tech ``smart'' guns that only the owner can fire. Those regulations would have little effect on a law-abiding citizen's ability to purchase a firearm and use it in self-defense.

Second, accurate statistics on defensive gun use could be useful in setting public policy on guns. So far, surveys are the only method of getting those numbers; and as Jens Ludwig, a Georgetown University public policy professor, has written, ``the truth eludes this method of measurement.''

Researchers have found that a gun is fired in only a small percentage of defensive gun uses. Instead, the user threatens, cocks the gun or just displays it.

Police keep data on homicides, rapes, robberies and assaults, not on homeowners who scare off burglars.

``Government records are not a good way to measure defensive gun uses because so many defensive gun users may not want to report these uses to government authorities, and neither will their victims,'' Ludwig said. ``At the same time, surveys are an imperfect technique because they have difficulty measuring the frequency of such rare events.''

One reason people hesitate to mention legitimate use of a firearm is fear of inadvertently having committed a crime, given the myriad of laws about where, when and under what conditions gun possession is lawful, said Florida State University Professor Gary Kleck, who has done landmark research on self-defense with a gun.

A self-described liberal Democrat and member of the American Civil Liberties Union, Kleck carried out a study in 1995 of defensive use of firearms that produced surprising results. The work was done independently, with the help of FSU colleague Mark Gertz, who donated the use of his research survey business.

Kleck's survey is one often cited by gun rights advocates. The national telephone poll indicated there are as many as 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year. These figures bolster the argument that the protective value of firearms far outweighs the number of gun crimes - about 232,000 in 1997, according to Department of Justice figures.

Gun rights groups use these numbers to fight tighter firearm laws, arguing that restrictions on gun ownership could reduce the number of times a life is saved or a crime is thwarted.

Gun control supporters contend that the defensive use of firearms is rare, as shown by the Census Bureau's National Crime Victimization Survey, which reports about 65,000 defensive gun uses annually.

(This is pretty much as inaccurate as you can get. The FBI shows more than 600,000 reported uses of guns in self-defense each year.)

The pro-control groups argue that a gun is more likely to be misused in an accident or crime. They say stricter gun laws, such as waiting periods and criminal background checks at gun shows, won't affect the ability of law-abiding citizens to defend themselves but will keep criminals and children from getting firearms.

No measure exists to show that either side's numbers are right. Both sets of data have flaws.

The National Crime Victimization Survey, while useful, does not directly ask about defensive gun use, Ludwig said. The questioners also identify themselves as representatives of the federal government; display badges, and records the respondent's name, address and phone number.

This is intimidating for someone expected to talk about using a gun, Kleck said.

Nongovernment surveys have varied widely. Among 14 surveys specifically on defensive gun use, the estimates range from 764,000 to 3.6 million incidents a year.

The numbers ``are big, but they're imprecise,'' Kleck said, attributing the variance to differences in questions and the usual margin of error in a survey. The results, however, are consistently much larger than the National Crime Victimization Survey. ``There's no contrary evidence that can be cited showing that defensive gun use is as rare as the victimization survey appears to indicate.''

Very interesting. This might even work in Japan where, of course, they have no guns.

An astounding thing. The Air Force found that they could reduce suicide rates by 80%, by watching for signs of stress and depression, and referring those affected for professional help. Presumably, all these people had easy access to firearms, but they accomplished their enormous suicide reduction without restricting their access to these guns. Imagine that!

The November 26, 1999 edition of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report is now available in Adobe Acrobat format on the Internet. View this week's MMWR as a web page at: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr and ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Publications/mmwr/wk/mm4846.pdf

* Suicide Prevention Among Active Duty Air Force Personnel United States, 1990--1999 http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4846a1.htm

* Progress Toward Poliomyelitis Eradication Eastern Mediterranean Region, 1998--October 1999 http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4846a2.htm

The file types available are Adobe Acrobat (PDF), and (ASCII TXT). The ASCII version of the journal does not contain figures. The PDF files contain graphics and figures and are true representations of the hard copy of the MMWR. The Adobe Acrobat format requires an Adobe Reader (see instructions below on requesting the free reader).

To obtain copies of the entire MMWR issues via e-mail, send a message to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.CDC.GOV with the following in the body of your message: GET MMWR LOG9911D

From: The Republican <therepublican@ideasign.com To: <therepublican@ideasign.com Sent: Monday, December 06, 1999 2:41 AM Subject: The right to bear arms The right to bear arms

There's a reason the Founding Fathers considered the right to bear arms fundamental in a free society. A couple of recent unrelated incidents should bring this home to all of us.

In Seattle last week, the local government, faced with widespread civil disobedience over the city's hosting of the World Trade Organization conference declared a state of emergency, a curfew and even went so far as to ban the use of gas masks by anyone except police.

Now, in case you hadn't considered this before, gas masks are not weapons. They can only be used to defend oneself, usually from tear gas fired by government police. Now imagine you lived in Seattle and had some urgent business. Perhaps you have an asthmatic son or daughter with a doctor's appointment. You live outside the immediate area of protests, but as a precaution against what could be a life-threatening attack to your child, you feel compelled to break out the gas mask collecting dust in the basement.

It's arbitrary. It's capricious. And I say it's unconstitutional. And the Constitution doesn't even explicitly guarantee the right to bear strictly defensive tools such as a gas mask. I think many, if not most, people -- left and right -- would agree with me.

Nevertheless, there is still, somehow broad debate in this country about whether the Constitution really means what it says about firearms. I don't get it.

Some of the anti-gun, anti-Constitution, anti-freedom crowd looks at it this way: "Yeah, it's in the Constitution. But the Constitution is outdated and in need of changes -- especially the Second Amendment. Our first priority needs to be to protect people from violence. If we take the guns away from ordinary people, they will be safer and more secure. They can rest easy knowing the government will protect them."

Of course, the facts, the statistics, the evidence just doesn't bear out any such theory. On the contrary, the only cold, calculating, objective, scientific research conducted in this area, by Dr. John Lott, shows just the opposite to be the case -- more guns mean less crime.

But put that aside for a moment and consider a recent development in a police shooting case in Claremont, Calif. Last January, Irvin Landrum Jr., 18, was stopped for a traffic violation. The cops say Landrum pulled a gun on them, so they shot him and killed him. The family never bought the story and filed a lawsuit suggesting the police shot the kid and planted a gun on him.

It turns out ballistics tests showed the gun was not fired that night. It had no fingerprints on it. And the last traceable owner was the late police chief of a neighboring town.

I don't know about you, but I believe the kid was shot three times by the cops and the .45 was dropped on him. It happens. You see, some cops are crooked. Some cops are dishonest. Some cops are even unbalanced, untrustworthy and unqualified to carry a gun. And even more of them are unsuited to that role if and when the police hold a monopoly on firepower.

When some nut climbs a tower somewhere and shoots innocent people, too many Americans begin clamoring to take away guns from perfectly law-abiding citizens who need them to protect themselves as well as to protect our own liberty from the creeping police state. When a nutty cop goes berserk and kills innocent people -- and it happens -- I never hear anyone suggesting we disarm all police.

True self-government requires an armed citizenry. If the government holds a monopoly on force, tyranny is only a shot away.

Nor can we ever tolerate American City governments, state governments or federal government suspending the constitutional rights of free people. The WTO be damned. Let the organization meet in China. Let it hire its own private security force to protect Fidel Castro and Bill Clinton. We shouldn't suspend the Constitution to protect people who would like to shred it permanently.

Remember, gas masks don't kill people. Overbearing, unchecked, heavily armed governments kill people.

What To Do If The Police Come To Confiscate Your Militia Weapons see www.2ndamendment.net

For legislative updates contact www.nealknox.com and go to "Scripts from the Firearms Coalition Legislative Update Line" Write your congressman can now be accomplished at the

speed of light, thanks to WorldNetDaily's new Legislative Action Center. http://congress.nw.dc.us/wnd/ You can call your two Senators at (202) 224-3121 and your Representative at (202) 225-3121 at the Capitol Switchboard. Here is the URL for Congressional Telephone Directory: http://clerkweb.house.gov/106/mbrcmtee/members/teledir/me mbers/cdframe.htm Here's an e-mail link to Congress. http://in-search-of.org/ http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ http://www.gunowners.org/mailerx.html

To spread the word call Rush Limbaugh at 800-282-2882 and callers may call in from 12 noon to 3PM EST, M-F *****************************

I will tell you, my son, that the government of the United States, your country, has evolved in some very unhealthy ways. Most of the politicians are not religious and have taken up worshiping the government. Regardless of party, power over your life is their objective. They wish to control your future and the future of your grandchildren. The image they hold of the future is one in which you and your grand children are dependent on the government for your personal security. They know you will begin to resent this sooner or later. Therefore they want you to have as little power to resist them as possible. This means they want you to have no firearms. The have confiscated firearms in your country in New York City, Cleveland, Connecticut and California. Under various pretexts they confiscate firearms whenever they can use every excuse. They plan to do this across the whole country. My father foresaw this.

When he died he did not mention any firearms in his will. I and my brothers and sisters sat down at a table and parceled out guns and ammunition to each of us. If the government wants to know about my father's guns they can try asking him. Of course, once you are dead the government cannot get answers out of you. And you can no longer be prosecuted or imprisoned.

I will parcel out my guns to all of you, my children, provided you promise never to voluntary or involuntarily register them with any government local, state, or federal. I will leave you a thousand rounds of ammunition for each firearm.

As each of you goes through life I would like you to keep any record of firearm ownership out of the hands of the government. Avoid registration any way you can. When you trade firearms with your friends make sure they are indeed your friends. You should know your friends very well, which means having only a few good ones. Having bad friends is the most dangerous thing you can do in life.

When you trade a firearm for a similar firearm—say a .38 S&W for a .38 S&W, you have effectively changed the serial number on the .38 you own. So it is more difficult for the government to know who has what gun.

When you obtain a firearm from another person do not keep any record of the transaction. Then store that firearm away from your residence for a long period of time. In case you were set up, the evidence will not be in your possession.

Store your firearms securely. I have a cousin named Francis Drake who is a little bit on the wicked side. He stores his firearms protected by a 2000-volt electrical charge. Fran has done some things to politicians who are anti-gun that I of course would never do. One of his representatives kept introducing gun bills. Fran had all kinds of things delivered to his house, like gravel, sand, and lumber. He had a call girl go to the representative's house at 3 AM. Fran made sure the politician never knew who did these things and never knew why they were done. Soon the other politicians began to notice that the politician had started to behave strangely. And he was a lot less effective in doing anything, including waging his anti-gun crusade. With anonymous phone calls, Fran set up another anti-gun politician to be investigated on gun charges. When Fran's police chief called him a "Neanderthal", Fran got back at him by not saying things that would have helped the chief in his official duties with the chief's enemies.

My children, in all areas of your life you must follow a strategy of resisting government power of any kind. So you must vote in every election, and you must support those politicians who will reduce the government's power over your life by helping to finance and run their campaigns for political office. If you can bear the company, become useful to the political party in your area. Get a hold of their supporter’s list and try to meet these people. Every once in a while you can get a politician's attention by talking to his supporters.

You should serve on a jury every chance you get. In any case where the government is trying to prosecute someone for a paper crime, such as failing to fill our a firearms registration form, say nothing but vote not guilty regardless of the judge's instructions. Judging the correctness of the law as well as the actions of the accused is your moral duty, and it is an established principle in American jurisprudence. All judges say you have to do as they say, but you don't. You are the real judge in a trial, and you should never convict anyone who is simply trying to live free.

You should exercise your rights every chance you get, regardless of whether you have done any thing illegal or not, and regardless of how you have to do it. One time a policeman asked me to let him search the trunk of my car. I told him the lock fell out and he would need a screwdriver. He did not search the trunk.

Finally, my children, you should serve on any boards or commissions you can get appointed to. And always, always in everyday life, as a voter, or as an official of any kind speak up for, and work toward, more freedom. If you do this, your own children--and they're children, and theirs—will thank you and bless your memory.

The way to protect your own rights is to protect the rights of others. Our right to own and use firearms is under attack.

This list was created in a hurry due to the emergency presented by anti-gun politicians and the media dancing in the blood of those who died in the Colorado massacre. We receive e-mail addresses from various sources that represent the recipients as receptive to our timely, low-to- moderate volume, gun-rights-related alerts (generally no more than weekly, never more than daily, depending on legislative and other circumstances). Occasionally recipients turn out to be not interested, and we remove them immediately with our sincere apology for any inconvenience. To join or be removed please send:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. -- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Greetings. We've recently seen a tirade of stories about "hidden" identification codes and what many would consider to be surreptitious centralized information flowing from various popular Internet products and packages. These have tended to highlight an important truth--whether or not users really would be concerned about the particular identifiers or data involved, they tend to get the most upset when they feel that an effort was made to perform such functions "behind their backs." While it can be argued how routine, intrusive, or even mundane and innocent a particular case may be, it's certainly true that people feel a lot better when they know what's going on.

This issue isn't restricted only to the Internet world. A case in point-- the recurring rumors floating around regarding the presence or absence of identification codes in color copies (or color prints xerographically generated from computer output systems).

A recent story involved a customer who was refused permission to make a color copy of his driver's license (to deal with an identification problem with his local telephone company). A Kinko's (copying center) worker reportedly told him that such a copy was "illegal," and could be traced back to the store through a "hidden ID."

Regardless of whether or not the Kinko's employee was being overzealous in his interpretation of the rules, what's really going on here regarding a so-called hidden ID code?

In fact, rumors about this, often chalked up as an "urban legend," have been circulating for a long time. This is a bit ironic, given that in the copier/printer industry it's been well known for years--no secret--that "invisible" IDs *are* imprinted on virtually all color xerographic output, from (apparently) all of the manufacturers. But for persons outside of "the trade," this hasn't been as widely known (even though the issue goes back to the early 90's, and the topic has appeared in publications such as the Wall Street Journal). However, it does not appear that the privacy-related aspects of this technology have ever been subject to significant public discussion.

In an effort to pin down the current state of the art in this area, I had a long and pleasant chat with one of Xerox's anti-counterfeiting experts, who is the technical product manager for several of their color-copying products. The conversation was quite illuminating. Please note that the details apply only to Xerox products, though we can safely assume similar systems from competing manufacturers, although their specific policies may differ.

Years ago, when the potential for counterfeiting of valuable documents on color copiers/xerographic printers became apparent in Japan (where such machines first appeared) manufacturers were concerned about negative governmental reaction to such technology. In an effort to stave off legislative efforts to restrict such devices, various ID systems began being implemented at that point. At one stage for at least one U.S. manufacturer, this was as crude as a serial number etched on the underside of the imaging area glass!

Modern systems, which are now reportedly implemented universally, use much more sophisticated methods, encoding the ID effectively as "noise" repeatedly throughout the image, making it impossible to circumvent the system through copying or printing over a small portion of the image area, or by cutting off portions of printed documents. Effectively, I'd term this as sort of the printing equivalent of "spread spectrum" in radio technology.

To read these IDs, the document in question is scanned and the "noise" decoded via a secret and proprietary algorithm. In the case of Xerox-manufactured equipment, only Xerox has the means to do this, and they require a court order to do so (except for some specific government agencies, for which they no longer require court authorizations). I'm told that the number of requests Xerox receives for this service is on the order of a couple a weeks from within the U.S.

The ID is encoded in all color copies/prints from the Xerox color copier/printer line. It does not appear in black and white copies. The technology has continued to evolve, and it is possible that it might be implemented within other printing technologies as well (e.g. inkjet). At one time there were efforts made to also include date/time stamps within the encoded data, but these were dropped by Xerox (at least for now) due to inconsistencies such as the printer clocks not being set properly by their operators, rendering their value questionable.

It's interesting to note that these machines also include other anti-counterfeiting measures, such as dumping extra cyan toner onto images when the unit believes it has detected an attempt to specifically copy currency. These techniques have all apparently been fairly successful--the Secret Service has reported something on the order of a 30% drop in color copying counterfeiting attempts since word of such measures has been circulating in the industry. The average person might wonder who the blazes would ever accept a xerographic copy of money in any case... but apparently many persons is not very discerning. I'm told that the Secret Service has examples in their files of counterfeit currency successfully passed that was printed on *dot matrix* printers. So counterfeiting is certainly a genuine problem.

OK, so now you know--the IDs are there. The next question is, what does this really mean? Obviously the vast majority of uses for color copies are completely innocuous or even directly beneficial to the public good (e.g. whistleblowers attempting to expose a fraud against the public). Is it acceptable for an ID to be embedded in all color copies just to catch those cases? The answer seems to be, it depends.

In some cases, even having an ID number doesn't necessarily tell you who currently owns the machine. While some countries (e.g. China) do keep tight reign on the ownership and transfer of such equipment, there is no "registration" requirement for such devices in the U.S. (though the routine servicing realities of large units might well create something of a de-facto registration in many situations).

Xerox points out that non-color copies (at least on their machines) have no IDs, and that most copying applications don't need color. It is however also true that as the prices of color copiers and printers continue to fall, it seems only a matter of time before they become the "standard" even for home copying, at which time the presence of IDs could cover a much vaster range of documents and become increasingly significant from a routine privacy standpoint.

It's also the case that we need to be watchful for the "spread" of this technology, intended for one purpose, into other areas or broader applications (what I call "technology creep"). We've seen this effect repeatedly with other technologies over the years, from automated toll collection to cell phone location tracking. While there is currently no U.S. legislative requirement that manufacturers of copier technology include IDs on color copies, it is also the case that these manufacturers have the clear impression that if they do not include such IDs, legislation to require them would be immediately forthcoming.

It is important to be vigilant to avoid such perceived or real pressures from causing possibly intrusive technology creep in this area. In the copier case, that ID technology being used for color copies *could* be adapted to black and white copies and prints as well. The addition of cheap GPS units to copiers could provide not only valid date/time stamps, but also the physical *locations* of the units, all of which could be invisibly encoded within the printed images.

Pressures to extend the surveillance of commercial copyright enforcement take such concepts out of the realm of science fiction, and into the range of actual future possibilities. What many would consider to be currently acceptable anti-counterfeiting technology could be easily extended into the realm of serious privacy invasions. It would only require, as Dr. Strangelove once said, "The will to do so."

Perhaps the most important point is that unless we as a society actively stay aware of these technologies, however laudable their initial applications may often be, we will be unable to participate in the debate that is crucial to determining their future evolution. And it's in the vacuum of technology evolving without meaningful input from

society that the most serious abuses, be they related to the Internet or that copy machine over on your desk, are the most likely to occur.

Every 13 seconds an American gun owner uses a firearm in defense against a criminal. Criminal Attacks Stopped By Guns This Year: 1082312

Among 15.7% of gun defenders interviewed nationwide during The National Self Defense Survey conducted by Florida State University criminologists in 1994, the defender believed that someone "almost certainly" would have died had the gun not been used for protection -- a life saved by a privately held gun about once every 1.3 minutes. (In another 14.2% cases, the defender believed someone "probably" would have died if the gun hadn't been used in defense.)

In 83.5% of these successful gun defenses, the attacker either threatened or used force first -- disproving the myth that having a gun available for defense wouldn't make any difference.

In 91.7% of these incidents the defensive use of a gun did not wound or kill the criminal attacker (and the gun defense wouldn't be called "newsworthy" by newspaper or TV news editors). In 64.2% of these gun-defense cases, the police learned of the defense, which means that the media could also find out and report on them if they chose to.

In 73.4% of these gun-defense incidents, the attacker was a stranger to the intended victim. (Defenses against a family member or intimate were rare -- well under 10%.) This disproves the myth that a gun kept for defense will most likely be used against a family member or someone you love.

In over half of these gun defense incidents, the defender was facing two or more attackers -- and three or more attackers in over a quarter of these cases. (No means of defense other than a firearm -- martial arts, pepper spray, or stun guns -- gives a potential victim a decent chance of getting away uninjured when facing multiple attackers.)

In 79.7% of these gun defenses, the defender used a cancelable handgun. A quarter of the gun defenses occurred in places away from the defender's home.

Source: "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of self-defense with a Gun," by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, in The Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Northwestern University School of Law, Volume 86, Number 1, Fall, 1995

Marvin Wolfgang, Director of the Sellin Center for Studies in Criminology and Criminal Law at the University of Pennsylvania, considered by many to be the foremost criminologist in the country, wrote in that same issue, "I am as strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among the criminologists in this country. If I were Mustapha Mond of Brave New World, I would eliminate all guns from the civilian population and maybe even from the police ... What troubles me is the article by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. The reason I am troubled is that they have provided an almost clear cut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator. ...I have to admit my admiration for the care and caution expressed in this article and this research. Can it be true that about two million instances occur each year in which a gun was used as a defensive measure against crime? It is hard to believe. Yet, it is hard to challenge the data collected. We do not have contrary evidence. The National Crime Victim Survey does not directly contravene this latest survey, nor do the Mauser and Hart Studies. ... the methodological soundness of the current Kleck and Gertz study is clear. I cannot further debate it. ... The Kleck and Gertz study impresses me for the caution the authors exercise and the elaborate nuances they examine methodologically. I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology. They have tried earnestly to meet all objections in advance and have done exceedingly well."

So this data has been peer-reviewed by a top criminologist in this country who was prejudiced in advance against its results, and even he found the scientific evidence overwhelmingly convincing.

A fatal accident involving a firearm occurs in the United States only about once every 6 hours. For victims age 14 or under, it's fewer than one a day -- but still enough for the news media to have a case to tell you about in every day's edition.

A criminal homicide involving a firearm occurs in the United States about once every half-hour -- but two-thirds of the fatalities are not completely innocent victims but themselves have criminal records.

Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports and Murder Analysis by the Chicago Police Department

Kids and guns? Here's what a 1995 federal study investigating juvenile crime found after looking at 20,000 randomly selected households:

Relationship between type of gun owned and percent committing street, drug and gun crimes.

"The socialization into gun ownership is also vastly different for legal and illegal gunners. Those who own legal guns have fathers who own guns for sport and hunting. On the other hand, those who own illegal guns have friends who own illegal guns and are far more likely to be gang members. For legal gunners, socialization appears to take place in the family; for illegal gunners, it appears to take place 'on the street.'"

"Boys who own legal firearms have much lower rates of delinquency and drug use and are even slightly less delinquent than nonowners of guns."

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, NCJ-143454, "Urban Delinquency and Substance Abuse," August 1995.

Making it legally possible for civilians to carry concealed weapons does not make society more violent or result in shootouts at traffic accidents. The rate of criminal misuse of firearms by the hundreds of thousands of persons licensed to carry concealed firearms in Florida is so low as to be statistically zero. In fact, homicide, assault, rape, and robbery are dramatically lower in areas of the United States where the public is allowed easy access to carrying concealed firearms in public.

Sources: Florida Department of State, Concealed Weapons/ Firearms License Statistical Report and "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," by John R. Lott, Olin Fellow in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School and David B. Mustard, graduate student, Department of Economics, Journal of Legal Studies, January 1997.

Making guns less available does not reduce suicide but merely causes the person seeking death to use another means. While gun-related suicides were reduced by Canada's handgun ban of 1976, the overall suicide rate did not go down at all: the gun-related suicides were replaced 100% by an increase in other types of suicide -- mostly jumping off bridges.

Source: Rich, Young, Fowler, Wagner, and Black, The American Journal of Psychiatry March, 1990

Read "Gun Rights Forces Outgunned on TV: Networks Use First Amendment Rights to Promote Opponents of Second Amendment Rights" from the July 1997 MediaWatch Study.