Aug2001

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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

Subject: Pennsylvania Legislators Seek to Use State Police Database to Seize Handguns.

Our worst fears regarding the Pennsylvania State Police maintenance of the so-called database may become a reality if the Pennsylvania General Assembly passes two bills that combined would effectively ban all handguns in the State Police database.

Angry over the fact that one may have slipped by them, the anti-gunners in the House introduced a bill, HB 1172 that would give the state police the authority to retain the information they have collected in a database. This certainly proof that our reading of the law is correct.

After that bill was introduced, this same group introduced HB 1609. This bill provides for the seizure of all handguns not in compliance with strict manufacturing rules that required that all handguns be designed as so-called "smart guns". A handgun not meeting the criteria could be seized by the police. Since the state police will have the knowledge that all handguns listed in their database will not be in compliance with the new law, they will have to seize them. Anyone who refuses to turn in their handguns to the government will be charged with a felony. This would then prohibit them from owning a hunting rifle or shotgun for the rest of their lives.

We have been concerned that there may be a news blackout in Pennsylvania on the subject of our lawsuit. Just prior to our appearance in Commonwealth Court on May 9, Rep. Metcalfe and others legislators issued a news release showing their support for our suit. The news release never seen the light of day.

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http://www.jewishworldreview.com -- HOW many families do you know that live in a "compound?"

My dictionary defines a compound as "an enclosed area used for confining prisoners of war." But in the liberal media handbook, "compound,” means any dwelling where God and guns are present. It's a loaded word used to conjure up images of white separatists and religious sects. In New York, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C., city-slicker journalists live in estates and condos. In flyover country, the unwashed masses live on farms and "compounds."

"Compound" has a way of conveniently dehumanizing the people who live in the place being described. CNN anchors and reporters endlessly invoked "compound" to describe the “home “of the 76 Branch Dravidians who were killed during the Clinton-Reno government siege at Waco, Texas, in 1993.

Over the past week, I heard "compound" used repeatedly by CNN correspondents who left their posh East Coast digs to cover a five-day "standoff" in rural America between armed government agents and a frightened family.

The McGuckins of Garfield Bay, Idaho had fallen on hard times since the head of the household, 61-year-old Michael, took ill. The family's 40-acre property was auctioned off to pay back taxes. Then Michael died last month. Wife JoAnn, widowed with six children living at home, was in an understandably fragile state. The family turned inward and relied on each other and their faith to survive. They rejected welfare. But on May 29, Mrs. McGuckin reached out.

Local deputies told her she could obtain Social Security benefits if she left the house to make a phone call. It was a cruel ruse. The deputies picked her up, and instead of helping her; they arrested her on a suspiciously flimsy charge of felonious child abuse.

Down swooped the CNN camera crews to cover the aftermath. The children, afraid of being split up, reportedly took up the family guns and sent some of their dogs out to defend against law enforcement officials who had surrounded their home. Eileen O'Connor, a bewildered CNN national correspondent who looked like she had just been dropped off in Kuala Lampur, stood outside the "compound" during the "standoff" and regurgitated whatever local authorities told her:

O'Connor described a pack of "vicious, wild dogs" at the "compound." But according to local Humane Society president Rick Lopes, 10 of the McGuckin's 22 dogs were newborn puppies. Another was expecting a new litter. Most weighed about 20 pounds, and as Lopes told the Idaho Statesman, the dogs "love kids."

O'Connor alluded several times to the McGuckin children being "without food and electricity." But when examined at the hospital, doctors said the kids were in fine condition and not malnourished as prosecutor Phil Robinson had alleged. Officials were also forced to retract claims that the kids had survived on "lake water and lily-pad soup" and that the "compound" had no power.

O'Connor also parroted local officials' claim that Michael McGuckin had died of "dehydration and malnutrition." But the county coroner refuted the allegation. McGuckin died from complications related to multiple sclerosis. Robinson, the zealous prosecutor, continues to claim that Mrs. McGuckin has a "mental illness" and implies that she is an alcoholic. He has railed against the home's "filth" - without acknowledging that much of it was probably caused by law-enforcement officials themselves. During the almost weeklong siege of their home, the kids were forced to keep their pets inside to keep them from being shot.

"The state needs to learn its place -- and that is not in family business," Mrs. McGuckin said in a powerfully lucid statement from jail where she remains today. "I do not accept the charges to begin with. It will be up to them to explain their behavior to everyone because it affects us all. May the public demand some answers as well."

Don't expect any from CNN. Their "compound" interest is in ratings and sensationalism, not in accuracy or justice.

With the anti-Bill of Rights people launching another assault on the 2nd Amendment as they seek to close the so-called "gun show loophole", and with some taking the position of a certain Mr. Kelly Boatright, who says "We feel that sensible gun laws now on the books make good sense and we all support background checks at gun shows" it will serve us well to recall the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller. Arrested for "malicious attacks" against Hitler's Nazi state, he spent seven years in the Dachau and Sachsenhausen death camps before being released in 1945 by the Allies.

"In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic. Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up." -Martin Niemoller

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., will introduce legislation tomorrow to make gun show background checks mandatory. The bill is modeled after legislation that passed the Senate with a single, tie-breaking vote soon after the Columbine shootings but later died in the House. Sense. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., plan to introduce similar legislation.

You don't care about the so-called "gun show loophole" you say? Well, let me take the liberty of paraphrasing Pastor Niemoller a bit:

"In America, they first came for the machine guns, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a machine gunner. Then they came for the "assault rifles", and I didn't speak up because I didn't think anyone needed them. Then they came for the hi-cap magazines, and I didn't speak up because I didn't want any. Then they came for those who trade guns and dispose of private collections, and I didn't speak up because I never swap or sell any of my guns. Then they came for my fine English double -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up for me."

We have allowed those who wish to disarm us to define the terms of the discussion. You know, I know, and those sorry scum-sucking excuses for Americans know, that an assault rifle is, by definition, a select fire/fully auto firearm. Yet we went along with their definition, which made an "assault rifle" out of a long gun because of it's damned appearance! And now we use it.

Have you ever heard, or read, of a "car death"? How about a "knife death"? Well, then how about a "club death?" No? Neither have I. Then why do we accept the term "gun death?" Why do we use it ourselves?

Now, what about this word "weapon?" A weapon is an instrument of attack or defense in combat. The police carry weapons. The military use weapons. Criminals use weapons. Law abiding Americans use guns for hunting, in competition and just plinking. Those are tools - not weapons. Why do we talk about "weapons" when we really mean just plain old "guns.”?

Sometimes we use them to defend our families and ourselves. Then, and only then, do they become weapons.

There we have three terms/words, "assault rifle", "gun death" and "weapon" which have been imposed on us by those who wish to disarm America, and which we have accepted, and now are used to paint our guns as evil devices.

Now we have the "gun show loophole" which is no loophole at all. Gun dealers are licensed by the BATF and, in some locales, by the state and local governments. The vast majority of non-gun dealers at shows are selling equipment, books, ammunition, etc. A few private citizens will be there and will swap or sell guns from their personal collection. The unholy axis of McCain - Lieberman - Reed would bring a halt to that. Perhaps, as does Mr. Boatright, you wonder "What the hell is wrong with background checks at gunshows?" Do you think that will be the end of it?

Handgun Control, the Million Mom March and the Children's Defense Fund, issued a report last Thursday that found the push for increased gun control following the Columbine shootings had mixed results across the country. Jim Kessler, author of the report, noted that if the loophole were to be closed at the federal level, "We will happily move along to advocating other aspects of gun safety."

The words of Mr. Boatright, who took exception to my recent defense of .50 calibers and their owners, expresses the attitude of many of us.

"I am going to my hunt club this weekend to enjoy a day of mule drawn wagons and fine pointing dogs. I am first and foremost a hunter who supports the 2nd Amendment. As for the fellow who feels the need to stock up on high cap. magazines, AR-15s and trigger paddles, I have no kinship.

Today, and tomorrow, and the day after, I shall refuse to group my double guns into the same family as .50 sniper rifles. I go to many gun shows and I also see the .50 guns there, usually set up in manners that make it clear that they are being sold as sniper rifles. This is usually down the aisle from the rednecks selling the "Hellfire" trigger paddles that give any semi-auto full automatic speed."

Gun owners, and defenders of the 2nd Amendment, come in as many varieties as do our citizens. There are reenactors, hunters, competitors, collectors and militia types. Some of us can afford very expensive firearms and some of must make do with "Saturday night specials." There you go, another manufactured term. Some of us belong to "hunt clubs" as does Mr. Boatright, and some of us belong to militias. As it happens I belong to neither but I will defend Mr. Boatright's right to hunt and I will defend the rights of those who wish to lawfully organize themselves.

Those who think as Mr. Boatright does that "...the assault style rifle can stay on the ban

list and to hell with 'em. The AR-15 does nothing for the homeowner that the 12 bore won't do better." and "If we ever lose the 2nd Amendment and the right to keep and bear arms, it will be due to all or nothing paranoid assholes such as yourself." and, "Frankly, sir, I don't give a happy damn about wasting my energy and resources to fight the regulation of assault rifles, .50 Cal. sniper rifles and high cap clips that are targeted and marketed to the "Paranoid Bubba Society of America."

Those who think like Mr. Boatright may well live to see the day when "...they came for my fine English double -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up for me."

Please realize, and remember, that the time, money and effort those worthless whale droppings spend on trying to close the "gun show loophole" is time, money and effort that cannot be spent on, as Mr. Kessler of HCI says, "...advocating other aspects of gun safety."

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Re: S. 890, The McCain-Lieberman Bill: "Gun Show Loophole Closing and Gun Law Enforcement Act of 2001." by Alan Korwin, Author Gun Laws of America <alan@bloomfieldpress.com

The bill has almost nothing to do with what you've probably heard so far. The so-called "gun-show loophole" headlines are a minor detail and basically obscure what the bill really does.

I've just finished studying the eight pages of legalese. Here is it what it calls for:

1. Unprecedented federal control over gun shows nationwide – perfectly legal gun shows become strictly outlawed without prior federal approval, licensing and registration of each show;

2. Centralized federal licensing and registration of every gun-show promoter in the nation;

3. Centralized federal registration of every vendor – including non-gun vendors -- at any gun show in the country. In order for me to sell my BOOKS at a gun show I'll have to pre-register and prove who I am, or face arrest; a private individual looking to sell a single gun would be treated as a vendor under this law and must be registered even if the gun isn't sold;

4. Centralized federal registration of EVERY PERSON who attends a gun show in America, whether or not they make purchases of anything at all -- you won't be allowed in without registering;

5. Centralized collection of "any other information" on gun-show attendees, as determined solely by the Secretary of the Treasury;

6. Imprisonment for attending a gun show and failing to give up any information required by regulations of the Secretary of the Treasury;

8. Imprisonment of gun-show promoters who cannot prove they notified every person attending a gun show of the new rules, and obtained from attendees any information the Secretary of the Treasury mandates by regulation;

9. Centralized collection of "any other information" the Secretary of the Treasury decides, by regulation, is necessary on vendors, attendees, and the gun show itself;

10. Submission by gun-show promoters of vendor registration logs a) 30 days before any gun show, and b) additional submission of updated vendor registration logs 72 hours before any gun show, and c) additional submission of vendor registration logs within five days of the close of any gun show, under penalty of arrest and imprisonment for non-compliance;

11. Identification of vendors only by use of federally approved photo ID that may include use of a social security number, electronically encoded data, or "biometric identifiers" such as fingerprint, voice print, retina scan, iris scan, or similar (as defined under 18 USC 1028(d)(2));

12. Creation of a new license (in addition to a gun-show-promoter license), similar to FFLs, for individuals who want access to the NICS national background check system for facilitating gun-show sales for private citizens;

13. Regulations to be issued by the Secretary of the Treasury on the procedures, data collections, methods and implementation of the entire process to federally control gun shows, in addition to the requirements made by the proposed statute; such regulations will not be known, drafted or even suggested, until after the McCain-Lieberman law is enacted;

14. The proposed bill also puts pressure on state governments to make at least 95% of their law enforcement records for the past 30 years openly available to the federal government; and - makes unlimited funds available for the states to comply with these federal goals; -- requires annual federal review of states' compliance; -- increases penalties (up to ten years imprisonment) for record-keeping violations; - grants states permission to make even more restrictive requirements without being out of compliance with these new federal laws (and by implication, puts states that resist these rules in federal trouble); - provides hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars for more law enforcement under numerous programs including project Exile and others; -- hires 200 more Federal BATF Agents; -- provides $10 million to the National Institute for Justice to give out for research on "technologies that limit the use of a gun to the owner"; and -- provides for annual reports (in great detail) by the Attorney General to Congress on whether the Brady law is working;

15. Enlargement of the federal bureaucracy and appropriation from taxpayers of "such funds as are necessary" to license, register and monitor an estimated ten million non-criminals who attend the thousands of gun shows held annually in America; and

16. Oh yes, I almost forgot about the so-called "loophole" part the media is so excited about -- the McCain-Lieberman bill will make an honest private citizen a criminal for transferring a gun to another honest private citizen, without first registering the transfer with, and getting permission from, the federal government (represented by the FBI at its data complex in Clarksburg, West Virginia).

Transfer or possession of a firearm to or by a criminal (a "federally prohibited possessor") is completely unaffected by the McCain-Lieberman "loophole" bill, so I guess it's accurate to characterize it as a loophole bill.

To sum up: Perfectly legal gun sales -- with no victims or criminal activity of any kind -- are outlawed at gun shows by the McCain-Lieberman bill, unless the sale is pre-registered with the federal government; real crimes are totally unaffected; and your friends in the federal government take over full control of gun shows -- which have been previously free of government infringement for more than 200 years.

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Now it's called the "Andean Initiative” By Al Giordano, Latin American Correspondent. Wednesday, March 13, 2001.

It's front-page news in South America today, but U.S. President George Bush's half-billion dollar increase in funds for Plan Colombia - complete with a public relations facelift and attempted name change - flies under radar in the English-language press.

Plan Colombia, the $1.3 billion dollar "anti-drug" package, mainly consisting of military arms, advisors an aid to the war-torn South American nation, will now be officially titled "the Andean Initiative."

"The new administration will try to regionalize the Colombian conflict, so that the countries in the area recognize that this is their problem as much as it is Colombia's," said U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.

In fact, Washington is publicizing this information. It's the U.S. media that hasn't reported it. And it's not that the newsrooms haven't heard the drums of war beating from the South.

As Village Voice media critic Cynthia Cotts noted in her March 2nd column, "The New York Times plans to move its Buenos Aires bureau to Bogota (Colombia) or Caracas (Venezuela) sometime soon. Other papers are following suit. The Los Angeles Times plans to open a Bogota bureau next week, and the Washington Post is moving its Caracas bureau chief there as well. The big three will join the Miami Herald, the Houston Chronicle, and several wire services that have been in Bogota for years."

Even the Wall Street Journal recently established an Andean bureau in Caracas. The imminent escalation of militarized drug war hostilities in the Andes is no secret in the newsrooms of the United States: but it remains AWOL on the pages that the public reads. Not a single of these newspapers or wire services have yet reported on Plan Colombia's expensive new turn.

The State Department can't be accused of keeping the news secret: It held a press briefing on Colombia policy last Monday, in part to try and change the subject as four Colombian governors came to Washington with an inconvenient story to tell.

The governors arrived to inform the U.S. public that aerial eradication of coca plants, paid for by U.S. funds, is damaging food crops in their hungry nation and must be ceased. Among the messengers was Colombia's first indigenous governor, Floro Alberto Tunubala of the state of Cuaca, elected last October as an outspoken opponent of Plan Colombia. (President Andres Pastrana's Conservative Party lost all 30 Colombian states in that vote, a fact that also went unreported in the U.S. media).

With this announcement, backed by $550 million dollars in additional funds to the now regionalized Plan Colombia package, the Bush Administration has removed all doubt: It will continue with the Clinton Administration's military intervention and herbicide spraying project, in the name of the war on drugs.

The Bush administration now ups the ante considerably in terms of U.S. taxpayer dollars committed. The opposition to Plan Colombia by the European Parliament, as voted early this year, signaled that the U.S. now stands alone in paying for this intervention. Washington simply writes a larger check, even as the administration seeks tax cuts at home.

The Colombian war is being regionalized into other nations - Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela and Panama - not by accident, but by intentional strategy. It's a high-stakes attempt to force neighboring countries - so far reluctant - to support the militarized drug war in Colombia, by spreading the violence and narco-trafficking into their borders.

The drug war goes military, on the verge of living up to its bellicose title. The U.S. media has taken up positions in the trenches, and yet the U.S. public remains uninformed that, in this hemisphere, the drug war is about to go "boom."

I found a study (pointed to from Plastic.com) entitled "Zero Tolerance, Zero Evidence" that shows that there is no proof that the draconian zero tolerance policies of today's schools have had ANY benefit to students, and that they are solely a political "feel-good" measure.

Here's a link to a PDF of the study paper. I would recommend sending it to your kids' schools, to let them know that their current tactics of suspending kids for drawing pictures of guns and such nonsense is no longer considered "de rigeur" by everyone. http://www.indiana.edu/~safeschl/ztze.pdf

It’s good to review this occasionally to keep the information fresh, especially since both sides of Capitol Hill are still on the attack against you: There are three reasons you need guns – to defend yourself and your property from common criminals; to defend against foreign invasion; and to defend yourself from your government. It is known that armed citizens are pretty much enough, on their own, to ward off foreign invasion. We’re not in immediate danger of any foreign invasion anyway. It is also firmly established that law-abiding citizens with guns are the strongest force in fighting domestic crime. Domestic crime presents the most immediate danger to all of us, even if that danger has ebbed slightly in recent years, no thanks to Congress. The government, however, is the primary reason we should own guns. Ruby Ridge and Waco teach us that a little fear of armed government assault is not altogether unreasonable for Americans. But even if such disasters hadn’t happened, our government remains armed at all levels, local through national, as does every government. And governments around the world proved throughout the 20th century that once the citizenry is disarmed, the governments might simply kill, en masse, to get what they want. Here are a few reminders:

Some commentators still aren’t impressed. On Monday, May 7, the New York Post ran an article, "The Gun Lobby at its Looniest," that labeled as "lunatic gun nuts" all those who believe gun confiscations are potential harbingers of holocausts. The writers of the article seemed to believe it when told that the Nazi Holocaust had nothing to do with the non-Nazi Party population of Germany first being disarmed (remember, they killed millions of non-Jews as well – Gypsies, artists, dissidents, whoever they wanted). The Post must also be unaware of all those other holocausts around the world in the 20th century. I can hear the left-wing protest: "But that can’t happen here!" How many of those 57,000,000 people murdered by their governments in the 20th century believed it was going to happen to them? Were the 57,000,000, representing every continent but North America, all naïve, or is our American left being naïve? The natural inclination for anyone with the power of government is to increase that power. Hence, the parade of American Congressional initiatives against law-abiding gun owners, begun decades ago and continuing today. And of course those holocausts did not appear suddenly from a vacuum – they happened after a long process of incrementally increasing government power, always advertised in terms of "the good of the people," culminating in disarmament of the populace. And does our naïve left not know that the president already has extensive powers to use the national military against American citizens?

This much is certain: If you are not armed, and the government is armed, you’re at the mercy of the government and of the common hoodlum. Likewise, if you and I and everybody else own guns, there is no chance that we are collectively at the mercy of anyone.

Common criminals are at the same time the most immediate and the most trivial reason to own a gun. The most important reason you should own a gun is government – you are neither free nor safe if you are helpless, and only government has the resources to take away your ability to defend yourself from criminals, from invasion, and from the government itself. And only government has the resources to kill by the millions. And you need that gun today: The anti-gun left is waging a daily war against your freedom and safety, and John McCain, who calls himself a Republican, is leading the attack. Buy now, and spread the word. May 14, 2001

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