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The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
April 24, 1995
Written by Pazuzu
(C) Copyright 1995 Sixth Column
WITH EXPLICIT RESERVATION OF ALL RIGHTS (U.C.C. 1-207)
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With  all  the  hubbub  recently  over  the  Oklahoma  City explosion and the
arrest/detention of  several militia  members, people's  minds have naturally
turned to  the subject  of gun  control.   There's no  middle ground  on this
issue: either you're pro-2nd Amendment,  or you're anti-2nd Amendment.   I've
never heard ANYONE  say "oh, whatever,  I don't care  either way.".   In this
article,  I  shall  attempt  to  explain  the issues and laws surrounding gun
control in the  hope that you  will understand why  gun banning can  never be
allowed in a country which is free.


The absolute, inalienable right to have and carry tools of defense comes from
our creator, whatever you  believe that to be.   The founding fathers of  our
country knew this as absolute truth, and so detailed it in our constitution:

     "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free
      state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be
      infringed"

Given today's differing use of language, that statement can be confusing.  It
was  written  a  long  time  ago,  and  language  use  is very different now.
However, most English  professors agree that  the meaning is  along the lines
of:

     "Since a militia is necessary to ensure our freedom, we must let the
      people keep and carry weapons, and we must never allow this right to be
      infringed upon."

The 2nd  Amendment IN  NO WAY  means that  only members  of a "well-regulated
militia" should be  allowed to have  weapons, otherwise it  would read: "...,
the right of the members of such to keep and bear ..."

Now  remember  that  the  right  to  have  weapons was not GRANTED by the 2nd
Amendment - it's a right given to you by the virtue of you being alive -  the
constitution only details such rights.

Our  2nd  Amendment  rights  have  already  been  mostly  taken  away anyway.
Remember that there are TWO parts to the Amendment: KEEPING arms and  BEARING
arms.   No  one  argues  that  "bearing  arms"  is  synonymous with "carrying
guns".  Can you carry a gun?   Sure, if you want to be arrested, and  in some
states,  shot  dead  on  sight.   Sure,  you  could  try and get a CCW (Carry
Concealed Weapons) permit, and depending on  what state you live in, you  may
get one.  Why should you have to?  You have the inalienable right to keep and
bear arms.

The most common argument I hear for gun control is "The only reason to  carry
a gun is  to commit crimes.".   Well, guns are  to crime what  cameras are to
child pornography.  Sure, you COULD use your camera to make kiddie porn,  and
you COULD use your gun to knock over  a liquor store, but will you?  I  don't
think so.  And if  you do, you'll either go  to jail or get killed  somewhere
along the line.  So, why would an honest, law-abiding person want to carry  a
gun?  Because there are plenty of dishonest, law-breaking criminals out there
who hurt, rob, rape, and even kill  other people, so I for one would  like to
be able to defend myself, and there's no better way than with a gun.

That old argument  the "you're more  likely to get  killed with your  own gun
than you  are to  use it  in defense"  is b.s.  too.   I've talked to several
people who have used  their guns in defense  situations, as I myself  have as
well.  I've also talked to two  people who were shot with their own  guns and
survived to tell  about it.   How did it  happen?  Well,  in the split second
they had  to make  the decision  to shoot  or not  shoot, the only thing that
stopped them was that they remembered all the times they heard about  someone
who shot a burglar and went to  jail for it, or got sued for  everything they
owned.  And  that was their  downfall.  If  we didn't put  people in jail for
defending themselves, this kind of thing wouldn't happen anymore.


Lest you  think people  aren't chastised  or punished  for self-defense  very
often, let me relate to you a true story.

It  was  two  days  into  the  L.A.  riots,  and I was at home in Costa Mesa,
California, 50 miles south of  the riots.  I lived  on a small street on  the
west side of the city.  Most of  the people that live on my street are  nice,
honest, working-class Mexicans,  with a small  number of working-class  white
folks.  The street to the south of my street, Shalimar, houses a huge  number
of illegal immigrants and the legal immigrants who are either related to them
or are their friends  and therefore hide them  from the INS.   Their teenaged
children are invariably members of local street gangs.

Anyway, two days into the L.A. riots, at about 11:30pm, I was at home working
on my computer.   I heard a  sound like a  car window breaking  outside, so I
grabbed a mock gun that I had (my real gun was at a friend's being  re-blued)
and went outside  to investigate.   About 30 feet  from my driveway,  I saw a
gang member type with half his body  hanging out of a pickup truck parked  on
the street.  He had obviously broken the window and was stealing the  stereo.
I yelled at him to  get out of the truck  and get on the ground,  thinking to
hold him for the cops (he didn't know the gun wasn't real, and neither  would
anyone else).   He did, and  I started moving  closer to him  when I heard  a
bunch of  people yelling  in Spanish  in the  alley behind  my street.  I was
distracted for a few seconds, and he bailed.  I went back into the house  and
called the cops  and told them  what happened and  they said they'd  be right
out.  About 10 minutes later (and  the cops STILL weren't there!), I heard  a
very  loud  window  breaking  sound  that  sounded  like  it  was right in my
driveway (i.e.,  my car).   I again  went out,  this time  with my  semi-auto
paintball gun and a loader full of frozen paintballs.  Sure enough, some punk
had  thrown  a  huge  (more  like  dropped,  the thing weighs 25 pounds) rock
through the back window  of my car (a  Ford Probe... $1,000 back  window).  I
saw the  fool running  away, and  I began  firing frozen  paintballs at  him,
hitting him at  least twice.   At this point,  I decided that  a serious gang
uprising was either happening or about to happen.  I could hear loud crashing
and smashing sounds coming from the  adjacent streets and alleys.  I  decided
that I was going to at least try to protect some of the cars on my street, so
I was going to stay outside and keep watch.  Every now and then, I could  see
gang members, usually  in pairs, peering  out from in  between the buildings,
then noticing me standing there with what in the dark must have looked like a
machine gun, then going back to wherever they came from.

About 1:00 am, a guy who lived across the street with his brother and sister-
in-law came home from a party and noticed I was standing outside with a  gun.
He came up to me and introduced himself and asked what was going on.  I  told
him what had been going  on, and he then told  me that he grew up  in Chicago
and hated gangs  and riots, and would   stand watch with  me.  He  went  back
over  to his  house and came back  with a large knife  and two 4' long  solid
steel pipes.  He handed me one of the pipes and  told me to put the  gun back
inside my house,  since if the cops  showed up,  they'd flip  out and   might
shoot   me.   Speaking of  the cops,  they STILL  hadn't shown  up, and I had
called them 5 times already.

We stayed out  all night, just  watching.  No  one tried to  mess with us  or
anything.   Finally  at  about  10:00am,  we  decided  to  walk  around   the
neighborhood and  survey the  damage.   Windows on  at least  8 cars had been
smashed and graffiti was sprayed all over at least 5 carports (each apartment
building  houses  4  units,  with  carports  for  each  in the alley behind).
Finally, we  came upon  a gang  member who  was scrawling  graffiti in my new
friend's (Gene) carport.   We told him  to drop the  paint and freeze,  again
thinking to hold him  for the pigs (who  *STILL* hadn't shown up).   He threw
the can of spray paint at me, and quickly grabbed an old steering column  the
was lying around and wielded it.  Considering the steering column was about 6
feet long, and my  pipe only about 4,  I didn't stand a  snowball's chance in
hell, but  I was  *pissed*.   I took  a swing  at him,  striking the steering
column.  He countered with a direct  hit to my left wrist, then hit  my right
wrist.  I backed off and Gene went in.  Being an experienced fighter, he  was
able to knock the steering column out  of his hand and hit him in  the torso.
The punk  started running  away, and  Gene threw  a Maglite  that he was also
carrying at the guy's head, and hit him.  He fell down, but before Gene could
get to him, he got back up and ran away.  At this exact second, a pig FINALLY
showed up.

The pig  (yes, the  term pig  really fits  in this  case) jumped  out of  his
pigmobile, ran over  to Gene, threw  him violently to  the ground, handcuffed
him, and took his knife.  I ran over to them and told the cop that he was one
of the  "good guys"  and to  let him  go.   The cop  said "Shut  up.   He was
carrying an illegal knife."  I said "Well, if you cops would've showed up  10
hours ago  when I  called the  first time,  we wouldn't  need to  be out here
doing this."  The cop finally let Gene go, but kept his knife and gave him  a
ticket for carrying a weapon, and drove off!  Just drove off.  About 10  cars
had been vandalized and/or burglarized on my street alone, and this pig  just
drives away.

About this time, the  adrenaline from the fight  wore off and my  wrists hurt
*bad*.  I was later to find out they are both broken in a wierd spot and will
never heal.

About two days later, I was at my  house again with a friend, and we heard  a
fight outside.  We both had our  guns handy (we had come back from  the range
earlier that day) so  we went outside to  see what was happening.   Five gang
members  were  fighting  with  Gene,  his  brother,  and another guy from the
neighborhood.   Gene &  friends we  unarmed, and  the gang  members had large
wooden sticks and metal pipes.  My friend and I pointed our guns at the  gang
members and  yelled for  them to  drop their  weapons and  get on the ground.
About that time, a pigmobile drove up, the gang members bailed, and the  pigs
came over and proceeded to yell at us for about half an hour about how stupid
we were, etc, etc.  A simple  case of self-defense and these pigs yell  at us
instead of going after the (criminal)  gang members.  What the hell  is wrong
here?



Another  route  people  use  to  defend  gun  control  is  to  say  that  the
well-regulated militia for the country is  the u.S. Army.  This is  utter and
total bullshit.  The Army is controlled  by the government, so how can it  be
said that they'll act in the People's  best interest?  They won't.  In  fact,
the  2nd  Amendment  was  actually  designed  so that the People could defend
themselves  from  the  government  as  well  as  crime,  and  TO  PREVENT THE
GOVERNMENT FROM  RAISING A  STANDING ARMY!!!   Not only  have they  raised  a
standing army, they've got a Navy, an Air Force, and a Marine Corps as  well.
That's *four*, count 'em, FOUR standing armies.

I also saw the  Montel Williams show on  the militia.  He  was babbling about
the National Guard being the country's militia.  This is also bullshit  since
the National Guard is really just "Army Lite".  They're still the u.S.  Army.
They won't act in the People's best  interest.  The point of a militia  is to
get people INVOLVED with  their community.  That  means you need people  FROM
the community in the militia, not a bunch of government-owned soldiers.   Why
are people afraid of the militia?  Why would you be a afraid of nice,  honest
people who will risk their lives to  defend your life and property?  What  is
so WRONG about self-defense and defense of your neighborhood?


The only legal issue left is the issue of infringement.  Does saying that you
can only have certain  guns constitute infringement?   Yes, I think so.   The
guns that  they label  as "assault  weapons" are  really very  simple defense
weapons.   Most people  don't understand  that 10  bullets is  not enough  to
survive should you become involved in a gun fight.  Sure, if a burglar breaks
into your house, and doesn't have a gun, you shoot him, end of story.  But if
he has a  gun, you're now  in a gunfight,  and 10 bullets  ain't gonna do it.
Another  trick  they  use  to  scare  people  is the constant use of the term
"semi-automatic".  Most people don't realize that all that means is that  the
gun will fire a bullet every  time you pull the trigger, assuming  there  are
bullets left.  A gun that's not semi-auto requires you to either pump or cock
the gun each time to fire another bullet.  There's not too many handguns made
these days that aren't semi-auto - it's just how things are made these  days,
kind of like automatic transmissions on cars - standard equipment.

Does a waiting period constitute infringement?   I think so.  You buy a  gun.
You wait 14 days.   Five days after you buy  the weapon (with 9 remaining  in
your waiting period), you get robbed.  Don't you wish you had your gun?

Does  making  you  register  your  guns  constitute  infringement?  Yes.  The
government (one of the principle  entities the 2nd Amendment was  designed to
allow protection against)  now knows what  guns you own,  and how many.   And
they even (in most  cases) know the ballistic  pattern of your weapon  should
they decide to construct a duplicate to use in framing you.

The one  remaining question  to be  answered is  what to  do about  all this.
There really isn't a whole lot you  can do.  Join the NRA, speak  out against
anti-2nd Amendment groups such as HCI (Handgun Control, Inc.).  If you're old
enough to vote, vote for candidates which support your 2nd Amendment  rights.
But  really,  the  best  thing  to  do  is  to simply buy one weapon "through
channels".  When they come to confiscate it (and believe me, they will), just
hand it to them and play Mr. Nice Law-abiding Sheep, and when they walk away,
shoot them in the back with your unregistered weapon(s).

In conclusion, whether or not you personally like guns or want to own one  or
not, you  shouldn't allow  yourself to  believe that  no one  else should  be
allowed to own one.  If you don't want a gun around, don't buy one.  But when
your house gets broken into, or someone  tries to rob or rape you, you'll  be
screaming for someone that has a gun to come and bail you out.  Hopefully you
have a militia in your area, because the cops ain't gonna help.



Pazuzu, for Sixth Column
(C) Copyright 1995 Sixth Column
WITH EXPLICIT RESERVATION OF ALL RIGHTS (U.C.C. 1-207)
>> EOF <<