September
19, 2008
The following are reprints of editorials by NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre
from the American Rifleman Magazine. They are well worth reading.
An Individual Right Affirmed
"We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second
Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans" -U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Antonin Scalia, June 26, 2008.
For all of us, as members of the National Rifle Association and for millions of other
Americans, that pronouncement by the U.S. Supreme Court is perhaps the most important we
will ever read or hear. It is a vindication of what we and a majority of Americans have
always known.
The media would have gun owners believe that with this landmark decision, the fight is
over. The truth is, it is just beginning. This is the opening salvo in a step-by-step
process of bringing relief to people all over this country who have been deprived of
access to Second Amendment freedom. The NRA is filing lawsuits in places like Chicago and
its suburbs, and in San Francisco, where gun-ban statutes still block the doorway to
freedom.
With this monumental decision, we will also be fighting to restore rights through the
legislative process, in Congress and in state legislatures to bring statutes into line
with this critical doctrine of Constitutional law.
The Second Amendment must never be walled off by the elite so that only the rich and
famous or politically connected can access this freedom, while average citizens are told,
"You're flat out of luck:' In reading this landmark decision striking down the
District of Columbia's three-decades old gun-ban, it has come to me time and again that
this victory for freedom is not just about the culmination of decades of deep legal and
historical scholarship or about the brilliant legal work of many individuals... it's also
about raw electoral politics.
This Supreme Court victory is about you, your families and friends-your
votes-especially in the last two presidential elections. And this remarkable decision is
about President George W. Bush keeping his faith with us that he would appoint justices
like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito -who interpret our Constitutional
rights as they were intended by our founding fathers.
Justice Scalia's 64-page Second Amendment opinion was remarkably clear and answered
key, fundamental questions. Joined in the 5-4 majority by Chief Justice Roberts and
Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy, the court concluded: "... we
hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second
Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home
operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense:' On the utility of handguns, he wrote,
"... the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential
self-defense weapon... and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid.. .".
On future Second Amendment cases, Scalia was unequivocal,"... whatever else it
leaves to future evaluation, it surely elevates above all other interests the right of
law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home:' That bedrock
belief was ridiculed by Justice John Paul Stevens as an "overwrought and novel
description of the Second Amendment:' Stevens, in his dissent, said the right was solely
" to maintain a well-regulated militia". And he said the framers of the
Constitution "never evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature's
authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms [as with D.C’s ban].
Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to
enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution:' Stevens was joined in
dissent by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.
For the majority, Scalia fired back, "... it is not the role of this Court to
pronounce the Second Amendment extinct". But consider this. Except for one vote, that
is exactly what a Stevens majority would have done.
But for one vote, total bans on firearm ownership would have gotten the imprimatur of
the high court, and such laws would have metastasized through the efforts of New York
billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg's cabal of big city mayors and his fellow globalist
billionaire, George Soros.
And that brings me back to electoral politics. This November, with the sure bet that
there will be two, perhaps three vacancies on the u.s. Supreme Court in the near future,
we face a clear choice. If Barack Obama takes the White House, he will nominate enemies of
the Second Amendment. That is a sure thing.
John McCain, on the other hand, sees Justices Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas as
models for the kind of jurists he would appoint.
No matter what other issues might intervene, there is nothing more important than
maintaining or increasing the pro-Second Amendment majority on the high court this
November. The court's decision was a great moment in American history, but it shows how
fragile freedom is and how vigilant we must always be, each and every day, to protect it.
Gun
Control’s End Game
As the horrible consequences of gun control play
out today in Great Britain, it’s no wonder that America’s anti-gun politicians
are trying to cover their tracks until after Election Day.
Whatever the scheme-of-the-moment touted by American politicians or the media or the
anti-gun rights lobby as "sensible first steps," the ultimate rebuttal is in two
words: Great Britain.
In that nation, formerly free people can tell you about the real nature of "gun
control" – where all schemes, no matter how benign sounding, lead to the same
ultimate end: forced disarmament of peaceable individuals by government. Be it in
the form of gun-owner licensing and registration, or safety requirements, or gun storage,
or mandatory training, each step in Britain was followed by another step, and another,
until law-abiding gun owners were forced into a final step – forfeiting their
personal property and, with it, their liberties.
Mass forfeitures of registered firearms began in England in 1988 following a murderous
rampage by a deranged individual in Hungerford. The government banned whole classes of
pump and semi-auto shotguns and rifles. Then, following another rampage in Dunblane,
Scotland, by another madman, Britain criminalized possession of large caliber handguns,
then all handguns in 1997. In Great Britain, licensed owners forfeited a total of 160,000
registered handguns to the government. When the last registered handgun held by a licensed
owner was confiscated on February 27, 1998, the Home Security announced: "The
government fulfilled its pledge to remove all handguns from the streets of Britain today."
Almost immediately, the level of armed violence and the brutal nature of that violence
exploded against the disarmed civil population. Headlines from British newspapers tell the
story: "Handgun Crime Soars Despite Dunblane Ban"…"Police
Move to Tackle Huge Rise in Crime"… "London Gun Murders
Tripled in 2001"…"Steep Rise in Violent Crime"…
"Top Gangs Getting More Guns, Warn Police"… "Handgun
Crime Up Despite Ban"… "Gun Crime Rise in London"…
"Gun Crime Trebles as Weapons and Drugs Flood British Cities."
Today, the epidemic of crime and mindless violence is increasing at an alarming rate,
as indicated by a new assessment of gun violence, which was released during the first days
of 2002. Various news outlets covered the story from a different perspective, but their
conclusions were the same – very bad news. Terrible news for ordinary and unarmed
British subjects. The Daily Telegraph of January 3, 2002, reported, "Police
fear a new crime explosion as school-age muggers graduate to guns… the
number of people robbed or personal property at gunpoint rose by 53 percent. Ballistics
experts warn that firearms are now cheap and easily available."
The London Evening Standard reported on December 19, 2001, "Gun crime in
London is rocketing, with increases of almost 90 percent in some firearms offenses,
Scotland Yard reported today. New figures show London murders with guns increased by 87
percent in the first eight months of the year compared with the same period last
year."
With nearly half of the innocent public falling victim to violent crime, the issue of
unbridled street thuggery has overwhelmed all else in terms of British domestic issues.
All of this in a nation where personal self-defense – armed self-defense – is a
crime. And, the inevitable response of government to its failed gun control schemes? A
headline in the August 11, 2002, Independent said it all: "Police to demand
tougher gun laws."
This year, the political notion of innocent British gun owners paying the price for the
acts of madmen has been taken to an even more bizarre extreme by Prime Minister Tony
Blair. An April 28th headline in the Sunday Scotsman announced: "Prompted
by shootings in Germany, Tony Blair orders crackdown on convertible air guns."
This call to "control" air guns was keyed to the murderous acts of a
deranged, expelled 19-year old student in Germany who killed 17 schoolmates on April 16th
with a handgun. That mass killing led to Germany tightening already strict gun-control
laws. But what on earth does that have to do with British subjects who own air guns?
Citing those murders, the Sunday Scotsman said, "The government is now
planning further controls on the lethal weapons (air guns), including an across-the-board
ban, or at least a registration scheme designed to stop them from falling into the hands
of youngsters and high risk buyers."
And how does the victorious gun-ban lobby in England react to the upsurge in crime
against an unarmed public? The Gun Control Network – the British equivalent to
the Brady Campaign – said, "Of course illegal guns are a big problem
but we mustn’t forget that almost all illegal guns start out legal, so it’s not
easy to draw a neat line between the two."
On it’s website, the Gun Control Network published an extract which said, "Gun
control advocates never predicted that the ban would immediately rid the country of all
gun crime." Of course, that’s a flat-out lie. If anybody ever thinks that
outlawing firearms from the hands of good, decent citizens creates "a safe
society" the example is indeed in England, which proves itself a beacon to armed
criminals whose level of violence makes their American counterparts seem meek in
comparison.
The real threat of deterrence by an armed citizenry, which certainly exists under
American law, is not possible in Great Britain today, not only because of the firearm
confiscations, but because using any of the legally held firearms left to British
households in defense of self, family, or property is a crime.
Witness the story of Tony Martin, a 54 year-old farmer whose home on a 350-acre rural
tract had been repeatedly burglarized and robbed. In fact, thieves had broken into his
home and outbuildings at least two dozen times. On the night of August 21, 1999, Martin
heard burglars inside his home and confronted the criminals with a shotgun. He wounded one
thief and killed another. A third housebreaker got away.
The dead burglar had a history of crimes of violence and crimes against persons and
property. He had been arrested for 29 different crimes including burglary, theft, and
assaulting police. The two other career criminals had been hauled before the court on
criminal offenses a combined 87 times. But it was Tony Martin who was prosecuted with the
greatest zeal. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Although
Britain’s highest court ultimately reduced Martin’s sentence after changing his
conviction to manslaughter, he is still in prison, serving seven years total.
Home Office officials actually consulted wounded burglar Brendon Fearon about whether
or not Martin should be subject to parole, and it gets worse. The lengths to which the
British government will go to discourage self-defense was revealed in the July 2, 2002, London
Daily Mail, where it was disclosed that Fearon had been given £5000 of taxpayers’ money so he could sue Martin for
wounding him.
This is the "safe society" created by the work of Britain’s gun-control
fanatics:
 | Good people in jail for defending their homes against violent criminals and drug
addicts. |
| Good people living in fear of the rule of a heavily armed and ruthless thug underclass. |
| Good people disarmed and helpless. |
| Evil people armed to the teeth. |
That’s gun control. And it will prove out in America, too, if citizens ever buy
into the notion that there is strength in being defenseless.
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