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Winchester - On Guns
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Winchester - On Guns
By Jessi Winchester, Author of From Bordello to Ballot Box
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American peoples' liberty teeth."
- George Washington
As a Winchester, it's not too hard to figure out where I stand on gun rights. A discussion regarding the right of every private citizen to have and bear arms should never even occur in this country. In clear and simple language, the intent of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution is quite unmistakable and not open to debate. It simply states, ".the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Period.
And yet, there are thousands of gun control laws on the books and a premeditated and deliberate plan by our own government to ban guns altogether. While certain federal agencies and factions would like us to believe it is because they want to make America safer, the real reason is power and control over the lives of ordinary citizens.
The Second Amendment reference to a "well regulated militia" has nothing to do with the National Guard, yet the federal government, with the help of the pandering mainstream media, insinuates it does mean the Army or National Guard. There is no reference in the Constitution to the militia being the National Guard. The fact the Constitution was written in the 1700s and the National Guard was not even created until 1903, exposes a sinister twisting of the truth by a government with a hidden agenda. In so doing, the Feds can point to private law-abiding citizens as anarchists and vigilantes in order to make their thinly veiled case for gun control, while in reality federal agencies take another step in their quest toward total power over the masses.
The effort to curtail violence through gun control - just like the War on Drugs - has failed. Gun control has not reduced crime, prevented carnage, curbed criminal behavior, convinced crooks to turn in their guns, or made America safer. Hidden behind liberal activists' intentional and calculated effort to register, trace, regulate and restrict firearms - with the help of a spineless Congress - is the true intent to ultimately confiscate and forever disarm the law-abiding, every day citizen in America. Once we are incapable of rising up and defending ourselves not only against criminals, but against the tyranny of our own government as well, we are rendered helpless against total control.
Government officials take an Oath of Office in which they pledge to "uphold the Constitution." Too many government officials view this oath as simply empty words to be repeated for the purpose of ceremony when they are sworn in, and the Constitution becomes just another piece of paper for which they feel no need to be accountable. I have long maintained that citizens need to demand the immediate removal of any official who willfully violates their oath of office.
One honorable official who fought to uphold his oath is Sheriff Richard Mack of Arizona. He and Sheriff Jay Printz of Montana maintained it was unconstitutional for federal agencies to demand state and local law enforcement officers to conduct background checks on prospective gun purchasers as a result of the Brady Handgun Act, thereby doing the Feds' work for them in violation of Tenth Amendment states' rights. They took their cases [No. 95-1478 "Printz" and 95-1503 "Mack"] to the U.S. Supreme Court where, on June 27, 1997 a decision by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia ruled certain interim provisions of the Brady Bill did indeed violate the Constitution, and affirmed the Tenth Amendment right of states to not be subject to federal direction.
One of the most disturbing abuses of the Second Amendment - and human decency - was perpetrated at the hands of government agents at Ruby Ridge. Any semblance of confidence and trust the public once had for the integrity of federal agencies was forever shattered with the despicable and well orchestrated murders of Vicki and Sammy Weaver at the hands of federal agents. Waco and Ruby Ridge have become immediately recognized symbols of an out-of-control government intent on imposing insidious agendas upon an innocent society.
I know Randy Weaver and find him to be a person who doesn't fit the sinister descriptions government and media applied to him. Randy's roots are in a small Iowa town only miles from where I grew up. The era in which we both spent our childhood, was a time of innocence and trust in a part of the country that revolved around family and patriotic pride. It was a locale and point in time when folks knew and helped their neighbors but minded their own business. By the time Randy moved to northern Idaho, he had served his country as a Green Beret and had no criminal record. So how did he become one of the most highly hunted villains in federal annals? Through a sinister and highly orchestrated scheme on the part of federal agents, that's how.
Randy was deliberately set up when an ATF agent pretended to befriend him and then bought two shotguns and asked Weaver to cut the muzzles as short as he could. Weaver did as his "friend" asked and in so doing, altered the weapons one-fourth inch shorter than legally allowed. Some time later, ATF agents told Weaver he could avoid weapons charges if he would spy on the Aryan Nation for them. Weaver refused, charges were brought against him, and Weaver retreated to the privacy of his mountain cabin. Weaver missed his court date but even if he had intended to appear, he would have missed it anyway because the court sent him a notice to appear in March, 1991 but the hearing was actually held in February. Nevertheless, a federal warrant was issued for his arrest. Thus, the stage was set for the debacle known as "Ruby Ridge."
What the government DIDN'T want the public to know is that no one ever served the warrant in the manner in which warrants were meant to be served - by knocking on his door and handing it to him. Clearly, the government wanted to play "war" and the Weaver family was the game's "target." For nearly 16 months, federal agents hid out in the woods watching the family at taxpayers' expense. The media had a field day bastardizing Weaver.
In August, 1992, 14-year old Sammy, his dog, and family friend Kevin Harris went hunting, unaware of federal presence in the woods. The dog picked up the scent of the predators, who shot him. Sammy was a terrified little boy who had just seen his dog murdered by an unseen enemy. He fired and ran, only to be deliberately shot in the back and murdered by Marshal Larry Cooper. Harris killed a marshal in the melee and the marshals then told a boldface lie, claiming they had been under siege for eight hours when the marshal was killed.
The agent in charge proclaimed Weaver's children "hostages." The Rules of Engagement were changed to allow sharpshooters to kill any adult in the compound despite the fact no one in the cabin had fired a single shot. The same sniper that shot Randy in the back also shot Vicki in the face as she stood at the door holding her infant daughter. For a week, FBI negotiators verbally taunted the family until a wounded Harris was finally taken out of the cabin to a Spokane hospital. The siege was over the next day when Bo Gritz, a fellow Green Beret - not the FBI - intervened and surviving family members came out.
Harris was charged with the murder of the marshal but eventually acquitted. Weaver was found guilty only of failing to appear in court. No one on the federal side has ever been held accountable for the murders of Vicki and Sammy. As the case worked its way through the various courts, it became apparent the judicial system was more concerned with potential liability suits against federal agents than with protecting private citizens against federal assassination.
The FBI hid documents, falsified evidence, lied under oath, and tried to whitewash the whole affair. The sniper that murdered a mother holding her infant, was demoted but not prosecuted. The killer of a 14-year-old child was never held accountable. The media never bothered to repair the damage to Weaver's reputation that they had spent so many months destroying. The harm done by zealot federal officials out to play war games on innocent citizens has forever changed the nation's view of federal bureaucrats. It is frightening to realize that our tax dollars support agencies that were created to protect us, but whose power is now abused, out-of-control, and places innocent citizens in its cross hairs. It certainly reinforces the intent of the Founding Fathers that all citizens should have the right to keep and bear arms.
Instances of outright murder at the hands of FBI, ATF, and other federal agents in places like Ruby Ridge and Waco should give every freedom loving American pause. They are heart stopping examples of inevitable unlimited tragedy that would be imposed upon unarmed citizens by an armed government if we hand over our Second Amendment rights . and our guns.
Copyright @ Jessi Winchester 2002, All Rights Reserved
Column written for LibertyForAll Internet Magazine, April, 2002
Winchester was raised on a cattle and crop ranch in Iowa. Besides working full-time for Hollywood executives and doing some part-time motorcycle stunt work, Jessi has also worked in the legal bordellos, competed in a Mrs. Nevada pageant, produced an industry calendar, held annual Bordello Balls for charity, was the subject of an infamous larger-than-life painting by renown artist John Hunt, ran for political office, and has now become a published author. Jessi Winchester remains an advocate for the every day citizen and an outspoken voice for individual liberties as defined under the U.S. Constitution.
"Childhood on a cattle ranch in Middle America led to adulthood on a very different type of *ranch* in Nevada," so says Jessi Winchester in her recently released book.
Jessi's autobiography, From Bordello To Ballot Box, was released by BainBridgeBooks of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in November, 2000. The book goes behind the mysterious closed doors of Nevada's legal brothels to look at the ladies who choose to work in the industry and the clients who visit them. It also chronicles the author's personal experiences as a political candidate, provides a revealing look at the private faces of political personalities and explores how ruthless and unseen power mongers control and predetermine political choices. Her journey documents the strength of the human spirit in overcoming prejudice and double standards in an effort to simply be treated as a human being.
http://www.libertyforall.net/2002/archive/winchester-on-guns.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By Jessi Winchester, Author of From Bordello to Ballot Box
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American peoples' liberty teeth."
- George Washington
As a Winchester, it's not too hard to figure out where I stand on gun rights. A discussion regarding the right of every private citizen to have and bear arms should never even occur in this country. In clear and simple language, the intent of the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution is quite unmistakable and not open to debate. It simply states, ".the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Period.
And yet, there are thousands of gun control laws on the books and a premeditated and deliberate plan by our own government to ban guns altogether. While certain federal agencies and factions would like us to believe it is because they want to make America safer, the real reason is power and control over the lives of ordinary citizens.
The Second Amendment reference to a "well regulated militia" has nothing to do with the National Guard, yet the federal government, with the help of the pandering mainstream media, insinuates it does mean the Army or National Guard. There is no reference in the Constitution to the militia being the National Guard. The fact the Constitution was written in the 1700s and the National Guard was not even created until 1903, exposes a sinister twisting of the truth by a government with a hidden agenda. In so doing, the Feds can point to private law-abiding citizens as anarchists and vigilantes in order to make their thinly veiled case for gun control, while in reality federal agencies take another step in their quest toward total power over the masses.
The effort to curtail violence through gun control - just like the War on Drugs - has failed. Gun control has not reduced crime, prevented carnage, curbed criminal behavior, convinced crooks to turn in their guns, or made America safer. Hidden behind liberal activists' intentional and calculated effort to register, trace, regulate and restrict firearms - with the help of a spineless Congress - is the true intent to ultimately confiscate and forever disarm the law-abiding, every day citizen in America. Once we are incapable of rising up and defending ourselves not only against criminals, but against the tyranny of our own government as well, we are rendered helpless against total control.
Government officials take an Oath of Office in which they pledge to "uphold the Constitution." Too many government officials view this oath as simply empty words to be repeated for the purpose of ceremony when they are sworn in, and the Constitution becomes just another piece of paper for which they feel no need to be accountable. I have long maintained that citizens need to demand the immediate removal of any official who willfully violates their oath of office.
One honorable official who fought to uphold his oath is Sheriff Richard Mack of Arizona. He and Sheriff Jay Printz of Montana maintained it was unconstitutional for federal agencies to demand state and local law enforcement officers to conduct background checks on prospective gun purchasers as a result of the Brady Handgun Act, thereby doing the Feds' work for them in violation of Tenth Amendment states' rights. They took their cases [No. 95-1478 "Printz" and 95-1503 "Mack"] to the U.S. Supreme Court where, on June 27, 1997 a decision by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anton Scalia ruled certain interim provisions of the Brady Bill did indeed violate the Constitution, and affirmed the Tenth Amendment right of states to not be subject to federal direction.
One of the most disturbing abuses of the Second Amendment - and human decency - was perpetrated at the hands of government agents at Ruby Ridge. Any semblance of confidence and trust the public once had for the integrity of federal agencies was forever shattered with the despicable and well orchestrated murders of Vicki and Sammy Weaver at the hands of federal agents. Waco and Ruby Ridge have become immediately recognized symbols of an out-of-control government intent on imposing insidious agendas upon an innocent society.
I know Randy Weaver and find him to be a person who doesn't fit the sinister descriptions government and media applied to him. Randy's roots are in a small Iowa town only miles from where I grew up. The era in which we both spent our childhood, was a time of innocence and trust in a part of the country that revolved around family and patriotic pride. It was a locale and point in time when folks knew and helped their neighbors but minded their own business. By the time Randy moved to northern Idaho, he had served his country as a Green Beret and had no criminal record. So how did he become one of the most highly hunted villains in federal annals? Through a sinister and highly orchestrated scheme on the part of federal agents, that's how.
Randy was deliberately set up when an ATF agent pretended to befriend him and then bought two shotguns and asked Weaver to cut the muzzles as short as he could. Weaver did as his "friend" asked and in so doing, altered the weapons one-fourth inch shorter than legally allowed. Some time later, ATF agents told Weaver he could avoid weapons charges if he would spy on the Aryan Nation for them. Weaver refused, charges were brought against him, and Weaver retreated to the privacy of his mountain cabin. Weaver missed his court date but even if he had intended to appear, he would have missed it anyway because the court sent him a notice to appear in March, 1991 but the hearing was actually held in February. Nevertheless, a federal warrant was issued for his arrest. Thus, the stage was set for the debacle known as "Ruby Ridge."
What the government DIDN'T want the public to know is that no one ever served the warrant in the manner in which warrants were meant to be served - by knocking on his door and handing it to him. Clearly, the government wanted to play "war" and the Weaver family was the game's "target." For nearly 16 months, federal agents hid out in the woods watching the family at taxpayers' expense. The media had a field day bastardizing Weaver.
In August, 1992, 14-year old Sammy, his dog, and family friend Kevin Harris went hunting, unaware of federal presence in the woods. The dog picked up the scent of the predators, who shot him. Sammy was a terrified little boy who had just seen his dog murdered by an unseen enemy. He fired and ran, only to be deliberately shot in the back and murdered by Marshal Larry Cooper. Harris killed a marshal in the melee and the marshals then told a boldface lie, claiming they had been under siege for eight hours when the marshal was killed.
The agent in charge proclaimed Weaver's children "hostages." The Rules of Engagement were changed to allow sharpshooters to kill any adult in the compound despite the fact no one in the cabin had fired a single shot. The same sniper that shot Randy in the back also shot Vicki in the face as she stood at the door holding her infant daughter. For a week, FBI negotiators verbally taunted the family until a wounded Harris was finally taken out of the cabin to a Spokane hospital. The siege was over the next day when Bo Gritz, a fellow Green Beret - not the FBI - intervened and surviving family members came out.
Harris was charged with the murder of the marshal but eventually acquitted. Weaver was found guilty only of failing to appear in court. No one on the federal side has ever been held accountable for the murders of Vicki and Sammy. As the case worked its way through the various courts, it became apparent the judicial system was more concerned with potential liability suits against federal agents than with protecting private citizens against federal assassination.
The FBI hid documents, falsified evidence, lied under oath, and tried to whitewash the whole affair. The sniper that murdered a mother holding her infant, was demoted but not prosecuted. The killer of a 14-year-old child was never held accountable. The media never bothered to repair the damage to Weaver's reputation that they had spent so many months destroying. The harm done by zealot federal officials out to play war games on innocent citizens has forever changed the nation's view of federal bureaucrats. It is frightening to realize that our tax dollars support agencies that were created to protect us, but whose power is now abused, out-of-control, and places innocent citizens in its cross hairs. It certainly reinforces the intent of the Founding Fathers that all citizens should have the right to keep and bear arms.
Instances of outright murder at the hands of FBI, ATF, and other federal agents in places like Ruby Ridge and Waco should give every freedom loving American pause. They are heart stopping examples of inevitable unlimited tragedy that would be imposed upon unarmed citizens by an armed government if we hand over our Second Amendment rights . and our guns.
Copyright @ Jessi Winchester 2002, All Rights Reserved
Column written for LibertyForAll Internet Magazine, April, 2002
Winchester was raised on a cattle and crop ranch in Iowa. Besides working full-time for Hollywood executives and doing some part-time motorcycle stunt work, Jessi has also worked in the legal bordellos, competed in a Mrs. Nevada pageant, produced an industry calendar, held annual Bordello Balls for charity, was the subject of an infamous larger-than-life painting by renown artist John Hunt, ran for political office, and has now become a published author. Jessi Winchester remains an advocate for the every day citizen and an outspoken voice for individual liberties as defined under the U.S. Constitution.
"Childhood on a cattle ranch in Middle America led to adulthood on a very different type of *ranch* in Nevada," so says Jessi Winchester in her recently released book.
Jessi's autobiography, From Bordello To Ballot Box, was released by BainBridgeBooks of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in November, 2000. The book goes behind the mysterious closed doors of Nevada's legal brothels to look at the ladies who choose to work in the industry and the clients who visit them. It also chronicles the author's personal experiences as a political candidate, provides a revealing look at the private faces of political personalities and explores how ruthless and unseen power mongers control and predetermine political choices. Her journey documents the strength of the human spirit in overcoming prejudice and double standards in an effort to simply be treated as a human being.
http://www.libertyforall.net/2002/archive/winchester-on-guns.html
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878