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Trust Your Gun Rights, Not the Anti-Gun Rhetoric
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Trust Your Gun Rights, Not the Anti-Gun Rhetoric Sunday, December 30, 2001 BY WAYNE LaPIERRE "Hezbollah is getting millions of dollars from Iran. They have plenty of weapons. They don't need a few shotguns from Dearborn." This quote from an Arab-American news editor exposes the flawed logic of America's anti-gun lobby. Today, we still know very little about the planning that went into the attacks of Sept. 11. We do know, however, that guns were not a factor in the events of Sept. 11. But, in a desperate effort to resuscitate a flat-lining gun control agenda, select politicians and gun control groups have labored to establish a link. Their solitary and deliberate intention is to inject the word "terrorist" into the gun show debate. If private gun commerce by domestic violent criminals or drug dealers or fugitives from justice or illegal aliens is the objective, bear in mind that gun commerce by such persons -- anywhere, anytime, under any circumstance -- is already covered by federal criminal statutes. Simple gun possession by prohibited persons is a federal felony punishable by 10 years in a federal prison. Foreign terrorists? It's a federal felony for an illegal alien to "ship or transport in interstate or foreign commerce, or possess . . . any firearm or ammunition; or to receive any firearm or ammunition." That covers everything, everywhere. And if any person acquires a firearm with the intention of violating other laws -- anti-terrorism laws, for example -- that act, too, is covered by tough federal penalties. Therefore, all things considered, the McCain-Schumer-Lieberman so-called "gun show loophole" legislation -- S890 -- won't make what criminals or terrorists might do at gun shows any more illegal. It will make what decent citizens do illegal. With the anti-gun-rights crowd and their political axis in Congress cashing in on "terrorism" as their new watchword for gun control, our liberties are at stake as never before. They are using "terrorism" and "homeland defense" as an excuse to enact universal national gun owner registration and for laws that would criminalize all now-legal, private, intrastate firearms transactions; meaning all sales, trades and gifts between peaceable persons. First at gun shows, then everywhere -- in our homes, between friends and neighbors. If you own a gun, they want your name in a computerized federal database -- profiling you on the basis of mere ownership of a firearm. And, they want to paint you as unpatriotic for not surrendering your Second Amendment freedom. Our nation's 70 million firearms owners are not terrorists and we must never pay the price for what evil people do. That was the message from pro-freedom voters in last year's elections. It rings just as true today. _________ Wayne LaPierre is the executive vice president of the National Rifle Association of America. http://www.sltrib.com/12302001/commenta/162866.htm