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Support AG Ashcroft's 2nd Amendment Stand

Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
edited May 2002 in General Discussion
Stick to Your Guns:
Support AG Ashcroft's
2nd Amendment Stand

Attorney General John Ashcroft is clearly in the crosshairs as the target of an anti-gun onslaught intent on blasting away his correct opinion of the Second Amendment. Your encouraging support is needed to help him stand his ground.

Stunned now that an attorney general finally has clearly perceived the amendment's original intent, gun-ban extremists are again marshalling their forces against legitimate gun owners. Their smear campaign's objective is to pressure the Bush Administration to retract and restate Ashcroft's Second Amendment stance.

In reversing the government's long-standing interpretation, Ashcroft said individual rights are covered and protected: "The Second Amendment clearly protect(s) the right of individuals to keep and bear firearms," Ashcroft unequivocally stated in a May 17 letter to NRA-ILA Executive Director James Jay Baker. "While some have argued that the Second Amendment guarantees only a `collective' right of the States to maintain militias, I believe the Amendment's plain meaning and original intent prove otherwise," he said. "Like the First and Fourth Amendments, the Second Amendment protects the rights of `the people,' which the Supreme Court has noted is a term of art that should be interpreted consistently throughout the Bill of Rights."

As a result, Gun Industry Watch sounded an Action Alert. Its website is using scare tactics in calling for a protest to get the Bush Administration to back down, saying Ashcroft's stance will lead to the arming of the criminal element and other undesirables. Gun-ban extremists at the Violence Policy Center are openly questioning Ashcroft's honesty and integrity, while the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence questions his understanding of constitutional law.

Using lies, emotional manipulation and misleading innuendo, anti-gun activists have demonstrated the ability to gather a large amount of support from all other gun-ban groups and college campuses. Ashcroft's rightful interpretation on the Second Amendment is not the end of the struggle for American citizens to keep and bear arms -- it's the beginning of a crucial battle to turn the tide back to what the Constitution's authors originally intended.

Are you willing to fight for what's right? Will you stand up and be counted against leftist extremists who ignore court precedents, historical research, law review articles and the writings of our Founding Fathers? Then encourage attorney general Ashcroft to stick to his guns on the Second Amendment. Signing the petition below expresses your support of Ashcroft's long-needed strong stand for the Constitution, America and her legitimate gun owners. With a copy of the petition going to the White House, your signing also encourages President George W. Bush to continue his support of Ashcroft. Take action! Now!

Chuck Muth
LibertyPetitions.com


PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION!
then email everyone you know:





Dear Attorney General John Ashcroft:

Thank you for clearly perceiving the Second Amendment's original intent. I appreciate your courageous stand after all these years. I want to express my support for your interpretation that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to keep and bear firearms.

Mr. Ashcroft, I realize your rightful interpretation is not the end of the struggle for American citizens to protect their Constitutional right, that it's just the beginning of a crucial battle to turn the tide back to what the Constitution's authors originally intended. I know gun-ban extremists are using lies, emotional manipulation and misleading innuendo in an effort to pressure you to retract and restate your stance. Stick to your guns and don't yield to pressure and compromise on this crucial issue.

In order to add your name to this petition and it to be valid, you must fill in all fields at http://www.libertypetitions.com/petition.html?name=stick_to_your_guns


"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

Comments

  • Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
    edited November -1
    Debating the Second Amendment | Point | The Constitution protects each American's right to own a firearm
    The San Diego Union - Tribune; San Diego, Calif.; May 19, 2002; Stephen P. Halbrook;
    Abstract:
    Pending before the U.S. Supreme Court is United States vs. Emerson, a case which involves the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the Constitution. Attorney General John Ashcroft believes that this is a fundamental right of law-abiding citizens, but argues that the federal law at issue in the case is valid. The law prohibits firearm possession by a person against whom an order has been entered restraining the person from domestic violence. Ashcroft's pro-Second Amendment views have provoked a firestorm among gun prohibitionists.

    U.S. District Judge Sam Cummings had read up on his constitutional history, and threw out the prosecution. His 1999 decision, considered by some the most thoroughly researched judicial opinion ever published on the Second Amendment, held that the gun ban was an infringement on the right to keep arms, and that the restraining order in that case was just a boilerplate form issued in every Texas divorce case. He quoted the Founding Fathers and the latest scholarship to show that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to have a firearm.

    The department, [Andrew Frey] insisted, must never relax its iron denial of any Second Amendment right. It had argued in a 1939 brief that the amendment's right extended only to "the people collectively" as a militia. However, the Supreme Court's decision, United States vs. Miller (1939), was silent on that argument, holding instead that the Second Amendment protects a firearm if it "is any part of the ordinary military equipment, or that its use could contribute to the common defense." The court never suggested that the possessor had to be in the militia. Miller has been widely miscited as supportive of the collective rights theory, but it contains no such language. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sandiego/



    "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
  • jager22jager22 Member Posts: 197 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
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