Second Amendment

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  gunphreak Member Posts: 1,791 ✭✭✭✭✭

  September 2002 edited November -1

  That pretty much sums it up.
  
  Amendment II: Freedom's only guarantee.
  
  Death to Tyrants!!!
  
  -Gunphreak

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  nitrouz Member Posts: 1,820 ✭✭✭✭✭

  September 2002 edited November -1

  Servants have no rights or priveleges.
  What are we today?
  The above mentioned applies.

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  gunphreak Member Posts: 1,791 ✭✭✭✭✭

  September 2002 edited November -1

  If you don't know your rights, you don't have any...
  
  Death to Tyrants!!!
  
  -Gunphreak

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  WAGC Member Posts: 81 ✭✭

  September 2002 edited November -1

  A Second Amendment Answer and MORE:
  ====
  
  Hello Tracy:
  
  You are very welcome.
  
  You asked if I was saying, that Article II of the Bill of Rights allows an individual to bear arms rather then what is currently interpreted as a collectivist right of the state?
  
  "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."
  
  Please re-read Article II of the Bill of Rights (above) and show me where it says "collectivist right if the state"? When I read it, I see "the right of the people" - it says nothing about the right of the state.
  
  You asked me if I was saying, there are no ambiguities in Article II concerning whether it allows a collectivist right or individual right?
  
  I see no ambiguities. Do you? If so, please show me where you feel there are. Please re-read my previous post where I defined the words in Article II with a dictionary of their time. I want to share some information with you. It may seem long, but very important for you to be aware of.
  
  Why the Founders Had Not Considered a Bill of Rights Necessary
  
  Alexander Hamilton and others gave three reasons why a Bill of Rights was not necessary. (See The Federalist Papers, No. 84.)
  
  1. The Constitution is a declaration of rights from beginning to end. Nearly 300 rights are pinpointed in the document itself.
  
  2. Under our limited form of government, with only twenty specific enumerated powers granted to the federal government, there is absolutely no authority included to regulate or invade a citizen's freedom of religion, freedom of press, freedom to assemble, or freedom to petition. Neither is there any federal authority granted to register or confiscate firearms, invade the privacy of citizens, quarter troops in the homes of the people, deprive a citizen of his common-law rights when charged with a crime, impose cruel or unusual punishment, or deprive citizens of any powers not specifically delegated to the government.
  
  3. In addition, as Hamilton pointed out, there was danger in making a list of individual rights because under the law any rights accidentally left off the list might be presumed to be forfeited. That's why we have the 9th and 10th Articles (Amendments).
  
  In spite of all this, however, They feared, from bitter experience in the past, that the courts or government executives might somehow twist the meanings of certain words in the Constitution so as to deprive them of their rights, precisely as King George and his officers had done. This is why George Mason, a leading patriot from Virginia, declared that he would rather have his right hand chopped off than sign a Constitution without a Bill of Rights.
  
  There are two Unique Features of the Bill of Rights
  
  Today it is somewhat difficult to clearly perceive the Bill of Rights as the Founders gave them to us, because of several debilitating decisions of the Supreme Court in recent years. Nevertheless, the original intent of the Founders needs to be emphasized so that the Bill of Rights might be understood in terms of their original design.
  
  The first feature of the Bill of Rights is the rather amazing fact that it is not a declaration of rights at all. It is a declaration of prohibitions against the federal government. In the minds of the Founders, usurpation and intervention by the federal government in the affairs of the states and the people were the most ominous threats to the happiness and welfare of the American society. Therefore, the Bill of Rights opens with a bold prohibition against federal intervention in specific areas by stating, "Congress shall make no law ... "
  
  The second unique feature is the repeated declaration that the Founders did not want to have the federal government serve as the watchdog over the states' responsibility to protect the rights of the people. If a state failed to function in protecting the rights of some of its citizens, the Founders wanted the pressure to build up, thus forcing correction within the confines of the state without any interference from the federal government whatsoever.
  
  James Madison learned this lesson the hard way when he tried to include a provision in the Bill of Rights which said: "No state shall violate the equal rights of conscience, or the freedom of the press, or the trial by jury in criminal cases."
  
  Obviously, this was designed to authorize the federal government to intervene if a state failed to perform its duty. The Congress turned it down fiat. They wanted the federal government to stay out of the business of the states. If the people found their state derelict they were to correct it on the state level and not come running to Washington or the federal courts to have it corrected. Whether they were right or wrong may be debated, but that was their position.
  
  So what is the real purpose of the Bill of Rights?
  
  The real purpose of the Bill of Rights was set forth in a preamble which is seldom included in texts of the Constitution anymore. Here is why the Founders said they were including the Bill of Rights as a group of amendments to the Constitution:
  
  "The Conventions of a number of states, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses be added; and as extending the ground of public confidence in the government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution, [be it] resolved...."
  
  Then follows the text of the Bill of Rights. It is noteworthy that the Founders were trying to help the courts avoid any "misconstruction" and also add certain "restrictive clauses" to prevent government arrogance and abuse.
  
  Tracy, there are 286 Principles that our Constitution and Bill of Rights are based upon. The Second Amendment is based on the 219th Principle:
  
  Principle #219 (from the Second Amendment): Because a well-regulated state militia is necessary for the security of a free people, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed by the federal government.
  
  This provision guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms without interference by the federal government. In the early history of the country the state militia was made up of private citizens, who usually furnished their own arms. Thus, during the Revolutionary War the minute men could be assembled on very short notice and arrayed into a formidable military force because each man had his own weapons.
  
  Today the state militia is that body of citizens which, under law, can be called up by the governor or the President to protect the rights and security of the people, or enforce the law.
  
  You are probably asking: Well then, who Belongs to the State Militia?
  
  Many Americans do not even realize that they belong to the militia of their state. They confuse their state militia with the National Guard, which is a specialized reserve corps in each state trained at federal expense for immediate service.
  
  Under Title 10, section 31 of the U.S. Code, the militia of each state includes "all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and under 45 years of age who are or have [made] a declaration of intent to become citizens."
  
  If the Equal Rights Amendment had been adopted, this provision would also include all females between those ages.
  
  An Armed Citizenry
  
  The right to keep and bear arms was considered by the Founders to be an unalienable right connected with the preservation of life, liberty, and property.
  
  Today Americans are the best-armed civilian population in the world. The number of private citizens owning arms is estimated to be around eighty million. The number of firearms in the possession of private citizens is estimated to be between 300 and 400 million + weapons.
  
  Is there a possible threat of political disarmament?
  
  It is a historical fact that in nations where the political leaders want to curtail the rights of the people and take away their property and freedom, they always begin by trying to disarm them. This is usually done by first requiring them to register their firearms and imposing a heavy penalty on those who do not. It has been determined that in many instances the next step is to deliberately provoke widespread rioting and violence. The government can then use this as an excuse to confiscate all firearms in the possession of private citizens and do it on the grounds that "we have to somehow stop all this killing."
  
  Right about now, are you saying: What About Gun Control to Curb Crime?
  
  There are also those who feel it would cut down crime if there were a federal law prohibiting the people from having certain types of guns.
  
  Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate subcommittee on the Constitution, said:
  
  "If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of crime rates reduced by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of trying -- that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, and the attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976 -- establishes the repeated, complete, and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime."
  
  Are you asking: Should Firearms Be Restricted to the Militia or National Guard?
  
  In recent years some individuals have tried to interpret the Second Amendment to mean that the right of the state militia or the National Guard to bear arms shall not be infringed, but that this does not guarantee the right of the people to bear arms.
  
  This view would have shocked the Founders. The clear intent of the Second Amendment may be found in the commentaries of those who wrote it and approved it as part of the Constitution. Here are some examples:
  
  Lee: "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
  
  S. Adams: "The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to ... prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."
  
  Henry: "The great object is that every man be armed.... Everyone who is able may have a gun."
  
  Because there has been so much misunderstanding concerning the Founders' intent when they wrote the Second Amendment, we are including extracts from the carefully documented 1982 report by the Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution, which was cited previously.
  
  History of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
  
  "The right to keep and bear arms as a part of English and American law antedates not only the Constitution, but also the discovery of firearms. Under the laws of Alfred the Great, whose reign began in 872 A.D., all English citizens from the nobility to the peasants were obliged to privately purchase weapons and be available for military duty. This was in sharp contrast to the feudal system as it evolved in Europe, under which armament and military duties were concentrated in the nobility. The body of [Anglo-Saxon] armed citizens were known as the 'fort.'
  
  English History of the Right to Bear Arms
  
  "While a great many of the Saxon rights were abridged following the Norman conquest, the right and duty of arms possession was retained. Under the Assize of Arms of 1181, 'the whole community of freemen' between the ages of 15 and 40 were required by law to possess certain arms, which were arranged in proportion to their possessions. They were required twice a year to demonstrate to Royal officials that they were appropriately armed. In 1253, another Assize of Arms expanded the duty of armament to include not only freemen, but also villains, who were the English equivalent of serfs. Now all 'citizens, burgesses, free tenants, villains and others from 15 to 60 years of age' were obliged to be armed. While on the Continent the villains were regarded as little more than animals hungering for rebellion, the English legal system not only permitted, but affirmatively required them, to be armed.
  
  "The thirteenth century saw further definitions of this right as the long bow, a formidable armor-piercing weapon, became increasingly the mainstay of British national policy. In 1285, Edward I commanded that all persons comply with the earlier Assizes and added that 'anyone else who can afford them shall keep bows and arrows.' ... In 1369, the King ordered that the sheriffs of London require all citizens 'at leisure time on holidays' to 'use in their recreation bows and arrows' and to stop all other games which might distract them from this practice.
  
  "The Tudor kings experimented with limits upon specialized weapons -- mainly crossbows and the then-new firearms. These measures were not intended to disarm the citizenry, but on the contrary to prevent their being diverted from longbow practice by sport with other weapons which were considered less effective. Even these narrow measures were short lived.... Fathers were required by law to purchase bows and arrows for their sons between the age of 7 and 14 and to train them in longbow use....
  
  "The militia continued to be a pivotal force in the English political system. The British historian Charles Oman considers the existence of the armed citizenry to be a major reason for the moderation of monarchical rule in Great Britain; 'More than once he [Henry VIII] had to restrain himself, when he discovered that the general feeling of his subjects was against him.... His "gentlemen pensioners" and his yeomen of the guard were but a handful, and bills or bows were in every farm and cottage'....
  
  Colonial History of the Right to Bear Arms
  
  "In the colonies, availability of hunting and need for defense led to armament statutes comparable to those of the early Saxon times. In 1623, Virginia forbade its colonists to travel unless they were 'well armed'; in 1631 it required colonists to engage in target practice on Sunday and to 'bring their peeces to church.' In 1658 it required every householder to have a functioning firearm within his house and in 1673 its laws provided that a citizen who claimed he was too poor to purchase a firearm would have one purchased for him by the government, which would then require him to pay a reasonable price when able to do so. In Massachusetts, the first session of the legislature ordered that not only freemen, but also indentured servants own firearms, and in 1644 it imposed a stern 6 shilling fine upon any citizen who was not armed.
  
  "When the British government began to increase its military presence in the colonies in the mid-eighteenth century, Massachusetts responded by calling upon its citizens to arm themselves in defense. One colonial newspaper argued that it was impossible to complain that this act was illegal since they were 'British subjects, to whom the privilege of possessing arms is expressly recognized by the Bill of [page 697] Rights' while another argued that this 'is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defense'. The newspaper cited Blackstone's commentaries on the laws of England, which had listed the 'having and using arms for self preservation and defense' among the 'absolute rights of individuals.' The colonists felt they had an absolute right at common law to own firearms.
  
  "Together with freedom of the press, the right to keep and bear arms became one of the individual rights most prized by the colonists. When British troops seized a militia arsenal in September 1774, and incorrect rumors that colonists had been killed spread through Massachusetts, 60,000 citizens took up arms. A few months later, when Patrick Henry delivered his famed 'Give me liberty or give me death' speech, he spoke in support of a proposition 'that a well regulated militia, composed of gentlemen and freemen, is the natural strength and only security of a free government.... 'Throughout the following revolution, formal and informal units of armed citizens obstructed British communication, cut off foraging parties, and harassed the thinly stretched regular forces. When seven states adopted state 'bills of rights' following the Declaration of Independence, each of those bills of rights provided either for protection of the concept of a militia or for an express right to keep and bear arms.
  
  The Right to Bear Arms After the Revolution
  
  "Following the revolution but previous to the adoption of the Constitution, debates over militia proposals occupied a large part of the political scene. A variety of plans were put forth by figures ranging from George Washington to Baron von Steuben. All of the proposals called for a general duty of all citizens to be armed, although some proposals (most notably von Steuben's) also emphasized a 'select militia.' ... Richard Henry Lee, in his widely read pamphlet "Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republican," worried that the people might be disarmed 'by modeling the militia.' ... He proposed that 'the Constitution ought to secure a genuine, and guard against a select militia,' adding that 'to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.' ...
  
  "Other figures of the period were of like mind. In the Virginia convention, George Mason, drafter of the Virginia Bill of Rights, accused the British of having plotted 'to disarm the people -- that was the best and most effective way to enslave them,' while Patrick Henry observed that 'The great object is that every man be armed' and 'everyone who is able may have a gun.' ...
  
  "Numerous state ratifications called for adoption of a Bill of Rights as a part of the Constitution. The first such call came from a group of Pennsylvania delegates. Their proposals, which were not adopted but had a critical effect on future debates, proposed among other rights that 'the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and their own state, or the United States, or for the purpose of killing game; and no law shall be passed for disarming the people or any of them, unless for crimes committed, or a real danger of public injury from individuals.... 'When New Hampshire gave the Constitution the ninth vote needed for its passing into effect, it called for adoption of a Bill of Rights which included the provision that 'Congress shall never disarm any citizen unless such as are or have been in actual rebellion.' Virginia and North Carolina thereafter called for a provision 'that the people have the right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state.'
  
  Drafting the Second Amendment
  
  "When the first Congress convened for the purpose of drafting a Bill of Rights, it delegated the task to James Madison. Madison did not write upon a blank tablet. Instead, he obtained a pamphlet listing the State proposals for a Bill of Rights and sought to produce a briefer version incorporating all the vital proposals of these. His purpose was to incorporate, not distinguish by technical changes, proposals such as that of the Pennsylvania minority, Sam Adams, and the New Hampshire delegates. Madison proposed among other rights that:
  
  "'The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.'
  
  "In the House, this was initially modified so that the militia clause came before the proposal recognizing the right. The proposals for the Bill of Rights were then trimmed in the interests of brevity. The conscientious objector clause was removed following objections by Elbridge Gerry, who complained that future Congresses might abuse the exemption for the scrupulous to excuse everyone from militia service.
  
  "The proposal finally passed the House in its present form: '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.' In this form it was submitted into the Senate, which passed it the following day. The Senate in the process indicated its intent that the right be an individual one, for private purposes, by rejecting an amendment which would have limited the keeping and bearing of arms to bearing 'for the common defense.'
  
  Early Commentaries
  
  "The earliest American constitutional commentators concurred in giving this broad reading to the amendment. When St. George Tucker, later Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court, in 1803 published an edition of Blackstone annotated to American law, he followed Blackstone's citation of the right of the subject 'of having arms suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law' with a citation to the Second Amendment, 'And this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government'. William Rawle's 'View of the Constitution' published in Philadelphia in 1825 noted that under the Second Amendment, "'The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by a rule of construction be conceived to give to Congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some general pretense by a state legislature. But if in blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.' ...
  
  "Joseph Story in his 'Commentaries on the Constitution' considered the right to keep and bear arms as 'the palladium of the liberties of the republic,' which deterred tyranny and enabled the citizenry at large to overthrow it should it come to pass.
  
  "Subsequent legislation in the Second Congress likewise supports the interpretation of the Second Amendment that creates an individual right. In the Militia Act of 1792, the second Congress defined 'militia of the United States' to include almost every free adult male in the United States. These persons were obligated by law to possess a firearm and a minimum supply of ammunition and military equipment. This statute, incidentally, remained in effect into the early years of the present century as a legal requirement of gun ownership for most of the population of the United States. There can be little doubt from this that when the Congress and the people spoke of a 'militia', they had reference to the traditional concept of the entire populace capable of bearing arms, and not to any formal group such as what is today called the National Guard. The purpose was to create an armed citizenry, such as the political theorists at the time considered essential to ward off tyranny. From this militia, appropriate measures might create a 'well regulated militia' of individuals trained in their duties and responsibilities as citizens and owners of firearms....
  
  "When in 1837, Georgia totally banned the sale of pistols (excepting the larger pistols 'known and used as horsemen's pistols') and other weapons, the Georgia Supreme Court in Nunn v. State held the statute unconstitutional under the Second Amendment to the federal Constitution. The court held that the Bill of Rights protected natural rights which were fully as capable of infringement by states as by the federal government and that the Second Amendment provided 'the right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not merely such as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in on, in the slightest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying of a well regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free state.' ...
  
  Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms
  
  "The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms therefore, is a right of the individual citizen to privately possess and carry in a peaceful manner firearms and similar arms. Such an 'individual rights' interpretation is in full accord with the history of the right to keep and bear arms, as previously discussed. It is moreover in accord with contemporaneous statements and formulations of the right by such founders of this nation as Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Adams, and accurately reflects the majority of the proposals which led up to the Bill of Rights itself. A number of state constitutions, adopted prior to or contemporaneously with the federal Constitution and Bill of Rights, similarly provided for a right of the people to keep and bear arms. If in fact this language creates a right protecting the states only, there might be a reason for it to be inserted in the federal Constitution but no reason for it to be inserted in state constitutions. State bills of rights necessarily protect only against action by the state, and by definition a state cannot infringe its own rights; to attempt to protect a right belonging to the state by inserting it in a limitation of the state's own powers would create an absurdity. The fact that the contemporaries of the framers did insert these words into several state constitutions would indicate clearly that they viewed the right as belonging to the individual citizen, thereby making it a right which could be infringed either by state or federal government and which must be protected against infringement by both.
  
  "Finally, the individual rights interpretation gives full meaning to the words chosen by the first Congress to reflect the right to keep and bear arms. The framers of the Bill of Rights consistently used the words 'right of the people' to reflect individual rights -- as when these words were used to recognize the 'right of the people' to peaceably assemble, and the 'right of the people' against unreasonable searches and seizures. They distinguished between the rights of the people and of the state in the Tenth Amendment. As discussed earlier, the 'militia' itself referred to a concept of a universally armed people, not to any specifically organized unit. When the framers referred to the equivalent of our National Guard, they uniformly used the term 'select militia' and distinguished this from 'militia'. Indeed, the debates over the Constitution constantly referred to organized militia units as a threat to freedom comparable to that of a standing army, and stressed that such organized units did not constitute, and indeed were philosophically opposed to the concept of a militia.
  
  "That the National Guard is not the 'Militia' referred to in the second amendment is even clearer today. Congress has organized the National Guard under its power to 'raise and support armies' and not its power to 'Provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia'. This Congress chose to do in the interests of organizing reserve military units which were not limited in deployment by the strictures of our power over the constitutional militia, which can be called forth only 'to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions.' The modern National Guard was specifically intended to avoid status as the constitutional militia, a distinction recognized by 10 U.S.C. 311(a)
  
  "The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner."
  
  Tracy, read this:
  a. The number of physicians in the US is 700,000.
  
  b. Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year is 120,000.
  
  c. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.
  (US Dept. of Health &Human Services)
  
  Then think about this:
  
  a. The number of gun owners in the US is 80,000,000.
  b. The number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) is
  1,500.
  c. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188.
  
  Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners.
  
  FACT:
  
  NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.
  
  Now I want you to see the history of Gun Control:
  
  World History of Gun Control
  
  1911 Turkey establishes gun control.
  1915-1917 1.5 Million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
  
  1929 The soviet Union establishes gun control.
  1929-1953 approximately 20 Million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
  
  1935 China establishes gun control.
  1948-1952 20 Million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
  
  1938 Germany establishes gun control.
  1939-1945 13 Million Jews, gypsies and other arbitrary categories of people unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
  
  1964 Guatemala establishes gun control.
  1964-1981 100,000 Mayan Indians unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
  
  1966 Cambodia establishes gun control.
  1975-1977 One Million 3educated people unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
  
  1970 Uganda establishes gun control.
  1971-1979 300,000 Christians unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated.
  
  1999 Australia establishes gun control.
  Law-abiding citizens were forced to surrender 640,381 personal firearms for destruction, a program costing the government more than $500 million.
  
  Dee here is the information I told you about regarding Australia:
  
  The results Australia-wide:
  
  Homicides are up 3.2%
  Assaults are up 8%
  Armed Robberies are up 44%
  
  In the State of Victoria, homicides with firearms are up 300%.
  Over the previous 25 years, figures show a steady decrease in armed robberies and Australian politicians are on the spot and at a loss to explain how no improvement in 3safety has been observed after such a monumental effort was expended in 3ridding society of guns.?
  
  In a mere 100 years, more than 56 Million people, unable to defend themselves because of gun control, have lost their lives and property. Guns in the hands of honest citizens save lives and property. Gun control only affects law-abiding citizens as criminals will always find a way to obtain weapons.
  
  The next time someone suggests how much safer the world might be with gun control, ask them which group of citizens they would like to exterminate.
  
  Tracy, here is the information about Kennesaw, Georgia - the city that requires everyone to have a gun.
  
  Code of Ordinances & Gun Law
  Gun Law Ordinances
  The City's most famous ordinance adopted in March 1982 reads as follows. Click here for a link to the Police Department for statistical information on crime or contact the City Clerks office for additional information.
  
  Sec. 34-1 Heads of households to maintain firearms.
  (a) In order to provide for the emergency management of the City, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the City limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore.
  
  (b) Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability, which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.
  
  Crime Statistics Report
  1982 - 1998
  
  FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) statistics for the year 1998 based on incidents of crime per 100,000 population indicate:
  
  Overall Crime for the City of Kennesaw is approx. half the state and national rates.
  
  Burglary incidents are approx. half the state and national rates.
  
  Violent Crime incidents are approx. four times less than the state and national rates.
  
  
  Violent Crime
  Burglary
  Total Index Crimes
  
  Kennesaw:
  107
  347
  2567
  
  Georgia:
  553
  951
  5200
  
  U.S. :
  566
  862
  4616
  
  
  Note: Violent Crime includes Murder, Non-Negligent Manslaughter, Rape, Aggravated Assault and Robbery. Part 1 Index Crime includes all violent crime plus Burglary, Larceny, Auto Theft and Arson.
  
  To control for population differences and make descriptions and comparisons between jurisdictions more accurate and meaningful, index crimes are reported at the rate per 100,000 persons. The rate is figured by dividing the number of crimes by the total population and then multiplying by 100,000.
  
  Crime Statistics also indicate that incidents involving the use of a firearm during the commission of a crime make-up less than 2% of all reported Part 1 Crimes. Since 1982 approx. 4,900 Part 1 Crime incidents were reported with approx. 59 involving the use of a firearm.
  
  1981 (Year prior to Gun Ordinance)
  Population: 5,242
  Burglaries: 54
  Total Part 1 Crimes: 228
  
  1982 (Year Gun Ordinance Passed)
  Population: 5,308 (+1% )
  Burglaries : 35 ( -35%)
  Total Part 1 Crimes: 165 ( -27%)
  
  1998 (Compared to 1981)
  Population: 19,000 ( +275%)
  Burglaries: 36 (-33%)
  Total Part 1 Crimes 227(+0%)
  
  
  That's enough, I don't what to scare the H--- out of you. ;-)
  Patricia
  
  God, Guns & Guts made America!
  
  Let's keep all three!
  
  
  

  ---

  Original Message

  ---

  From: Tracy Berberich
  To: Patricia Saye
  Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 3:25 PM
  Subject: Re: In response to your Second Amendment Question.
  
  
  Thank you very much for the reply. Just another quick question. So are you saying that Article II of the Bill of Rights allows an individual to bear arms rather then what is currently interpreted as a collectivist right of the state? And that there are no ambiguities in Article II concerning whether it allows a collectivist right or individual right? I really appreciate your help. Thank you in advance for your time and consideration.
  
  Thanks,
  
  Tracy Berberich
  
  
  The Second Amendment IS our Homeland Security

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