Marlin T
03-06-2007, 09:49 PM
Washington, DC 20036 March 5 2007 “While we have not yet reached even the 90-day mark since the inauguration of the 110th Congress in early January, legislative battle lines on Capitol Hill already are forming on a number of matters regarding the individual Second Amendment civil right of law-abiding American citizens to keep and bear arms,” gun rights expert John M. Snyder noted here in a statement today.
The statement continues:
One of the most important elements in the entire controversy involves the right to self-defense as an underlying reason for the right to keep and bear arms.
From a philosophic perspective, the right to keep and bear arms is a guarantor of the right to self-defense, of the right to life itself. This is probably the major reason defenders of the right to keep and bear arms regard the Second Amendment as so significant. It is a guarantor of other human rights, especially the right to self-defense, of the very right to life itself.
In recent years, opponents of the individual right to keep and bear arms have attempted to ignore this philosophic, and often very practical rationale for Americans’ gun rights. They have introduced the concept of “sporting use” or “sporting purpose” as a substitute for the right to self-defense rationale for the right to bear arms. Under this substitution, the right to keep and bear arms somehow depends on whether or not there is “a sporting purpose for a firearm,” rather than on whether or not an individual’s right to self-defense in and of itself is sufficient reason for a right to keep and bear arms.
In addition to the philosophic obtuseness of the argument, on a practical note it simply ignores the millions of times guns of various types are used each year in the United States for legitimate defensive purposes.
To combat directly this erroneous “sporting purpose” legislative approach, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas just a few weeks ago introduced a measure which would, among other things, repeal provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and the federal criminal code distinguishing firearms used or suitable for sporting purposes from firearms generally.
The Paul bill would do much to eliminate the “sporting purpose” rationale from the equation and restore the right to self-defense rationale to its rightful place.
Titled the Second Amendment Protection Act of 2007, the bill, H.R. 1096, has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee and in addition to the House Committee on Ways and Means, for a period to be determined subsequently by the Speaker of the House, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Even though the powers that be in the U.S. House of Representatives at the present time are not favorably disposed towards the right of self-defense rationale for the right to bear arms, House leaders should realize that tens of millions of law-abiding American gun owners see matters from the same perspective as that contemplated by the Paul bill.
Just a couple of days before Rep. Paul introduced H.R. 1096, Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy of New York proposed a measure that not only would resurrect the Clinton era ban on semiautomatic firearms, which expired a couple of years ago, but actually would expand the ban and, among other things, authorize the U.S. Justice Department to add any other rifle or shotgun to the list of banned firearms that the government deems not to be a “sporting” weapon.
In this way, the McCarthy bill would set up a system according to which the federal government could state simply that a particular firearm did not have a so-called “sporting purpose.” It could prevent that gun from being manufactured or sold by federal firearms licensees. By degrees, then, the government, under the McCarthy bill, could eliminate an untold number of firearms from manufacture and sale to law-abiding citizens. In time, then, the government could practically eliminate the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear many firearms for self-defense or for any other truly legitimate purpose.
This McCarthy bill, H.R. 1022, also has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
With the introduction of just these two diametrically opposed legislative measures, then, we can see that the legislative battle for the individual Second Amendment right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms continues unabated and without let-up. John M. Snyder (GunDean@aol.com)
Manager
Telum Associates, LLC
PO Box 2844
Arlington, VA 22202
Phone : 202-326-5259
http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=15705
The statement continues:
One of the most important elements in the entire controversy involves the right to self-defense as an underlying reason for the right to keep and bear arms.
From a philosophic perspective, the right to keep and bear arms is a guarantor of the right to self-defense, of the right to life itself. This is probably the major reason defenders of the right to keep and bear arms regard the Second Amendment as so significant. It is a guarantor of other human rights, especially the right to self-defense, of the very right to life itself.
In recent years, opponents of the individual right to keep and bear arms have attempted to ignore this philosophic, and often very practical rationale for Americans’ gun rights. They have introduced the concept of “sporting use” or “sporting purpose” as a substitute for the right to self-defense rationale for the right to bear arms. Under this substitution, the right to keep and bear arms somehow depends on whether or not there is “a sporting purpose for a firearm,” rather than on whether or not an individual’s right to self-defense in and of itself is sufficient reason for a right to keep and bear arms.
In addition to the philosophic obtuseness of the argument, on a practical note it simply ignores the millions of times guns of various types are used each year in the United States for legitimate defensive purposes.
To combat directly this erroneous “sporting purpose” legislative approach, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas just a few weeks ago introduced a measure which would, among other things, repeal provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and the federal criminal code distinguishing firearms used or suitable for sporting purposes from firearms generally.
The Paul bill would do much to eliminate the “sporting purpose” rationale from the equation and restore the right to self-defense rationale to its rightful place.
Titled the Second Amendment Protection Act of 2007, the bill, H.R. 1096, has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee and in addition to the House Committee on Ways and Means, for a period to be determined subsequently by the Speaker of the House, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned.
Even though the powers that be in the U.S. House of Representatives at the present time are not favorably disposed towards the right of self-defense rationale for the right to bear arms, House leaders should realize that tens of millions of law-abiding American gun owners see matters from the same perspective as that contemplated by the Paul bill.
Just a couple of days before Rep. Paul introduced H.R. 1096, Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy of New York proposed a measure that not only would resurrect the Clinton era ban on semiautomatic firearms, which expired a couple of years ago, but actually would expand the ban and, among other things, authorize the U.S. Justice Department to add any other rifle or shotgun to the list of banned firearms that the government deems not to be a “sporting” weapon.
In this way, the McCarthy bill would set up a system according to which the federal government could state simply that a particular firearm did not have a so-called “sporting purpose.” It could prevent that gun from being manufactured or sold by federal firearms licensees. By degrees, then, the government, under the McCarthy bill, could eliminate an untold number of firearms from manufacture and sale to law-abiding citizens. In time, then, the government could practically eliminate the right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear many firearms for self-defense or for any other truly legitimate purpose.
This McCarthy bill, H.R. 1022, also has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
With the introduction of just these two diametrically opposed legislative measures, then, we can see that the legislative battle for the individual Second Amendment right of law-abiding citizens to keep and bear arms continues unabated and without let-up. John M. Snyder (GunDean@aol.com)
Manager
Telum Associates, LLC
PO Box 2844
Arlington, VA 22202
Phone : 202-326-5259
http://www.expertclick.com/NewsReleaseWire/default.cfm?Action=ReleaseDetail&ID=15705