Stay safe (does yer mom and dad know yer still up ?)
Posted on 09/09/2004 10:26:29 PM PDT by risk
Ken Schram's Commentary: The NRA And Political Weasels
September 9, 2004
By Ken Schram
SEATTLE - Face it, if the NRA had its way, people would be able to own machine guns.
And the more fanatical NRA members would be yammering about how the 2nd Amendment allows it.
At the moment however, all the NRA can do is kill an assault weapons ban that a vast majority of Americans think is necessary and worthwhile.
In fact, most congressional Republicans and Democrats also believe the weapons ban should be extended, but they're political weasels.
They've allowed the NRA to intimidate them into ignoring what the nation needs, in favor of what the NRA wants.
Contrary to popular belief, I support the 2nd Amendment.
What I don't support is the NRA's iron-fisted labeling of every reasonable effort to curb gun violence as a diabolical plot to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.
By any and all measures, the ban on semi-automatic assault rifles -- along with magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition -- has had a positive impact in the 10 years since it was passed.
But the NRA doesn't care.
The NRA's fantasy is that extending this particular ban would lead to bans on other guns -- "The Boogeyman will getcha" argument.
The NRA has gone from influencing government, to controlling it.
Some say they can live with that.
But how many others will die because of it?
Want to share your thoughts with Ken Schram? You can e-mail him at kenschram@komo4news.com
Schram demonstrates his complete lack of familiarity with their comments on the issue.
The Founding Fathers would be watching us closely over the next two days. Their ghosts are whispering in our ears: end the ban!
bang!
"The NRA's fantasy is that extending this particular ban would lead to bans on other guns -- "The Boogeyman will getcha" argument."
Isn't this the same reasoning that leads NOW to resist any attempt to limit any kind of abortion-even partial birth?
By the way, who is Ken Schram and why should we care?
I have seen Ken up close and personal in action and he is neither as thoughtful, serious or intelligent as he would like us to believe.
Ken is a washed up former news anchor who has been sidelined to an occasional "news commentary." If you imagine a flunky "color commentator" on a football game broadcast group, you have a good idea who Ken Schram is.
It's a failed argument in terms of the AWB, in any case. If you think the second amendment is either anachronistic or defends our right to pursue hobbies, then why should we support the free ownership of repeating arms of any kind? Bambi will be in all that much less trouble. And think, no more schoolyard mass killings with banana clip fed machines of death!
However, the second amendment is all about offering the Constitution a reset button. If all else fails, or if the country can't be defended by its conventional forces, the American people will always be well armed in order to defend themselves and their rights.
The founding fathers would have seen the 1934 firearms act as an infringement of our sacred rights, and they would have cried treason then.
I cry treason now.
....maybe I missed something about the positive impact 10 rd. magazines have had....
HOW???
/maroon.
What if they had a positive impact? Would our founding fathers have wanted us to trade safety for loss of ability to defend our rights? No. They would have pursued a means of dealing with the problem that involved personal responsbility.
In other words, they wouldn't have trotted out expensive psychiatrists to help get perps off the hook. It would be an eye for an eye. Taking life would involve judicially forfeiting one's own.
A fundamental trait of our moral code as US citizens that has been lost by these zealots. I'm sure our Founding Fathers are looking down upon us, shaking their heads in despair.
They're not in complete despair. We're still armed. Because we are, the pen is mightier than the sword.
He is an editorialist in Seattle...at KOMO TV
Bump for later
People can own machine guns, but they have to jump through gov't hoops and pay the outrageous price for the gun. What's wrong with a machine gun anyway?
No more than the belief that Texas Supreme Court decision on privacy would fire up the 'in-the-wings' movement for same sex 'marriage.'
Scram, Schram. Your screed is in need of a little more sophistication.
Yes, Virginia. There really is a 'Boogie Man.'
Gun grabbers love to haul out their straw man argument of tanks, howitzers, bazookas, flame throwers, satchel charges, whenever we defenders of the constitution reference the type of modern day INDIVIDUAL military small arm protected by Amendment #2.
Gun grabbers are increasingly trying to separate the right to keep and bear arms from its constitutional underpinnings. To everyone but liberals and gun grabbers the word militia implies a body organized for military use. The Supreme Court Miller decision of 1939 held that the militia was 'A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline.' And further that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time."
To begin with, only the national government was represented at the trial. With nobody arguing to the contrary, the court followed standard court procedure and assumed that the law was constitutional until proven otherwise. If both sides were present, the outcome may have been much different.
However, since only one party showed up, the case will stand in the court records as is. As to the militia, Mr. Justice McReynolds related the beliefs of the Founding Fathers when commenting historically about the Second Amendment. He stated that, ". . .The common view was that adequate defense of country and laws could be secured through the militia- civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion.
"The significance attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.
It is clear that the firearms that are most suited for modern-day militia use are those semi automatic military pattern weapons that the yellow press calls "assault weapons". Since nations such as the Swiss trust their citizenry with true selective fire assault rifles, it seems to me that this country ought to be at least able to trust its law-abiding citizenry with the semi automatic version.
Self-defense is a vital corollary benefit of the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But its primary constitutional reason for being is for service in the well-regulated militia which is necessary to the security of a free state. WE must be prepared to maintain that security against even our own forces that are responding to the orders of a tyrannical government, and the only viable way to counter a standing army's qualitative advantage is with a huge quantitative one. Don't let the gun grabbers and their politician allies separate us from the constitutional reason for the right to keep and bear arms. Miltary pattern weapons are precisly the weapons that should be MOST constitutionally protected. Even defenders of the right often neglect the constitutional aspect of it, and concentrate on their near non-existent use in crime.
Now let's address the gun grabber straw man. We need to make those type of CREW SERVED weapons available at some level to the well regulated (meaning well trained, organized and disciplined) militia that is formed as a military unit to meet whatever threat that it is appropriate for them to use such weapons as a unit. These weapons would be maintained and stored for such units as a body.
My thoughts sent to Ken:
Ken,
Quite an article, amazingly, I disagree with every word.
You write: Face it, if the NRA had its way, people would be able to own machine guns.
With a proper background check and a $200(?) transfer tax Americans can indeed own a machine gun.
You write: And the more fanatical NRA members would be yammering about how the 2nd Amendment allows it.
The 2nd Amendment certainly doesn’t forbid it.
You write: At the moment however, all the NRA can do is kill an assault weapons ban that a vast majority of Americans think is necessary and worthwhile.
Gun banners always say polls show that 60% to 80% of Americans want more gun control. The only polls that really count are elections. If 80% of Americans truly wanted more gun control, the liberal Democrat gun banners would be going full speed ahead 24 hours a day, coast to coast. But the simple truth is that more gun control is a loser for liberal Democrats and the “election polls” spoke very loudly in 1994, 1996 and 2000.
You write: In fact, most congressional Republicans and Democrats also believe the weapons ban should be extended, but they're political weasels.
Bill Clinton figured that his 1994 “Assault Weapons” ban cost Democrats 20 seats in Congress. How many more do you want to lose?
You write: They've allowed the NRA to intimidate them into ignoring what the nation needs, in favor of what the NRA wants.
The NRA is a group of citizens banding together and making their opinions known to politicians, it’s as American as apple pie.
The NRA is also the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights organization. Its 4 million dues paying members have been protecting American’s civil right to keep and bear arms since 1871.
You write: Contrary to popular belief, I support the 2nd Amendment.
While doubtful, I’ll acquiesce here, but I will suggest that you must believe the 2nd Amendment applies to the people as a group, in other words, the government(s). I reject that argument. The first two battles of the Revolutionary war were fought over guns, when England moved to disarm the people. Simple American history tells us that the founding fathers foremost concern wasn’t that the government wouldn’t be able to arm itself; they feared that the government would try to disarm the people just as England had tried. Further, as you read the Constitution, you will note that “rights” are reserved exclusively for the people, and “powers” are granted to the government.
You write: What I don't support is the NRA's iron-fisted labeling of every reasonable effort to curb gun violence as a diabolical plot to take guns away from law-abiding citizens.
Cheap, small caliber low power guns are “Saturday Night Specials” and they need to be banned. Very large and very expensive .50 caliber guns are too powerful and they too need to be banned. “Assault Weapons” which are very much mid power weapons, look scary and they also need to be banned.
So, let’s see, small guns, large guns and mid powered guns all need to be banned. There doesn’t seem to be a gun that is “just right”, but you and the rest of the gun banners don’t want to take away anyone’s guns… Yeah, I’m convinced.
If the “Assault Weapons” ban made any sense, perhaps gun owners and the NRA would take it seriously, but it’s a ridiculous law. It bans guns almost entirely on cosmetic features. The one possible exception is the maximum 10 round magazine, but the difference between shooting a gun with one 30 round magazine and three 10 round magazines is about 6 seconds tops. The only thing banning magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds accomplishes is to make magazine manufacturers wealthy.
You write: By any and all measures, the ban on semi-automatic assault rifles -- along with magazines with more than 10 rounds of ammunition -- has had a positive impact in the 10 years since it was passed.
There is no proof of your position. Gun crime had been trending down well before the “Assault Weapons” ban and that trend continued all through the ban even though the existing “assault weapons” were grandfathered in, and were still in the hands of citizens.
You write: But the NRA doesn't care.
The NRA spends many millions of dollars for gun safety and gun training for citizens and law enforcement officers every year. You name one organization that cares as much as the NRA and shows it by spending even half as much as the NRA to promote the safe use of guns.
You write: The NRA's fantasy is that extending this particular ban would lead to bans on other guns -- "The Boogeyman will getcha" argument.
Until the early 1900’s there were virtually no restrictions on gun ownership, do we have more gun restrictions and bans or fewer restrictions and bans since then?
Also, refer to the small, large and medium guns that must be banned, above.
You write: The NRA has gone from influencing government, to controlling it.
Pointless overheated rhetoric, and you contradict yourself. Above, you state “At the moment however, all the NRA can do”, yet here you write that the NRA is “controlling” the government. Which is it?
You write: Some say they can live with that. But how many others will die because of it?
An estimated 56 million people were killed by their own governments in the 20th century, not in wars, but purposely killed by the likes of Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Hitler. What do all of these 56 million people have in common? They were all disarmed and powerless to resist.
I guess you can live with that, but how many others have died and will continue to die in Kosovo, Rwanda, Tibet, Zimbabwe, Iraq, and… because they are powerless to resist?
Today it seems highly unlikely that we would ever need to fight enemies foreign or domestic here in America, but I will do my best to make sure that we have the ability to do so if it’s required.
Excellent point by counterpoint response, RJL. Thank you. I especially liked what you wrote about the NRA. The ban camp portrays or citizens' organizations like GOA, JPFO, and the NRA as "industry lobbies." There's a three-fold lie in that slander.
Stay safe (does yer mom and dad know yer still up ?)
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