Posted on 05/19/2005 8:05:09 AM PDT by Fido969
MAINE VOICES: Jim Verdolini
Who are the real bullies in gun ban debate?
Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc. E-mail this story to a friend
About the Author Jim Verdolini is a resident of Portland.
I take considerable exception, and not a small amount of umbrage, at the recent commentary about "Gun Bullies" that appeared in the paper May 11.
Columnist Bill Nemitz writes of recent threatening letters sent to legislators who have proposed a variety of gun bills this year. Despite a token denial, the essence of his piece was that nutty gun owners bully harmless legislators who are only trying to do the people's business.
OK, the writer has a point. Of the hundreds of thousands of gun owners in Maine, a few, a very few, go off the deep end and write very nasty notes to our legislators.
Nevertheless, I want to lay out the other side - to ask instead whether or not there are other "bullies," real ones with real power, who are also involved in this discussion.
We live in a state that has a very precise and clearly written constitutional right to keep and bear arms. As the Maine Constitution says in Section 16: "To keep and bear arms: Every citizen has a right to keep and bear arms and this right shall never be questioned."
IT'S PERFECTLY CLEAR
No ambiguity. No way to misconstrue either the meaning or intent of the Maine Constitution. Yet, in every session, we find ourselves confronted by some legislators who simply act as though the constitution was unimportant. They not only want to "question" it, they want to legislate this right away, bit by bit.
Every year citizens - who are not being paid by taxpayers for their time - must write, speak, and take vacation to go to Augusta to fight these bills.
Time and again we see the same cast of characters use their elected office to push an agenda not wanted by the public or allowed by the constitution, offering a "solution" to a problem that simply does not exist and that has never, ever worked anywhere it has been tried.
Every session we hear exaggerations, made-up numbers, claims of benefits not backed by fact, appeals to emotion and flat- out lies used to reduce a fundamental right. This gets very old indeed. Gun owners are fed up.
Now, Nemitz advises that these legislators get hate mail. Does anyone reading this believe that legislators proposing other controversial ideas do not also get hate mail? Do advocates of gay rights or, from the other side, those who favor limits on abortion, not get mail they consider threatening? Of course they do.
Here is a hypothetical: Suppose some legislators were attacked in the press in their last election. Suppose they created a bill to limit the freedom of the press or proposed a per word tax on the media.
Imagine the firestorm over that little idea. The legislators would get mail calling them every name in the book, and the press would be leading the charge. There would be no commentary calling those writers "bullies."
But to shooters, gun rights are every bit as fundamental as the right to free speech is to reporters.
Who are really the bullies? Well, who controls government? Who can pass laws? Who has the entire power of government behind their legislative acts?
It certainly is not individual gun owners. It is not organized groups of gun owners. It is not even the very few nuts who write threats.
ATTACKS ON RIGHTS
No, it is the legislators themselves who propose laws that attack our basic rights who are the bullies. Then they complain, "Those nasty citizens write mean things about us."
Some legislators even say they fear gun-owning citizens.
Let me make this very clear: There are tens of thousands of citizens outside of Augusta who spend every day the Legislature is in session afraid of what those with the real power to affect all our lives might do.
Our homes, our wallets, our families - and our guns - are not safe while the Legislature is in session.
- Special to the Press Herald
I've waited a long time....I'm and old man and don't have much more time, if I'm going to participate in the defense of the Constitution and the Republic..
The closest example of such a thing taking place in recent times would be the Finnish Civil War of 1918, in which the Finns exterminated the Communist revolutionary threat in their own midst. The cost was the death of around 3% of the population of the country, that in a 4-month long bloodletting that would almost certainly be much more protracted in this time and place, and of course far more brutal if the other side thinks they have a chance of winning through NVA or Mau-Mau style intimidation...particularly if foreign nationals from south of the border choose to participate.
I do not look forward to the idea of such casualties here, but it may well come to that. And remenber, if you are not helping to train junior officers and subordinates, both by lesson and example, you're not doing everything you could be. If you are, then you can be much more satisfied that the situation will be in good hands long after you are gone.
I like the way your mind works!
In such places, I would not want to be living as part of a minority ethnic group, when TSHTF. It will be very brutal, with Stalinist martial law being imposed by future Mayor MECHas as the only alternative to Mad Max warlordism.
Naturally, this presupposes our national economy will by and large collapse. Anywhere you picked to live had better be near its own supplies of food and water, and very far from large urban areas. At least 300 miles (a tank of gas by maraudering gangs).
I like the way your mind works!
Haven't you ever wondered why the anti-gun forces were so concerned about the existance of *assualt rifles with bayonet lugs* in the hands of American patriots? The bayonetting of traitors and spies when such accounts are settled has long been not only a means of taking out the trash, but also of providing good training for previously squeamish rookies. The practice also serves pour encourager les autres, and was widely used by the Japanese troops wishing tomake their point on the subjugated peoples of China and the Phillipines, as well as American POWs taken in the early days of WWII.
The eventual payback for those Jap excesses came at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Oh no. Not at ALL the ONLY alternative.
Mr. Rat, I have a writ here that says you are to stop eating Cheng Lee's cornmeal forthwith. Now, It's a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of same! See? He doesn't pay any attention to me.If they wish to collect alltheir eggs in one basket, that's their problem....(BANG)
You can't serve papers on a rat, baby sister. You either kill him or let him be.
Getting 300 miles from a "hot bed" of mouth breathing leftists is damned near impossible in Kalifornicate...
I just drew three 250 mile radius circles, with the centers in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Portland...
EVERY bit of the West coast is COVERED --- except a very small section of coast at Crescent City, CA - far to the North..
EVERY other bit of Kalifornicate except Crescent City -- falls within just 2 of the 250 mile radius circles -- and 80 percent of both Oregon and Washington are covered by the 250 mile radius originating in Portland!!! Nearly 100% of the Oregon and Washington coast is covered....
Now then, if I were a tin hat wearing conspiracy flake -- I would sure get excited about the fact that ONLY Crescent City escapes the "Zone"...
There ain't anywhere to run folks...
You got to defeat them at the ballot box -- or hope they get stupid and do something that brings them into "season" with no "bag limit"..
Don't elect another sonuvabitch that doesn't believe in protecting Border, language and culture.....
Otherwise -- you keep dropping turds into a fresh lake -- and you end up with another turd world cess pool...
Semper Fi
Yep. America is our lifeboat, and if it swamps and broaches, we'll all be swimming.
And some say that it doesn't work at all. LOL
Great movie, wsan't it?
Wait a minute, I had a point, somewhere.
Thos. Jefferson.
Might have mangled the quote a bit - but your author stole it.
The gun grabbers in my state should be afraid of me, since I AM going after them - ballot box style.
According to Cliff Claven, drinking makes you smarter by killing off the weaker/dumb brain cells and leaving only the stronger/smarter ones-- survival of the fittest kind of thing on a cellular level.
I know that I think I'm smarter while I'm drinking so maybe there is some truth to it. I'm going to perform another test tomorrow night.
I'm working on my nighttime coffee now. I don't have enough brain cells left for booze. Well, not on nights I want to do any writing, anyway.
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