WY: Firearms discussion opens UW’s Law Week

Laramie Boomerang (Wyoming) ^ | 10/18/06 | Carrie May

[kiriath_jearim]

A citizen’s right to bear arms is a fundamental right, one that was a dead-letter issue until the last few years, when it began changing for the better, according to one Wyoming state representative.

“The second amendment … as many of you know, has seen a resurgence in the past 10 to 20 years,” Rep. Becket Hinckley, R-Laramie County said during the inaugural event of the University of Wyoming College of Law Week.

“Our founding fathers recognized that the right to bear arms is a central right of free citizens.”

Hinckley, who was largely responsible for failed legislation to make concealed weapons permits unnecessary in Wyoming, said that the constitutional right to possess arms has little to do with hunting or recreation. The two main functions of a citizen’s right to bear arms, he said, are to protect oneself from harm by criminals and to protect oneself from harm by the government.

“I believe the Second Amendment is clear, and clear about allowing people to bear arms,” Hinckley said.

Citing a CNN Presents report he had seen the day before, Hinckley told of at least two black men from New Orleans who were killed in the Hurricane Katrina aftermath. These men, he said, were killed by police officers — police officers who were also going around collecting hurricane survivors’ legally owned and obtained guns.

“It really brought home images of the post-Civil War era … trying to disarm African Americans,” Hinckley said. Prior to the Civil War, Hinckley said, it was considered a moral check on the government for white, male citizens to carry guns. However, Hinckley argued that the victim’s right to protect himself is also inherently a part of Second Amendment law.

“Some of the worst atrocities in history, the Holocaust, (Stalin), the killing fields in Cambodia, were carried out by armed militia versus unarmed civilians,” Hinckley said, citing that small group of Jews in a Poland ghetto warded off Nazi soldiers for a significant amount of time, with the aid of firearms.

Hinckley, an assistant district attorney for Laramie County, does not advocate the improper, illegal usage of firearms.

“If you use a gun in a crime in Laramie County, I will hammer you,” Hinckley said.

He said his intention behind passing easier restrictions on concealed weapons laws was to serve citizens. There were two types of complaints about registering concealed weapons that he heard from his constituents, he said. One was that hunters were afraid to have a hip gun inadvertently concealed by a coat, and the other was that law-abiding citizens just didn’t want their personal information in a governmental database.

“I don’t think that there should be a license on concealed weapons,” Hinckley said. “If you license a car, that’s saying the government can take that car away. The government should not be able to remove one of our fundamental rights.”

In times of crisis, executives have a tendency to consolidate power and become “cafeteria constitutionalists,” he said. Hinckley admitted that he has seen that more than once in the current political climate.

“The War on Terror has just eaten away a whole slew of rights,” he said.

[B4Ranch]

>>“The War on Terror has just eaten away a whole slew of rights,” he said.<<

In the name of national safety, so that makes everything okay.