Misdirection

Date: 1/23/2013

In last week's Reminder, a letter writer urged that guns be treated just like cars and be subject to registration and periodic re-registration. This idea ignores the clear Constitutional purpose behind the Second Amendment. The co-author of the 2nd Amendment, George Mason, wrote: "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people ... To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." Time after time in just the last 75 years, records of registered gun owners have been used to confiscate guns, followed by the rounding up and execution of their owners. Russia under Stalin, Germany under Hitler, China under Mao, Cambodia under Pol Pot – 56 million disarmed, then murdered.

It could never happen here? It took just seven years in Germany, and Germany had an educated, sophisticated populace. In our own country, the president routinely complains about the "constraints" of the Constitution, which he then violates by creating new laws. The Congress and Supreme Court respond with cowardice, ignoring the unconstitutionality of TARP, Stimulus Program, auto industry takeover, ObamaCare "tax," scores of "signing statements," etc. Not only could it happen here; it IS happening here while we watch.

Editor Mike Dobbs writes that he'd like to see a "sober and responsible discussion" on the problem of guns. It might start by pointing out that 70 percent of murders in the US are gang-and-drug-related, and almost all of those killings are with pistols and knives, not assault rifles. Or we might point out that blacks make up 12.5 percent of the population, but represent 50 percent of the deaths. More kids are killed in Chicago every single year than died at Newtown. These shootings don't involve licensed guns.

The president's new regulations on licensed guns would have no impact on Chicago, which already has very strict gun laws. The government and the government-controlled media are simply using misdirection to take our eyes off their true purposes.

Pat Henry

East Longmeadow