imported post
So far, this is what I have to send her:
There are people out there who believe in the right to keep arms. A lot of those folks don't even realize they believe in it. They are the ones who own guns, but don't think that maybe it's not a good thing. They take it as a matter of course. It's just the way things are. That, I think, is the vast majority, and they are mostly silent.
Next, you have the group of people who mistakenly place the blame and responsibility for violence on an inanimate object. These people have no accountability, and don't apply accountability in the right places. They want to get rid of all uses for guns, and all guns, in an effort to stop violence. They don't understand that the problem is in the head of the person bent on violence. This group is by far, the loudest.
Third, you have the group of folks who believe, know they believe, and understand the importance of being able to continue as we have for 200 plus years. They understand where firearms fit in history, and in our daily lives. They know that most often, we don't even have to use them for the reasons given in the Second Amendment. Simply having them at our disposal is a large reason why we are still relatively free. They are vocal, but not nearly loud enough. This is beginning to change. They are getting louder, and they are waking the silent majority.
Firearms and gun rights are a very touchy subject to a lot of people, because in our history, liberal leaning media and many establishments of higher education have slowly indoctrinated society to believe that guns=violence. Criminals must be the only element in society who have guns, because most news stories where firearms are mentioned involve crime. Over time, the general opinion toward firearms has slid farther toward the negative. There are instances where students have done homework papers or speeches on the positives of firearms, and came under severe scrutiny, even harrassment, from staff and security at their school. Whether this indoctrination is intentional, or is just an unfortunate trend, remains to be seen. Either way, it doesn't matter, because the end result is the same, and it needs to be changed. For this reason, I think you should begin your speech with a few questions aimed at waking up the minds of your classmates and your teacher. Something like "what would you do if you heard glass breaking, or a door being forced open at 3 a.m. in your house?" You might get someone who answers "get my gun", but I doubt it. Most likely you'll get something like "call the police", "dial 911". Once you get the 911/police answer, ask them how long it takes for police to respond, and whether or not they believe they can hide or fend off an attacker until help arrives. At this point, I would bring up case law showing that the police do not have an obligation to protect and defend any individual, only population in general. Warren vs D.C. is a good one to use here. The details are pretty brutal, and would definitely get the attention of most of the female members of your class, and many of the guys. Read it, you'll be disgusted, and probably angry. I called the police on someone attempting to break in to my neighbors house. Twice. I waited 30 minutes for them to show up, while this person tried and tried to get in. I finally got fed up with waiting and went out myself. Police showed up 10-15 minutes later, and found nothing but broken glass and fingerprints. That's 45 minutes. In the Warren case, it was 14 HOURS.
There are numerous cases of our own police forces here in Michigan commiting crimes, and getting away with it. I'll point you in the direction of a couple good ones to use. All the evidence you present to the class should make them start to wonder about exactly what the police are good for. They need to wonder, because they aren't here as our personal body guards, though they are viewed that way by many.
When you get around to mentioning the Second Amendment, you need to be sure to state that it -secures- a right, it does not -grant- it. Too many people think the bill of rights was written to grant rights to the people. It's history shows that the writers believed that every one of the original ten amendments were the birth right of every single individual, and they wanted to have it written in our founding documents in order to prevent our government from becoming tyrannical. No other country has a document quite like ours. Our constitution is based partially on the English Magna Carta, but we took it a couple steps farther. Our second amendment is like a safety catch on a door. You can't open the door and empty the cabinet without disengaging the latch. Government is trying very hard to disengage it. All through history, societies who have lost their right to defend themselves end up victims of their governments. Consider Nazi Germany, their guns control efforts, and the ensuing extermination efforts of the Jewish community. This is just one example. There are a ton out there. I'll give you a short list that someone compiled on MOC. Research into them will be easy.
Some progress has been made recently in the effort to keep our right to bear arms. BHO has seen to that, though unintentionally. In Michigan, you know some of the efforts and results of the Open Carry movement. In only a couple short years, a lot of peoples eyes have been opened, simply by putting the firearm out in plain sight, showing that real people carry guns. There is also the landmark decision last year in D.C. vs Heller, where they "decided" by a narrow margin that the Second Amendment applies to individuals, as well as collective society. Now, there is a law suit in progress against Chicago that can have a huge impact on how our Second Amendment rights are treated in the future. McDonald vs City of Chicago. The supreme court has agreed to hear it, and the result COULD be the incorporation of the 2nd through the due process clause of the 14th. This would be HUGE. Here is a bunch of stuff that could be helpful:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28scotus.html?_r=1
http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Opinion/061693-2009-11-19-a-man-with-a-gun.htm
http://www.firearmsandliberty.com/kasler-protection.html
http://www.mcrkba.org/w19.html
http://psacake.com/dial_911.asp
http://members.tripod.com/~waycool_dude/secondamendment.html
No Duty to Protect
It’s not just that the police cannot protect you. They don’t even have to come when you call. In most states the government and police owe no legal duty to protect individual citizens from criminal attack. The District of Columbia’s highest court spelled out plainly the “fundamental principle that a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen.”[5]
In the especially gruesome landmark case the “no-duty” rule got ugly. Just before dawn on March 16, 1975, two men broke down the back door of a three-story home in Washington, D.C., shared by three women and a child. On the second floor one woman was sexually attacked. Her housemates on the third floor heard her screams and called the police.
The women’s first call to D.C. police got assigned a low priority, so the responding officers arrived at the house, got no answer to their knocks on the door, did a quick check around, and left. When the women frantically called the police a second time, the dispatcher promised help would come—but no officers were even dispatched.
The attackers kidnapped, robbed, raped, and beat all three women over 14 hours. When these women later sued the city and its police for negligently failing to protect them or even to answer their second call, the court held that government had no duty to respond to their call or to protect them. Case dismissed.
The law is similar in most states. A Kansas statute precludes citizens from suing the government or the police for negligently failing to enforce the law or for failing to provide police or fire protection. A California law states that “neither a public entity nor a public employee is liable for failure to establish a police department or otherwise provide police protection service.”[6] As one California appellate court wrote, “police officers have no affirmative statutory duty to do anything.”[7]
The state legislatures and courts protect government entities and police departments from civil liability for failing to provide adequate police protection. Some states invoke the “sovereign immunity” defense, a throwback to the days when the subjects were forbidden to sue the king. Other states have statutes that prevent legal challenges to police “discretionary” functions. Courts preclude lawsuits in those states by holding that answering emergency calls or providing police protection are “discretionary” functions.
Many states evade liability by relying on the ironically named “public duty” doctrine. Like a George Orwell slogan, that doctrine says: police owe a duty to protect the public in general, but not to protect any particular individual.
"Militia" in the Second Amendment does not mean "army", as so many people mistakenly believe:
If you read 10 USC Sec. 311 (That's Title 10 of the U.S. Code, Section 311, subtitle A part chapter 13) you'll find this:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
A law suit currently in progress:
McDonald v. City of Chicago
Friday, November 20, 2009
On November 16, the NRA filed its brief with the U.S. Supreme Court as Respondent in Support of Petitioner in McDonald v. City of Chicago. The NRA brief asks the U.S. Supreme Court to hold that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments through the Fourteenth Amendment.
The McDonald case is one of several that were filed immediately after last year's decision in District of Columbia v. Heller, in which the Court upheld the Second Amendment as an individual right and struck down Washington, D.C.'s ban on handgun possession, as well as the capital city's ban on keeping loaded, operable firearms for self-defense in the home.
The follow-up cases were filed by NRA and other organizations against Chicago and several of its suburbs. Each of these suits was aimed at the same goal: establishing that the Second Amendment applies to state and local governments as well as the federal government.
In September, the Supreme Court agreed to consider the McDonald case, on appeal from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. That court incorrectly claimed that prior Supreme Court precedent prevented it from holding in favor of incorporation of the Second Amendment. As we argued at the time, the Seventh Circuit should have followed the lead of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Nordyke v. King, which found that Supreme Court precedent does not prevent the Second Amendment from applying to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.
As a party in McDonald, the NRA is actively involved in this case and we believe our brief makes a clear and strong case in favor of incorporation of the Second Amendment (to read the brief, please click here).
The McDonald case will be argued in February 2010. NRA members should be proud of our efforts to bring this issue to the court's attention through the many lawsuits we brought to overturn local bans on gun ownership and self-defense immediately after Heller. We are hopeful that McDonald v. Chicago will achieve another major victory for gun owners' rights.
A letter ripped from Michigan Open Carry
http://opencarry.mywowbb.com/view_topic.php?id=33244&forum_id=30&highlight=extermination
"Good day, In a Herald Palladium article published October 22nd, 2009, regarding the South Haven City Council decision to lift the gun ban in parks, you made the following statement: "I firmly believe the city should have the right to say some areas are off limits for guns," Appleyard said. "They can't be in schools and they shouldn't be on the playgrounds. I think there should be some places off limits, just to keep community children and families safe." I feel it is my duty as an American citizen to ask this question of you: Do you honestly and truly believe that a violent criminal, who 90% of the time own their firearms illegally anyways, is going to listen to a law that says they aren't allowed to have it? Of course they won't. There is a valuable string of well thought out logic behind the Second Amendment, which, as much as certain politcal figures may try to argue, is written very clearly and concisely. It is because 'Gun Free Zones' are 'Criminal Empowerment Zones'. By the logic expressed in this statement, it seems that you would also be in favor of regulating or banning freedom of speech, assembly, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in certain areas within South Haven as well. I certainly hope for your own sake and the sake of citizens everywhere that you take serious consideration to the common sense offered in this letter. Here is some food for thought: Gun control has historically lead to the mass extermination of millions of people by their own government. In fact, in the last 100 years, more than 56 million defenseless people have been rounded up and exterminated by their own governments. That's more people than who died in combat during WWI and WWII combined. These 56 million people were defenseless and exterminated because they lost their right to keep and bear firearms. Look at what history tells us:"
1. "In 1911, Turkey established gun control. From 1915 to 1917, 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "
2. "In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control. From 1929 to 1953, about 20 million dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "
3. "Germany established gun control in 1938 and from 1939 to 1945, a total of 13 million Jews and others who were unable to defend themselves were rounded up and exterminated. "
4. "China established gun control in 1935. From 1948 to 1952, 20 million political dissidents, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "
5. "Guatemala established gun control in 1964. From 1964 to 1981, 100,000 Mayan Indians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "
6. "Uganda established gun control in 1970. From 1971 to 1979, 300,000 Christians, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "
7. "Cambodia established gun control in 1956. From 1975 to 1977, 'one million educated' people, unable to defend themselves, were rounded up and exterminated. "
" Thank you for your time,
Anonymous
"If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." --Mark Twain"
