FREEDOM MAY REQUIRE NEW REVOLT

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 4, 1993                   TAG: 9302040405
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
FREEDOM MAY REQUIRE NEW REVOLT
ON JAN. 26, a letter to the editor appeared in the Roanoke Times & World-News proposing to substitute "people-killer" for guns, etc. But I've never heard of guns that jump out of their storage places, load themselves, aim at people, then pull the triggers. It takes persons to do that! The gun is not guilty. And guns don't go to the chair or gas chamber; people do. (Well, sometimes.) So let's keep our definitions unpolluted.
Good definitions include reason or purpose for things. The founders' worst fear was that we would not or could not stay free. They placed power in the hands of "the people." They said, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
Now, why was it fixed that way? Well, it didn't mean they could go shoot tin cans and rabbits. "Being necessary to the security of a free state . . . " is what it says. I think it means another revolution, if and when required, to make freedom and liberty secure.
The founders didn't have this Constitution when they revolted. But we have it, because they left it to us after they bled to win it.
If "the people" are totally disarmed and a tyrannic dictator does arise, I wish someone would show me how the people could defend against him, with no arms. We would be entirely helpless. Free religion, free speech and the vote would have no more power than the nonexistent force left in the hands of the people. The wisdom, hard work and sacrifice the founders left us will be snuffed out, and our children will know slavery. ELLIS J. CARTER MARTINSVILLE

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB