Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 13, 1994 TAG: 9405130067
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAMES W. BISHOP
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The Founding Fathers assured the people's inalienable right to keep and bear arms in order to maintain their freedom from tyrannical governments, especially their own. It's doubtful they had in mind a time when individual responsibility would become so passe that drug dealers, juvenile delinquents and the alleged mentally deranged could do what they jolly well please, regardless of whether semiautomatic weapons are involved, with little fear of arrest, less fear of conviction and almost no fear of punishment. What legitimate hunters need, or don't need, is completely irrelevant.
Should Congress violate the inalienable rights of individuals and take these efficient weapons out of the hands of citizens who can fire them for fun and relaxation or fire them to preserve the tenuous existence of the last, best hope for humanity?
Should Congress persist in doing so when the unarguable, unalterable and immutable result will be a catastrophe that will equal, or more likely exceed, Hitler's Holocaust (citizens disarmed by the Law on Firearms and Ammunition Act, April 12, 1928 and Weapons Law, March 18, 1938), Stalin's reign of terror (citizens disarmed by Article 182 Penal Code, 1929), and Rwanda's current blood-letting in terms of the number of victims, efficiency (imagine the Gestapo with current technology), cruelty and duration of the culpable regime?
I take the same view as did our Founding Fathers and say no!
The House of Representatives has taken the American people a step closer to our own holocaust. Boucher, of Virginia's ``Fightin' 9th'' District, broke ranks with those who'd trample liberty and bring on this event by voting against the unconstitutional ban on so-called assault-type weapons.
I say to Boucher, ``Well done!''
I say to this newspaper, ``Shame on you.''
Your position should surprise every thinking person. As an organization that enjoys the freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment, and not infrequently draws upon it for license, you should be acutely aware that should the Second Amendment go, the First Amendment will soon follow.
James W. Bishop of Blacksburg is a graduate student working on his doctorate degree in business management at Virginia Tech.
by CNB