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

DATE: TUESDAY, March 17, 1992                   TAG: 9203170368
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

NO CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FLY OR DRIVE

MARIANNE Miller's claim (letter, March 9) that pro-gun arguments are ridiculous is hilarious. Never in my life have I seen a better example of the pot calling the kettle black.

Comparing the right to drive a car or plane with the Second Amendment is indeed fallacious. There is no constitutional right to operate either vehicle. The Second Amendment is also the only unlimited right in the Constitution, as it clearly states it cannot be infringed.

The study to which Ms. Miller refers only includes incidents where the homeowner or robber were killed. This fails to account for instances in which the criminal was deterred without the use of lethal force. A close friend of mine recently used a so-called assault rifle to deter a would-be criminal from entering his house at 1 a.m. I am afraid Ms. Miller's statistics mean little to him.

As for the claim that it's naive to believe that individuals are any match for modern weaponry, poppycock! Look at what a bunch of illiterate rice farmers and yak herders did against vastly superior forces in Vietnam and Afghanistan. If only 10 percent of American gun owners resisted an oppressive government, it would eclipse these two examples in size and talent by a tremendous margin.

It is naive to believe that we can eliminate all small arms from the face of the Earth at this time, or any time soon. Until such time when people voluntarily give up violence, those who beat their swords into plowshares will plow for those who do not! MICHAEL PUCKETT ROCKY GAP

by CNB