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

DATE: MONDAY, March 1, 1993                   TAG: 9303010203
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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CONSTITUTION IS NOT HOLY WRIT

GROVER C. McCloud's letter of Feb. 16, "NRA members will still have a vote," demands a response.

Mr. McCloud, I spent 21 years of my life in the military defending the Constitution of the United States. I seem to know something you do not: It is not Holy Writ direct from God. It was a ground-breaking document that even the framers knew was not perfect. That is why they made provisions for amending it.

Look at your last paragraph: "Some people may be willing to give up their rights without a fight. I, for one, am not. I am the National Rifle Association and I vote."

In the last century the last sentence would have read, "I am a slave-owner . . . " Earlier this century it would have been, "I am a white male . . . " Thanks to amendments, we have abolished slavery and given the vote to women, minorities, etc.

The firearms that framers of the Constitution knew were flintlock pistols and muskets, not automatic engines of destruction that can do more damage than an entire arsenal of the 1780s. It is time for reason, something McCloud and the NRA are less than properly acquainted with.

For the record, I am for gun control, I am most assuredly not the NRA, and, thanks be to God, I vote, too. STEVEN E. BROWN CHRISTIANSBURG

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