* Crossposted from: FREEDOM'S_VOICE
    FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
    FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JULY 24, 1996
    THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
    Sean Gabb for president
    Let us compare two position statements which recently crossed my desk
on a single issue: gun control.
  Bob Dole, the big-government boot-licker and until lately chief tax
collector for the police-welfare state, spoke at the Virginia State Police
Academy in Richmond on July the ninth.
  He took the occasion to renounce, revoke and slink cravenly away from
previous Republican promises to repeal Sen. Dianne Feinstein's unnatural
sexual assault on the spirit and substance of the Second Amendment, the
so-called "assault weapons ban."
  "We've had a ban on so-called assault weapons," the former senator droned
to the assembled cadets, "but let's be realistic. Of the 17 weapons that
were specifically outlawed, 11 are already back on the market in some other
form. So what I say, let's move, that we've moved beyond the debate, in my
view, over banning assault weapons. ... We've got to move beyond banning
assault weapons. And instead of endlessly debating which guns to ban, we
ought to be emphasizing what works and what's been tried in the great
state, the Commonwealth of Virginia and other states. And we've seen here
what works (is) an instant check on handguns, shotguns, rifles, all guns,
period. All guns, period."
  "We're very happy that Citizen Bob Dole now supports the assault weapons
ban," preened Bob Walker, legislative director of Handgun Control Inc. "But
where was Sen. Bob Dole when we really needed him?"
  Still evolving, apparently.
  Meantime, Sean Gabb, one of Britain's few firearms rights activists
(cea01sig@gold.ac.uk), writes from London that he was approached by Simon
Wells, a producer for the appropriately-named (as it turns out) Chameleon
Television in Leeds, about appearing for five minutes on a program about
gun control.
 "A similar piece would be filmed with a Mr. Bernstein of an anti-gun
group. Both pieces would then be shown on the 17th of July and be followed
by a studio debate," Mr. Gabb reports.
  "Rather looking forward to this, I wrote a draft script and faxed it off
to Mr. Wells. He went quiet for a few days, and then came back to me to
cancel my appearance."
  What was it that Mr. Gabb proposed to say in only five minutes, that
apparently can't be allowed even on an independent TV station in Leeds?
  This:
  "Let me begin by saying that I believe in the right of adults to be able
to walk into a gun shop and, without showing any licence or proof of
identity, buy as many guns and as much ammunition as they can afford. I
also believe that adults should be free to keep guns at home and carry them
about in public, and use them in defence of their life, liberty and
property.
  "I am not saying this because I am a gun owner: I am not nor ever have
been. I say it because I believe that the right to self-defence is a
fundamental human right, comparable to freedom of speech and association.
Anyone who is denied this right - to keep and bear arms - is to some extent
enslaved. That person has lost control over his life. He is dependent on
the State for protection.
  "Of course, most people watching me will say that I am mad. Do I want a
society where every criminal has an gun, and where every domestic argument
ends in a gun battle?
  "The short answer is no. The longer answer is to say that more guns do
not inevitably mean more killings. ... Great Britain had no gun controls
before 1920, and very low rates of armed crime. Today, Switzerland has few
controls, and little armed crime. Those parts of the U.S. where guns are
most common are generally the least dangerous. ...
  "Focusing on professional crime, gun control is plainly a waste of
effort. Criminals will always get hold of guns if they want them. At most,
it needs a knowledge of the right pubs to visit. All control really does it
to disarm the honest public, and let the armed criminals roam through them
like a fox through chickens. ...
  "But let us move away from armed burglars and rapists and the occasional
lone psychopath. We need guns to protect us from the State. Far from
protecting us, the State is the main aggressor. A low estimate puts the
number of civilians murdered by states this century at 56 million - and
millions of these were children. In all cases, genocide was preceded by gun
control. How far would the Holocaust have got if the Jews in Nazi Germany
had been able to shoot back? How about the Armenians? The Kulaks? The
Chinese bourgeoisie? The Bosnians? In all previous societies, guns and
freedom have gone together. I doubt if our society is any different.
  "Laugh at me. Call me mad. Call me evil. But just remember me when your
loved ones are being raped, or mugged, or dragged off never to be seen
again - and you, as an obedient, disarmed little citizen, can do nothing
about it."
  Don't feel so bad, Sean. I don't think they would have aired it on
American TV, either.
Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@intermind.net.
The web site for the Suprynowicz column is at
http://www.nguworld.com/vindex/.
***
Vin Suprynowicz          vin@intermind.net
"Next year in Galt's Gulch!"
--- FMail 1.02
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