* Forwarded (from: PA-RKBA) by Roy J. Tellason using timEd 1.10.y2k.
* Originally from FHA (1:270/615.77) to All.
* Original dated: Tue Dec 31, 12:06

From: FHA 
Subject: PA-RKBA! The gun in the labourer's house

Friends,   
   The article below is from the Canadian newspaper The National Post.
Tomorrow the news from Ottawa should be interesting.  It isn't often that
the mainstream media is sympathetic to those who resist gun control.  I
suspect there will be some news coverage of the protests and the arrest of
the protesters.  Their trials should be even more interesting it gets that
far.  I don't see how the Canadian government can possibly salvage this
legislative fiasco.  Very few Canadians support the law including many
(most?) non gun owners.
-- 
Keep Smilin'
Fred

Cogito, ergo armo.

"A gun in the hands of a free man frightens and angers the autocrat,
not because he fears the power of the gun, but, rather, the spirit of the
man who holds it." Author unknown

===========================================================
The gun in the labourer's house

Pierre Lemieux 
National Post

http://www.nationalpost.com/commentary/story.html?id={B21CC8AE-B769-4D8F-9966-
7B D29D12A48A}

Tuesday, December 31,

Underlying our apparently peaceful democracies is the idea that the
ultimate rampart against tyranny lies in the resistance of the people. 
This is not only an American and a French idea, but also a very English
one.

In his classic Commentaries on the Laws of England, Sir William Blackstone,
the famous 18th-century English jurist, stressed the danger of power for
"English liberties." The constitution (for this is how Blackstone
labeled the legal traditions of England) provided safeguards under the form
of "certain auxiliary subordinate rights of the subject, which serve
principally as barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great
and primary rights, of personal security, personal liberty, and private
property." The auxiliary rights "of every Englishman"
included the right "of having arms for their defence ...  [which] is a
public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of
resistance and self preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws
are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."

Many people like to think that they would start resisting before tyranny is
well entrenched, but few actually would.  It is risky to disobey laws: The
state has the power to put resistors in jail, or give them criminal
records.  State propaganda tries to isolate and discredit resistors,
especially when they are part of a minority ("a dwindling
minority," scorns the Canadian Firearms Centre).  Armchair resistors
who imagine themselves as heroes adulated by the populace are usually
wrong: They will be treated as marginals, cranks, outcasts, criminals. 
Only later will early resistors be seen as heroes.

Starting tomorrow, we will have an opportunity to meet such heroes of the
early resistance.  On Jan.  1-3, in Ottawa, a few members and supporters of
the Canadian Unregistered Firearm Owners Association (CUFOA) will post
their "Declaration of Non-compliance," and go to 24 Sussex Drive
to present to the Prime Minister the ashes from their firearms licences and
gun registration certificates.  If they have not yet been arrested, they
will visit the offices of the Minister of Justice and the Attorney-General.
 They are also planning to swap firearm parts which, since 1998, is a crime
without a prior permission from the state.  They are considering a side
trip to Montreal.

The feds have tried diversion tactics.  First, the Justice Department
announced that prosecutions would not start until six months after the gun
registration deadline of today, Dec.  31, so as to give time to the
bureaucrats to issue the certificates applied for.  Second, on Dec.  27,
the department announced that gun owners unable to use the overloaded
registration system can, before Jan.  1, write, fax, or e-mail their
intention to register when the bureaucrats have fixed the
one-billion-dollar system.  The Ottawa heroes are still not complying with
this pre-registration, and they are also in violation of the personal
licensing obligation which came into force one year ago.

As the infamous C-68 "law" (the third major piece of firearm
control legislation in 25 years) comes into full force, owning firearms
without a personal licence and a registration certificate for each gun are
crimes that carry penalties of up to 10 years in jail.  The CUFOA resistors
quote Henry David Thoreau: "When a man's conscience and the laws
clash, it is his conscience that he must follow." They could also
quote the 18th-century English writer Junius: "The subject who is
truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to
arbitrary measures."

There are many reasons to resist C-68.  It forces any individual who even
only wants to keep his hunting gun at home to apply for a personal licence
every five years, and tell the police about his depressions and his love
life.  It forces 10% of the Canadian adult population to notify the police
when they change addresses.  It grants the police arbitrary powers to seize
guns and to deny or revoke licences.  In certain circumstances, it allows
searches (rechristened "inspections") without warrants.  C-68
also forces the registration of all individual guns, and prepares the sort
of confiscation that the British and the Australians have recently suffered
(like, before them, subjects of all totalitarian countries).  It is one of
the last nails in the coffin of the right of individuals to defend their
lives if the police cannot (or will not) intervene.

C-68 will have also created, from a few hundreds of thousands (according to
government estimates) to a few millions, of instant, peaceful, paper
criminals.

George Orwell, the author of 1984, wrote: "That rifle hanging on the
wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage is the symbol of
democracy.  It is our job to see that it stays there."

At great personal risk, a few Canadian heroes have made it their job to see
that the gun stays in the labourer's house.  Besides CUFOA, other groups
like the Law-abiding Unregistered Firearms Association (LUFA) are engaged
in civil disobedience.  Individual resistors like Allister Muir, a Nova
Scotia businessman, have publicly admitted having guns without the required
permits, and challenged the state to prosecute them.

CUFOA's strategy of civil disobedience is especially daring.  The Ottawa
demonstrators will either be arrested, showing the real nature of the law,
or else they will prove that the state does not dare enforce its so-called
"law" against peaceful citizens.  This small group of resistors
includes respectable citizens such as CUFOA president Jim Turnbull, Dr. 
Edward Hudson, a veterinarian, Dr.  Joe Gingrich, a dentist, Claire Joly, a
Montreal writer, and Yvon Dionne, a retired civil servant and the Quebec
spokesman for the demonstration.

From those of us who are less brave, from those of us who believe in
individual liberty, from our future descendants, these heroes deserve
gratitude and praise.

Copyright 2002 National Post

"Our Rights are not what's wrong in Pennsylvania"

The Constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania guarantees your right
to bear arms in Article 1 Section 21: "The right of Citizens to bear
arms in defense of themselves and the State shall not be questioned."

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