The essence of the “weapon of choice” argument is that, because criminals and madmen use these guns to commit crimes, the law- abiding must give them up. But to ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow.

By criminalizing an act that is not wrong in itself the purchase and sale of a firearm the ban violates the presumption of innocence, the principle that insures that government honors the liberty of its citizens until their deeds convict them. By completely banning the sale of assault weapons to prevent crime before it occurs, the law effectively and irrebuttably presumes that all who want such a weapon are no better than murderers or madmen, forever ineligible to acquire these firearms.

Obviously, a law which restricts the liberty of the innocent because of the behavior of the guilty, that rests on principle that the conduct of criminals dictates the scope of liberty the law will allow to the rest of society, in no sense “fights” crime. It is, instead, a capitulation to crime, born of a society in full-bore retreat from crime, a society fearful of and desperately accommodating itself to crime.

Jeff Snyder
August 25, 1994
The Washington Times, page A19.
Who’s Under Assault in the Assault Weapon Ban?

People whose emotions rule their intellects can easily be guided by skillful manipulators of emotion. - John Derbyshire

Sent from Proxima Centauri B through the ether using FTP transmission technology, Honey Encryption, and Peanut Butter & Jelly sandwiches

"I am sorry" ~Marc Zuckerberg.

"Well, phew! I'm glad that's over. It's all ok now, he's sorry." ~30 or 40 senators

("You still have my mailing addy for campaign donations, Marc?")

"The police of a state should never be stronger or better armed than the citizenry. An armed citizenry, willing to fight, is the foundation of civil freedom. "
Robert A Heinlein (from his book "Beyond This Horizon")

There are dead horses yet to be slain....
- WaGuns member

“It is difficult to make a man miserable while he feels worthy of himself.” – Abraham Lincoln

"Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not." — Samuel Johnson

“A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years.” - Lysander Spooner

Juliet Williams
✔
@JWilliamsAP

A longer extract from the Thomas Jefferson quote.

"what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms. the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. what signify a few lives lost in a century or two? the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. it is it’s natural manure."

"As to the species of exercise, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprize, and independance to the mind. Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."
- Thomas Jefferson 1785 August 19.

"The greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the Constitution." - Thomas Jefferson


“For seven decades we have been yielding our most basic liberties to a secretive, unaccountable emergency state – a vast but increasingly misdirected complex of national security institutions, reflexes, and beliefs that so define our present world that we forget that there was ever a different America. ... Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness have given way to permanent crisis management: to policing the planet and fighting preventative wars of ideological containment, usually on terrain chosen by, and favorable to, our enemies. Limited government and constitutional accountability have been shouldered aside by the kind of imperial presidency our constitutional system was explicitly designed to prevent.” — David C. Unger, The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs

" Well, there you go again. "

Ronald Regan, vs Jimmy Carter in the televised presidential debate that won him the election.

"The Constitution is not a tool to be wielded for political expediency. It is the supreme law of the land, and the President's responsibility is to take care that it is followed, not outmaneuvered."

-Trey Gowdy

"The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the "high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted out of the general powers of government.' A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power." Cockrum v. State 24 Tex. 394, at 401-402 (1859)

“The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.” - United States v Cruikshank 92 U.S. 542 (1875)

"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.” — Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824

"…the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone…” — James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788

"The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern, some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield." - George Washington, Farewell Address

"The first official action of this nation declared the foundation of government in these words: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. "While such declaration of principles may not have the force of organic law, or be made the basis of judicial decision as to the limits of right and duty, and while in all cases reference must be had to the organic law of the nation for such limits, yet the latter is but the body and the letter of which the former is the thought and the spirit, and it is always safe to read the letter of the Constitution in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence. No duty rests more imperatively upon the courts than the enforcement of those constitutional provisions intended to secure that equality of rights which is the foundation of free government." Cotting v. Godard, 183 U.S. 79 (1901), United States Supreme Court

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either form human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.” – Wendell Phillips

"If you're not ready to die for it, put the word 'freedom'out of your vocabulary".

“When the people find that they can vote themselves money that will herald the end of the republic.” ― Benjamin Franklin

“For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.” - Alexander Solzhenitsyn; “This dead dog, expelled from Russia, acquired a new life in the United States and regained vitality to become a living lion within the Democratic Party.”

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done." - Ronald Reagan, 1964