From: AdmrlLocke@aol.com Sent: Saturday, September 04, 1999 4:36 PM To: undisclosed-recipients: ; Subject: GrammNet: Bush Lurches Left Against Right to Bear Arms GrammNet Issue 9/4/99.1 Dear Friend, In the last GrammNet issue (8/24/99) we saw that John McCain had lurched to the left on abortion, embracing the liberal mantra of Roe v. Wade just as many in the liberal media were getting ready to abandon George Bush, Jr. over his refusal to give a straight answer about whether he used cocaine. For a few days the issue hung fire, but then Bush Junior counterattacked--by lurching leftward himself against your right to bear arms. As the AP article below demonstrates, Bush Junior is willing to support infringements of your right to bear arms against which even the generally spineless Republicans in Congress fought tooth and nail. Like most gun-control measures, the infringements currently supported by liberals--and now by Bush Junior--bear no relation to any gun crimes the liberals claim they want to stop, but further inconvenience law-abiding citizens, further accustoming us to having to get permission from Big Government in order to buy guns. And at the very end of the AP story, on a totally different topic, is a little hint of Bush's plan to addict church-based charities to Big Government spending. With "conservatives" like Bush Junior, who needs liberals? Contrary to Bush Junior's gun-control sellout, as columnist Ann Colter eloquently argues in the second piece below, the presence of guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens actually saves lives. It's a lesson the Israelis learned some time ago, which is why they repealed the gun-control laws they'd had since they'd founded Israel and armed teachers and principles, among others. Since they armed, they've stopped Arab terrorist gunmen from opening fire in Israeli schools. It's not just the Israelis who're learning the lesson that private guns save lives. As the third piece below details, the Canadian Police Association stands poised to abandon their own support for gun-control and endorse the time-honored American tradition of deterring crime--private attempts to infringe our rights to life, liberty and property--by arming private citizens. In the USA Today article you'll find as the fourth item below, we learn that even renown leftist legal scholar Lawrence Tribe, for decades the most brilliant distorter of the US Constitution, has discovered that the Second Amendment actually WAS intended to protect your individual right to bear arms. It's amazing that even as left-wing intellectuals like Tribe are rediscovering the individual right to bear arms which the Founding Fathers sought to protect with the Second Amendment, Bush Junior is abandoning our right to bear arms in order to gain support from the gun-grabbing liberal media. For you holdouts who think Bush Junior is "conservative enough," it's time to admit that he isn't and abandon HIM. Sincerely, David B. Levenstam, CPA, MT, MA Forbes in 2000! GrammNet is an independent newsletter, not affiliated with Senator Gramm. To subscribe to GrammNet, email me at AdmrlLocke@aol.com, with a message to the effect that you'd like to subscribe. GrammNet back issues available at http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3390 Steve Forbes web page (Forbes 2000) at http://www.forbes2000.com --------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Bush Backs Some Gun-Control Efforts .c The Associated Press By JAMES PILCHER MARIETTA, Ga. (AP) - Texas Gov. George W. Bush, bringing his GOP presidential campaign to an area stung by episodes of wanton gun violence, today endorsed efforts in Congress to raise the legal age for gun ownership to 21 from 18. Bush also backed proposals in Congress to outlaw certain large ammunition clips and repeated his support for background checks on firearms sales at gun shows. ``I support them all,'' Bush said when asked about the proposals. ``These are all reasonable measures.'' Democrats have attacked Bush as being soft on gun control, noting he has spoken against government-mandated gun registration, signed legislation barring cities in Texas from suing gun makers for the costs of violence, and deemed mandatory child safety locks on firearms impractical to enforce. Bush today stressed his core belief in gun rights. ``I believe innocent people, law-abiding citizens, ought to be allowed to own a gun,'' he told reporters. ``I believe they ought to be allowed to hunt and protect themselves.'' He said previously he would have voted for legislation defeated by the House that would have required a 24-hour background check on weapons sales at gun shows. Most Democrats pushed for a longer waiting period and argued a 24-hour mandate actually would have allowed some gun show sales to move faster. Bush was ending a three-day Southern campaign swing in the Atlanta area, where several shootings this summer commanded national attention. On July 29, Mark O. Barton shot and killed nine people at two day-trading firms in Atlanta before committing suicide. Barely two weeks earlier, a gunman killed two women and four children in their Atlanta home before killing himself. In May, a 15-year-old boy opened fire at his high school in suburban Conyers, wounding six classmates. Bush started the day touring a church-run homeless shelter. He held it out as an example of a religious organization that should be eligible for government money. ---------------------------------- 2. The Other Side of the Gun Issue Remember this name: Thomas Glenn Terry. It won't be bandied quite as much as "Mark O. Barton" over the next few weeks, but it should be. A few years ago two armed men burst into a Shoney's restaurant in Anniston, Alabama and herded the patrons and employees into a walk-in refrigerator, at gun point. The robbers kept the manager behind for his assistance as they looted the restaurant. One patron, however, also remained behind. Thomas Glenn Terry had opted against being locked in a refrigerator, and hid from the attackers under a table. As one of the armed robbers ransacked the cash register, another patroled the restaurant. When he came across Mr. Terry, he pulled his gun. But unlike the recent victims in Atlanta, this victim was armed. Using his own legally concealed handgun, Terry shot and killed the robber. The other armed robber, who had had his gun trained on the manager, then opened fire on Terry. Terry shot back, mortally wounding the second robber. The two dozen hostages were released unharmed. Only the criminals -- who had been armed with stolen guns by the way -- didn't make it out alive. You probably hadn't heard of the Shoney's restaurant incident. In the media's boundless capacity to stultify the public with sensational news stories, they have made places like Littleton, Colorado household names. But "Anniston, Alabama" doesn't ring a bell. A massacre is a story. Thwarting a massacre isn't. But once you know about Anniston, and similar averted tragedies, something will start to leap out at you as you read news accounts of gunmen shooting scores of innocents. Massacre stories always include a terrifying account of how the killers proceeded from victim to victim, pausing to reload, and shooting again. Mass murder requires that the victims be unarmed. Thomas Glenn Terry, though heroic, is not altogether unique. Two years ago in Pearl, Mississippi a deranged student shot and killed two of his classmates. Fortunately, Joel Myrick, the assistant principal had a gun in his car. He prevented the shooting from becoming a Littleton level massacre by holding the student at gunpoint until the police arrived. A year later, in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, a 14-year-old boy opened fire at an eighth-grade graduation dance, killing a teacher and wounding three others. A single murder did not become a mass murder only because a near-by restaurant owner, James Strand, happened to be armed. As the shooter stopped to reload, Strand immobilized the shooter, holding him for over ten minutes, until the police appeared. A lot of killing can be accomplished in ten minutes when none of your victims is armed. How long did it take the police to arrive in Atlanta? Barton walked into one office building in Atlanta shot four people dead, then left the building, ambled across the street, entered another building, and killed at least five more people. As in Littleton there are film clips of policemen scaling the building's walls to rescue terrified and completely defenseless people inside. Most striking in the news reports of Barton's shooting spree was this: Fully three hours after the shooting, some people were still hiding in the building. Hiding. Waiting like pigs before the slaughter. Because none of them was armed. None but the madman. But for some reason, the government's response is always to disarm more citizens. Not to disarm itself, by the way, but to disarm people other than the police who show up 15 minutes after the shooting has begun. This isn't a complaint about the police, they simply can't be everywhere at once. It's a plea for more citizen guards. There may be bad citizens, but, let me remind you, there are also bad police. Why are they the only ones don't have to hide in their offices when madmen with guns show up? More guns will not create more Mark Bartons. Guns can do a lot of things, like protect you from lunatics, but they don't make you criminally insane. Consider Mr. Barton. The initial reports have been that he killed his children because his stock porfolio had declined. Well, that's a rational response. Whether it was his stocks or his wife or the weather -- he killed his children. This is a madman. In the absence of a gun, he could have used an axe, a bomb, or a machette. One of the most efficient murder sprees this century was accomplished not with guns, but with machettes. Madmen in Rwanda murdered almost one million people in under four months. If only Thomas Glenn Terry had been there. - Columnist Ann Colter, 8/20/99 ---------------- 3. Canada's cops rethink gun control The Canadian Police Association may withdraw its support for gun registration tomorrow. Tom Regan Special to The Christian Science Monitor HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA In a move that may have ramifications for the gun-control debate in the United States, the Canadian Police Association (CPA) is considering reversing its stand on gun registration. Like police in the US, Canadian police have long been a bedrock of support for stricter gun control. But yesterday at the CPA's annual meeting in Regina, Saskatchewan, members took up a resolution to withdraw their support for the Firearms Act, which many say in hindsight has become too expensive and unworkable. The controversial Firearms Act, which took effect in late 1998, requires all rifle and shotgun owners in Canada to register their weapons by 2003. The resolution, which will be voted on tomorrow and which has been brought forward by the executive committee of the Saskatchewan Federation of Police Officers (SFPO), has a 50-50 chance of passing, according to some police officials. If the CPA passes the resolution, the officials say, the Firearms Act's standing with the public would be seriously undermined. "It will sound the end bell," says Murray Grismer, a 13-year veteran of the police force in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. "The federal justice department has sent a deputy minister to Regina this week to lobby the national association to support something that is already a law," says Mr. Grismer, who serves as SFPO's spokesman. "To me, that says the government knows that there is no concrete support for the bill with the public and that it needs groups like the CPA in order to sell the law to the public." The Firearms Act is the latest major piece of gun-control legislation in Canada, the first of which was passed in 1934. The country has been far ahead of the US on such measures and can serve as a sort of test case for Americans as they consider their own legislation. A move in Canada toward less gun control could thus impact the direction of lawmaking in the US. In September, a US congressional conference is expected to hammer out new gun-control legislation in the wake of such tragedies as the shootings at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo. So far, about 90,000 Canadians have complied with the new law. The government estimates that about 28 percent of Canadians own firearms, a figure somewhere between 7 million and 9 million. By comparison, one-third of US households are estimated to have a gun. Statistics Canada, a government agency in Ottawa, says there were 193 homicides that involved firearms in Canada last year - 77 with a rifle and 99 with a handgun. Overall, homicide figures in Canada hit a 30-year low. In the United States, an average of 87 people a day are killed by firearms. Grismer says many police are reexamining their initial support for the Canadian act because it has turned out to be far more expensive than originally forecast. Original estimates were about $85 million to create the infrastructure to support the act; some people now say the total cost could be about $200 million or more. Creating an accurate, accessible database for police to track firearms has also proved to be much harder than expected, especially since "criminals don't register their guns," says Grismer. "The government's own audit says the system is 80 to 90 percent inaccurate. What value is that to me as a police officer? If I go into a domestic dispute and use the system to do a check and it tells me that there is no firearm in the dwelling, then even subconsciously, I let my guard down. And if the system is wrong, then that's trouble." The CPA resolution is just the latest move to undermine the act. Several national gun-owner groups and six of the 10 provinces are challenging the constitutionality of the law before the Canadian Supreme Court. They argue that the federal government overstepped its authority when it imposed the Firearms Act on the provinces. Many national firearms groups, such as the National Firearms Association, are also calling on their membership to ignore the law. But those who support the act, including the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police, say that many of these arguments are misleading and that the act is working as intended. "Much has been said about the problems of smuggled handguns in crime, and it may be true that 'criminals' will not register their guns," Dave Cassels wrote in an opinion piece in the Edmonton (Alberta) Journal last month. He is former chief of the Winnipeg, Manitoba, police and deputy police chief of Edmonton. "However, the fact remains that most criminals get their guns from so-called 'law-abiding' gun owners and that without mechanisms to track firearms, we have no way of controlling the illegal gun trade or enforcing existing safe storage laws." Mr. Cassels also credits the rise in cost of implementing the law to the federal government's need to fight costly battles to defend it in court. And Jean Valin, director of public affairs for the Canadian Firearms Center in Ottawa, which handles all requests for registration forms, says many gun owners support the law. In a survey of 3,300 Canadians last year, 50 of gun owners supported the mandatory registration of all firearms; 80 percent of all respondents said that they were in support. Mr. Valin also notes that the gun lobby represents an increasingly small number of Canadians. "The dynamic is that the sport aspect of owning a gun is in steady decline. People want to do other things - go rollerblading or hiking. In fact, even 46 percent of Canadians who do own a gun say they never use them anymore." Both sides can show support for their positions. Pro-gun-control forces won an important battle late last year when the Alberta Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Firearms Act by a 3-2 margin. But on the other hand, Grismer points to the recent election of new premiers in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, who both took strong stances against the law. Grismer says he is also aware of what the CPA vote could mean for the gun-control debate in the US, and recent suggestions by some politicians that the US needs a similar gun-registration law. "I don't think it would ever happen anyway. But if the CPA reverses its opinion, then yes, I do think it will make an impact on the debate in the US. It means [a gun-registration system] will never, ever happen." ---------- This is to the Bush campaign what the McCain abortion statement was to his campaign. By accepting the premise of the gun controllers, he has accepted their argument and placed on the spot all these Republican House members who voted against the Bush-backed gun control scheme including many who have endorsed the embattled would-be nominee. And as the coalition is divided, our chances of victory are lessened. By abandoning the right, as the nominees in 1996, 1992, 1976, 1960 and 1948 did, Republicans cannot win the White House. For these same reasons, it should be obvious that Whitman cannot be elected in the unlikely event she wins the primary with Bob Grant pulling 15 percent plus of the vote as an independent. Statements like this sure aren't going to get people to the phone banks that's for sure. ---------------------------------------------------------- 4. Scholar's shift in thinking angers liberals By Tony Mauro, USA TODAY Publication of the first volume of a revised edition of a legal treatise would not ordinarily make news. But even before it began arriving at law schools last week, Laurence Tribe's American Constitutional Law was causing a stir. Tribe, a Harvard law professor who is probably the most influential living American constitutional scholar, says he has already gotten hate mail about his new interpretation of the right to bear arms contained in the Second Amendment. Relegated to a footnote in the first edition of the book in 1978, the right to bear arms earns Tribe's respect in the latest version. Tribe, well-known as a liberal scholar, concludes that the right to bear arms was conceived as an important political right that should not be dismissed as "wholly irrelevant." Rather, Tribe thinks the Second Amendment assures that "the federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification." Tribe posits that it includes an individual right, "admittedly of uncertain scope," to "possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes." None of Tribe's new thinking changes his view that gun-control measures are "plainly constitutional," but his shift has been enough to anger gun-control advocates. "I've gotten an avalanche of angry mail from apparent liberals who said, 'How could you?'" Tribe says. "But as someone who takes the Constitution seriously, I thought I had a responsibility to see what the Second Amendment says, and how it fits." Tribe's views on the Constitution are of more than passing importance. Earlier editions of Tribe's treatise have been quoted more than 50 times in Supreme Court opinions - by liberal and conservative justices - and by the top courts of India, Germany, Russia and Canada, among others. The new edition also deals with the law on impeachment developed from President Clinton's trial, as well as the Supreme Court trend cutting back on congressional power. "He has an audience well beyond law students," says Drake University law professor Tom Baker, who assigns Tribe's book to students. "For Larry Tribe to say that there's more to the Second Amendment than originally thought is very important, and reflects an open-mindedness that some don't expect." Glenn Harlan Reynolds of the University of Tennessee adds: "He legitimizes this whole new body of scholarship, and it will force judges and others to face the issue on its merits." At the usually conservative law school at Pepperdine University, professor Douglas Kmiec recommends the book to "the very best students." On the Second Amendment, Kmiec says, Tribe's book offers "a fair and evenhanded appraisal of what is still an inconclusive right."