In case you haven't seen the ad in our paper, there's a gun show this weekend at the Civic Center.
Last fall, before the Presidential election, I went to a gun show there. I was in search of a handgun.
Some of my friends were aghast I'd consider buying a gun at all, much less a handgun. I grew up in rural Virginia and guns were as much a part of life as cars and gardens. Every October there were gun safety classes during school -- the yearly course before teenage hunters descended on the backwoods in search of a large buck. Boys routinely came to school with trucks sporting gun racks holding multiple rifles so they could go hunting immediately after school. And, yes, they parked their trucks in the school parking lot.
No one ever stole their guns and no one ever worried about one of them going crazy and shooting up the school. The world was a simpler place.
We were indoctrinated in the principle that the Constitutional right to bear arms had nothing to do with defending yourself against a burglar and everything to do with defending yourself -- and I quote my seventh grade teacher here -- "against a government gone awry".
The last time I visited my sister, who still lives in my hometown, I saw a golf cart painted in camouflage, adorned with a two-gun rack driving into the parking lot at a country store. So you see, Virginians are as serious about their guns as Texans.
I say all this as background to what I encountered at the last Amarillo gun show I attended before Obama was elected president. Several times I was told I shouldn't wait to buy a gun because the next show would be "after the election, and you don't know what will have happened by then". The not-to-veiled implication was that under a Democratic president, gun sales would be immediately eliminated, or drastically curtailed.
Well, it's now after the election and there's been at least two gun shows here since. And, I'm not worried gun sales will end no matter who is president or what party is in control.
I just wonder what my seventh grade teacher would say about the rampant belief that the Constitution could be so easily thwarted by one man. Of course, Miss Driscoll wouldn't have believed a president would have allowed wiretaps on U.S. citizens without warrants, either.
The world was a simpler place.
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I'm thinkin' Ms Driscoll would tell you that one man did not allow wiretaps either. FISA was okayed and extended by the House and the Senate. It never went to SCOTUS so I will assume there were no illegalities. FISA was also okayed by then Senator Barack Obama.
ReplyDeleteTime will tell whether one man, with his appointments to SCOTUS, will affect the rights of Americans to own weapons as guaranteed by the 2nd Amendment.
Actually, with FISA there are warrants, although sometimes (maybe even most of the time) they may be issued after-the-fact, but there is a FISA court that issues FISA warrants. I believe Ms. Dressler is referring to Bush's program of illegal, warrantless wiretaps.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSA_warrantless_surveillance_controversy
As we saw in the Nixon administration, nobody is above the law. Well, with the exception of congress, they have written the laws so they cannot be even investigated.
ReplyDeleteNot the point.
If George Bush has broken any laws, to use his colloquially, bring it on. I for one will not stand in your way. Any laws that were broken were in collusion with congress and the Dept of Justice and will not be prosecuted.
Bush is a war criminal pure and simple.
ReplyDelete"DAWN!"
ReplyDelete