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http://www.wickedlocal.com/bourne/n...665952386/Who-Cares-Taking-aim-at-gun-control
Who Cares: Taking aim at gun control
By Joe Burns
Wed Aug 06, 2008, 02:25 PM EDT
CAPE COD -
Last week police confiscated a small arsenal of illegal guns, ammunition and other assorted weapons from the Marstons Mills home of Kenneth Webster. On July 1 police also removed several guns and knives that had been on his person and in his car. In total, more than 50 weapons were taken from Webster including a sawed-off shotgun, an M14 automatic rifle and a sniper rifle.
When he was arrested on July 1 Webster reportedly told police that he had a constitutional right to own those guns. If that sounds scary, here's something scarier. There are a lot of people out there who agree with him.
Second Amendment literalists have long held that the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" means just that. Using that interpretation, it would appear that Webster would be within his rights to own as many handguns, shotguns, and automatic weapons as he wished even though there was a restraining order against him.
That interpretation seemed to be strengthened by a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that found a Washington, D.C. law forbidding private ownership of handguns unconstitutional. But that ruling was narrowly focused and didn't rule out the right of states to regulate gun ownership.
Not all pro-gun groups are as fundamentalist in their interpretation of the Second Amendment. The Amendment II Democrats, a self described "informal confederation of liberal, progressive, moderate, and conservative Democrats and like-minded individuals who are dedicated to fighting for a free and armed America" believes that "to remove all gun legislation from the books is to invite anarchy."
Although that sounds like the makings of a sensible approach that would allow responsible, law-abiding adults to own a handgun for defense and a shotgun and rifle for hunting, it isn’t.
In 2004 the South Florida Sun-Sentinel published an editorial arguing against the private ownership of assault weapons saying they weren't needed for home protection or hunting, and that their only use was "to commit murder and mayhem on a massive scale." The A2D responded that rights of ownership aren't determined by need. Which is a roundabout way of saying that having one, two or 10 assault weapons is OK.
Gun laws vary from state to state and so I called the Gun Owners' Action League (GOAL), which bills itself as the official firearms association of Massachusetts, to try and find out what their views were on unlicensed guns and having someone turn their home into an armory. But Angela Fisher, the organization's director of communications, wasn't into communicating, and said I needed to speak with Jim Wallace, the executive director, who wasn't available.
I was told that Wallace was at the State House that week. I imagine he was there to lobby against House bill 3991 "An Act to Reduce Gun Violence," a legislative proposal filed by Gov. Deval Patrick. The intent of the bill is to slow the flow of illegal weapons that make their way on to Massachusetts’ streets. One of the provisions of the bill would be to limit gun dealers to the sale of one rifle, shotgun, firearm, machine gun, large capacity weapon or large capacity feeding device to any one buyer within a 30-day period.
The purpose of that restriction is to hamper "straw purchasers" who buy guns for people unable to obtain a gun permit. Limiting sales would help to cut down on the number of illegal guns on the streets of our cities and towns and the crimes that are committed by those wielding these weapons. GOAL has been trying to stop that bill from even being considered.
In a letter sent to members of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary, Wallace referred to the bill as the "Lawful Citizen Imprisonment Act" and argued that by limiting the number of guns that lawful gun owners could purchase at any one time the bill was taking the position that lawful gun owners are responsible for the illegal gun trade.
"How would that deter crime?" Wallace asked. "The criminals committing gun related crimes do not go through the proper channels to get licensed and purchase guns legally, so changing the law will not affect them or gun related crime. The law-abiding citizens of the Commonwealth should not be punished for the actions of criminals."
Of course not having a law simply because criminals will break the law and law-abiding people won't argues against having any law, but the point is moot. GOAL succeeded in its goal, Patrick's bill never made it out of committee.
Some will say that even if the bill had already been law it wouldn't have prevented Webster from obtaining his illegal weapons, since it appears that at least a portion of them were purchased in Maine. Others will note that Webster hadn't used those weapons to commit a crime.
But there are a lot of illegal guns out there. And somewhere, sometime, some crime that might have been prevented by that bill will take place. A life that could have been saved will be lost and a family that was whole will be shattered. And that was never the goal of the creators of our Constitution.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/bourne/n...665952386/Who-Cares-Taking-aim-at-gun-control