Posted by LambChop
Open Letter to Obama Administration on the Second Amendment by 1,100 Green Berets from the Professional Soldiers Forum:
Protecting the Second
Amendment – Why all Americans Should Be Concerned
We are current or former Army Reserve, National
Guard, and active duty US Army Special Forces soldiers (Green Berets). We have
all taken an oath to “...support and defend the Constitution of the United
States against all enemies foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith
and allegiance to the same.…” The Constitution of the United States is without
a doubt the single greatest document in the history of mankind, codifying the
fundamental principle of governmental power and authority being derived from
and granted through the consent of the governed. Our Constitution established a
system of governance that preserves, protects, and holds sacrosanct the
individual rights and primacy of the governed as well as providing for the
explicit protection of the governed from governmental tyranny and/or
oppression. We have witnessed the insidious and iniquitous effects of tyranny
and oppression on people all over the world. We and our forebears have embodied
and personified our organizational motto, De Oppresso Liber [To Free the
Oppressed], for more than a half century as we have fought, shed blood, and
died in the pursuit of freedom for the oppressed.
Like you, we are also loving and caring fathers
and grandfathers. Like you, we have been stunned, horrified, and angered by the
tragedies of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Fort Hood, and Sandy Hook; and
like you, we are searching for solutions to the problem of gun-related crimes
in our society. Many of us are educators in our second careers and have a
special interest to find a solution to this problem. However, unlike much of
the current vox populi reactions to this tragedy, we offer a different
perspective.
First, we need to set the record straight on a few
things. The current debate is over so-called “assault weapons” and high
capacity magazines. The terms "assault weapon" and "assault
rifle" are often confused. According to Bruce H. Kobayashi and Joseph E.
Olson, writing in the Stanford Law and Policy Review, “Prior to 1989, the term
‘assault weapon’ did not exist in the lexicon of firearms. It is a political
term [underline added for emphasis], developed by anti-gun publicists to expand
the category of assault rifles.”
The M4A1 carbine is a U.S. military service rifle
- it is an assault rifle. The AR-15 is not an assault rifle. The “AR” in its
name does not stand for “Assault Rifle” - it is the designation from the first
two letters of the manufacturer’s name – ArmaLite Corporation. The AR-15 is
designed so that it cosmetically looks like the M4A1 carbine assault rifle, but
it is impossible to configure the AR-15 to be a fully automatic assault rifle.
It is a single shot semi-automatic rifle that can fire between 45 and 60 rounds
per minute depending on the skill of the operator. The M4A1 can fire up to 950 rounds
per minute. In 1986, the federal government banned the import or manufacture of
new fully automatic firearms for sale to civilians. Therefore, the sale of
assault rifles are already banned or heavily restricted!
The second part of the current debate is over
“high capacity magazines” capable of holding more than 10 rounds in the
magazine. As experts in military weapons of all types, it is our considered
opinion that reducing magazine capacity from 30 rounds to 10 rounds will only
require an additional 6 -8 seconds to change two empty 10 round magazines with
full magazines. Would an increase of 6 –8 seconds make any real difference to
the outcome in a mass shooting incident? In our opinion it would not. Outlawing
such “high capacity magazines” would, however, outlaw a class of firearms that
are “in common use”. As such this would be in contravention to the opinion
expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court recent decisions.
Moreover, when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban
became law in 1994, manufacturers began retooling to produce firearms and
magazines that were compliant. One of those ban-compliant firearms was the
Hi-Point 995, which was sold with ten-round magazines. In 1999, five years into
the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the Columbine High School massacre occurred.
One of the perpetrators, Eric Harris, was armed with a Hi-Point 995. Undeterred
by the ten-round capacity of his magazines, Harris simply brought more of them:
thirteen magazines would be found in the massacre's aftermath. Harris fired 96
rounds before killing himself.
Now that we have those facts straight, in our
opinion, it is too easy to conclude that the problem is guns and that the
solution to the problem is more and stricter gun control laws. For politicians,
it is politically expedient to take that position and pass more gun control
laws and then claim to constituents that they have done the right thing in the
interest of protecting our children. Who can argue with that? Of course we all
want to find a solution. But, is the problem really guns? Would increasing gun
regulation solve the problem? Did we outlaw cars to combat drunk driving?
What can we learn from experiences with this issue
elsewhere? We cite the experience in Great Britain. Despite the absence of a
“gun culture”, Great Britain, with one-fifth the population of the U.S., has
experienced mass shootings that are eerily similar to those we have experienced
in recent years. In 1987 a lone gunman killed 18 people in Hungerford. What
followed was the Firearms Act of 1988 making registration mandatory and banning
semi-automatic guns and pump-action shotguns. Despite this ban, on March 13,
1996 a disturbed 43-year old former scout leader, Thomas Hamilton, murdered 16
school children aged five and six and a teacher at a primary school in
Dunblane, Scotland. Within a year and a half the Firearms Act was amended to
ban all private ownership of hand guns. After both shootings there were amnesty
periods resulting in the surrender of thousands of firearms and ammunition.
Despite having the toughest gun control laws in the world, gun related crimes
increased in 2003 by 35% over the previous year with firearms used in 9,974
recorded crimes in the preceding 12 months. Gun related homicides were up 32%
over the same period. Overall, gun related crime had increased 65% since the
Dunblane massacre and implementation of the toughest gun control laws in the
developed world. In contrast, in 2009 (5 years after the Federal Assault
Weapons Ban expired) total firearm related homicides in the U.S. declined by 9%
from the 2005 high (Source: “FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Master File, Table
310, Murder Victims – Circumstances and Weapons Used or Cause of Death:
2000-2009”).
Are there unintended
consequences to stricter gun control laws and the politically expedient path
that we have started down?
In a recent op-ed piece in the San Francisco
Chronicle, Brett Joshpe stated that “Gun advocates will be hard-pressed to
explain why the average American citizen needs an assault weapon with a
high-capacity magazine other than for recreational purposes.”We agree with
Kevin D. Williamson (National Review Online, December 28, 2012): “The problem
with this argument is that there is no legitimate exception to the Second
Amendment right that excludes military-style weapons, because military-style
weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep
and bear.”
“The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure
our ability to oppose enemies foreign and domestic, a guarantee against
disorder and tyranny. Consider the words of Supreme Court Justice Joseph
Story”: ‘The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any
persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural
defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic
insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound
policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing
armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are
attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled
rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people.
The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as
the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral
check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally,
even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist
and triumph over them.’
The Second Amendment has been ruled to
specifically extend to firearms “in common use” by the military by the U.S.
Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v Miller (1939). In Printz v U.S. (1997) Justice
Thomas wrote: “In Miller we determined that the Second Amendment did not guarantee
a citizen’s right to possess a sawed-off shot gun because that weapon had not
been shown to be “ordinary military equipment” that could “could contribute to
the common defense”.
A citizen’s right to keep and bear arms for
personal defense unconnected with service in a militia has been reaffirmed in
the U.S. Supreme Court decision (District of Columbia, et al. v Heller, 2008).
The Court Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion: “The Second Amendment
protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a
militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as
self-defense within the home.“. Justice Scalia went on to define a militia as
“… comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common
defense ….”
“The Anti-Federalists feared that the Federal
Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia,
enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response
was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep
and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.” he
explained.
On September 13, 1994, the Federal Assault Weapons
Ban went into effect. A Washington Post editorial published two days later was
candid about the ban's real purpose:“[N]o one should have any illusions about
what was accomplished [by the ban]. Assault weapons play a part in only a small
percentage of crime. The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it
turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control.”
In a challenge to the authority of the Federal
government to require State and Local Law Enforcement to enforce Federal Law
(Printz v United States) the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision in 1997.
For the majority opinion Justice Scalia wrote: "…. this Court never has
sanctioned explicitly a federal command to the States to promulgate and enforce
laws and regulations When we were at last confronted squarely with a federal
statute that unambiguously required the States to enact or administer a federal
regulatory program, our decision should have come as no surprise….. It is an
essential attribute of the States' retained sovereignty that they remain
independent and autonomous within their proper sphere of authority.”
So why should non-gun owners, a majority of
Americans, care about maintaining the 2nd Amendment right for citizens to bear
arms of any kind?
The answer is “The Battle of Athens, TN”. The
Cantrell family had controlled the economy and politics of McMinn County,
Tennessee since the 1930s. Paul Cantrell had been Sheriff from 1936 -1940 and
in 1942 was elected to the State Senate. His chief deputy, Paul Mansfield, was
subsequently elected to two terms as Sheriff. In 1946 returning WWII veterans
put up a popular candidate for Sheriff. On August 1 Sheriff Mansfield and 200
“deputies” stormed the post office polling place to take control of the ballot boxes
wounding an objecting observer in the process. The veterans bearing military
style weapons, laid siege to the Sheriff’s office demanding return of the
ballot boxes for public counting of the votes as prescribed in Tennessee law.
After exchange of gun fire and blowing open the locked doors, the veterans
secured the ballot boxes thereby protecting the integrity of the election. And
this is precisely why all Americans should be concerned about protecting all of
our right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment!
Throughout history, disarming the populace has
always preceded tyrants’ accession of power. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all
disarmed their citizens prior to installing their murderous regimes. At the
beginning of our own nation’s revolution, one of the first moves made by the
British government was an attempt to disarm our citizens. When our Founding
Fathers ensured that the 2nd Amendment was made a part of our Constitution,
they were not just wasting ink. They were acting to ensure our present security
was never forcibly endangered by tyrants, foreign or domestic.
If there is a staggering legal precedent to
protect our 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms and if stricter gun
control laws are not likely to reduce gun related crime, why are we having this
debate? Other than making us and our elected representatives feel better
because we think that we are doing something to protect our children, these
actions will have no effect and will only provide us with a false sense of security.
So, what do we believe
will be effective? First, it is important that we recognize that this is not a
gun control problem; it is a complex sociological problem. No single course of
action will solve the problem. Therefore, it is our recommendation that a
series of diverse steps be undertaken, the implementation of which will require
patience and diligence to realize an effect. These are as follows:
1. First and foremost we support our Second
Amendment right in that “A well regulated militia being necessary to the
security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed”.
2. We support State and Local School Boards in
their efforts to establish security protocols in whatever manner and form that
they deem necessary and adequate. One of the great strengths of our Republic is
that State and Local governments can be creative in solving problems. Things
that work can be shared. Our point is that no one knows what will work and
there is no one single solution, so let’s allow the State and Local governments
with the input of the citizens to make the decisions. Most recently the
Cleburne Independent School District will become the first district in North
Texas to consider allowing some teachers to carry concealed guns. We do not
opine as to the appropriateness of this decision, but we do support their right
to make this decision for themselves.
3. We recommend that Assisted Outpatient Treatment
(AOT) laws be passed in every State. AOT is formerly known as Involuntary Outpatient
Commitment (IOC) and allows the courts to order certain individuals with mental
disorders to comply with treatment while living in the community. In each of
the mass shooting incidents the perpetrator was mentally unstable. We also
believe that people who have been adjudicated as incompetent should be
simultaneously examined to determine whether they should be allowed the right
to retain/purchase firearms.
4. We support the return of firearm safety
programs to schools along the lines of the successful "Eddie the
Eagle" program, which can be taught in schools by Peace Officers or other
trained professionals.
5. Recent social psychology research clearly
indicates that there is a direct relationship between gratuitously violent
movies/video games and desensitization to real violence and increased
aggressive behavior particularly in children and young adults (See Nicholas L.
Carnagey, et al. 2007. “The effect of video game violence on physiological
desensitization to real-life violence” and the references therein. Journal of
Experimental Social Psychology 43:489-496). Therefore, we strongly recommend
that gratuitous violence in movies and video games be discouraged. War and
war-like behavior should not be glorified. Hollywood and video game producers are
exploiting something they know nothing about. General Sherman famously said
“War is Hell!” Leave war to the Professionals. War is not a game and should not
be "sold" as entertainment to our children.
6. We support repeal of the Gun-Free School Zones
Act of 1990. This may sound counter-intuitive, but it obviously isn’t working.
It is our opinion that “Gun-Free Zones” anywhere are too tempting of an
environment for the mentally disturbed individual to inflict their brand of
horror with little fear of interference. While governmental and
non-governmental organizations, businesses, and individuals should be free to
implement a Gun-Free Zone if they so choose, they should also assume Tort
liability for that decision.
7. We believe that border states should take
responsibility for implementation of border control laws to prevent illegal
shipments of firearms and drugs. Drugs have been illegal in this country for a
long, long time yet the Federal Government manages to seize only an estimated
10% of this contraband at our borders. Given this dismal performance record
that is misguided and inept (“Fast and Furious”), we believe that border States
will be far more competent at this mission.
8. This is our country, these are our rights. We
believe that it is time that we take personal responsibility for our choices
and actions rather than abdicate that responsibility to someone else under the
illusion that we have done something that will make us all safer. We have a
responsibility to stand by our principles and act in accordance with them. Our
children are watching and they will follow the example we set.
The undersigned Quiet Professionals hereby humbly
stand ever present, ever ready, and ever vigilant.
1100 Green Berets
Signed this Letter
We have a list of all their names and unlike any
MSM outlets we can confirm that over 1100 Green Berets did sign. The list
includes Special Forces Major Generals & Special Forces Command Sergeants
Major down to the lowest ranking "Green Beret".
The letter stands for itself.
Read it and send it everywhere.
Team Sergeant
http://www.professionalsoldiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=40772
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