Very good points from a good Left friend (was "U.S. city makes it illegal not to own a gun"}

----- Original Message ----- 
From: James H. Williams 
To: Hunter Gray 
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2013 9:10 AM
Subject: Re: [Redbadbear] Re: U.S. city makes it illegal not to own a gun


      One of the areas where liberals should be in agreement with the NRA, is the NRA's opposition to banning guns to people on the Govt's "Terrorist and Watch Lists."

      On the face of it, the gun ban idea makes great sense: who wants terrorists to have guns?

      NRA opposes the ban from a civil liberties perspective.  Who is on the list?  How did the get there?  What provision is there for being removed?

      Those of us who remember the McCarthy Period remember all sorts of extra-judicial lists that banned "security risks" from jobs, residence--even driver's licenses.  Hoover's FBI compiled a "security index" of persons to be rounded up in a national emergency and interned in camps. They were going to use the still-extant camps where Japanese-Americans were interned in WWII.

      We already know that the current "watch lists" are full of stupid errors, e.g., 8-year olds who are banned from flying.  Even Teddy Kennedy ran into trouble flying at one incident.

      Who decided who goes on these lists?  What criteria was used?  (In the McCarthy times, you could get on a list for merely signing a petition.)

      So, at least in this area, the NRA is standing up for civil liberties while liberals run the other way.

      James H. Williams
      3806 N. 13th St.
      Tacoma, WA 98406
      (912) 604-4356

      --- On Wed, 4/3/13, Hunter Gray <[email protected]> wrote:


        From: Hunter Gray <[email protected]>
        Subject: Re: [Redbadbear] Re: U.S. city makes it illegal not to own a gun
        To: [email protected]
        Cc: "Bear Without Borders" <[email protected]>, [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
        Date: Wednesday, April 3, 2013, 3:46 AM


        From RBB:

        It's an interesting gesture but a ridiculous one -- mandatory ownership of guns -- which the small Georgia city isn't planning to enforce.  Of course, it runs counter to the 2nd Amendment, at least implicitly, and to some others as well.

        I do remain wary of proposals, however well meant, to arm teachers and school staff -- and, at the college/university level, students as well.   In addition to chilling the teaching/learning process, it takes time to learn gun safety.  In addition, I've known plenty of dippy educators.  (I do think college/university students should be able to keep firearms in their dorms.)  In any event, genuinely well trained security people at educational institutions seems to me to be the best option.

        For all of the frothy gun control foam coming from Obama et al., most news media, and people like Bloomberg, it's highly unlikely that there will be any new national gun control legislation in the foreseeable future. Most people don't want it -- especially those in rural and small town settings.  In New York and Connecticut, where new state gun control legislation is now involved, there will be significant court challenges and possible political ramifications for a good while to come.  Colorado, dominated by Denver and Boulder, has passed some (modest) gun control stuff.  There, court challenges are coming -- but political ramifications will be a very real problem for those politicians who've supported it.

        A word on "background checks:"  There was a time when liberals and radicals and traditional conservatives were broadly concerned about the accumulation of personal data by government.  J. Edgar Hoover's vast array of files for example, was seen, rightly, as extremely sinister.  But now, storing up personal data on gun ownership, mental health, and much more at the Federal level especially, is seen by many in the former critical groups as highly desirable.  Current proposals to broaden background checks in gun sales would force neighbors who are trading guns to go to a gun dealer, who would charge a fee, for FBI approval.

        Guns and ammo continue to sell at record highs, gun rights groups continue to expand, and the NRA has hit the five million mark.  Gun rights people are now looking at 2014 and 2016.  We continue to hear from most media the implicitly sinister words, "Gun Lobby" and, more than occasionally, the old and false saw that the NRA is funded by the gun companies. Well, there are lots of lobbies in this country,  And when you have millions of members, there's dues monies and individual contributions aplenty.

        Maybe it's time for the liberals, and that portion of the American left that pushes fervently for gun control, to start looking harder at the genuinely sinister and flush-with-money lobby -- that of corporate capitalism.  And for all of us to think about liberty as well.

        And I've never known a Native person in the United States or Canada who has supported gun control.

        H
        HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
        Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
        Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
        www.hunterbear.org 
        (much social justice material)

        See the new and expanded/updated edition of my "Organizer's 
        Book." It's the inside story of the massive Jackson Movement,
        bloody repression and murder, and more -- including a myriad
        of organizing "lessons."  And with my new and 10,000 word
        Introduction. http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm (". .a local activist's
         important account of the deleterious effects the involvement of 
        national organizations can have on indigenous protest movements."
        David Garrow in "The Age of the Unheralded", Progressive Magazine,
        April 1990.

        See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
        ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE:
        http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

        The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
        http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
        (Expanded in 2012. Photos. Material on our Native
        background.) 

          ----- Original Message ----- 
          From: CornetJ 
          To: [email protected] 
          Sent: Tuesday, April 02, 2013 11:14 PM
          Subject: [Redbadbear] Re: U.S. city makes it illegal not to own a gun


            
          There's no better way to strengthen a market than conscripting people into it: look at the compulsory insurance business. I predict a great future for the compulsory gun business. The next market to be addressed is housing, where a compulsory mansion edict could produce the greatest boom ever seen on Earth. - CJ

          --- In [email protected], "Edward Pickersgill" <edward@...> wrote:
          >
          > U.S. city makes it illegal not to own a gun
          > NELSON, GEORGIA - Backers of a newly adopted ordinance requiring gun ownership in a small U.S. town acknowledge they were largely seeking to make a point about gun rights.
          > 
          > The ordinance in the city of Nelson, Georgia - population 1,300 - was approved Monday night and goes into effect in 10 days. However, it contains no penalties and exempts anyone who objects, convicted felons and those with certain mental and physical disabilities.
          > 
          > City councillor Duane Cronic, who sponsored the measure, said he knows the ordinance won't be enforced, but he still believes it will make the town safer.
          > 
          > "I likened it to a security sign that people put up in their front yards. Some people have security systems, some people don't, but they put those signs up," he said. "I really felt like this ordinance was a security sign for our city."
          > 
          > Fears of a government crackdown on gun sales prompted a few communities around the United States to "require" or recommend their residents arm themselves ever since a gunman killed 26 youngsters and educators Dec. 14 in a school in Newtown, Connecticut.
          > 
          > Such mandatory gun ownership measures reflect a growing divide in the wake of the Newtown massacre as President Barack Obama champions more gun control and the powerful National Rifle Association gun lobby maintains that more guns keep people safer.
          > 
          > While lawmakers in generally more liberal states with large urban centres like New York and California have moved to tighten gun control laws, more conservative, rural areas in the American heartland have been going in the opposite direction.
          > 
          > Council members in Nelson, a small city located 80 kilometres north of Atlanta, voted unanimously to approve the Family Protection Ordinance. The measure requires every head of household to own a gun and ammunition to "provide for the emergency management of the city" and to "provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants."
          > 
          > Nelson resident Lamar Kellett - one of two people who opposed the ordinance during a public comment period Monday - said it dilutes the city's laws to pass measures that aren't intended to be enforced.
          > 
          > Kellett also said the ordinance will have no effect, that it won't encourage people like him who don't want a gun to go out and buy one.
          > 
          > Police Chief Heath Mitchell noted that the city doesn't have police officers who work 24 hours a day and is far from the two sheriff's offices that might send deputies in case of trouble, so response times to emergency calls can be long. Having a gun would help residents take their protection into their own hands, he said.
          > 
          > But the chief - the town's sole police officer - acknowledged the crime rate is very low. He mostly sees minor property thefts and a burglary every few months. The most recent homicide was more than five years ago, he said.
          > 
          > The ordinance is modelled after a similar one adopted in 1982 by Kennesaw, an Atlanta suburb. City officials there worried at the time that growth in Atlanta might bring crime to the community, which now has about 30,000 residents. Kennesaw police acknowledged that their ordinance is difficult to enforce, and they haven't made any attempt to do so.
          > 
          > The Associated Press
          > 
          > http://www.guelphmercury.com/news/world/article/911878--u-s-city-makes-it-illegal-not-to-own-a-gun
          >