About once a month, Dave Kopel produces a free e-mail Newsletter containing short summaries and links to important new research and writing involving the Second Amendment and firearms policy. The newsletter also reports on Kopel's latest writing.
The content of this newsletter is produced by the Second Amendment Project at the Independence Institute, a think tank in Golden, Colorado. The newsletter is electronically distributed by the Second Amendment Foundation in Bellevue, Washington. Thus, the Second Amendment Foundation will be given your e-mail address.
Archive of past issues.
The Second Amendment Project is based at the Independence
Institute, a free-market think tank in Golden, Colorado.
An issue in honor of Ray Bradbury's prescient novel, "Fahrenheit 451."
Table of Contents for this issue:
1. New articles by Kopel. Nosy doctors. Ruby Ridge. What arms
are protected by the 2d Amendment? Zero tolerance. US v. Miller.
Attorneys General who support the 2d Amendment. More.
2. July 9 Is Gun Burning Day at the UN
3. Small Arms Destruction Day.
4. National Firearms Purchase, July 9.
5. John Lott, Zero Tolerance Equals Zero Thinking
6. Links
1. New Kopel articles
Right of Refusal:If your doctor starts pestering you about guns, you have several options. National Review Online. July 5, 2001. With Dr. Timothy Wheeler.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel070501.shtml
Rules of Engagement. The Ruby Ridge case. National Review Online. June 13, 2001. With Glenn Harlan Reynolds.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel061301.shtml
Mad Cows, Madder Government. National Review Online. June 12, 2001. With Paul Gallant and Joanne Eisen.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel061201.shtml
Right to Bear (Some) Arms. National Review Online. June 7, 2001.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel060701.shtml
Zero Good Sense. (Zero tolerance). National Review Online. June 6, 2001. With Paul Gallant and Joanne Eisen.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel060601.shtml
Persecuting Jenna, and Ourselves. National Review Online. June 5, 2001.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel060501.shtml
ADL Story Play Unjustifiable. Rocky Mountain News/Denver Post. June 3, 2001. Media coverage of investigation of Tyranny Response Team.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/
talkback/article/0,1299,DRMN_119_577237,00.html
Guns in Court. (The Millercase). National Review
Online. May 30, 2001.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel053001.shtml
An Army of One. (Attorneys General who supported the Second Amendment). National Review Online. May 29, 2001.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel052901.shtml
2. U.N. BURNS GUNS ON JULY 9: YOUR RIGHTS ARE NEXT
By Richard W. Stevens
Editor, "The Bill of Rights Sentinel"
Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership
It is "Small Arms Destruction Day" on July 9, 2001. Plans are underway for government agents to ignite huge bonfires of handguns, rifles and other firearms in major population centers worldwide.
No joke. The United Nations Conference on Small Weapons is sponsoring massive gun burnings on July 9 to mark the opening in New York of the UN Conference on Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons. Organizers of the Conference say "the public destruction of weapons" is good because it "is one of the best ways to attract attention" to global civilian disarmament.
Whose guns will be burned? Privately-held weapons that have been captured or confiscated by governments, of course. But certainly not the guns held by governments and their armies, police forces and death squads.
What Is Going On?
Having failed to rid the world of nuclear weapons, the UN lately has been working to disarm the world's civilians. Going under the name of "reducing illicit trafficking in light weapons and small arms," the UN's expressed goal is to concentrate power into the hands of UN member governments:
* A UN report in August 1999 recommended that "all small arms and light weapons which are not under legal civilian possession and which are not required for the purposes of national defense and internal security, should be collected and destroyed by States as expeditiously as possible."
* Secretary-General Kofi Annan in April 2000 called for "non-proliferation of small arms," declaring that "these weapons must be brought under the control of states."
* A UN Committee of Governmental Experts in March 2001 recommended that all nations install centralized "gun control" with detailed record-keeping and prohibitions against selling "small arms" to anyone except other governments.
Make no mistake: when the UN refers to "small arms," it means rifles and handguns. In our Second Amendment, the word "arms" means, at the very least, "small arms." The UN program thus directly infringes our Second Amendment.
Americans: your right to keep and bear arms will soon face a united world of enemies. Even the so-called human rights advocates Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have joined forces with the regimes of Cambodia, Colombia, Zimbabwe, Syria and Iraq to press for world "gun control" at the July 9 Conference. Do you really think the current U.S. government or the Supreme Court will defend the Second Amendment against the UN?
Three Propaganda Points
The international victim disarmament forces focus on three talking points. First, they treat firearms as the cause of war, violence, unrest, and crime. In their advocacy papers, they actually blame the guns, not the aggressors or the evil ideas. They stand with activist doctor groups who claim firearms are a "public health menace."
Second, the victim disarmers follow the morally bankrupt idea that armed conflict is always wrong. They cannot tell the difference between a good government and an evil government, or between aggression and self-defense. Armed defense is morally right and is a moral duty under the Judeo-Christian tradition and under the non-religious philosophy of natural law. The victim disarmers never distinguish between oppression and righteous self-protection.
Third, the anti-small arms forces say they are only going after "illegal" or "illicit" possession of firearms. They urge governments to confiscate and destroy all firearms that are owned illegally. Who defines what is illegal? The UN's member governments: Red China, Iraq, Colombia, and the dozens of other oppressive and/or corrupt regimes, many of whom obtained power by force, not election.
What It All Means -- Your Next Move
Future UN action may well declare American gun owners to be criminals. If your gun is too big, too small, too powerful, too accurate or too ugly, it may be deemed dangerous to world peace and thus illegal. If you reload your own ammunition or fix guns, you may be deemed an illicit trafficker in small arms.
Get smart, gun owners, and get moving! Every gun owner must fully grasp this looming threat to our rights as Americans. Use the powerful Gran'pa Jack booklet "The UN is Killing Your Freedoms"
http://www.jpfo.org/gpjack5.htm
to show how the UN endangers most of the rights Americans take for granted -- most especially the gun rights. Distribute copies of this article and the booklet to every citizen and every member of every gun club in America.
Save money -- order bundles of booklets, only $20.00 for 50 copies; $38 for 100 copies. To speed delivery, JPFO pays the postage. Call (800) 869-1884 or click www.jpfo.org/gpjack5.htm
Annual membership only $20, tax deductible.
Copyright 2001. Permission is granted to reproduce this article in full, provided that JPFO contact information, website and phone number are included.
J.P.F.O. * P.O. Box 270143 * Hartford, WI 53027 *
(262) 673-9745
3. Small Arms Destruction Day!
International Action Network on Small Arms
The article excerpt below, from the International Action Network on Small Arms website, explains Small Arms Destruction Day from its proponents' viewpoint. More information is also available from the United Nations Small Arms Reduction Programme, whose main webpage features of a photo of guns being destroyed in a bonfire:
http://www.undp.org/erd/smallarms/
This is an initiative by the Governments of Brazil, Mali, the Netherlands and Britain.
The Preparatory Committee of the UN Conference on Small Weapons has called on all States, to organize, on a voluntary basis, public events of destruction of small arms and light weapons, preferably on the 9th of July, the opening day of the Conference.
Where possible, this should be done together with NGOs and civil society. The widest possible dissemination of information about the events, including through national and international media, should be ensured.
The initiative for this call was taken by Brazil, Mali, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. As the representative of the Netherlands, Ambassador Arend Meerburg, explained in his introductory speech, the public destruction of small weapons is one of the best ways to attract worldwide attention for the ideas behind the Conference in July.
The inspiration for this initiative came from the 'Flamme de la Paix'
http://www.multimania.com/temoust/flamme4-5.htm
in Mali when numerous weapons were destroyed, an event which received worldwide fame and which was followed by several other countries.
Annex 1: Text of the Recommendation on 'Small Arms Destruction Day'
taken by the Preparatory Committee
RECOMMENDATION
The Preparatory Committee for the United Nations Conference on the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects, which will be held at United Nations Headquarters from 9 to 20 July 2001,
1. recommends to consider the first day of the Conference as "Small Arms Destruction Day";
2. calls upon all States to organise, on a voluntary basis and, where possible, together with NGOs and civil society, public events of destruction of small arms and light weapons on "Small Arms Destruction Day", and to ensure the widest possible dissemination of information about the events, including through national and international media;
3. requests the Secretary-General to communicate this recommendation to all States and other participants in the meetings of the Preparatory Committee, including NGOs.
4. National Firearms Purchase Day
[From the Internet]
Hopefully many of you are aware that July 9th is slated to be UN "Small Arms Destruction" day. The UN is encouraging people all over the world to get together to burn or otherwise destroy guns. Their mundane definition of "small arms" includes the shotgun you use to hunt ducks with, the 30-06 you shot your last deer with, and the pistol that you carry to defend you and your family.5. Zero Tolerance Equals Zero Thinking
Los Angeles Times
By JOHN R. LOTT JR.
Wednesday, June 13, 2001
http://www.latimes.com/news/comment/20010613/t000049261.html
Welcome to the brave new world of "zero-tolerance" schooling, where young minds are molded to abhor aggression.
Schools are banning dodge ball and tag because the games encourage "violent behavior." Some schools are removing any references to the military from their libraries, and some high schools are banning military recruiters.
Elementary students in Texas and Louisiana have been suspended for pointing pencils and saying "pow" and drawing pictures of soldiers. Students in Mississippi were held in jail for trivial infractions, such as throwing peanuts at one another. A fifth-grader in St. Petersburg, Fla., was arrested for drawing pictures of "weapons."
Recent victims of this witch hunt include an exemplary high-school student, a National Merit Scholar, jailed in Fort Myers, Fla., because school authorities found a kitchen knife under her car seat. The knife had accidentally fallen there during a move between apartments. "Terrorist threat" criminal charges were filed against two 8-year-olds in Irvington, N.J., for "playing cops and robbers with a paper gun."
Second-graders have been arrested for bringing toy guns to school. And while juvenile records can be expunged, in some cases, such as for Brady law background checks, they last a lifetime.
Fear over school shootings is legitimate, but common sense is needed.
Since the most recent school shootings started in the fall of 1997, 32 students and three teachers have been shot to death at U.S. elementary or secondary schools, an annual rate of less than one death per 4 million students. This includes deaths from gang fights, robberies and accidents as well as from incidents such as at Columbine High School in Colorado. By contrast, during that same period, 53 students died playing high school football.
What are we really teaching children by zero tolerance? To see evil where none exists? Or that justice is arbitrary and authorities are waiting to get you?
Who is really out of control?
- - -
John R. Lott Jr., a Senior Research Scholar at the Yale University Law School, Is the Author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2000)
6. Links.
a. New book: Richard Poe, THE SEVEN MYTHS OF GUN CONTROL
http://frontpagemag.com/books/reviews.htm
b. McCain Burns Bridges - Backlash Building
Mike Brown
Newmax.com, June 8, 2001
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/6/8/10026.shtml
c. Cost of gun locks too high:
More deaths, crime and reliability problems aren't worth it
By John Lott
June 2, 2001
Philadelphia Inquirer
http://inq.philly.com/content/inquirer
/2001/06/02/opinion/LOTT02.htm
d. Tanya Metaksa's columns for FrontPageMag: http://frontpagemag.com/columnists/metaksa/index.htm
e. Inaugural Address of Richard Corlin,
President, American Medical Association.
The AMA's new role in gun control.
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/article/2542-4940.html
f. Women and Guns magazine, website
g. Armed Females of America
Website for new group.
https://www.keepandbeararms.com/AFA/
h. Michigan and the Threat from Concealed Weapons
by Steve Chapman
June 28, 2001
http://www.townhall.com/columnists
/stevechapman/sc20010628.shtml
i. Gun control can't legislate sanity
By David L. Peltz
Los Angeles Daily News
June 24, 2001
(California "Assault Weapons" law)
http://www.dailynews.com/opinions/articles/0601/24/vew03.asp
j. BEAN v. BATF, June 20, 2001,
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Hold that a U.S. District Court can grant relief from
disability under 18 USC 925(c).
Congress has failed to fund BATF's responsibility to carry out
the relief from disability program. This decision allows courts to
act against miscarriages of justice.
http://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/00/00-40304-cv0.htm
k. Telling the State About Your Love Affairs
by Pierre Lemieux
(Canadian law requires firearms license applicants to list previous
romantic relationships.)
http://www.zolatimes.com/V5.24/love_affairs.html
l. Criminals could sue their victims
BY FRANCES GIBB, LEGAL EDITOR
(London) Times
June 29 2001
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-2001222601,00.html
CRIMINALS could find it easier to sue members of the public who injure
them while defending their homes, under Law Commission reforms proposed
yesterday.
m. Hollywood Celebrity Shoot, coming on Aug. 4, 2001.
http://hollywoodcelebrityshoot.com
n. American Journalism Review, Newlink
Excellent collection of links to newspaper, magazine,
radio and TV stations. Good search engine too.
Some pages you may want to visit at the award-winning
Independence Institute website:
Criminal Justice and the Second Amendment:
Kopel short articles: https://davekopel.org
The Columbine High School murders:
http://i2i.org/suptdocs/crime/columbine.htm
The Waco murders: http://i2i.org/Waco.htm
The Independence Institute's on-line bookstore. Start your
browsing at the Second Amendment section:
http://i2i.org/book.htm#Second
That's all folks!
