Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Second Amendment ... WITHOUT the 2nd Amendment-

At the gun show this morning, a fellow member of the Weapons Collectors Society of Montana gave me a photocopy of an interesting letter that provides a touch of insight into what it can be like where citizens do NOT have the protection of the 2nd Amendment.
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<br>Written by A B Alard, Superintendent of the RCMP's Southern Saskatchewan District, to F M Hanson of Montmarte, Saskatchewan, "Re : - Application for Weapon Permit," the letter says
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<br>"Sir,
<br>"I have the honour to acknowledge receipt of your letter of May 5th. inst. Which I received today from the Commissioner of the Sask'n Provincial Police. re the above. and to advise you to apply to the Sheriff of your District. In the event of him not being willing to grant you a Permit. you may then forward your application here. with a recommendation from the Sheriff or some Justice of the Peace. together with the following information which is required before a Weapon Permit can be issued.
<br>"(1) Whether British Subject.
<br>"(2) Purpose ARMS required for.
<br>"(3) Description of ARMS. Number. Cal.Make.Etc.
<br>"(4) Owners name and address.
<br>"I have the honour to be,'
<br>"Sir,
<br>"Your Obedient Servant,
<br>"[stamped signature illegible] Supt.
<br>"C.C. Southern Sask'n District
<br>"A.B. ALARD"
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<br>Typed awkwardly on an old Royal North-West Mounted Police letterhead with "North-West" XXXed-out and "CANADIAN" typed above, this letter bears the date of 7 May 1921. North of The Line, even "the good old days" 81 years ago weren't all that great for gun-owners whose God-given right to keep and bear arms wasn't protected or guaranteed by a special, separate Constitutional recognition and acknowledgement.
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<br>No RIGHT requires a permit. Nothing that requires a permit is in fact and practice a recognized, acknowledged, guaranteed RIGHT (including those given by God but disapproved by men). I bet that an average gun-owner in 1921 Canada saw the above as "lenient" or ar least "reasonable."

Ken,
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<br>I missed this post. Excellent and very interesting. Your point about the 2nd Amendment is well taken.

This is one of the reasons I'm opposed to shall-issue carry permits.

My state is one of the ones that allows no concealed carry whatsoever: it's a misdemeanor if the gun is unloaded, a felony if the gun is loaded.

A few years ago, a guy in the state legislature introduced a bill to repeal the law against concealed carry and replace it with nothing, turning my state into another Vermont. The bill attracted cosponsors and was headed on its way through the process when the NRA got wind of it.

"Can't have that," the NRA seems to have decided; so they collaborated with another state legislator to write up a competing bill in the standard shall-issue license format.

(Beats me why some people still seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that the NRA is a gun-rights organization.)

Anyway, it made me think. Suppose the shall-issue bill becomes law. Will I toddle obediently down to the sheriff's office to get my CCW, or will I continue to carry illegally?

After a bit of cogitation, I decided that I will continue to carry illegally, for two reasons.

First, RKBA is a right, not a privilege. If I get arrested for illegal carry, there's at least a shadow of a chance that I could mount a Second Amendment defense. However, if I apply for a license and then get arrested for illegal carry (still very much possible, given the particulars of the specific law in question), I have no Second Amendment defense available. The judge will say, "Whether or not you may at one time have had an individual right to bear arms, we have a record here that you willingly and of your own accord waived that right--if it ever existed--when you applied to the government for a licensed privilege."

My second reason is related. According to the Constitution, the government has no authority to infringe my right to keep and bear arms. That means that from a Constitutional point of view, policemen who arrest people for bearing arms have no legitimate authority, but are simply thugs and bandits. From this point of view, the permit proposal takes on a somewhat different color: "If you tell us your name and address and what sort of gun you have, and you provide us with regular updates on your skill level with it, and you pay us money, and you agree to submit to the following regulations, we may choose to give you a card that, when presented to certain roving thugs and bandits, could convince them not to victimize you until it expires--or the law changes." In other words, if I relinquish enough of my essential liberty, privacy, and money to them, they offer to provide me with a little temporary safety. Ben Franklin had a little something to say about that sort of a trade, if I remember correctly.

I have heard the argument "Well, it's not Vermont carry, okay, but isn't half a pie better than no pie?" many times, but it is entirely unconvincing to me, because what I'm being offered isn't half a pie, but a torn, grainy, black-and-white photograph of a pie. And no, that isn't better than no pie.

So yes, I oppose shall-issue concealed-carry laws, right along with the thumbsucking statist bedwetters (although for different reasons); and if such a law is passed in my state I will not show up for my yellow Magen David armband or whatever it is they decide to hand out.

Well, I am guilty of having a CCW. However it was issued to me immediatly upon my retirement from the Sheriff's department without any input from me, for free and is good lifetime or until I commit a transgretion of law.

Heh...I do kinda get all up on my high horse sometimes, don't I?

<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Barak, bravo. Only, if I were you, I'd take that picture of yourself off this site. With the new Ministry of Total Information Awareness in D.C. they don't even need probable cause to start developing a file on you based on your internet activity. Even if you've taken steps to falsify your identity when joining this site, they can take that picture, match it to all photo driver's licenses in Idaho, find your car, follow you and arbitrarily pat you down for exercising your 2nd Amendment right to carry. Then you'd really have to pull off a 2nd Amendment defense. Not likely, but you can never be too careful. We are not living in the land of the free, home of the brave anymore.

I'm with you 100% though. You make lots of sense.

Nothing wrong with the high horse as long as you don't fall off! I prefere your approach anyway but I am stuck with my situation unless I move out of state.

Gee, I thought that was a picture of Burl Ives! LOL <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Thanks for the advice, but I've already considered it. That's not me in the picture. If I were that age and weight, however, I wouldn't mind having a grin like that.

At any rate, given my libertarian political leanings, I'm already pretty much convinced that I'll die either in prison or during my arrest. I have made and am continuing to make preparations for that so that my family won't be left completely out in the cold when it happens. I'm not afraid of anything the feds can do to me--although it was demonstrated to me recently that I'm not as prepared as I thought I was to deal with anything they can do to my daughter.

My only concern is that I want to get killed or imprisoned for doing something worthwhile that people will remember, rather than wasting whatever martyr potential I might have on something stupid.

Barak, you are a brave fellow.

In the end, it's all about keeping score. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Barak,
I LOVE THE PICTURE! No doubt you can sing "The Big Rock Candy Mountain" too, while playing Banjo, and your taste in clothes runs toward the absurd. Seriously, that ought to keep Homeland Security laughing uncontrollably for the rest of the year, since I am sure they already know who we both are and what we look like. Maybe I should post a picture of me an' me Lucky Charms and keep 'em laughing into the next milenium. You know, a little red headed, green Leprechaun, guarding his pot of gold, and who bears a striking resemblance to Yosemite Sam!

At the other place, Clark K posted a link to a Washington Times article that said the police were going to track down all of the "Sniper Shooting" tips and use them to arrest gun law violators even though the tips are coming from the Sniper case and are, as of yet, both unsubstantiated and unrelated to any known crimes. I guess the Fuzz have nothing better to do than to conduct fishing expeditions and behave like the JBTs they seem to admire. They sure couldn't be counted on to show any integrity and to develop their own leads on any real criminals, since they have to rely upon hearsay from someone's neighbor in whom they probably placed a little too much trust. I mean that's really low.

Flower Child

Hawkeye,
De da de de de de de da de. Dah da dah dah da dah dah dah dah. Ya hear that? Well this here ain't the road to Aintree! Y'all got any idea where you be son? Well it shore ain't New York City! (Heh! Heh!) Let them Washington Liberal idgits do their thing cuz ain't nobody round these parts ever seen a real live "G-man" before and we need a good laugh. Drivers License?!!! What stink'n Drivers License? That be f'er city folks and if I were them, I'd be kinda kerful whose butt I started patting down, if'n I were them. Yah know it takes a whole Holler of Rednecks to elect a Barak Pres-e-dent.

Flower Child
Jes fun'n with ya!

Flower Child. Got to love you redneck types. I'd love to see you chase the "revenuers" off your land. Give one a butt full of buckshot for me, will ya? <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />