Posted by
on Wednesday, March 21, 2007 2:13:55 AM
Michelle Malkin has an absolute must-read up on NRO regarding the most important and precious amendment in the Bill of Rights. That would be the Second Amendment for all of you on the Left that failed Constitutional Studies in college (or in my case, high school):“The Second Amendment,” Charlton Heston used to say, “is America’s first freedom.” The Second secures the rest.
It’s a message narcissistic journalists need to hear again. A decade ago, Heston chastised the media in a National Press Club speech for its collective ignorance, apathy and open hostility toward gun owners’ rights: “Clearly, too many have used freedom of the press as a weapon not only to strangle our free speech, but to erode and ultimately destroy the right to keep and bear arms as well. In doing so you promoted your profession to that of constitutional judge and jury, more powerful even than our Supreme Court, more prejudiced than the Inquisition’s tribunals. It is a frightening misuse of constitutional privilege, and I pray that you will come to your senses and see that these abuses are curbed.”
Alas, Heston’s prayers have yet to be answered. While courts have recently bolstered Second Amendment rights, endangering gun owners in the name of free speech continues to be the blood sport of the Fourth Estate.
Two weeks ago, the Roanoke Times published an online database of registered concealed handgun permit holders in the paper’s community under the sanctimonious guise of “Sunshine Week.” The database included both the names and street addresses of some 135,000 Virginians with permits to carry concealed weapons. Columnist Christian Trejbal patted himself on the back for making it easy to snoop on the neighbors: “I can hear the shocked indignation of gun-toters already: It’s nobody’s business but mine if I want to pack heat. Au contraire. Because the government handles the permitting, it is everyone’s business.”
Trejbal denied that compiling the concealed carry permit holders list was “about being for or against guns.” But he exposed his true agenda when he compared law-abiding gun owners to . . . sex offenders: “A state that eagerly puts sex offender data online complete with an interactive map could easily do the same with gun permits, but it does not.”The Roanoke Times showed reckless disregard for the safety of the license holders and reckless disregard for accuracy. In his column, Trejbal admitted that he knew some of the information he had obtained was inaccurate — but published it anyway: “
As a Sunshine Week gift, the Roanoke Times has placed the entire database, mistakes and all [emphasis added], online at www.roanoke.com/gunpermits. You can search to find out if neighbors, carpool partners, elected officials or anyone else has permission to carry a gun.”
Let me just say for the record that I'm personally disgusted by this sort of cr*p from the MSM. The New York Times and WaPo can get away with blowing classified programs that the government is using to combat our enemies abroad. Now local papers have decided to release this sort of information to the public. Where is the right to privacy that those on the Left claim they stand for? Do firearms owners not have the same right? Trejbal claims that because the government dispenses the permits that it's everyone's business.
That's a fallacy. Are medical records -- also kept watch by the government especially if you are enrolled in Medicare or Medicaid -- fair game? What about juvenile criminal records? The government, too, has a hand in that, yet those are to be sealed when we turn eighteen. The government's involved in marriage via licenses so does that give the media the right to publicize what my wife and I do in the privacy of our own home? In essence folks, who died and left the media in charge of what is and isn't to be kept private and away from the prying eyes of the public. Trejbal's argument doesn't wash, and I'm personally offended by his assertion that he, and he alone, decided what should and shouldn't be released to the public.
Michelle continues:
After an uproar among gun-owners, including domestic violence victims licensed to carry, the Times finally decided to yank the database. Trejbal seems not to feel much remorse: “Did we make it easier [to obtain the information]? Yes. But it’s still a public record.” Let’s review: He published a list he knew contained inaccuracies. His paper admits the decision endangered gun owners. He compiled a convenient shopping list for criminals — and smacked law-abiding gun owners in the face with his comparison of their choice to exercise their rights with sex offenders.
Public disclosure of concealed carry licenses varies from state to state. Eighteen states protect permit holders’ privacy from public view. Virginia is one of 17 states that make licensee records public. If information is public, does it make it right for a newspaper to publish it? The media exercise discretion all the time in withholding the names of minors or rape victims. Why should the privacy of law-abiding concealed handgun permit holders be treated with any less concern?
While the Roanoake Times has retreated, the witch hunt against gun owners continues. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg launched a “sting” operation targeting gun shops in five states for allegedly selling guns illegally. Alan Gottlieb and Dave Workman of the Second Amendment Foundation report that Bloomberg sent unauthorized private investigators to conduct the operation — without notifying the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF):
“The odor ripened when Bloomberg filed civil lawsuits against these gun shops, rather than turn over evidence to the proper authorities for criminal prosecution. Bloomberg’s office refused to turn over that evidence, and instead the billionaire mayor launched a high-profile media campaign demonizing the targeted gun shop operators.”
So while we celebrate the DC Circuit Court's decision that owning firearms is an individual right, we see more attacks from the most virulent anti-gun opponents on the most basic right or protection we have. For you nutter Leftys, firearms ownership wasn't just for hunting and warding off the hostile Indians when this nation was first setled and founded. The Founding Fathers recognized this as the most basic right, and one that protects all the others. Without it, nothing will stop the march of tyranny against a free society. The Founding Fathers knew this weel in lessons from England where private arms ownership was forbidden or strictly regulated by the government.
In this nation we shouldn't have to worry about that. But people like Trejbal feel no remorse for the damage that they've done, and personal crusaders like Bloomberg continue along unabated despite overstepping their boundaries. It's time the Supreme Court took this matter up, and ended the debate once and for all. Firearms ownership is an individual right, and on\e that is absolutely near and dear to the hearts of any American that understands the responsibility of owning such things. They are tools, and in the hands of an expert that knows how to use them, it's the difference between life and death. THAT is the lesson that our Founding Fathers wanted us to learn. For them, the owning of a firearm was the difference between life and death, but it was in regard to liberty itself.
Publius II