The evening news continues to tell us that crime rates, teen suicides and urban gang activity are at all time highs. This has focused a great deal of attention on the proliferation of arms in amerika. Are armed citizens the cause of our society's problems? Any consideration of the subject must begin with some examination of the Second Article of the Bill of Rights. What did our revolutionary countrymen of two centuries ago have in mind when they penned the words, "The right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed?" How has Article Two been interpreted historically? Most importantly, though, is how it applies to our society on the cusp of the twenty-first century.

All nine Articles - and bear in mind that they are not "Amendments!" - embodied in the Bill of Rights are equal in that they are deemed essential and unalienable, but much consideration was given to their prioritization. Their numbers were not assigned arbitrarily or at random. Much letter writing and debate between the representatives of the thirteen original states was recorded and these records make for a most intellectually stimulating perusal. The result was that the law against the government taking away the Peoples' firearms was made second only to the law against the government forbidding the People to worship whichever gods they choose or to say (and write!) what they please.

[ NOTE: R.H. Webster's Dictionary defines the "Bill of Rights" (definition#1) as "a formal statement of the rights of the people of the United States incorporated in the Constitution and in all state constitutions." (emphasis mine), the same dictonary defines an "amendment" (definition #2) as "an alteration of or addition to a bill, constitution, etc." and goes on to define "article" (definition #6) as "a separate clause or section in a contract, treaty, statute or other formal document," and, finally, "clause" (definition #2) as "a distinct article or provision in a contract, traty, will or legal written document." - for us to call the articles of the Bill of Rights "amendments" is to give the erronious impression that they are "alterations or additions" to the Constitution, while they are, in fact, integral elements of that document. Such misuse of teminology misleads the uninformed with the idea that it's all right to make "further" changes to the Bill of Rights. It most certainly is not! - bg ]

Although the Courts have not, to date, disputed or refuted the meaning of the Second Article of the Bill of Rights, it was more clearly defined, for the first time since its inception, a little more than fifty years ago. ago.

Between the First and Second World Wars the Japanese amassed a great war fleet and invaded Burma, China and a dozen Pacific islands. Amelia Earhardt disappeared in the same area (under questionable circumstances!) and a hundred amerikan mercenaries were flying amerikan made airplanes against the Japanese as the Flying Tigers of Chaing Xi Check's Chinese Air Force. Europe was in almost as chaotic a state as it had bee at the height of the previous War. The depression and prohibition were within living memory of most adult amerikans. Global war was at hand for the second time in a generation. Invasion was not beyond the realm of possibility and amerikans pushed Article II to its limit. The most popular weapons of the day were the Colt model 1911-A1 autopistol, the Thompson model 1928 submachinegun and sawed off, double barrelled 12 gauge shotguns. It was at this time - or, more to the point, at a time like this, when it would seem that the need to arm every able bodied citizen was paramount - that the Supreme Court upheld a ban on sawed off shotguns. Their reason was that "The Second Article of the Bill of Rights guarantees the right to keep and bear any such weapons which are part of the ordinary military equipment, or whose use could contribute to the common defense," (U.S. v. Miller, 1939) and sawed off shotguns were not part of the ordinary military equipment.

While sawed off shotguns were banned, Colt .45's and Tommy guns were deemed socially acceptable, appropriate for a citizen militia. When Special Forces units began using cut down 12 gauge pumps to sweep tunnels in Viet Nam, the Miller decision should have been reversed. It was not. The Supreme Court addressed itself to the entire Bill of Rights, however, in a landmark case that is immortalized in every cop show on teevee, when it declared that, "Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule-making or legislation which would abrocate them." (Miranda v. Arizona, 1966)

Amerikans of that day were going to the moon. The Civil Rights movement piqued political consciousness to outrage at the Dow-Jones military-industrial complex sending poor people to fight and die for sugar, rubber and oil in Southeast Asia. By the time a dozen amerikans had walked on the moon, and at the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, it seemed as if we were about to enter a higher state of enlightenment than human society had ever known. The Supreme Court reinforced their decision in Miranda when they declared that "There can be no sanction or penalty imposed upon one because of his exercise of Constitutional rights." (Sherar v. Cullen, 1973)

Having achieved such lofty goals as ending an unjust war, securing the vote for eighteen year olds and passing sweeping Civil Rights reform legislation, political activists rested on their laurels. Progressive changes became fewer and farther between. The space program was all but eliminated. The N.F.L. was formed and the promised age of enlightenment dimmed perceivably. The "cold war" continued, but in the only industrialized nation in the world where the medical profession is run by pharmaceutical conglomerates and an insurance industry, most amerikans were more concerned about breaking a leg than they were about the Russians invading their homes. With the poor no longer being drafted and sent to be slaughtered on the far side of the globe, unemployment rose - and the crime rate rose accordingly; which brings us up to date.

Three day, five day, seven day and two week waiting periods on handgun purchases have failed to bring about any significant reduction in the rate of increase in violent crime in any of the great many areas where they have been enacted. It would seem as though the street savvy legislators who trod on the Second Article of the Bill of Rights to enact these so-called "cooling off" laws failed to take into account the fact that street gangs and other criminals are far more likely to steal a weapon than they are to pay retail prices for one at a department store or sporting goods shop. Nonetheless, our legislators' most recent crime fighting agenda included a ban on what the media are calling "assault weapons." The weapons this legislation was aimed at are not what the Supreme Court, in the Miller decision, referred to as "ordinary military equipment," but semiautomatic hunting rifles. F.B.I. statistics show that such weapons are used in less than one fourth of one percent (<0.25%) of all crimes in the U.S. regulations pertaining to the buying, selling and ownership of fully automatic machine guns were unaffected by the legislation.

The single aspect of our Constitution that sets it apart from the code of laws inscribed upon the Steele of Hammurabi, the Talmud of Moses or England's Magna Carta - indeed, from any prior document in human history - is the concept of making a government the servant of its People. The word "People" is, in fact, capitalized. The People are sovereign. In order to create so remarkable a document, the first amerikan patriots had taken upon themselves the unpleasant task of rebelling against and overthrowing good King George's theretofore legitimate government. We have the Second Article of the Bill of Rights today because our founding fathers recognized the importance of guaranteeing future generations of amerikans the means by which to free themselves, should totalitarianism rear its ugly head. Washington himself said that "When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour." The fact that our present bureaucratic form of government is too immense to be brought down by such archaic means is a moot point.

Today, when every elected official must pledge an oath to uphold the Constitution, the introduction of legislation which would abrocate the rights it guarantees the People, or which would sanction punitive measures against the exercise of those rights, is tantamount to treason - an act punishable by death by firing squad! When the chairman of the special senate subcommittee investigating the B.A.T.F's criminal activities at Waco, Texas refers to government agents as "keystone ninjas" and when such notable strategists as retired General Benton Parton offer informed opinions that "... the bombing of the day care center of the Federal building in Oklahoma City may have been carried out by A.T.F. agents in order to hasten the passage of 'anti-terrorism' legislation," many citizens might think that the signers of the Declaration of Independence had the right idea when they penned the Second Article of the Bill of Rights . Certainly Benjamin Franklin or John Adams would not have stood idle if they had lived to see the abuses perpetuated by today's government agents. Nonetheless, the pen remains mightier than the proverbial sword and the only way that positive changes can be made in our modern society is through the education of the masses.

NOTE: Volunteer rescuers at the Oklahoma City fiasco were dismissed and barred from the scene after offering opinions that the blast seemed to have been downward and outward from the second story day care center. No B.A.T.F. agents were in or near the building at the time of the explosion!!! University of Oklahoma geology dept. seismographs show two distinct blasts separated by ten seconds. And the evidence was destroyed before all persons known to have been in the building were accounted for. (Far more may have been in the building that were not known to have been.) - In earthquakes in Central America and Japan survivors have been extricated from rubble more than three weeks after disasters; the Ok. City Fed. bldg. was razed after less than two weeks - what (survivors and) evidence were they trying to hide?

Clearly, we, the sovereign People of the united snakes cannot allow our servant government to infringe upon or abrocate our unalienable rights in any way. If disarming criminals means compromising our most precious freedoms, an alternative must be found. Education may be our only viable alternative.

The National Safety Counsel posts a list of the top ten causes of death in amerika every year. The top three causes of death have remained unchanged since the inception of this practice; they are automobile accidents, heart disease and cancer. Children in amerika are taught automobile safety before they can speak or walk! Sit in your car seat, Mom and Dad tell them as infants, and as soon as they are capable of playing outdoors they are told to look both ways before crossing the street, and to always buckle your seat belt! In high schools across America, classes in drivers' education are always filled to capacity. Unless a student enrolls in an R.O.T.C. elective, however, gun safety is not made available at all. In spite of this society wide attitude of "ignore-the-technology-and-it-will-go-away," gunshot wounds are only the number ten cause of death on the N.S.C's "top ten" list, with fewer than one percent (<1%) as many deaths being caused annually from firearms as from automobiles. With this in mind it may seem strange that there are far more firearms in amerika than there are automobiles. Regardless of the facts, when the media chooses an inanimate object to vilify or demonize, they choose the firearm over the auto every time. Anyone who cannot understand why has never counted the number of advertisements by automobile manufacturers on network teevee during the evening news.

Due to the media's frenzied focus on any story dealing with the abuse of firearms, attention has recently been drawn to some very strange programs that encourage children to bring toy guns to school for collection and disposal. The reason for this odd ritual is ostensibly that children are being killed by real guns. Imagine, instead, those same children being required to bring those same toy guns to school for use as learning tools in gun safety classes. Grade schoolers would benefit far more from practicing with soft-pellet firing handguns and BB rifles for an hour or two each week than from being forced to surrender a precious toy and see it destroyed for reasons that are impossible for a child to comprehend because they are irrational to begin with. The regimen of firearm safety training not only improves hand-to-eye coordination, but is known to build self esteem as well. By the time a child enters middle school the care and cleaning of firearms should be second nature. This would all but eliminate accidental shooting deaths among teenagers. Gun ownership for high school graduates should be mandatory, with the government supplying arms to students whose families lack the financial wherewithal to secure them. This practic is common in Sweden and Switzerland, two of our NATO allies with the lowest crime rates of any nations on Earth! After all, the increased probability of confronting an armed citizen who is trained and confident in the use of their weapon is, historically, the single greatest known deterrent to crime.