Are our gun rights the line in the sand?

[Super-Dave]

If and when the government decides to outlaw private ownership of guns, will that be the final coffin on the Bill of Rights?

The country I live in today is far different than 7 years ago.

To me it seems the bill of right is already dead except for that one last thorn in the governments side, our gun rights.

I am discusted that it is acceptable to torture people to confess to being enemies of the State or to torture them to give any other information.

I am discusted that american citizens can be taken off the street and imprisioned indefinetly with no trial or even any formal aqusations.

I am discusted that the government can wire tip my phone, email, and even look to see what books I am checking out at the library with out even a court order.

I am discusted that our President of the United States when refering to the Constitution calls it "Just a [sic] piece of paper"

I am discusted that the government can take your property from you and sell it to someone else just because the buyer will bring in more property taxes.

I am not some flaming liberal. I have voted Republican all my life. I am very sadend by the state of our current government. I think the damage that has been done is irreversible.

I think the blood and sweat given by my and your forefathers who fought for freedom has now been given in vain.

The dream of freedom and liberty in America is dead.

The bill of Rights is on its last strand of life.

Once our gun rights are gone all is lost.

The America we once knew will be dead.

All hail the new Empire!

Where the needs of the many out number the needs of the few or the one.

Where our only purpose to exist is to serve the State.


Benjamin Franklin once said "Those who give up freedom for safety deserve neither"

Maybe we will just get what we deserve.

 

[Pat H]

Are our gun rights the line in the sand?

It should have been, long ago.

The first national gun control law was the one that forbade shipping hand guns via the US mail. Sometime in the 1920's. Few protested.

The next test by the federal government to gauge what Americans would give up with regard to the right to be armed was the National Firearms Act of 1934. That one, as we know, established an exorbitant (for the time) tax on automatic weapons. It also established the power for the federal government, if that was in dispute still, to tax a domestically produced product at a level designed to minimize sales of new and used products. Few protested, the NRA helped write and then pass this law.

Thirty-four years later the federal government passed a huge step on the way to restricting the rights of the citizenry to be armed at the same level as the government is, the Gun Control Act of 1968. Not only did this forbid direct mail order of firearms, it made major changes in the National Firearms Act of 1934. Before 1968, if you had an automatic weapon, simple removal of the automating parts rendered it lawful and free of the transfer tax and registration. No longer. Not only did you have to register your automatic weapon, even if the automating parts were rendered non-operational and the firearm rendered incapable of firing automatically, the BATFAE was granted authority to claim "once a machine gun, always a machine gun", which still probibits sales of surplus M14's for example.

Most here know the remaining history of federal infringements on the right to self defense, so I won't continue.

Infringements on our intrinsic right to be armed with any arm have been tolerated for a long time. It's difficult to predict when the line will be drawn in the sand.

 

[Yellowfin]

The question is further who will draw that line, who will enforce it, and will they be alone when doing so. I do not question my love of my rights nor my family nor my life, but in standing for one or more of them I question my chances of successfully defending them at possible loss of them all for gain of none.

 

[Dust Monkey]

I am discusted that our President of the United States when refering to the Constitution calls it "Just a [sic] damm piece of paper"

I just flat out do not believe that.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_president_bush_call_the_constitution_a.html

Did President Bush call the Constitution a "[sic]damned piece of paper?"
Is it true that President Bush called the Constitution a "[sic]damned piece of paper?" He has never denied it, and it appears that there were several witnesses.
A: Extremely unlikely. The Web site that reported those words has a history of quoting phony sources and retracting bogus stories.
The report that Bush "screamed" those words at Republican congressional leaders in November 2005 is unsubstantiated, to put it charitably.

We judge that the odds that the report is accurate hover near zero. It comes from Capitol Hill Blue, a Web site that has a history of relying on phony sources, retracting stories and apologizing to its readers.


The Quote


The report was posted on Dec. 5, 2005. According to author, Doug Thompson, unnamed Republican leaders complained to Bush during a White House meeting about "onerous" portions of the USA Patriot Act, prompting the following:
Capitol Hill Blue: “I don’t give a [sic]damn,” Bush retorted. “I’m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.”

“Mr. President,” one aide in the meeting said. “There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.”

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a [sic]damned piece of paper!”

The evidence


There's no record of Bush ever using these words in public and no other news organization has reported him using them privately. Thompson based his report on three sources whom he didn't name. He gave the date of the quote as "last month," which would put it sometime in November 2005.

Thompson told us he once removed the story from his Web site when others raised doubts and no other news organization came up with a similar story. But he said he later reinstated it and currently believes it to be true. "I wrote the story and I stand by it," Thompson said in a telephone interview.

Thompson told us he based the story on e-mail messages from three persons he knows, all of whom claim to have been present at a White House meeting and to have heard Bush make the statement. He said he finds their account credible: "Sometimes I just have to go with my gut, and my gut tells me he did say this."


The unreliable gut


Thompson's "gut" has proven to be a unreliable guide in the past, however. He has admitted quoting trusted sources in the past who later turned out to be frauds -- twice.

In 2003 Thompson confessed that he had been "conned big time" by a source who claimed to be a former CIA contract consultant named Terrance J. Wilkinson. Thompson quoted this "source" as claiming to be present at two White House meetings in which Bush ignored intelligence officials' doubts about reports of Iraq seeking uranium. Thompson said he had been relying on the same man for two decades and had "no doubt" about his credibility, only to discover that "someone has been running a con on me for 20 some years and I fell for it like a little old lady in a pigeon drop scheme." He erased a number of stories from the site that had been based on information from "Wilkinson" and deleted anonymous quotes given to him by "Wilkinson" from other stories.

Thompson said then: "It will be a long time (and perhaps never) before I trust someone else who comes forward and offers inside information. The next one who does had better be prepared to produce a birth certificate, a driver's license and his grandmother's maiden name."


That was two years before the "piece of paper" quote attributed to three unnamed sources. But, far from demanding solid proof, Thompson continued to quote at least one more phony source until 2006, when a blogger started to question the existence of "George Harleigh." Thompson had for years quoted this supposed former Nixon and Bush appointee. But when no records of such a man could be found, Thompson admitted he had never even met him:

Doug Thompson (July 26, 2006): We would get quotes via email on current topics. He claimed to be a retired political science professor from Southern Illinois University and an appointee of both the Nixon and Bush administration. I was told he had been checked out. But he wasn't who he said he was and we used his phony name in stories.

This time Thompson says he revised or deleted 83 stories that had relied on information from "Harleigh" or quoted him.
In his defense, Thompson says: "[The] 83 articles that we revised or removed represent less than 1 percent of the total production of this Web site over the past 13 years. While errors must never be condoned, a 99+ percent of accuracy is a percentage I can live with. "

But we also note that Thompson described his own reporting habits this way:

Doug Thompson (July 26, 2006): I started taking more chances with stories, jumping on ones with sketchy sources, always trying to outdo the last "big" story. I had people willing to help me and they would send me info that I used often on their word alone.

. . . I wrote stories based on emails from sources I never met. I would meet self-proclaimed "important people" in out-of-the way bars, taking what they told me at face value. Washington is a breeding ground for phonies and wannabes. Too often I printed what they told me because I was so full of myself that I was sure it was true and did not require further verification.

By Thompson's own account, these were the habits still in place when he reported the "piece of paper" quote in 2005.

We also note that Thompson expresses extreme personal hostility toward Bush, calling him in one recent article a "madman," a "despot," and "a man without honor, a leader without conscience and a human being without a shred of decency or humanity."

Thompson is a former Republican congressional aide and political consultant. He was manager of the National Association of Realtors political action committee for several years, ending in 1992. But his experience as a journalist prior to launching Capitol Hill Blue was limited to working as a local reporter at the Roanoke Times and a columnist at The Telegraph (Alton, Ill.), ending in 1981. He currently lives and works from his home near the town of Floyd in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, nearly 290 miles away from the White House.


Good advice


Capitol Hill Blue does offer one sound bit of advice, under the heading of "Just the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions):"
Capitol Hill Blue:

Should we believe what you print simply because you say it is so?

Absolutely not. You should read many publications and draw your own conclusions.

We agree with that. Even taking Thompson at his word, and dismissing the possibility that he just made up his quotes and sources, we conclude that the "piece of paper" quote is probably about as genuine as "George Harleigh" or the phony CIA "source" whom Thompson quoted in 2003.

-Brooks Jackson


Sources
Doug Thompson, "Bush on the Constitution: ‘It’s just a goddamned piece of paper’" CapitolHillBlue.com 5 Dec. 2005.

Doug Thompson, "Conned big time," 9 July 2003.

Doug Thompson, "Screwing the Pooch," 25 July 2006.

Doug Thompson, "The eyes of a madman" CapitolHillBlue.com 6 Dec 2007.

 

[JaserST4]

Your problem is that you've swallowed, hook, line and sinker, every political liberal smear out there. On the one hand you are willing to goose step behind their monochromatic drum beat and on the other hand you're out of step on this single issue because of your personal interest. No wonder you're miserable!

The way it stands at the moment there has been good news on the gun front, many states have moved towards CCW, 10 round magazine limit ran out, etc. I do think this election might be a turning point though if Democrats gain full power and with the help of the leftist media they may get there, as you've aptly demonstrated.