It starts today

[bulldog (Premo)]

Today is the first day of the MD General Assembly for the 2013 legislative cycle.
For all you out there that claim to be pro-2A, if you don't take the time to write, call and/or e-mail your representative in Annapolis, you really have no reason to be on here or anywhere else biitching about them trying to take your rights away.
Get involved, at least a little. Find out who your representative is and let them know how you feel, please.

[NextJen]

This may help. You'll have to find your rep.

Here is the main page:
MD Legislature

Contact info:
MD Legislature

MD Legislature

MD Legislature

MD Legislature

MD Legislature

[DoWhat (Premo)]

Originally Posted by bulldog

Today is the first day of the MD General Assembly for the 2013 legislative cycle.
For all you out there that claim to be pro-2A, if you don't take the time to write, call and/or e-mail your representative in Annapolis, you really have no reason to be on here or anywhere else biitching about them trying to take your rights away.
Get involved, at least a little. Find out who your representative is and let them know how you feel, please.

Do you have a good letter (fill in the blanks) that we could use?
I am a terrible writer.

V/r
DW

[glhs837]

Estemmed Rep XX,

I am a strong supporter of the Constitution in general and the Second Amendment in particular, and I have a memory longer than a goldfish, and I vote in every single election. If I hear of you planning to, or voting against the Second Amendment, including meaningless feel good legislation like large magazaine or "scary black rifles" bans, you will l not only lose my vote, but the vote of everyone I can convince that you, Sir/Madam, are not a supporter of the Constitution, and should not be voted for. I will support candidates who oppose you in every way I can. Is that clear?

Thank you.

Dowhat, and the bitter clingers of the SOMDforums

[glhs837]

On second thought, you might want to rework that signature line a wee bit

[DoWhat (Premo)]

Originally Posted by glhs837

Estemmed Rep XX,

Why should I call Senator Roy P. Dyson, Estemmed?

[DoWhat (Premo)]

Originally Posted by DoWhat

Why should I call Senator Roy P. Dyson, Estemmed?

Another question.

What is Senator Dyson's feelings on CCW?

[Chris0nllyn]

Originally Posted by DoWhat

Do you have a good letter (fill in the blanks) that we could use?
I am a terrible writer.

V/r
DW

Dear......,

It would appear that your position is just as intractable as mine. That if 50.5% of the people decide to do a thing, then that's the way to go and to hell with any consideration of right/wrong or the rights of the other 49.5%.

You constantly belittle and make light of the concerns of your opponents on the grounds that the U.S.A. has not yet been ruled by a despot. But such transformations do not take place over night, and when people look around and find certain events deeply disturbing, you call them paranoid kooks. You misquote and mischaracterize their arguments in an attempt to make them appear foolish.

Despite the fact that you have been inundated with proofs of what the founding fathers intended with the Second Amendment, you say that “no where does it say there is an inalienable right to own guns or to have guns without registering them. No where.” Your arguments are those of a man standing outside on a cloudy day at high noon, proclaiming that no one has proved to you that there is a sun. Unfortunately, neither Patrick Henry nor Thomas Jefferson nor Alexander Hamilton are going to rise from the grave and explain to you what their intent was. Even if they did, I doubt you’d believe them.

If there are such things as fundamental, inalienable rights, then life and liberty are the most fundamental of all -- and the de-facto rights to own and keep those tools that protect life and maintain liberty are just as real and just as fundamental.

Your position seems predicated on the belief that no one but a supreme court justice is capable of divining the difference between a just law and an unjust one – That while governments all over the world are teeming with corrupt power mongers, the U.S. government is somehow immune to such infiltration – That only those with the most noble intentions and purest hearts would rise to authority here. Based on the evidence to the contrary, I summarily reject any such assertion.

When the Amendment says “… shall not be infringed,” it indicates that the founding fathers recognized that the Right was absolute and inviolate. Despite this, there is a group of people that have decided that their moral outrage at the actions of a few violent individuals gives them the ethical superiority to define what is and what is not a right. There is a catch phrase in the anti-rights community: “Sensible gun laws.” Everything they want is “sensible” and everyone who opposes them is “insensible.” Really? Says who? The definition of what is “sensible” and what isn’t is pretty dependent on one’s point of view. From my point of view, none of them are sensible because none of them can be enforced without encroaching upon my rights. Registration laws are particularly egregious. The registration of property never prevented it from being stolen or used improperly. No one has ever presented any evidence of any practical benefit to registration, yet it is lauded as being one of those “sensible gun laws.” On the other hand, every arms confiscation in history has been preceded by arms registration. For this reason alone, registration is an infringement of my rights.

When the Declaration of Independence says, “governments derive their powers through the consent of the governed,” it does not say that that consent is always wisely given. When the Rev. Jim Jones fed his followers cyanide in his mass murder/suicide plan, it could be said that he did so by “consent of the governed.” When the Nazis killed 12 million people in their death camps, it could be said that they did so with the “consent of the governed.” Indeed, every tyrannical government that ever existed could be said to have come about with the “consent of the governed.” If you want to be stupid and skip merrily down the path to Armageddon, then that may be your right, but don’t expect me to go, even begrudgingly. I withhold my consent. When the colonists submitted the Declaration of Independence to the King, they withheld their consent. It was an illegal act of treason, yet fully within their rights as human beings to decide how they were to be governed.

Blind faith in any man -- or the institutions of man -- is an act of supreme ignorance. Because you clearly posses the ability to reason, I do not think you stupid. Yet because you refuse to use those skills to objectively examine the nature of the world, preferring, instead, to use them in defense of your pre-determined position, I think you are ignorant.

This is a fact that even you must recognize: There is a point beyond which some people will not allow themselves to be pushed. Since 1934, the gun laws in the United States have become increasingly restrictive. Whether or not you agree with it, there are a great number of people who believe with every fiber of their beings that these laws deprive them of their rights and abilities of self-determination. Year by year, despite any discernable, directly-related progress with respect to crime or violence, the pressure gets turned up a notch; the screws get another turn. The inescapable conclusion to this progression is violent conflict. I know of no one who wishes for such a conflict. Such a thing would be detrimental to both the government and the people. The protestations, which you so glibly dismiss as the rantings of the lunatic fringe, are, in reality, an appeal to stop this advance toward the unthinkable. They are a warning sign if imminent danger.

Much as I would implore a child to step away from the soft crest of a riverbank, I entreat you to back away from your current course. I fear that continuing down the road you have chosen will result in consequences more far-reaching than any of us imagine. We are willing to work with you to find answers to social problems, but we are unwilling to become the lab rats in your ill-conceived social experiment.

Regards,
......

[Chris0nllyn]

Or,

Dear.......,

This is your fault. That’s right. Contrary to your twisted, self-serving sense of cause and effect, you share a large portion of responsibility for the innocent deaths at Sandy Hook. The blood is on YOUR hands.

Here is a little news-flash for all you shrieking about the moral imperative for more gun-control laws: We already HAVE laws forbidding possession of firearms on school grounds, including the state of Connecticut. Making more of them will not stop evil, deranged people from doing violence. But deliberately disarming good, law-abiding people, particularly in a place like a school, effectively rolls-out a red-carpet for the evil and the deranged, and guarantees a dramatically elevated body-count.

Let me put this in simple terms you should be able to understand. The insane and the evil walk among us every day. They don’t care about laws any more than they care about the innocent. No amount of gun control is going to stop them when they get it into their heads to do violence. The problem is not keeping guns out of schools, the problem is keeping crazed, evil people out of schools. And here is the kicker: if some of the staff at Sandy Hook had actually been carrying this morning, if just a few had happened to have concealed-carry permits, and not been prohibited from having their weapons with them at work, we would not have 27 bodies to bury this evening.

It is time for an end to this idiocy. We have listened to you anti-gun zealots and your paranoid, irrational ranting for long enough. You have had things your way, and it has not only been a spectacular failure, it has cost innocent lives. We need a change in the law alright. We need to put an end to the senseless restrictions against legal, licensed, responsible people carrying their weapons on school grounds. Sandy Hook needs to be a wake-up call for the total and abject failure of these stupid, ill-conceived and ultimately deadly laws. School grounds should be no different than any other public venue, and in fact we need to start ENCOURAGING legal, licensed concealed permit holders to bring their weapons to school. Having guns present in school is not a danger, having crazy evil people present is. Knowing there are good, armed people present on school grounds will deter lots of those who would do violence, and prevent those who would try anyway from turning it into a massacre.

Regards,
.......

[Chris0nllyn]

Copy Ted Nugent if you like...

Joe,

Congratulations on your appointment to lead a presidential commission to end gun-related violence.

As a National Rifle Association board member, husband, father, grandfather, law enforcement officer and genuinely concerned American, I too want nothing more than to see evil, senseless massacres stopped. I concur with the president and caring people everywhere: It’s time to end these slaughters.

As you gather your team to study massacres and how to stop them, I offer to you my services and a lifetime of expertise on guns in all their implementations. While I strongly differ with President Obama on many issues, I agree with him that we must work with all we can possibly muster to end these tragedies.

As you begin to formulate your thoughts on how to proceed with your task, I hope your starting point is to provide the president with the facts regarding these slaughters and to offer him common-sense recommendations that are void of a political agenda and will actually make a meaningful difference. If the American people smell a political agenda here, that will only bog down our efforts.

In the spirit of goodwill and a deep desire to end gut-wrenching, incredibly sad and senseless rampages, I offer you the following recommendations:

I encourage you to persuade the president to lead this effort by providing a number of public service announcements. The announcements should include watching out for each other, encouraging parents to be more involved in their children’s lives regarding entertainment choices, and knowing various indicators we should watch for in people who are unstable.

Clearly, the focus on solving these mass murders must be on the mentally ill. In almost every instance of mass killing, there were ample red flags and warning alarms that either were avoided or were not acted upon by mental health professionals, family members, friends and acquaintances. While I deeply respect an individual’s privacy and civil liberties, the American people need basic awareness of what indicators to look for regarding potentially violent, psychotic people. Our collective safety begins with being collectively vigilant.

You will find in your assessment that all of the massacres have occurred in gun-free zones. What gun-free zones create is an environment where good people are unarmed and virtually defenseless against an unstable person intent on committing mass murder. Gun-free zones are modern killing fields. I implore you to recommend that Congress pass a law to ban gun-free zones immediately.

Just like your full-time, armed security detail, qualified citizens with authorized, legal concealed-carry permits should be able to carry weapons virtually everywhere to protect themselves, their loved ones and innocents.

I also implore you to strongly consider recommending that trained school officials have access to weapons to protect students. Just as airline pilots may have access to a weapon to prevent another Sept. 11 mass murder, school officials also should be trained to stop shooting sprees at our schools.

I don’t encourage you to recommend a ban on any weapon, magazine capacity or type of ammunition. That won’t accomplish anything other than prevent the 99.9 percent of responsible, law-abiding Americans from enjoying these modern weapons as we do now. We should never recommend or develop public policy that restricts the rights of the good guys based upon what evil people do or might do. If that were the case, alcohol still would be banned. As you may know, drunk drivers kill an estimated 12,000 Americans each year and hurt tens of thousands more.

I encourage you also to keep this misnamed “gun violence” in perspective. While all deaths are tragic, the vast majority of gun-related murders and violence are committed by gang members who do not use guns that look like — but do not perform like — military assault weapons. The majority of crimes that involve a firearm are committed with handguns. I concurred with you back in 2008 when you stated, “If [Mr. Obama] tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.” I trust you still maintain those sentiments.

Again, I offer you my services and a lifetime of expertise. I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

Ted Nugent