City Manager is Mistaken
From: "Angel Shamaya"
<Director@KeepAndBearArms.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 01:17:36 -0700
To: tribletters@tampatrib.com
Subject: City Manager Spina is Mistaken
TO:
Tampa Tribune Editor
FROM:
Angel Shamaya
Founder/Executive Director
KeepAndBearArms.com
(National organization with members in your back yard)
1109 S. Plaza Way, #136
Flagstaff, Arizona 86001
PHONE: (928) 522-8833
FAX: (928) 522-8855
RE: Workplace Gun Ban Proposal Slammed http://tampatrib.com/Pasco/MGA8VPQGDTC.html
November 1, 2001
Kudos to reporter John Wing for addressing City
Manager Mike Spina's stance prohibiting self-defense in the workplace. ("Workplace
Gun Ban Proposal Slammed", October 29) Good, fair coverage. What concerns
me is the fact that the City Manager doesn't know his subject matter very well.
"Those opposed to the policy are mistaking the right to bear arms with
a city government's right to protect itself and its workers," he tells
us -- but government does not have rights, never has, and never will unless
we alter or abolish our founding documents. People have rights. Government has
powers. And there is a vast difference between the two.
A government's first priority is to use its limited,
narrowly defined power to protect the rights of the people it aims to serve.
Meanwhile, City Manager Spina opines that denying the right to self-defense
"doesn't infringe on anybody's rights.''
Question for the uninformed City Manager: Do
human beings have a right to self-defense? That is a yes/no question. If the
answer is "yes" (it is), then the most effective means of self-defense
cannot be denied unless you wish to violate the very basic natural instinct
of self-preservation. (If you want to know what the most effective means of
self-defense is, look on a police officer's hip.)
There are two basic types of workplace violence.
One involves the kind where an intended victim is permitted to defend him- or
herself. The other involves the "sitting duck" scenario City Manager
Spina seeks to create. The people who feel strongly inclined to deny the right
of self-defense in the workplace would do well to study real life cases of workplace
violence -- both types mentioned above -- to find that the sitting duck scenario
breeds far more death and injury than the "self-defense permitted"
scenario ever has or ever will.
Perhaps most confusing are the people who truly
believe that someone bent on doing great bodily harm to another person will
obey a sign on a door that says, "no weapons allowed." You have 3,700
examples of weapons found in "Gun Free Schools" these last couple
of years. How much more evidence do you need before you realize that criminals
do not obey laws -- but they very much fear and respect armed citizens.
Respectfully,
Angel Shamaya
To Get Your Letters Printed Here
Click here and read submission guidelines.
