The Lynchpin
The Lynchpin
New Dimensions Magazine/Special Issue (1990)
By David Kupelian
Leroy Pyle is a 16-year veteran of the San Jose
Police Department, a recognized firearms expert, and police gun safety training
officer. But on April 6, he was yanked out of the training class he was
teaching, told he was being investigated by Internal Affairs, and relegated to a
lowly telephone answering job. What did Officer Pyle do wrong?
Two days earlier, on April 4, Leroy Pyle had
the audacity to go before the California Legislature's Public Safety Committee
and testify against banning "assault weapons" in that state. It
happens that Pyle's boss, San Jose's Police Chief Joseph McNamara, is one of the
nation's top spokesmen and fund-raisers for gun control organizations. (He is
also a vocal lobbyist in favor of the legalization of illicit drugs, including
cocaine and heroin.) It seems that Chief McNamara, threatened by Pyle's exercise
of his first amendment rights of free speech, attempted to intimidate him.
Pyle was exercising his first amendment right
to defend everyone's second amendment rights, while his boss was trying to deny
Pyle his first amendment rights, in order to deny everyone their second
amendment rights. Let's take a closer look at what is really involved here.
The first amendment to the Constitution
guarantees freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly. The second
amendment, Constitutional scholars agree, was meant to be a linchpin which would
"lock in" the rights guaranteed by the first. "The strongest
reason," said Thomas Jefferson, "for the people to retain the right to
keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny
in government."
The issue of banning so-called "assault
weapons" has captivated the news media, politicians, and much of the public
today. An emotional tidal wave has swept the nation since the schoolyard
killings by a deranged criminal named Patrick Purdy. Hundreds of pieces of
proposed gun control legislation are presently being debated passionately across
the country in city councils, county commission meetings, state
legislatures--and in the U.S. Congress. These bills would make unprecedented,
far-reaching, and highly restrictive changes in the nation's gun laws.
New Dimensions has spent several months
researching this issue and has conducted countless interviews with top spokesmen
on both sides of the issue. What has become increasingly clear is that the
entire issue is a massive fraud.
FACT: It is not well known that President Jimmy
Carter and his people wanted to push a major gun control law through Congress in
the late '70s. They decided that the best way to accomplish this would be to
have an exhaustive scientific study conducted which, in the end, would proclaim
that gun control laws were effective in reducing crime. Two highly respected,
pro-gun-control professors from Massachusetts, James D. Wright and Peter Rossi,
were hired to conduct the study. Wright and Rossi spent four years and hundreds
of thousands of dollars to produce the most comprehensive, critical study of gun
control ever undertaken. In 1981, they published the results of their research:
an exhaustive, three-volume work entitled "Under the Gun." Their
findings, and I quote co-author Wright: "Gun control laws do not reduce
crime."
FACT: According to the Federal Government's
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), there is no way to differentiate
between "assault rifles" and the 20 to 30 million sporting and hunting
firearms owned and used by Americans. "The assault weapon has a very
menacing appearance to it, ' testified BATF official Edward Conroy to Congress,
"but this gun technologically...is pretty much the same as a sporting
semiautomatic rifle--with the exception that this firearm has an exotic type
appearance to it."
FACT: Overwhelming statistical evidence shows
that crime actually decreases where citizen gun ownership increases. In Orlando,
Florida there were 33 rapes in a 9 month period. After people began flocking to
the gun stores to protect themselves, the local newspaper got together with the
police to offer a firearms safety course. This was all very well publicized;
everybody knew that in Orlando there were 6,000 women who had handguns and who
knew how to use them. The result In the following 9 month period, there were
only 3 rapes. In addition, crime in general declined. The fact is, Orlando,
Florida was the only U.S. city with a population of over 100,000 that had a
reduction in crime that year.
Gun control is an emotional issue. And it is
the very nature of emotional arguments, such as those passionately put forth by
well-meaning gun control advocates, that they bypass reason. Strangely, this
same emotionalism somehow blocks the believers in such arguments from seeing
their own contradictions and lack of logic.
Americans are in grave danger of losing their
rights to keep and bear arms. If it comes to pass that law-abiding, armed
citizens are considered criminals, while real crime continues to grow
uncontrollably guess which "criminal" will be pursued by law
enforcement. A vast gun-control police will go after citizens in violation of
the law, because they are easier to catch than real criminals, and they satisfy
the need for a scapegoat.
We are told that rights have to be balanced
with responsibilities. An armed citizen is the very symbol of the acceptance of
individual responsibility--a responsibility which many people today do not
accept, and who feel very threatened when you do accept it. To see just how much
attitudes have changed, consider the words of President George Washington:
"Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the
American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence...To ensure
peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally
indispensable...The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil
interference--they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."
Truly, the issue is not guns. It is your
freedom. Remove the linchpin from the bill of rights--the Second Amendment--and
the next rights to fall will be those guaranteed by the first amendment. If you
think that's an exaggeration, just ask Leroy Pyle.
