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The Honorable Paul Sarbanes (Senate, MD),
The Honorable Barbara Mikulski (Senate, MD),
The Honorable Trent Lott (Senate Majority Leader),
The Honorable Steny Hoyer (House, MD 5)
For letter to Senator Lott change "Senator Lott('s)" to "you(r)".
[In spring, 1997, copies of this letter were also sent to:
Senate: Frist(TN), Lautenberg, (NJ), Thompson (TN); House: Duncan
(TN), Smith (OR), Bartlett (MD).]
Dear _______________:
On February 8, the Washington Post reported a DC Fraternal
Order of Police official's comments on the walk-by shooting death
of a DC police officer that the "state of the Metropolitan Police
Department" is at fault and "the police department needs
leaders." There may be trouble at the DC police department but
the real fault is in the state of the national political culture.
The DC police department may need leadership but the real need is
for national political leadership. It is national political
leadership that is responsible for the state of the political
culture. That leadership falls on you.
In the same report, DC Mayor Marion Barry correctly described the
problem of the illegal traffic of guns crossing the District's
borders. The business of national policy has to be to empower
local jurisdictions. Senator Lott in the same report calls for
"drastic action." The drastic action has to be a national
firearms policy that shuts down the illegal traffic in firearms.
That can only be achieved by accountability of firearm ownership
and the reporting of private sales. The policy is concisely
outlined in the Firearms Policy Journal. It is the only
policy consistent with the obligations of citizenship and
maintaining the sovereignty of the legal institutions of
government. It is a simple policy and there is a simple reason
we do not have it already.
The simple reason is the doctrine of political liberty
successfully maintained for decades by the National Rifle
Association. The doctrine says that there has to be a balance of
power between an armed populace and any and all government. The
doctrine is nothing other than a rightwing fantasy. To be armed
outside of the law is a refusal of the consent to be governed.
This childish insolence is elevated into a civic pathology with
very destructive consequences.
There is no secret about the doctrine. It has even been argued
in federal court. In
"The Founders and the AK-47,"Washington Post, July 6, 1989, Sue Wimmershoff-Caplan, a
member of the NRA National Board, wrote, "Twentieth century
military machines are far from invincible when outflanked by
armed citizen guerrillas." She does not have in mind the
twentieth century military machine of the government of
Uzbekistan. She means this government. The NRA's Executive Vice
President Wayne LaPierre wrote in his book Guns, Crime, and
Freedom (p. 7), "...the people have a right, must have a
right, to take whatever measures necessary, including force, to
abolish oppressive government." In NRA consciousness government
and the consent to be governed in and of themselves are
oppressive and LaPierre's statement amounts to a prerevolutionary
call to arms. The Second Amendment Foundation's
amicus brief in
US v. Francis J. Warin (1976) (see
.../warin.html)
asserted "...a basic right of freemen[!] to take up arms to
defeat an oppressive government." The US Court of Appeals, Sixth
Circuit, rejected Warin's claims. Cert. denied.
["Cert. denied" means the Supreme Court refused to heard
the appeal.] Taking up arms to defeat government, oppressive or
otherwise, is a moral right not a civil right government can
guarantee. All the NRA's posturing and rallying of gun owners'
votes have the sole ultimate policy objective to keep gun
ownership outside of accountability to public authority so it can
have, by defeating legislation, the doctrine of political liberty
the courts have explicitly rejected.
This doctrine is not just found on the outer fringes of
commentary and court briefs. In the course of the Brady Law
debates, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska stated: "An armed
citizenry, people who have the ability to defend themselves, are
[sic] not going to become an oppressed citizenry." The
source of the oppression is not specified but a citizenry by
definition is people who have put themselves under law and
government. In his book To Renew America, the Speaker of
the US House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, wrote (p. 202),
"The Second Amendment is a political right written into our
Constitution for the purpose of protecting individual citizens
from their own government." The Speaker combines a moral
right and a civil right into "a political right." To the
Speaker, apparently, the Constitution of the United States is
perverted. The Constitution defines treason as "levying war"
against the United States, but the Speaker seems to think it
guarantees at the same time an individual civil right to do the
same. The constitutional definition of treason includes giving
"aid and comfort" to those who would levy war against the United
States. These statements give aid and comfort to the "armed
citizen guerrillas" in our midst who have declared a state of war
with the United States. The Senator and the Speaker have not
only made themselves eligible for expulsion from office but also,
by constitutional definition, for indictment for treason.
[Treason is defined in the Constitution as the physical waging of
war against the United States. It is a limiting definition
because during the American Revolution and historically in
England the charge of treason had been much abused. The charge
of treason is still upon occasion used loosely and recklessly.
Providing moral support, as the Speaker and senator do, may not
qualify as material aid and comfort to the waging of war against
the United States, but their statements are certainly very
irresponsible. It says much about the current state of the
political culture that no one makes an issue out of this
foolishness. —GEErnst, July 27, 1998]
Addressing gun violence in this country is not a cultural war
between those who love guns and want to go duck hunting and those
who hate guns and want to confiscate them. It involves the most
fundamental issues of law, government, and citizenship. Thomas
Jefferson had the notion that the Constitution should be
rewritten every generation. I don't think that is necessary but
a periodic reaffirmation of the fundamental principles on which
this country is supposed to operate is necessary. It is
necessary now as it has been necessary in the past. In his first
Inaugural, President Lincoln said, "A majority held in restraint
by constitutional checks and limitations...is the only true
sovereign of a free people." "Armed citizen guerrillas" are not
a restraint on sovereignty. They are a rival sovereignty.
It is extremely important that the American people know what is
their elected officials' understanding of their oath of office
and what that oath means with regard to the maintenance of the
sovereignty of
the rule of law
and of the legal institutions of
government. Sovereignty means that the exercise of armed force
and the maintenance of the capacity to exercise armed force is a
matter of law and authorization by law. In Dennis v. US
(1951) the Supreme Court rejected "any principle of governmental
helplessness in the face of preparations for revolution, which
principle, carried to its logical conclusion, must lead to
anarchy." In firearms policy, we have arrived at anarchy and
Senator Lott's "drastic action" has to be to bring gun ownership
under the rule of law
by requiring accountability of ownership.
Once gun owners accommodate to the validity of law and
government, they secure their unalienable right to self-defense
by entering into the political process and participating in
setting the legal terms of ownership that disarm the lawless and
the disloyal. Accountability of ownership is only a drastic
policy, however, because for decades the national political
leadership has failed its most fundamental obligation to the
American people which is to maintain the rule of law.
The rule of law
inheres in the civic consciousness of individuals and
accountability of ownership brings that consciousness home by
touching individuals with laws. The burden on national political
leadership is not as much a national policy that touches gun
owners with laws but a reaffirmation of the contours of
citizenship. Taking up that burden will provide the shape of the
political culture necessary for the next century.
The American people need to know what capacity exists in the US
Congress for leadership to bring gun ownership under
the rule of law
and to tell some people they cannot have their childish
doctrine of political liberty. How can the American people
depend on this government to protect them from "armed citizen
guerrillas" if it has no commitment to protect itself from "armed
citizen guerrillas"? Arriving at a national firearms policy that
brings gun ownership under the rule of law and makes it
accountable to public authority starts with rational public
debate on why anyone needs to be armed outside of the laws of
this country. It can begin with you.
Please include in your response a statement on your understanding
of what your oath of office means with regard to maintaining the
sovereignty of the legal institutions of government and a
statement on the kind of leadership the American people can
expect from you to fulfill that obligation. Please give a very
careful statement. Your response will be published on the
Internet in the Firearms Policy Journal. No respond will
be noted as a matter of historical record in a time of crisis.
Yours truly,
G. Eyclesheimer Ernst
Publisher, Editor
[One would think that their oath of office and the sovereignty of
the legal institutions of government would be part of every
politician's stump speech.]
[RESOURCES].
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