Time: Mon Oct 13 15:00:02 1997
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Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 14:54:41 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: The latest Disarmament Scheme (fwd)
<snip>
>
> "The latest disarmament scheme"
>
> By Joseph Farah
>
> http://www.worldnetdaily.com
>
>
> Is there no length to which the federal government
>gun-grabbers will go to end-run the Second Amendment?
>
> The latest attack on the Constitution comes in the form of
>the "Gun Free Zones Act" passed by Congress last year as
>part of the omnibus spending bill. Among other things, the
>legislation creates a 1,000-foot "gun-free" zone around
>every "school" in the country. It is illegal, therefore, to
>possess a gun within that zone, whether it's in your car or
>your home.
>
> So, if you're traveling past a school on the way to a
>shooting range or a hunting excursion, this law has already
>made you a felon. That would be heinous enough, if it
>wasn't for the way this law is being broadly interpreted
>by, among others, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
>Director John Magaw.
>
> He has expressed his opinion in writing to at least one
>member of Congress that "schools," in this case also means
>home schools that are operated under state law. So, the
>government has found a way to discourage home-schoolers
>from owning guns and gun-owners from home-schooling.
>
> But think of the ramifications of this concept: Due to the
>utter failure of government schools in this country, there
>has been a dramatic increase in the number of parents
>home-schooling their children. Today, it would be difficult
>to find a neighborhood anywhere in America where someone is
>not home-schooling. Do you see the sheer genius of this
>from the gun-grabbers' point of view?
>
> It's difficult enough to know when you're traveling within
>1,000 feet of a school -- especially in an area unfamiliar
>to you. But, how on earth is one supposed to know if and
>when you're driving past a home school. There are no
>flagpoles, no crossing guards and no playgrounds. Home
>schools look just like any other home. This law is
>ambiguous on purpose.
>
> Remember, the federal government has no use for
>home-schoolers anymore than it does for gun-owners. It has
>effectively marginalized -- and criminalized -- two of its
>least favorite constituencies with one evil stroke of the pen.
>
> I have to believe that those behind such legislation
>intended to drive a wedge between these two "dangerous"
>political constituencies, forcing each to defend its own
>rights at the expense of the other. Fortunately, no such
>thing has happened.
>
> Surprisingly, the first challenge to this imaginative,
>back-door strategy to make criminals out of the most
>law-abiding citizens in the country has come not from the
>powerful Second Amendment lobby, but from the Home School
>Legal Defense Association.
>
> In a lawsuit filed in San Antonio, four home-school parents
>who also happen to own firearms have sued Attorney General
>Janet Reno and the U.S. attorney for the western district
>of Texas asking that the entire law be stricken as
>unconstitutional, or, at the very least, that home schools
>be exempt from the provisions of the law.
>
> But this law should be stricken in its entirety. There are
>some 112,000 schools in this country, not including the
>hundreds of thousands of home schools. Congressional
>proponents of the law insisted that "generous exceptions"
>would still allow people to transport guns within the
>half-mile-wide gun-free bubbles. "Trust us," they said in
>effect. "We have your best interests in mind. We're only
>trying to develop a tool to go after bad guys and protect kids."
>
> Tell it to BATF's Magaw, who has obviously set his sights
>on expanding the authority and scope of his illegitimate
>agency and the power of the federal government over all of us.
>
> This law represents one more step down the slippery slope
>toward the kind of near-total gun ban we're seeing imposed
>in Australia and England. Let's face it. If children are
>endangered by guns within 1,000 feet of them at school or
>in home schools, then why not ban guns in all homes where
>children live? After all, children learn at home whether
>formal schooling takes place in them or not. Sooner or
>later, isn't that where we're headed?
>
> Or will the government merely expand the arbitrary
>1,000-foot designation to one mile? Or, better yet, how
>about no guns within one mile of any child?
>
> Interestingly, according to gun-rights activists,
>congressional offices have not been inundated with protests
>over the Gun Free Zones Act. Most people still don't get
>it. They don't understand how they're being stripped of
>their most basic constitutional rights under the guise of
>government "protection."
>
> It has happened before -- in Germany, Russia, China.
>That's the kind of "protection" you can live without.
>
>####
>
>Joseph Farah is Editor of the internet newspaper
>WorldNetDaily.com and Executive Director of the Western
>Journalism Center, an independent group of investigative
>reporters.
>
<snip>
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Paul Andrew Mitchell, Sui Juris : Counselor at Law, federal witness 01
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