Letters to the Editor
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‘Targeting the Palladium’
Your editorial properly sounds the alarm about efforts afoot by gun prohibitionists to use the United Nations to eviscerate our Second Amendment [“Targeting the Palladium,” January 13, 2006].
A British non-governmental organization called International Alert, which is part of the George Soros-backed International Action Network on Small Arms, has actually gone so far as to render their unsolicited interpretation of the Second Amendment, declaring that “the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee individuals the right to possess or carry guns. The Second Amendment only protects ‘the right to form militias under the control of state authorities.’ “
Apparently, some British folks have forgotten from whom we won our freedom – and why we sought it in the first place.
Why should we care what these gun prohibitionists have to say? We should care because if they are successful in getting the United Nations to approve an “international norm” curtailing the right of law-abiding civilians to possess guns for their own safety, the gun prohibitionists will try to get those “norms” incorporated into the interpretation of the Second Amendment by sympathetic judges who are willing to erase the protection of individual rights altogether.
They will argue that civilian possession of ordinary firearms poses a threat to “human rights” and that since there is no general right to civilian access to arms under any international instrument, there should not be such a right under our Constitution either. Unfortunately, we know there are Supreme Court justices today who may well go along with such inverted logic since they love to use international law as the basis of their constitutional law opinions.
JOSEPH A. KLEIN
Manhattan
Mr. Klein is the author of “Global Deception: The UN’s Stealth Assault on America’s Freedom.”
Editor’s Note: The official position of the United States Department of Justice is that the rights protected in the Second Amendment – because it does not say the “right of the states to maintain militias” but “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” – are conferred on individuals.
‘Bush Enforcing Cuba Embargo’
The Reverend Lucius Walker claims that Cuba is a peaceful country that is no threat to the United States, and does so despite decades of proof of human rights abuses and militaristic activities that constitute a threat to American national security [“Bush Enforcing Cuba Embargo in New Push,” Meghan Clyne, Page 1, January 12, 2006].
He also believes that it is the U.S. that is a threat to peace in the world, and that its policy toward Cuba is “mean-spirited.” This agonizingly misguided worldview prompts two questions.
If Fidel Castro provides such a wonderful Shangri-La for Cubans to bask in, then why are people so desperate to escape that they will convert a rusted out ’57 Chevy into a pontoon boat just to get to Miami? And if Rev. Walker is so unhappy with the U.S., then why doesn’t he just take up permanent residence in Havana?
RICHARD BROWNELL
Vice President
New York Young Republican Club Inc.
www.nyyrc.com
Manhattan
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