-Caveat Lector-
>From NewsMax
> Whittling Away Our Constitution One Right at a Time Ken
> HamblinJuly 15, 1999
>
> Add another name to our nation's hall of shame _ and one even
> scarier subtext, if you read carefully.
>
> Media reports have been rife with details about how Benjamin
> Nathaniel Smith, the youthful white supremacist who is our
> nation's newest incarnation of hatred personified, was able to
> purchase two handguns _ a .380-caliber semiautomatic and a
> .22-caliber handgun _ to use in pursuit of his grotesque racist
> ideology.
>
> His rampage included firing shots at six Orthodox Jews in
> Chicago, murdering former Northwestern University basketball
> coach Ricky Byrdson _ a black man _ shooting at an Asian couple
> in Northbrook, Ill., and killing 26-year-old Won Joon Yoon, an
> economics student from Bloomington, Ind.
>
> What Smith did was repulsive, and I commend him for the
> consideration he showed us by extinguishing his own unhappy,
> twisted little life at the end of his shooting spree.
>
> Unfortunately, his legacy may be yet another nail in the coffin
> in which the gun-grabbers hope to entomb our Second Amendment
> rights to keep and bear firearms.
>
> Ironically, the same weekend Smith began his rampage, USA Weekend
> published the results of a survey indicating that more than half
> of Americans are ready to trade some of their unique freedoms for
> greater personal and community safety.
>
> ``Fifty-two percent say the right to bear arms should be modified
> or eliminated,'' the report said.
>
> Don't get me wrong, now. I respect the opinions of those
> Americans who responded to USA Weekend's poll, even those 52
> percent with whom I find myself in such complete disagreement.
>
> Why am I being so accommodating toward people whose views in this
> matter I find both shortsighted and highly dangerous?
>
> Because I understand, as I can only wish they did, that the
> Constitution they're so ready to casually tamper with is the very
> document that guarantees them the right to be in opposition to me
> and my view of this world.
>
> I also understand, perhaps better than they do, how dizzying it
> can be to be bombarded by liberal screeds about the evils
> inherent in our Second Amendment rights _ even though these
> rights make us unique among all the nations on this earth.
>
> Not so coincidentally, I suspect, I happened upon another story
> in the same publication on the same day, with a headline that I
> found just as alarming.
>
> ``1st Amendment a Loser in Poll,'' it said. ``Too Much Press
> Freedom Seen.''
>
> According to this article, a surprisingly similar 53 percent of
> those questioned in a survey _ conducted under the auspices of
> the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University in Nashville
> _ believe ``the press has too much freedom,'' representing a rise
> of 15 percentage points since 1997.
>
> I talked with Paul McMasters, the center's ombudsman and a
> leading defender of the First Amendment, on my syndicated
> talk-radio show. According to him, my take on this poll _ that
> Americans are being dumbed down about the rights our forebears
> gallantly defended _ was uncomfortably accurate.
>
> His evident concern about the Vanderbilt poll results made me
> hope that some of those folks in academia _ and especially those
> who adore the liberal media, who have been working to make the
> Bill of Rights into a document more to their liking _ may at last
> be beginning to understand something we Second Amendment nuts
> have grasped for a long while.
>
> That simple thought is that, without the Second Amendment,
> there's a good chance there'll be no First Amendment.
>
> It's apparent, at least to me, that you can't selectively dupe
> the American people. You can't coax them into willingness to
> throw away one inalienable right, while making sure that they
> cherish another.
>
> They can't be brainwashed to shrug off one right _ the right to
> bear arms _ and remain passionately protective of another right _
> the right to free speech. No matter how much that scenario fits
> the political agenda of the left.
>
> The Vanderbilt poll makes it frighteningly apparent that, if you
> propagandize to abolish the Second Amendment _ making us more
> like Australians, Mexicans and the English _ then you had best be
> prepared to cope with a populace ignorant and indifferent about
> the First Amendment.
>
> This chilling reality was confirmed by McMasters, when he told me
> that, of all our inalienable rights which were mentioned in the
> survey, the one that provoked the most negative reaction was
> freedom of the press.
>
> c.1999 Ken Hamblin
>
> Ken Hamblin is the author of �Pick a Better Country.� He writes a
> column for the Denver Post and has been a radio talk-show host
> for 15 years. His program is syndicated by American View Inc.,
> and currently is carried by 120 stations across the country.
A<>E<>R
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