custom ad
OpinionNovember 14, 1998

To the editor: I was watching the morning news and heard a piece about how President Clinton thinks gun shows harbor criminals and promote criminal acquisition of firearms. The program stated he has asked for a committee to investigate a solution to this problem. My understanding is that the Clinton administration in its continuing battle to take away the right to bear arms and the right to trade freely would like to make gun shows illegal...

Mary Nall

To the editor:

I was watching the morning news and heard a piece about how President Clinton thinks gun shows harbor criminals and promote criminal acquisition of firearms. The program stated he has asked for a committee to investigate a solution to this problem. My understanding is that the Clinton administration in its continuing battle to take away the right to bear arms and the right to trade freely would like to make gun shows illegal.

I know we have stood by and allowed our right to not having illegal search and seizure become a thing of the past. I know we voted the same Congress back in that spent the budget surplus. Congress could have returned tax money to us, the people who paid the taxes. Congress could have returned money to the Social Security Trust Fund. But the surplus was used for additional spending, which no doubt will become part of future budgets.

(I still don't understand how you can have a budget surplus when you have $20-plus trillion in debt and obligations.)

But I wonder if the people of Missouri are going to be apathetic when it comes to our guns.

Receive Daily Headlines FREESign up today!

I know many people who collect guns and many more who go to these shows because they like guns. Some of us think guns are not only part of our history, but a basic part of our freedom and what it means to be an American.

It seems to me that we are either so lazy or so afraid or so conditioned that we no longer think for ourselves, depend on ourselves or our neighbors or trust individuals to be moral on their own. We seem to think morality is controlled by the government and laws make us moral. As Albert Nock stated in "On Doing the Right Thing," "Free, unrestricted choice, the actual act of choosing voluntarily, is the only way that people can, in fact, ever become good."

Several years ago in this state it became illegal to carry a concealed weapon. This was theoretically to keep the bad guys from carrying guns. Guess what. A criminal about to rape, murder or steal is not worried about being arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. In all the discussion about concealed-weapon laws of late, I have never heard one politician make a suggestion that we repeal the concealed-weapon laws even though they have not solved the problem. The only suggestions I have heard put more restrictions on law-abiding citizens. My guess is criminals won't register their guns. This implies the government has the right to control and monitor law-abiding citizens and their guns.

I hear all the time that we have to compromise, or this law is the best we are going to get, and I wonder why. Isn't it time that we wake up, accept responsibility for ourselves and quit punishing and controlling people who have not committed a crime? My theory is that this, like many other freedoms and responsibilities, will become a part of our statism and that we will sit by and let it happen.

MARY NALL

Marble Hill

Advertisement

Connect with the Southeast Missourian Newsroom:

For corrections to this story or other insights for the editor, click here. To submit a letter to the editor, click here. To learn about the Southeast Missourian’s AI Policy, click here.

Advertisement
Receive Daily Headlines FREESign up today!