Interesting read from the Morning call

[Exbiker]

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-...2880232.column

Specter helps defeat gun rights bill
Paul Carpenter

Paul Carpenter wrote "I began as an advocate for stricter gun control and spent years looking for philosophical, practical, historical and legal justification to bolster my view. The more I studied it, however, the more convinced I was that the Bill of Rights is too precious to be diluted for the sake of expediency. You cannot subvert one part of it without opening the door to the subversion of the rest.

It became clear, from reading what the Founding Fathers said, that the intent of the Second Amendment is to ensure the right of every individual citizen to have the means to defend himself or herself.

The two main consequences of gun control also became clear: First, to erode self-reliance, a quality unique to America, by shifting power and dependency from citizens to government authorities. Second, to give criminals carte blanche to target those with no way to defend themselves."

[Adam-12]

Just to be absolutely clear, NONE of the quoted words above came from Specter. They're Carpenter's own take on gun control.

[64Jeeper]

Good find on that article. I'm starting to like this Paul Carpenter. Seems Paul has turned pro-gun after realizing what the 2A is all about.

[Exbiker]

Just to be absolutely clear, NONE of the quoted words above came from Specter. They're Carpenter's own take on gun control.

Good catch. Fixed it. I wouldn`t want anybody to think Benedict Arlen had a change of heart.

[Curmudgeon]

Somebody buy that man a beer!

[tdyoung58]

But did we really want the Federal Gooberment (Obama, Holden and the BATF) overseeing our right to carry concealed nationwide to begin with. Yeah, it sounded like a good thing and to begin with I was al for it, but then I got to thinking about our illustrious gooberment and their record of intrusion on the Rights of it's citizens.

We don't need another illegal law that says we can, the Constitution does already. When are "We the People" gonna take back our government is the real question...

Besides Benedict Arlen said he didn't vote for it because it was a 'states right,' I can't condemn him for that ..... everything else he's done, yeah pretty much, but not for that

Name one gooberment program the Feds haven't fubar'd

[dc dalton]

Enjoyed the article so much I had to write the author:

I truly enjoyed your article on Arlen Specter in the Morning Call this morning. It is highly refreshing to see a journalist, especially one that openly admits his prior stance on gun control was wrong, to air his views in this manner. Logic sometimes gets mixed with emotion for too many regular people as well as reporters and all too often the 'emotion of the minute' after a horrible crime leads people to cry out for more control, control that can lead to exactly the opposite of what they had hoped to achieve.

You are correct in your statements about big cities and how most criminals know they will not meet any resistance for the simple fact the know their intended victims have no means of self protection. Many people have come to believe their government / police will be there to help them only to find out in a horrible moment that there was no way they could get their fast enough to prevent disaster.

I, as you might assume, am a legal gun owner / carrier in Pennsylvania, as is my wife. In a day and age when there are so many criminals out there that could care less about who they hurt I can not see how anyone could look another person in the face and tell them they have no right to defend themselves. I wonder if those same people could look that person in the face after a tragedy has happened and say the same thing?

You are also correct that our founding fathers knew damn well what could happen if normal law abiding citizens were denied their right to protect themselves, both from those that would do them harm as well as any government that would try and end their freedoms. All too often I hear people say "that was written over 200 years ago, they had no idea what was going to happen". To that I can only say, they knew exactly what could happen as they themselves had seen it in the pages of history, history that too many people today have forgotten.

Thank you again for a great article

[Retired One]

I am not a big fan of Paul Carpenter, but his article was a good one for a change.

[Brick]

I didn't bother reading Mr. Carpenter's article. But I do want to offer some thoughts on the way the votes shook out on the National Reciprocity Amendment.

The vote tally is available in another thread in the forum or on line through the Senate website. But, there are a number of things that don't stack up. Here's a few of them:

1. The 60 vote requirement was tacked on this because Schumer (Dipshit-NY) was threatening to filibuster.

2. Many positive votes were made because the amendment was not expected to pass. For example Harry Reid (Dipshit-NV) voted yes and so did our own Casey.

3. In a similar vein and for the same reason many no votes were cast also. In Spector's case he was just proving his bona fides to his "new" caucus. The same goes for the reputedly pro-gun Gilabrand (also a Dipshit- NY). In her case she has to prove to the "downstate" crowd that she isn't really an "upstate rube".

So in my estimate this was just one big meadow muffin right from the start. But in the long run I am glad it was defeated. National Reciprocity is just another step closer to a National License which is something I want absolutely no part of.