Rice: Gun Rights Important As Free Speech
Date: May 13, 2005 7:14 AM
FYI (copy below):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-4999723,00.html?gusrc=ticker-103704
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Rice: Gun Rights Important As Free Speech

Thursday May 12, 2005 2:16 AM

By BARRY SCHWEID

AP Diplomatic Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
recalling how her father took up arms to defend fellow
blacks from racist whites in the segregated South, said
Wednesday the constitutional right of Americans to own guns
is as important as their rights to free speech and religion.

In an interview on CNN’s “Larry King Live,” Rice said she
came to that view from personal experience. She said her
father, a black minister, and his friends armed themselves
to defended the black community in Birmingham, Ala., against
the White Knight Riders in 1962 and 1963. She said if local
authorities had had lists of registered weapons, she did not
think her father and other blacks would have been able to
defend themselves.

Birmingham, where Rice was born in 1954, was a focal point
of racial tension. Four black girls were killed when a bomb
exploded at a Birmingham church in 1963, a galvanizing
moment in the fight for civil rights.

Rice said she favored background checks and controls at gun
shows. However, she added, “we have to be very careful
when we start abridging rights that the Founding Fathers
thought very important.”

Rice said the Founding Fathers understood “there might be
circumstances that people like my father experienced in
Birmingham, Ala., when, in fact, the police weren’t going to
protect you.”

“I also don’t think we get to pick and choose from the
Constitution,” she said in the interview, which was taped
for airing Wednesday night. “The Second Amendment is as
important as the First Amendment.”

The First Amendment protects religious, press and speech
freedoms as well as the rights to assemble and petition the
government. The Second Amendment guarantees “a
well-regulated militia” and “the right of the people to
keep and bear arms.” Gun-rights supporters and those who
favor gun control disagree over whether the amendment
guarantees individual gun ownership.