Second Amendment Project Newsletter, Apr. 21, 2000.
San Jacinto Day issue.
The Second Amendment Project is based at the Independence
Institute, a free-market think tank in Golden, Colorado.

http://i2i.org

=========================================================
Table of Contents for this issue:

1. New articles by Kopel: “What if We had Taken Columbine Seriously?”
on the cover of this week’s April 24/May 1″Weekly Standard.”
And four more from National Review Online.

2. Dale Todd, father of a Columbine victim, speaks out on gun control.

3. Million Mom March fizzles.

4. Emerson case update.

5. Recent polls. Gun control not seen as practical solution.

6. Thugs still reign in Taxachusetts. By Vin Suprynowicz.

7. The Battle of San Jacinto.

=========================================================
1. New articles by Kopel, available online.

a. “What if Columbine Really Mattered?” Cover story of the April 24
issue
of “The Weekly Standard.” How Americans of all political persuasions
failed to take Columbine seriously, and instead used Columbine as a
political tool for various measures that wouldn’t have prevented the
awful
crime.

http://www.weeklystandard.com

[Note: The Weekly Standard's website is having problems, and, as of
April 18, is still displaying the previous week's issue.]

b. “The Clinton Anti-gun Two-Step: Create a ‘Problem,’ then Infringe the
Second Amendment to Fix It.” National Review Online, Apr. 17, 2000. Many
of
the vendors at gun shows who don’t have Federal Firearms Licenses used
to be
licensed dealers–until the Clinton administration arbitrarily took
their
licenses away.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment041800a.html

c. “Let My People Go: Elian and the Exodus.” National Review Online,
Apr.
17, 2000.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment041700b.html

d. “Rapists Like Gun Control.” National Review Online, Apr. 14, 2000.
What
if Juanita Broaddrick had been carrying a gun?

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment041400a.html

e. “Colorado Senate Rejects Gun Legislation.” National Review Online,
Apr.
12, 2000. Colorado Senate nixes ban on possession of guns by law-abiding
adults at universities and schools.

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment041200a.html

=========================================================
2. Dale Todd

To: Don Lee, Colorado State Legislator, District 28 (Columbine)

As my State Legislator I know you have been under a lot of attacks
lately
for
your principles and stand against “reasonable gun control.” I have good
news
to share with you today…

83,000,000 (Million) American Gun Owners lived peaceably today, without
committing a crime. They were also secure in their homes…..

Thank you for standing on your principles, the same principles that have
made
America great. I find it ironic (and sad) that our State Legislature as
well
as our United States Legislature fulfilled the two killers’ prophecy
about
them: by thinking it was the guns…”bad Arlene, bad gun, no, no…bad
gun!”
When the “Time Magazine Tapes” come out, America is in for a sickening
surprise about itself.

Dale Todd
Father of a Columbine Victim
Littleton, Colorado

[Note: "Arlene" was the killers' nickname for one of their guns.]

=========================================================
3. Million Mom March to achieve no more than 1% of Goal.

The Million Mom March-announced with great fanfare after
the Columbine murders last year-has applied for a permit
for only 10,000 people for its Washington, D.C., event
on Mothers Day.

The MMM saw failure coming a few months ago, and announced
that instead of one big march in Washington (as originally
planned) there would be marches in various cities throughout
The U.S.

This tactic will help divert attention from the refusal of America’s
Mothers to mobilize behind the MMM’s plan to disarm those
who want to protect America’s children.

=========================================================
4. Emerson Case Update
Oral argument will take place during the week of June 12, 2000.

The Independence Institute’s amicus brief in the case is at:

http://www.i2i.org/SuptDocs/Crime/Briefs/IndInstWeb.htm

Other briefs are available at:

http://www.saf.org/EmersonViewOptions.html

=========================================================
5. Recent Polls:

a. ABC NEWS, released April 5.
“Gun Control Support Muffled: Public Rates Gun Limits Low.”

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/poll000405.html

b. Zogby Poll on “American Values.”
Better gun law enforcement preferred to more gun laws.

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=199

=========================================================
6. Thugs still reign in Taxachusetts. Mar. 12, 2000
By Vin Suprynowicz

At midday Wednesday, March 1, a 53-year-old Registered Nurse
anesthetist with the same name as actress Linda Hamilton — a
grandmother
who’s been licensed by the commonwealth to carry a handgun for the past
10
years (fingerprints, FBI check, etc.) was headed eastbound on Route 2
through the village of North Adams.

“At which point I noticed an 18-wheeler looming in my rearview mirror,”
Ms. Hamilton writes. “He drove up to within 10 feet of my Blazer, and
then
lunged his truck at my vehicle as if he was going to ram it. He pulled
out
as if to pass me — we were on a two-lane road — and then pulled back
in
behind me. He repeated this behavior four times.

“I was in fear for my life. For over a quarter mile there is no place to
pull over. There were no other people around.”

So, Hamilton took out the snub-nosed .38 Rossi she’s licensed by the
state
to carry. “I put it in my right hand and put my hand back on the
steering
wheel. The truck driver immediately backed off. I pulled in at the first
place there were people and a pay phone. I called the Shelburne State
Police barracks and told them of the incident, thinking, of course, that
they could intercept the trucker before he hurt someone.

“As soon as I mentioned what I had done with my gun, I was put on the
defensive by the officer on the phone. Instead of thanking me for
handling
the situation in a responsible way, which protected me and hurt no one,
the
issue suddenly became the gun and only the gun, and not the fact that
lives
were in jeopardy from an out-of-control trucker. The trooper said to me,
‘You should not have drawn your gun; a complaint could be filed.’ “

“Excuuuse me,” Ms. Hamilton writes, “but why on earth am I carrying a
gun? To keep my hip warm?”

The cops know who the trucker was, but won’t tell Linda Hamilton or her
husband Russ. Instead, a couple of lady troopers named Robertson and
Curran
flagged Ms. Hamilton down, asked her permission to search her vehicle,
searched it anyway when she refused permission, found and seized her
legally licensed revolver.

Fortunately, Russ Hamilton tells me Massachusetts (unlike many states)
has no easily misinterpreted law against “brandishing” a weapon. The Gun
Owners Action League referred the Hamiltons to attorney Robert Chesbro
in
Williamstown. The Hamiltons plan to sue the state for assault and
battery
(Mrs. Hamilton was frisked without evidence of any crime), theft of her
revolver (which the police still have) and concealing the name of the
truck
driver who started the whole thing.

“I put them on notice they were leaving me defenseless, and that I
wanted
a police escort home,” Mrs. Hamilton adds. “They refused.”

Taxachusetts, of course, has so far abandoned the tradition of Lexington
and Concord (where Redcoat efforts to seize civilian arms were not well
received) that their welcoming billboards now read: “Have A Gun, Go To
Jail.”

While Russ Hamilton says the cops are dead wrong — “Under Massachusetts
law you can keep a loaded firearm in your vehicle if you’re a licensed
owner; you can have it taped to the window if you so desire,” he also
admits: “We stopped one mile short. We found a piece of land we liked,
but
it’s one mile short of Vermont. In Vermont there are no gun laws
whatsoever, and it has the lowest crime rate in the U.S. We kick
ourselves
in the butt that we missed it by one mile.”

Tina Terry offers more — including a photostat of Linda Hamilton’s
handgun permit — at www.sierratimes.com/artt030600.htm.

Meantime, maybe the Second Amendment isn’t dead in courts, after all.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals — which overturned the original
“gun-free school zones” law — has announced it will hear oral arguments
this spring in the Emerson case.

Federal Judge Sam Cummings of the Northern District of Texas last year
dismissed an indictment against Timothy Joe Emerson for possession of a
firearm while under a temporary restraining order routinely issued
during
his divorce case. In doing so, Judge Cummings specifically rejected the
government’s claim that the Second Amendment is some kind of
“collective”
right pertaining only to the National Guard.

Judge Cummings’ ruling refutes the bogus “collective rights” theory, and
demonstrates in detail why the individual-right interpretation,
significantly known as the “Standard Model” in the academic literature
and
now embraced even by liberals like Harvard’s Laurence Tribe, is proper.

Specifically, Judge Cummings ruled that the subordinate “militia” clause
in no way negates or limits the independent “right of the people”
clause,
and further notes the U.S. Supreme Court has determined “the people”
should
be interpreted similarly in the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Ninth
amendments.

“This decision helps protect gun owners from the ever-increasing classes
of people prohibited from gun ownership,” comments Alan Gottlieb, head
of
the Second Amendment Foundation. “Without a court willing to step in and
put a halt to this practice, eventually anyone with a parking or
speeding
ticket could be prevented from gun ownership. This could be the pure
Second
Amendment case that gun owners have been praying for over the past
half-century.”

———————–
Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. His book, “Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the
Freedom
Movement, 1993-1998,” is available at $24.95 postpaid by dialing
1-800-244-2224; or via web site

http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

=========================================================

9. The Battle of San Jacinto

On April 21, 1836, the Texan army won the decisive battle in
Texas’ war of independence against Mexico. The Alamo siege, six
weeks earlier, had delayed the Mexican dictator, General Santa Anna,
and had provided crucial time for Sam Houston to rally his Texan army.

Santa Anna’s 1,500 men were “the flower of the Mexican army,” according
to historian William J. Jackman. The Texan army numbered only about half
that. But the Texans launched a surprise evening attack on Santa Anna’s
fortified
positions. As the Texans rushed into battle, they yelled “Remember the
Alamo!” and “Remember Goliad.” (Goliad was a site where Santa Anna
had murdered 280 American prisoners.) As the Texans advanced with
their rifles and Bowie knives, a single fife and a single drum
played the love song “Will You Come to the Bower?”

In the first hour of battle, the Texans killed 600 Mexicans and captured
200 more. Within a day, all the rest of the Mexican army, including
Santa
Anna himself, had been captured. Texan casualties were 6 dead and 30
wounded.

The Mexican standing army was crushed, and, although Mexico refused
formally
to
recognize Texan independence, the dictatorship gave up trying to conquer
Texas. Sam Houston was elected the first President of the Republic of
Texas.
The people of Texas were now free to pursue their own destiny of liberty
and
greatness.

The Battle of San Jacinto deserves a place of high honor among the
greatest
victories of freedom over tyranny, such as Normandy, Inchon, and
Saratoga.
And the Alamo deserves its own place of honor among great battles such
as
Thermopylae, where freedom warriors fought to last man, and by their
ultimate sacrifice saved their people’s liberty.

—————————————
“Will You Come to the Bower?”

Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you?
Your bed shall be of roses, be spangled with dew.
Will you, will you, will you come to the bower?
Will you, will you, will you come to the bower?

There under the bower on soft roses you’ll lie,
With a blush on your cheek, but a smile in your eye.
Will you, will you, will you smile my beloved?
Will you, will you, will you smile my beloved?

But the roses we press shall not rival your lips,
nor the dew be so sweet as the kisses we’ll sip.
Will you, will you, will you kiss me my beloved?
Will you, will you, will you kiss me my beloved?

[There is also a version of the song that was sung
by Irish-Americans. That version concludes:

You can visit New Ross, gallant Wexford, and Gorey,
Where the green was last seen by proud Saxon and Tory,
Where the soil is sanctified by the blood of each true man
Where they died satisfied that their enemies they would not run
from.

Will you come and awake our lost land from its slumber
And her fetters we'll break, links that long are encumbered.
And the air will resound with hosannas to greet you
On the shore will be found gallant Irishmen to greet you.]

—————————————
Websites worth visiting:

San Jacinto Monument and Museum

http://www.sanjacinto-museum.org/index.html

The Battle of San Jacinto

http://www.lsjunction.com/events/jacinto.htm

—————————————
Any doubts that the Texan revolution against Mexican tyranny was a
just war? Then read Stephen F. Austin’s address delivered at
Louisville, Kentucky on March 7, 1836, explaining the Texan
cause to the American people.

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/texind01.htm

===========================================================
As always, the Independence Institute website contains
extensive information on:

Criminal Justice and the Second Amendment:

http://i2i.org/crimjust.htm

The Columbine High School murders:
http://i2i.org/suptdocs/crime/columbine.htm and
The Waco murders: http://i2i.org/Waco.htm
The Independence Institute’s on-line bookstore. Start your
browsing at the Second Amendment section:

http://i2i.org/book.htm#Second

That’s all folks!