BEYOND COMMON SENSE

When the power seekers get control they do things that are "beyond common sense" to keep their ability to run your life fresh. This newsletter is designed to keep you aware of their senseless actions

Issue Number 6

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another, nor ask another to live for mine." -John Galt's pledge from Ayn Rand's masterwork, "Atlas Shrugged," slightly edited to apply to both sexes.
Publisher/Editor: Ray Thomas, P. O. Box 16247, Denver, CO 80216-0247 Phone: 720-351-3674

CONTENTS

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

My comments follow this article, which is an important comment on the way laws are made and enforced these days.-Ray Thomas, Publisher/Editor

A simple argument against "forced altruism":
Is it OK to steal from one person and give the stolen property to another person without the approval of the owner, just because of a real or imagined "need?" (Ray Thomas)

FEATURE ARTICLE:I BECAME A FELON ON MY LAST BIRTHDAY

Copyright © 2000 By Vin Suprynowicz

A sad letter arrived last week. Though I will honor my correspondent's request to help keep his identity secret, this is the kind of missive that makes a columnist's job easy. All the words that follow are those of "Gun Owner in Massachusetts":

The title of your recent column, "The thugs now reign in Massachusetts," has a lot more meaning that perhaps even you realize. Under a 1998 law, I became a felon on my last birthday. I've never had any contact with the law beyond a speeding ticket some years ago, but by the stroke of a pen I'm now a felon. I became a felon because I own a gun and I refuse to go to the local police station every four years for mug shots and a full set of fingerprints. I also won't immediately notify the state authorities whenever I move.

If I'd been convicted of murder, the cops would have my fingerprints, but once I finished prison and parole I could live anywhere I wanted without reporting in. But because I own a gun, I am treated far worse than those convicted murderers.

Understand, I'm not talking about carrying a concealed handgun, or even "assault weapons" (though the new law has many draconian punishments for people who dare to own a semi-auto.) Under this law, possession of any gun, any cartridge (spent or not), any powder, primers, bullets, or shot -- even a can of pepper spray -- requires me to submit to fingerprinting and a mug shot. The data is kept by the state's Criminal History Systems Division -- the same folks who keep the records on murderers, rapists, and other convicted criminals. ...

It gets worse. I'm not only a felon for the 25-year-old 12-gauge pump shotgun that I keep in the closet, I'm a felon for not keeping it locked (and therefore useless) at all times. Locking my front door doesn't count as "preventing unauthorized persons from gaining access to the firearm." I have no children but the state mandates I render myself completely defenseless to any criminal who cares to rob or kill me. God only knows what will happen to me if I ever have to use the shotgun to defend myself. I suspect I'd end up in prison, paying restitution to the home invader whose "rights" I "violated."

The penalty for each of these new crimes is 10 years in prison. Since I could get charged with a separate count for each round of ammo, that brick of .22 cartridges I bought for my granddad's single-shot match rifle could get me 50,000 years. This is not a theoretical calculation: a Wayland man is facing 70 years for "unsafe storage" of his firearms: seven counts at 10 years each. (Contact goal.org for collaboration and details of this case and my statements about the new laws.)

I go to sleep every night wondering if the door will be smashed in by ninja-suited, armored, machine-gun toting thugs willing to kill me where I stand if I so much as reach for that shotgun. It won't really matter much to me then whether they turn out to be free-lance crooks or professional, government-paid murderers. I suppose I should move out of state, but my family has been here for generations; my job is here; and I won't be run off my own property by a bunch of bullies, legal or otherwise.

I'm feeling alone here. The ACLU has abandoned Massachusetts gun owners on the left, and the NRA just betrayed them on the right. ... The ACLU fought the Georgia fingerprint-on-your-drivers-license law vigorously. But a million gun owners are forced, under penalty of fines and imprisonment, to give up their fingerprints, and the ACLU won't even answer my letters on the subject, much less file a court case.

On the right, the National Rifle Association now stands with Handgun Control Inc. in vowing to put people like me behind bars. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard and seen the video recordings on the NRA website. "You touch a gun in Colorado, and you're gonna have five years in a state or federal penitentiary." says Wayne LaPierre, standing on the stage with HCI representatives. Under their "Project Exile," anyone caught with an "illegal" gun gets tried in federal court. What the NRA doesn't seem to understand, or perhaps just doesn't care about, is that here in Massachusetts, my guns were made "illegal" by the stroke of a pen.

I'm scared, Mr. Suprynowicz, I'm angry, and I feel terribly alone. The ACLU turns a blind eye on massive violations of its own principles; the NRA has betrayed all gun owners ... and my own so-called representative co-sponsored this new law.

This must be something akin to what the Jews in Germany felt in the late 1930s. Gun owners have been cut out of the herd, demonized, ostracized, and blamed for everything wrong with society. The thugs now reign in Massachusetts. They reign in the statehouse, in the courts, in the media, and in the police. One million obedient sheeple have meekly surrendered their fingerprints and now carry state-mandated papers for having the temerity to exercise their inalienable right to self-defense. They might as well make us wear special arm bands.

Thank you, and keep up the good work.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His new book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $24.95 postpaid from Mountain Media, P.O. Box 271122, Las Vegas, Nev. 89127; by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or just visit the "Send in the Waco Killers" Web Site. Credit cards accepted; volume discounts available

WHAT'S WRONG WITH SOCIETY?

Copyright © 2000 By Ray Thomas

This is what I said as an introduction to the last issue: "Sometimes people ask me: 'What's wrong with our society today?' My answer is simple: 'There are too many people who want to have the power to tell the rest of us what we may and may not do, and way too many others willing to let them as long as they keep giving them goodies using money from the pockets of others. It's a simple concept but too many people just don't understand it and the power seekers criticize me for being 'too simplistic.' "

That is exemplified by the events noted in this issue's feature article by Vin Suprynowicz, assistant editorial page editor of the "Las Vegas Review-Sun" and author of the widely acclaimed book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998." Ayn Rand said this about creating lawbreakers: "There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one 'makes' them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on the guilt."

In the last issue I described what is one of their most basic scams, used everywhere to gain more control over us with our permission, and more tax money to pay for their "programs" to control us even more in the future. If you look at the history of how the law this writer is complaining about in Massachusetts ("Kennedy country") was made and the method of gaining support for it, you'll find it fits the description of how they "create a crisis," then "publicize that crisis" every day, in every way possible. Then "offer a solution" to that crisis they have created for the specific purpose of gaining the permission of the people to make laws that are unconstitutional and which they could not have made without that previous conditioning of the people. Ayn Rand called that "The consent of the Victim."

H. L. Mencken said: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." And this describes their use of the Hegelian Principle to keep the populace in constant panic with a new "crisis" being announced every day. They've about beaten the "self defense" people into the ground and are even now starting on the SUVs. Overweight people, and many others you may not have even noticed yet. If you start reading about a "problem" in the news, you can bet that soon there will be "programs" set in place to "solve it," and those programs will further limit our right to make our own decisions and will inevitably take more of our earnings from you in the form of taxes to "pay for the program."

In Australia, where they've made laws specifically designed to keep honest people from being able to defend themselves, laws that don't keep people from owning guns, but do keep them from having them or carrying them in any manner that allows them to be used for self defense have caused a 300% rise in murder by gun. They ignore this, of course, when they talk about the success of the laws that force people to keep their guns in a way that makes it impossible for them to be used in any way in self defense. They can carry them anywhere they want for "sport shooting" as long as the ammunition is carried separately from the gun, and the gun is locked in a security box unloaded. They must also be kept this way at home. This, of course, makes all honest people "fair game" for the criminals, whose ownership of guns has scarcely been reduced. They don't obey laws, after all. Just as American schools have been the scene of many mass shootings since they were made "gun-free zones," so is the entire country of Australia becoming "fair game" for criminals who don't even consider obeying gun laws. In fact, they love the draconian gun laws, which assures them that their victims will most likely not be armed and ready to blow them (the criminal) away.

The laws mentioned by Mr. Suprynowicz's correspondent are patently unconstitutional, since they completely ignore the second amendment of the Constitution. Thus, it is as if the laws do not exist, according to the Supreme Court. I quote from the "Sixteenth AMERICAN JURISPRUDENCE," Second Edition, Section 256, page 177: "The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it.

"An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never passed. [Emphasis mine. -RT] Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted. Such an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it... A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby."

Justice William O. Douglas said: "When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen's constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all." [Emphasis mine. -RT]

But who has the guts and the money to challenge this? Certainly not me. They just "roll over people" in enforcing such unconstitutional laws and they make sure that no one who has enough money to take them to the Supreme Court are among those they "roll over" because then the law would be judged for what it is: no law at all. Unless it comes before one of those "judicial activists" who ignore the Constitution and rule according to their view of what the world ought to be like, regardless of what the Constitution says.

Department: Words Mean Things

Definitions: When reading a newsletter such as "Beyond Common Sense" it is important that you understand the exact meaning of words as we use them, not as the liberals do. They routinely distort the meaning of words to confuse you. We use words as they were meant to be used and the exact meaning of many words might surprise you.

Department: Ayn Rand's Message

Ayn Rand's Message: This section will be dedicated to highlighting sections of her works and philosophy so that those who know nothing about it can learn.

In this issue we examine the power seeker's (looter's) exhortation to "not be judgmental" as a demand that we allow them to steal our money and our birthright without opposition.

"In Britain we are like Gulliver being tied down by a million silken threads, enfeebled and destroyed -- even if you can not cure your ills, perhaps by reaching out a hand and cutting some of the silken threads that hold us down we can work our way loose to free the world from this evil hegemony rolling inexorably towards One Word Governance/Dominance. (Greg Lance-Watkins)

RANDOM SHOTS

Random Shots: This section contains a number of short items that aren't enough for a complete article, yet are important. Some are funny, some are tragic. All will make you think.

"It is an absolute that if you produce more than you consume in your lifetime, you're a producer. If you consume more than you produce, you're a moocher or a looter." (Ray Thomas)

Archives:
All previous issues are archived here and are available by a single click of the mouse. All contain important articles and information and it would pay you to read them.

Information Sources:
Here we bring you links to other sources of truthful information. Information you can't find in the mainstream media as a rule, because they "hue the liberal line."

Other Articles of Interest:
This feature will not appear in every issue. When we find one or more articles of special interest, they will be placed here for your information.

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