used with permission:

From: zonie@aztec.asu.edu (RICK DESTEPHENS)

Columnist Paul Greenberg attempts a Trojan Horse approach by lauding Janet Reno's call for gun registration and licensing, equating this proposed policy with automobiles and suggesting the added benefit of gun training for all. Sorry, but one does not need to be licensed by the federal government to receive training. I learned the dangerous activities of hang gliding, scuba diving, riding a horse, using martial arts, and, yes, the proper use of firearms, all with out the permission granted by either a state or federal license. Mr Greenberg says he wants gun lessons in our schools? Me too. No need for a license to accompany it, however. How does one start a high school rifle team?

Janet Reno equates gun licenses with drivers licenses. But I do not need a drivers license to buy a car or to keep it at my home, only to drive it on public streets. I don't need to register the car either, in this case. On the contrary, I can both own and drive an unregistered car without a license on my friend's one-thousand acre ranch, and there is not a thing the state of Arizona can do about it. As well, another licensed driver can drive my registered car even though I am not licensed. So the gun-phobes' favorite analogy does not quite fit, does it?

Justice Thomas Cooly in his 19th century "General Principles of Constitutional Law" said it succinctly: "The meaning of the [2nd Amendment] undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose."

Even absent the constitutional argument, there is no criminological basis to register guns and license their owners. It does not reduce crime, it only increases it as municipal bureaucrats use regulations to stymie, for years, the peaceful citizen's ability to buy the tools needed for self-defense . The only purpose for these registration schemes is to locate all guns for later confiscation. It happened in New York and California in this decade alone, just as it happened in Canada, England, Australia, Germany, the Soviet Union, and China. Fortunately our Bill of Rights, though ailing, is still serving as a force in defense of individual rights. I hope to revive that document to its former stature.

In the meantime, I would like to propose licensing and finger printing journalists and imposing a five-day waiting period complete with government checks on the accuracy of each article to be published in the Arizona Republic. Improper fact-checking can ruin people's lives and even cause the public to support unjust wars where thousands may needlessly die.

Rick DeStephens

Phoenix, Arizona