The attached was written by an acquaintance of mine in the U.K., who seems 
to be one of the only ones standing up against the proposed handgun ban.

Sean describes one of his recent appearances on the radio:

"The following morning, Jim Hawkins of BBC Radio Northampton replied...(h)e
had read my pamphlet and liked it, and he wanted me to repeat it on his
programme on Friday the 17th.

So there I sat for an hour yesterday morning, telling another million people
why the gun control laws should be abolished.  I was against Anne Pearson of
the Snowdrop Campaign - this being a group set up after Dunblane to press
for a total ban on handguns. Though honest, she was not very bright, and I
went through her like a hot knife through butter.  When I accused her of
wanting to live in a slave state, she answered "Yes, I do".  When I further
accused her of trusting no one else with guns because she felt unable to
trust herself with one, she started to panic.  When I repeated my wish that
someone else in Hungerford (where an earlier massacre occured in 1987,
leading to the banning of ALL semi-automatic rifles) had been armed, she
referred to my appearance on Words with Wark (a TV panel), saying only that
I had worried her then, and I worried her now."

Anne Pearson sounds like the British Sarah Brady. In any case, they need a
British Marion Hammer! Give them all the encouragement you can.

Tom Walls
Republican Liberty Caucus State Liaison
President, Alachua County Young Republicans
Gainesville, Florida
___________
                  Fourth Open Letter 
                   to the Gunowners 
                 of the United Kingdom
                     By Sean Gabb


Wednesday, 16 October 1996, 10:11pm

Well, here it is.  We now have the British Government's proposals for further gun control.  I was wrong in believing that the Government would only tighten the existing laws, not go for any outright bans.  But I was writing before Anne Pearston got on her hind legs at the Labour Party Conference last fortnight.  That put an end to any compromise.

On all else, though, I was right.  Moderation got you nowhere.  Some of you refused to debate until after the Cullen Report had come out. That has meant no debate at all, as the Cullen Report is now waste paper; and the politicians are in no mood to debate anything with you. Some of you spent vast amounts of money on a lobbying company. I have no idea what benefits were bought with this.  I hear that most MPs refused even to meet these lobbyists.  I saw no full page advertisements in the newspapers, argu
ng against more gun control. I saw no evidence that any of this money was diverted to a front organisation, able to say things that you could not.  Whatever the reason, you all failed to put the real case for guns - that their possession for defence is a moral right and duty.  In consequence, you have been hammered.  The gungrabbers often call you pathetic
creeps who need a hadnful of gunmetal to to convince you of your
manhood.  There may be some truth in this - but certainly, bearing in mind your collective performance these past few months, it does not work. 

However, there is no point in recriminations at the moment.  Miracles aside, the correlation of forces in this debate is heavily against you. It looks as if everything Michael Howard promised this afternoon will go through without much delay, and with no softening whatever.  If this happens, we are looking at the dissolution of the gun interest in the United Kingdom.  Who will want a firearms certificate, and all the official harassment this brings, if the only handgun on offer is a
virtual toy that has to be stored away from home?  If many handgun owners just give up their certificates, that will mean the closing of most clubs up and down the country.  Even without the loss of custom, most gun dealers will be driven out of business.  I do not know what will happen to the gun magazines, but I expect most of the present shooting associations will at least shrink.  Sitting here in front of my computer - and the BBC has just cancelled a showing of Terminator! - the news could hardly be
worse.

Now, you need to think about where to go from here.  For me, the
answer is simple.  The Howard proposals have no personal
significance.  As I never tire of pointing out, I do not have any guns for the Government to steal, nor have I ever had any.  All I have is a burning ideological conviction about the evil of gun control in any form.  I have been campaigning against gun control on an off since 1988, and I will continue my campaign in the future.

But how about you, the gunowners of this country?  Supposing the
Howard proposals do become law, how will you behave?  Will you
do your "civic duty" and give up your forbidden weapons in the
manner prescribed by law?  That is what you did after Hungerford.  Or will you rather obey the Fundamental Laws of this Realm, which cannot be abolished by any mere enactment of Parliament?  The cause of law is not always best served by obedience to any particular law.

I could fill whole books with relevant quotations, but let me give just one that might explain my meaning.  It is from St Thomas Aquinas (c1225-74), the leading philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church and a figure of unimpeachable respectability:

    Laws are [often] unjust....  [T]hey may be contrary to the
    good of mankind... either with regard to their end - as
    when a ruler imposes laws which are burdensome and are
    not designed for the common good, but proceed from his
    own rapacity or vanity; or with regard to their maker - if,
    for example, a ruler should go beyond his proper powers;
    or with regard to their form - if, though intended for the
    common good, their burdens should be inequitably
    distributed.  Such laws come closer to violence than to
    true law....  They do not, therefore, oblige in conscience,
    except perhaps for the avoidance of scandal or disorder.
             (Summa Theologiae, I-II, 96, 4, my translation)

Whether and how you understand this are things for you to decide.

-- 
Sean Gabb
Editor
Free Life
(The Journal of the Libertarian Alliance)
c/o 25 Chapter Chambers
Esterbrooke Street
London SW1P 4NN
Tel:  0181 858 0841
E-mail:  main@sufo.demon.co.uk
Web Page:  http://www.gold.ac.uk/~cea01sig/
               _______________________________________
               |                                     |
               | Over himself, over his own mind and |
               | body,  the individual is sovereign. |
               |       (J.S. Mill, On Liberty, 1859) |
               |_____________________________________|
--
Ian Geldard, 
London, England


