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Show The Paper Thai Dares To Take A Stand June 23, 1977 The Utah Independent Page 3 THOUGHTS: FOUNTAIN OUR DESTINY OF Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits decide habits; character; and character fixes our destiny. Try on Edwards Thought: Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second form as thought is its first. It rises in thought, to the end that it may be uttered and acted. Always in proportion to the depth of its sense does it knock importunately at the gates of the soul, to be spoken, to be done. Ralph Waldo Emerson oast WBM Purpose: Thy purpose firm is equal to the deed. Who does the best his circumstance allows, does well, acts nobly; angels could do no more. Edward Young We must win this gun control controversy A LL our liberties depend upon it. Bv Harlon Carter Reprinted from GUNS Surprises are coming up for those who read my Guns & Ammo pages in the future. I have spent 14 years in the gun control controversy, which from & AMMO for June 1977 prohibit certain provocative and sensational reporting, but in our country we strongly oppose such prior restraint. In our kind of democracy anv remedy must be after the commission of an offense or else the press will have lost its First Amendment rights and individuals will have lost the presumption that all men are innocent until they are tried and found guilty in a proper court. Decent and gun owners defend the First Amendment rights of the press against prior restraint just as we want the press to protect our rights and the rights of all men against the restraints of government until the government has alleged an offense and a decision has been made in the courts. If all of us together do not win this victoa hobble on better men than themry against prior restraint, we shall have lost the cornerstone of our entire system selves. When the time comes I will exof justice. Expensive? Yes. Millions pose them. have given their lives to bring us to There arc others who should not be w here we are. We must be engaged. It is not that they may lack equally willis to sacrifice if we are to go forward that for some other ing the guts for it: it from here. reason they do not seek to win. Some If the government can restrain decent have found in it a gold mine for fund a and resolution seek not do people in the possesraising. They of the issue; they seek to see it survive. sion and proper use of firearms-peo- ple who have committed no offense and They too must be driven from the marwho bear no evil intent-th- en ket place. there is mixed up conceptually nothing left by which to Many liberals are terribly on the issue of gun control, or else, perprevent the government from similarly is it that we are the true liberals. exercising prior restraint upon the press. haps. The press stands as naked as we when We do not stand inlransigently and defiantly in defense of the status quo. We neither offense nor evil intent yet exists, seek to stand boldly and sturdily on the if government nevertheless seeks control because the means for evil do exist. The foundations of human liberties established in the past and go on from there liberties of decent and gun to new plateaus. We are struggling to owners are not in any sense nor in any keep what the ancients fought for. and relationship separable from the liberties what our forefathers provided, and to of the press. So it is. and we mention go from there into the last decades of these things today only as an example the Twentieth Century encouraged and of what you can expect from Guns & strengthened by challenging and in- Ammo in the future. You shall see later how it is that novative concepts and movements of some of those who think they oppose us the last two decades. have a similar, if not identical, relationWe must win this gun control controit. All our liberties depend upon ship to us under the Fifth Amendment; versy. As only one example, we know that a how it is that somewhere along the pohigh price is exacted from our society litical byways since World War II the for the freedom of the press. The press Fifth Amendment has been given a bad reports turmoil and stimulates turmoil. name by well intentioned men opposing It reports crimes and gives the details of totalitarianism. To the extent that the crime methods to tw isted minds. I he Fifth Amendment has been given a bad press in the past has started riots and name a great disservice has been done to the cause of liberty which all of us wars. The press has supported revolutiowe must preserve and protect and also exnaries in foreign countries whom later found bedded with our enemies. plore and develop, it is only in the emRoutine news reports have caused the ployment of imaginative and innovative deaths of many men. Pie-tripress concepts that our liberties are brought coverage in some cases has made justice forward and expanded for all men and not alone just for those who enjoyed in the courts impossible. I he onlv successful remedy lor these the rights and immunities once so careproblems in other countries has been to fully and neatly wrapped and tied up. lime to time has waxed and waned in this countrv. and I have seen enough to know that every loss which decent and citizens have suffered has been when they were not fighting, has been when their leadership was diverted to some eause of lesser consequence, has been when men with timid viscera have backed down in the legislative arena because they feared something. They said they feared something worse would be upon us if we didn't accept what was presented. Such men should not be permitted in this struggle for our liberties. They are law-abidi- law-abidi- ng law-abidi- ng law-abidi- al ng You shall see how it is gun control, to be effective, is in law enforcement terms, impossible without vastly expanded police authority to search the on the streets, search vehicles and you may call o entries into homes. to make We shall examine the destructive effects on law enforcement occuring when legislation is too often passed which is only a legislative expression of social disapproval, thereby giving the people no more than a social direction and dependent upon faith that they will accept it. We shall see that this is not law enforcement and. when too of'en practiced. will lead to various forms of weakness, to permissiveness, to selective law enforcement operational only against minority groups in certain areas, d and finally to loss of respect and affection for government. We shall see that in our kind of democracy one has no alternative but to educate, to persuade, to lead if possible, and finally to punish promptly and adequately those who do wrong to meter out true justice. Everyone else must be person-stop-and-f- risk it--t- no-kno- ck civic-minde- deemed innocent. Democracy cannot endure where the people are not trusted and where government denies certain liberties on the grounds some will abuse them, or where government sets a higher priority on making people safe than on making them free. Secular history contains suspicions that when King James assembled the 50 scholars to provide the English speaking world a definitive and uniform translation of the scriptures he might have been thinking, by way of prospective atonement for some of his own transgressions. that no harm could be done to his own immortal soul by proceeding one step further in the holy mandate for goodness than the ancient and inhad gone. So it is that spired the today King James version of the Holy Bible recites the Commandment as Thou shall not kill instead of law-give- rs clearly the mandate given Moses. Thou shall not murder. As a matter of fact, in the third chapter of Ecclesiastes it is plainly written that there is, a time to kill just as there is a time to heal and a time to weep". Moreover, Jesus used the word murder in reciting the commandment given Moses, not kill". 1 often think of Ecclesiastes when 1 think of capital punishment and 1 think of.it also and wonder why our police officers do not more often invoke it on the legitimate grounds of when they encounter an armed man self-defen- se committing a felony. You shall see all these things, all these truths and these eternal varieties, brought to light in the future on the pages of Guns & Ammo. We shall make it dear as to what little men they are who have attempted time after time during the last few years to attach their names to some superficial legislative effort somewhere out on the distant perimeters of the great issues which face us in our time. They think cynically of the TV exposure they will get for themselves and they think they will convince the people that gun control will serve as some sort of remedy when in fact gun control can be, and if ever achieved, will be, a vehicle for the destruction of that which they pretend to espouse and say they seek to preserve and protect. Guns & Ammo is providing all of us a new and original line of communica- tion. Our legislative objective is that legislation be directed at the criminal misuse of firearms and not the inanimate firearm; that the requirements and impositions of government be directed at those who violate the law and not at citizens. You'll decent and hear who's doing this job for you in Washington, D. C. Youll also hear who is not doing the job promised or expected and you'll hear the reasons why. The forces now effective on our side will be helped to be more effective. Any retreat, revision of priorities, diversion or reorganization weakening pursuit of our objective will be promptly reported so that you can do the rest of what must be done. We will deal with all these subjects and many more. If it's truth it cannot be too controversial for us. law-abidi- ng A step of this kind requires great courage. We should all be grateful that Guns & Ammo, under Bob Petersen. Tom Siatos and Howard French, has a lot of it. There are a few other publica- tions you should read, but if you don't read Guns Ammo there is much & you're going to miss. wih II M;' TVTU) SET I P, R ! TAMPER TAMPER .ION ir oh hi stand that v A Y REG IX il . H "!.i with the : TO HIECOXSTF I! :s Eli IX TO WSOF HIMSELF .. ,.)mio may trifle i (mkI with im- - punitv. f Clark, Jr. |