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Show LETTER TO THE EDITOR threat to our Constitutional right to tn'ar arms is more emotional and vital than perhaps this writer has demonstrated up to now. Consider the issue in this light. tne u. .Y and I tah Constitutions Con-stitutions guarantee the citien right to keep and hear arms. Fools may give away their liberties, but they ean never be taken from a determined citizenry. Hut here a couple of our enlightened representatives have summarily interpreted these God inspired documents to exclude discharging guns at night except in defense of person or property. Constitutional principle is like virtue-it remains intact or it is violated The degree to which it may be violated is immaterial. Because if a small degree is allowed (as is the case here), then it naturally follows that a greater degree of gun control is justifiable. And then in time the right to defend our lives at noonday is forfiet. A man who learns that his gun rights are slightly restricted is like the father who discovers that his unmarried daughter is just slightly pregnant ! This new county gun law is based on the age-old tyrant's motto: "The end justifies the means." This logic has smiled on every heinous crime that Satan knows. If some vocal stockman can next demonstrate that his cows are shot during the daytime, then the Commissioners Com-missioners could just as reasonablly outlaw the discharge of guns in the county during trig daylight hours also. Except of course during that ten day orgy when the king's men condesccnt to let the peasants shoot at the king's deer. The circumstances Dear Editor, I never thought I'd see the day when a rural Utah county government would willingly enact any gun control laws. The recent action by the Iron County Commission to outlaw all night shooting is foolish and wrong. It is founded on fallacious argument. And it shall not go unchallenged. Imagine this if you can: Suppose the County Commission, alarmed at secret night meetings of a few college student revolutionaries, has outlawed all night meetings in the county. Church leaders and restaurant and tavern owners protested that this action would disrupt innocent in-nocent traditional commercial, social and religious gatherings. Hut to no avail. The present Commission reasoning prevailed: The best way to stop crime in an isolated instance is to outlaw the INSTRUMENT of that crime on a broad scale Pretty far fetched? Flex your credibility on this one: This same Iron County Commission, disturbed at a dramatic upsurge in local nighttime auto fatalities, has taken quick effective action. The county attorney is now drafting a tough statute outlaw ing all auto travel between the dangerous hours of sunset to sunrise. Again, the best way to stop isolated deaths is to outlaw the INSTRUMENTS of death on a general scale. Now that you are getting the drift and point of these hypothetical farces, consider this very real action taken last week by our Iron County Commission. A few local stockmen allege that their sheep and cattle have been shot at night. Therefore our Commission dictated that all night shooting shall forever more be a criminal offense. The county attorney has been ordered to draft and advertise the formal statute. Constitutional logic was overwhelmed by this knuckle-headed knuckle-headed argument-the best way to stop isolated instances of crime is to outlaw everybody from having the instruments of the crime in operation at the general time of the crime. But this very present and local |