POLITICS - There is no one so blind, as he who will not see

[J Miller]

Last week I sent a message to Senator Durbins office regarding a concealed weapons bill in congress. This is his reply:

May 22, 2008







Mr. Joseph Miller

xxxx S. xxth Street

Springfield, IL 62703



Dear Mr. Miller:



Thank you for contacting me to share your views about concealed weapons. I appreciate your interest in this matter.



Over the past several years, a number of states have enacted laws permitting individuals to carry concealed weapons. These new state laws have generated a great deal of interest and controversy, both within Congress and among the public.



I have reservations about the widespread carrying of concealed weapons. The challenge for me, other lawmakers, and the nation is to strike a proper balance between security and individual rights while we constructively address the issue of violent crime. I will keep your views in mind should legislation on this matter come before the Senate.



Again, thank you for your message. Please feel free to keep in touch.


Sincerely,








Richard J. Durbin

United States Senator



RJD/tf



P.S. If you are ever visiting Washington, please feel free to join Senator Obama and me at our weekly constituent coffee. When the Senate is in session, we provide coffee and donuts every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. as we hear what is on the minds of Illinoisans and respond to your questions. We would welcome your participation. Please call my D.C. office for more details

In every city, county, and state where concealed weapons are allowed, with or without permits crime has dropped. It's a proven fact, there is no room for questions, yet they WILL NOT SEE this.

We need to somehow vote these cretins out of office. That is the only hope for the United States.

Joe

[AmBraCol]

The problem is that they are not the only ones who are so blinded by their emotions/world view. In too many places the populace is blinded and all too willing to keep sending them back. We need to work on two fronts - keeping their feet to the fire, so to speak, via phone calls, letters, emails, faxes, personal visits, etc - always with well reasoned and courteous contacts. And we need to keep re-educating the populace around us so that they will NOT vote for the cretins. Unfortunately, too many are willing to "vote for the lesser of two evils" (which is still evil) rather than to demand that those in power give us candidates worthy of our support. It all comes back to making small changes which cumulatively add up to big change. Our biggest challenge is to get folks off their rears and active in demanding a return to our founding principles.

[J Miller]

Our biggest challenge is to get folks off their rears and active in demanding a return to our founding principles.

Yes indeed. But how many really KNOW what the founding principles are? The Constitution and all of it's parts is no longer taught in school. As one generation grows up ignorant of these principles they cannot teach others. It's great that many on this and other forums teach as many as they can, but we really need to get back to educating our children, not programming them.

The odds are stacked against us. Most of the voting block that keep people like Kennedy, Durbin, Obama, Clinton and others in office are inner city groups that have been stripped of any knowledge of what the founding fathers intended by generations of brain washing and selected school subjects that carefully ignore the core of the Constitution.
I'm not being sarcastic, but just how, do we who believe in the constitution educate these people?

Joe

[AJMD429]

I try to emphasize to people that it IS NOT a matter of a "balance" between freedom vs. safety - freedom IS safety!

The assumption is that gun control laws protect us, and are opposed by "sportsmen" who simply want to trade a few innocent lives away for the convenience of their hobby or sport.

My experience is the opposite - staunch opponents of stupid gun laws, tend to be not even gun owners necessarily, but (true) Civil Libertarians. Sadly, it is often the person who only sees "guns" as a hobby or sport, but not as a tool to preserve freedom, who blythely gives away that freedom, as long as it doesn't inconvenience their particular sport. So, perhaps those individuals really ARE making it a trade between safety and their freedom to do their sport.

But when it comes down to the Constitutional reason for it, the unfettered freedom to bear arms clearly demonstrates that it is allied with citizen safety, and social stability, NOT "balanced" against it.

[bunklocoempire]

J Miller, some encouragement for you. Once a person fully understands Liberty and what it takes to keep it, they guard against knee-jerk reactions

and want to spread the message. I finally came around after 20 or so odd years of apathy and easing my conscience by voting for the "lesser of two evils". Not proud of that, but I did come around. In my case

the good Lord growing my faith had a lot to do with my coming around, coupled with an incident in which I wanted a rifle right quick and was made to wait.

Keep up the letters and your inspiration to me and others, keep spreading the message, the message of Liberty won't be contained. We all gotta die, lets die trying.

Bunkloco

[Old Ironsights]

...Sadly, it is often the person who only sees "guns" as a hobby or sport, but not as a tool to preserve freedom, who blythely gives away that freedom, as long as it doesn't inconvenience their particular sport. ...

Can I get an Amen? Nothing made that as painfully obvious as the Fudds who opposed the Indiana DNR PCR Rule...

[sw41mag]

Our biggest challenge is to get folks off their rears and active in demanding a return to our founding principles.

The odds are stacked against us. Most of the voting block that keep people like Kennedy, Durbin, Obama, Clinton and others in office are inner city groups that have been stripped of any knowledge of what the founding fathers intended by generations of brain washing and selected school subjects that carefully ignore the core of the Constitution.
I'm not being sarcastic, but just how, do we who believe in the constitution educate these people?

Joe

I wonder if you have ever really spoken with those people that you identify as brain washed? There isn't anyone on this forum board that loves his guns more than me but many people are voting on issues that they perceive to be bigger than just gun control. It might be hard to believe but there are lots of people out there that aren't the least bit interested in owning a gun. It isn't that they are afraid of them or brainwashed, etc. They just don't want one and see no need of having one. Millions of people have never had to pull a gun to save themselves and probably never will. You're going to have a very hard time trying to convince them that they need a gun or need to vote for gun rights. They are looking at issues such as health care, the environment, and I could go on and on. And quite honestly as I grow older and watch how screwed up things are around here I am less inclined to vote "Republican" just because they hate guns less than the Democrats. Personally I am tired of voting for my guns while ignoring health care and all the other important issues. And I sure as hell don't believe that McBush is a big friend of us gun owners.

[Old Ironsights]

There is no issue bigger than gun control.

"Gun Control" is one of two "Litmus Test" that seperates Statists from Constitutionally minded lovers of Liberty.

What a politician's attitude toward your ownership and use of weapons conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn't want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?

If he makes excuses about obeying a law he's sworn to uphold and defend -- the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights -- do you want to entrust him with anything?

If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil -- like "Constitutionalist" -- when you insist that he account for himself, hasn't he betrayed his oath, isn't he unfit to hold office, and doesn't he really belong in jail?

Sure, these are all leading questions. They're the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician -- or political philosophy -- is really made of.

A Politician may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn't have a gun -- but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn't you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school -- or the military? Isn't it an essentially European notion, anyway -- Prussian, maybe -- and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?

And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.

Try it yourself: if a politician won't trust you, why should you trust him? If he's a man -- and you're not -- what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If "he" happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she's eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn't want you to have?

On the other hand -- or the other party -- should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?

Makes voting simpler, doesn't it? You don't have to study every issue -- health care, international trade -- all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.

[piller]

I don't remember where I heard it, maybe on FrFrog's favorite wise and witty sayings, but THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS THE RESET BUTTON OF THE CONSTITUTION. I am not advocating violence, but if a politician doesn't trust me to keep the means to defend myself from tyranny, then by the same logic, I shouldn't trust the politician.
Health care is already solved in Hawaii. If Ganjiro is looking at these, maybe he can explain how it is done there. As I can find, it seems to be a Hawaii state law that 85% of all premiums collected must be paid back out as benefits. In the other 49 states, the insurance industry runs on about a 70% gross profit compared to only 15% in Hawaii. If we could get the politicians hands out of the insurance industry's pockets, maybe something meaningful could be done.

[FWiedner]

How a politician stands on the Second Amendment tells you how he or she views you as an individual... as a trustworthy and productive citizen, or as part of an unruly crowd that needs to be lorded over, controlled, supervised, and taken care of.

[Ysabel Kid]

I try to emphasize to people that it IS NOT a matter of a "balance" between freedom vs. safety - freedom IS safety!

+1

Durbin is a twit. He is also a slanderous ball of slime for his insults against our brave men and women in uniform. Doesn't surprise me one whit that this mental-midgit would have such a moronic view of law-abiding citizen's carrying of concealed weaponry for self defense.

This is perfectly consistent with the left's world view. Dem's don't believe in individual rights; they believe in the state. They don't want rugged individuals capable of defending themselves; they want obedient serfs who run to the state for every need. They don't value law-abiding citizens and the innocent over violent criminals; who they excuse for everything. They don't want armed taxpayers; who wants people that can resist their socialization of the country?

[Jeeps]

If we could get the politicians hands out of the insurance industry's pockets, maybe something meaningful could be done.

Not a chance, I remember my head spinning around when they instituted seat
belt laws. Insurance companies tell legislators what they want and it gets
done.

We are all commodities.

[crs]

Joe;
Thank you for writing your letter and for your post. The letter did not sway Durbin, but it did bring out his predjudice against guns.
Guys like him need to be voted out of office and replaced with pols that believe in the US Constitution, if any such pols still exist.

+1 on the other comments posted.