Government Restrictions on Civil Rights:

I just read this " .. stubborn and stupid are often neighbors .."  - Love it.

 I'm of 'two minds' about firearms regulations .. Perhaps I'm nuanced about regulations imposed over our basic civil rights.

Everyone has the RIGHT to self defense and to possess whatever they need to protect them self - but criminal nutters should be restricted from access to arms and they ought to receive additional real penalty when convicted of using weapons in any criminal act.

 The earliest New Zealand 1860 ARMS ACT introduced licensing restrictions on civilian ownership of  "ARMS - including any gun, pistol, or other firearm, and any sword, cutlass, pike, bayonet, or other instrument of war."

That's 161 years ago - enough time to assess it's license effectiveness and success at ending violence against the innocent?

This futile Act also placed controls on lawful ownership of "Gunpowder or Warlike Stores." - but failed - like all later Gun Control Acts - to include knives, screwdrivers, hammers, .. or indeed motor vehicles and cans of petrol, - acids and alkalis (corrosive drain cleaners) and any other 'domestic items' - such as lengths of timber, pillows, metal pipes, bricks, wrenches, golf-clubs or baseball bats - chain & wire garrotes, poisonous garden plants, saps, archery bows, lumps of brass, - rocks, trained dogs etc. - or even more recent clever Government inventions like nerve agents and contact poisons - commonly used as weapons against the innocent.

Our latest NZ Government proposed legislation is a disgusting example of 'Doublespeak' suggesting a new Firearms Authority that is 'INDEPENDENT' of the police while being an internal department of the Police ..

All of these politician's "control acts" share the intent to remove the ability (- POWER) from ordinary law abiding folk to help feed and defend themselves - but do little to inconvenience the ruling classes or their military and police forces - neither do they impress any violent criminals. 

- The nature of such restrictions is wholly undemocratic .. provided you accept that

 DEMOCRACY IS THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE 

- BY THE PEOPLE 

- FOR THE PEOPLE.

Disarm the people by denying that most basic of human rights and you weaken their ability to remove charlatans, demagogues and dictators from office.

You can't un-invent anything. - Make as many redundant,  duplicate and duplicitous arms laws as the politicians may claim to be important - but the issue of criminal violence will remain until they address the real problem of criminals and various other brands of psychos by restricting their civil rights .. 

I feel that the only effective way to reduce the use of weapons by law breakers is to remove the offenders from society for extended periods of time.

The worlds Governments might perhaps agree to break-up all of the 14,000 nuclear warheads and to stop making them .. but the knowledge would remain and might be seen any time as an opportunity by greedy criminals & terrorists.

If an armed population is a polite population .. what sort of society is an unarmed one?

- Angry, dependent, fearful & threatened,  - offended & opinionated while "knowing it's rights?

Marty K.