by Vincent Miller
[email protected]

I have mailed this to our new president, and submitted it for publication in editorial sections of a couple of newspapers. An earlier draft is also posted in the forums. I submit to you as a challenge to all members and visitors alike to flood the new administration with right thinking.

20 January, 01

President Bush,

Sir, today is a day of grand and glorious opportunity. Opportunity which, if spurned as not politically correct, if not seized and turned to the most advantageous result, may not come again. I wish to have you understand a few of the things I believe must be achieved for our nation to return to what our founders envisioned. If I did not know for sure you will be so busy as to preclude any probability of extensive reading for pleasure, I�d offer a list of books you should read, at the top of which would be John Ross� �Unintended Consequences�. I hold this novel up as an example of how many who clamor for more restrictive gun laws have never considered the possibility of results they could not have imagined. 

We see with clarity the results of the restriction of private firearms ownership in places like the city in which you now reside. Those results can also be found in California, Massachusetts, and New York. They can be seen in the history of China, Nazi Germany, and even Cambodia. I mention these places not to give a history lesson, but rather to remind you there are many evil men in this world. Those evil men operate at many levels, but each of them is bent on taking by force that which they have not earned the right to have by the merit of their own efforts. It is only the simple tool we know as a gun, which provides the means for individuals to resist such men. If it is wrong to stand by and do nothing while watching some despicable action take place, how much greater wrong is done by those who would take from the weak their only possible means to resist that evil?

I also would bring to your attention the fact that gun control in our country was first seriously considered after the War of northern Aggression. It�s intent then was to prevent black citizens from protecting themselves, not in the southern States so much as in�the north. How little things have changed.

With these thoughts, I want to request a few simple actions from you as the new President of our nation. First, the National Firearms Act of 1934 should be repealed. Along with it, the Gun Control Act of 1968, and the re-visitation of that in 1986 and any other restriction which Congress or others may have wrongfully imposed upon our land. 

"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American... The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." ~~ Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property . . . Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them." ~~ Thomas Paine, Thoughts on Defensive War (1775). 

"Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave." ~~ Andrew Fletcher 1698 

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." ~~ George Mason, during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788) 

I have taken license in quoting the sentiments of some fellows you may have heard of. There are many others who held, and still hold, the same ideas about the bearing of arms by a free people. I exhort you to do what is right, rather than what those guided by nothing more than shrill emotion would have you do. 


Respectfully in Liberty,

Vincent O. Miller, TSgt, GA-ANG