======================================================================

The Atlanta Declaration: Every man, woman, and responsible child has a 
natural,  fundamental,  and inalienable human,  individual, civil, and 
Constitutional right to obtain,  own, and carry,  openly or concealed, 
any weapon -- handgun,  shotgun, rifle,  machinegun, \anything\ -- any 
time, anywhere, without asking anyone's permission.

======================================================================

L. NEIL SMITH'S \LEVER ACTION\ LETTER                       NUMBER 04b

                 == LETTER TO A LIBERAL COLLEAGUE ==

Dear Adrian*:

I'm behind schedule again, so this will necessarily be terse, consisting 
mostly of assertions you're free to believe (or not) I can back up with 
evidence and logic which I've neither time nor energy to present now. 
I've written fully on this topic before and will again in the future. When 
I do, I'll make sure you get copies.
     There's quite a range of argument I could muster from (A) the futility of 
delegating self-defense (see Don Kates' piece in the Jan. 10, 1985 \Wall 
Street Journal\) to (B) the true effect of prohibition: shifting consumers 
from outlawed goods like handguns or semiautomatic rifles to machineguns, 
sawed-off shotguns, bombs, et myriad cetera. I'll limit myself to commenting 
on the newspaper clipping you sent.
     1. First, the right to own and carry weapons is a fundamental, 
inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right, subject 
neither to majoritarian processes nor arguments grounded in social utility.
     2. The existence of some latter-day "survey" doesn't alter the fact that 
the prohibitionists I mentioned -- in the recent magazine interview that 
annoyed you so much -- were lying.
     3. The right to own and carry weapons is a fundamental, inalienable 
human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right, subject neither to 
majoritarian processes nor arguments grounded in social utility.
     4.What's more, your study doesn't support the prohibitionists' original 
numerical contentions anyway.
     5. The right to own and carry weapons is a fundamental, inalienable 
human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right, subject neither to 
majoritarian processes nor arguments grounded in social utility.
     6. The fact that prohibitionists have been caught lying (indeed Carl 
Bakal has \confessed\ to it) on countless occasions makes the value of this 
present study dubious, to say the least.
     7. The right to own and carry weapons is a fundamental, inalienable 
human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right, subject neither to 
majoritarian processes nor arguments grounded in social utility.
     8. Given your own service as a federal bureaucrat, not to mention the 
cynical sophistication of your fiction, you should be aware how "progress" -- 
in designing studies to prove whatever you want -- outstrips our ability to 
collect meaningful data. A case in point we might agree on is the fact that 
it took prohibitionists of another sort 20 or 30 years to create studies 
"proving" that pornography causes crime. More naive and probably more honest 
studies in the 50s and 60s clearly indicate the contrary.
     9. The right to own and carry weapons is a fundamental, inalienable 
human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right, subject neither to 
majoritarian processes nor arguments grounded in social utility.
     10. However, another reason to doubt all such studies is that human 
behavior, as the Austrian School of Economics demonstrates, can't be 
meaningfully quantified. The attempt to do so -- and then act on such 
pseudoinformation -- is wrecking our civilization.
     11. The right to own and carry weapons is a fundamental, inalienable 
human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right, subject neither to 
majoritarian processes nor arguments grounded in social utility.
     12. The study is also worthless because it incorporates figures for 
suicide, which is neither a tragedy nor a disaster but an individual right 
with certain ancillary social benefits. If anything, perhaps suicide 
\intervention\ should be a criminal offense.
     13. Finally, the National Rifle Association people quoted in the article, 
whatever their shortcomings (and they are many), are correct in this 
instance: the study is meaningless because the right to own and carry weapons 
is a fundamental, inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional 
right, subject neither to majoritarian processes nor arguments grounded in 
social utility.
     Even if the study were valid, I'd go on with my long-held objective of 
seeing that anyone can own any weapon he or she prefers and carry it however, 
whenever, and wherever he or she desires -- assisted by prohibitionists whose 
yawping moves previously unarmed folks to buy a gun while they still can. 
Before the '68 Gun Control Act, the "shooting fraternity" viewed handguns 
(incorrectly) as inaccurate, ineffective toys. There probably weren't six 
million of them in the whole country. Now, thanks to Kennedy, Metzenbaum, 
Brady, and their ilk -- America's greatest gun sales team -- we make that 
many every year. The fascinating thing is that Handgun Control, et al., are 
perfectly aware of this, so you have to ask yourself what their real motive is.
     Look: gunmaking isn't an arcane or difficult art. (It's easier to make 
them fully automatic, by the way, than semiautomatic; the fact that I can 
still obtain my weapon of preference, the self-loading pistol, is the only 
thing which keeps me from pursuing this.) Even if it were difficult, there 
are already \half a billion\ firearms in America, with a "half life" of 
around two hundred years -- considerably more than that for stainless.
     Guns are gonna be around a long, long time, whether you like it or not.
     Regardless of what the law says or any court decides, I'm going to be 
armed and always work to see that others are, as well. And there are 
thousands more, Adrian, perhaps hundreds of thousands, where I come from. 
We can't be stopped by passing laws, we can only be forced to arm ourselves 
more surreptitiously and, given the alleged difference between full autos 
and semiautos, perhaps even more efficiently.
     So what's the point? 
                                                    Regards, 

                                                    Neil

* "Adrian" (name changed to protect the guilty) and the author are writers 
who, at one time, worked with the same editor at a major New York publishing 
house.

======================================================================

L. NEIL SMITH'S \LEVER ACTION\ LETTER                       NUMBER 04b
111 EAST DRAKE ROAD        SUITE 7032
FORT COLLINS, COLORADO  U.S.A.  80525

L. Neil Smith is the award-winning author of 16 novels including 
\Henry Martyn, The Crystal Empire, BrightSuit MacBear, Taflak Lysandra, 
The Probability Broach,\ and the forthcoming FORGE OF THE ELDERS 
trilogy, beginning with CONTACT AND COMMUNE.

Your contributions to this effort, while extremely welcome, are not 
tax-deductible.

======================================================================


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