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

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 05b

          == OPEN LETTER TO THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION ==

Having received your latest mailing about proposed bans on semiautomatic 
weapons across the country, I'm writing to say I'm more than merely 
dissatisfied with your half-hearted responses to these vicious attacks on 
my natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and 
Constitutional rights, I'm disgusted.
     A favorite author of mine once wrote an essay about a painting she saw in 
which a sleigh is pursued by a pack of wolves. The frightened passengers are 
pushing one of their own number out into the snow in hopes of delaying a final 
reckoning. Your mailing, and the kind of thinking it reveals, fits their 
philosophy precisely.
     I first joined the Junior N.R.A. when I was 11 or 12. I've been a Life 
member for 15 years. I'm a former Eagle scout and scout leader, a former 
licensed firearms dealer, gunsmith, and reserve police officer. I served 
twice on the platform committee of a national political party. I'm the author 
of 16 novels, many of them nominated for awards, all of them dedicated to 
the expansion of individual liberty. It would be rather difficult to make 
the case that what I have to say here is the result of careless or 
irresponsible thinking (although one of your national officers once called 
me "hysterical"), but you're welcome to try if you think you'll benefit more 
from the effort than I will. I could claim to speak for thousands of angry 
members who feel exactly about this situation as I do, but I won't. I speak 
for myself. You have a moral obligation (if not a legal one) to listen.
     Two points in particular deserve mentioning here. The first is your 
continued defense of the individual right to own and carry weapons in terms 
of their sporting or recreational use, despite the fact that this argument 
is irrelevant, largely discredited, and futile. What's more, it's at the 
heart of difficulties we face now.
     I tell my readers -- and anybody else who'll listen -- that I won't 
give up my guns because I never want to see my whole community driven from 
their homes and marched to death, as in Cambodia. I won't give up my guns
because I never want to see my neighbors' children dragged into the street, 
their arms and legs broken by uniformed goons, as in Palestine. If you 
think such events have nothing to do with America, then I won't give up my 
guns because I never want to see whole square blocks of my hometown bombed 
into ashes by police helicopters, as in Philadelphia. Moreover, I won't give 
up my guns because I don't believe any politician is above contemplating 
such atrocities. They've shown over the years what they intend if they can 
render us helpless.
     Possibly this untrusting attitude toward "our" elected leaders strikes 
you as hysterical, too. If so, as is often pointed out in the pages of the 
\American Rifleman\, it's hysteria in the time-honored tradition of Thomas 
Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Samuel Adams.
     A second point is your "Do it to Julia" attitude regarding the liberties 
of other Americans. I've written to your Warren Cassidy, among others, 
warning of the danger inherent in supporting enactment and enforcement of 
victimless crime laws. I pointed out that there wasn't any "drug problem" 
until the government created it -- a principle that applies to weapons, too. 
Cassidy dismissed what I had to say as unsupported by historical fact. His 
ignorance of history can be forgiven, his shortsightedness cannot.
     By now it should be clear to anyone watching the rising tide of \real\ 
hysteria on TV from one day to the next that the "War on Drugs" is nothing 
more than a pitiably transparent excuse to transform this country into a 
fascist dictatorship. For our part, fighting one victimless crime law, 
gun control, while supporting another, drug prohibition, is like trying to 
outswim a shark while holding onto an anvil: just physically possible, 
perhaps, but exhausting, counterproductive, and unnecessary. Sooner or later, 
the contradiction will catch up with you and eat you alive.
     Third, and most revolting, is your policy of assisting our enemies to 
\write\ laws encompassing the destruction of our rights. Deny it though you 
may, you and I know how this, more than any other element, contributed to 
our disastrous defeat in Maryland. If it continues, you might as well embrace 
the shameful memory of Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Adolf Hitler 
altogether and change our name to the "National Umbrella Association".
     I'm calling on you \now\ to abandon your absurd and dangerous "sporting 
and recreational use" defense of the individual right to own and carry 
weapons and state flatly that the individual right to own and carry weapons 
is essential to the maintenance of democracy.
     I'm calling on you \now\ to declare that no statute, ordinance, or 
regulation bearing on the individual right to own and carry weapons has any 
standing under the supreme law of the land.
     I'm calling on you \now\ to advocate and support widespread open 
disobedience of existing gun laws including the California semiautomatic ban 
and of any new gun law that may be passed anywhere in America.
     I'm calling on you \now\ to call the Bush Administration's bluff 
regarding its fraudulent "War on Drugs". It might also be worthwhile to 
observe how quickly George Bush's "thousand points of light" have been 
transformed, as if by magic, into a thousand bayonet-points, aimed directly 
at gun owners in the spirit of a "kinder, gentler" form of fascism.
     Years ago, I predicted that the Republican Party would prove an 
unreliable ally and tried to get you to support someone other than 
Republicans. I wrote the Libertarian Party's plank on the individual right 
to own and carry weapons to help you do that, but you wouldn't listen. Look 
where we are today as a consequence of your inability to consider new ideas.
     On the basis of past performance, I have every expectation that you'll 
ignore me again and go on pursuing the losing strategy you've impose on a 
membership you're supposed to serve and obey. I remind you, however, that 
those who lead through authority have rivals on whom they must expend as 
much energy and attention as they do on their enemies. Those who lead by 
example have enemies, to be sure, but no rivals.

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

L. NEIL SMITH'S \LEVER ACTION\ LETTER                       NUMBER 05b
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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