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

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 16

            == AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DENVER CITY COUNCIL ==

Thoughtful individuals interested in history often ask themselves questions --
whether they'd have had the foresight to sign the Declaration of Independence, 
for example, or the moral courage to resist this century's foremost gun 
control advocate, Adolf Hitler.
     At a moment when George Bush and his reactionary orcs are doing their 
best to turn America into a real-life Mordor, liberals have demonstrated 
how \they\ answer such questions by flushing a distinguished tradition of 
civil libertarianism down the drain, violating their oath to uphold the 
Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, and attempting to strip this 
country of its only historically-proven defense against a police state, 
privately owned weapons. Given recent evidence that the whole national 
anti-gun lobby was created by "ex-agent" Edwin 0. Welles and his boss 
William Colby, thoughtful individuals can only scratch their heads and 
wonder just how dumb or dishonest liberals must be to have crawled in bed 
with Nixon's CIA.
     During your recent illegal gun control hearings, witness Robin Heid 
denounced your proposal to violate his rights, referring metaphorically to 
the councilwoman behind it as a rapist. His mike was switched off, several 
of you shouted him down (illustrating the indivisibility of the Second and 
the First Amendments) and one called him an extremist. Having pursued this 
issue for decades, I know that gun control is a sacred article of faith 
among those who label themselves liberal. What's visible on the white-lipped, 
juiceless face of its typical advocate is hardly liberalism, however, but 
a low, reactionary cunning, recognition that while witch-hunting, 
book-burning, and alcohol prohibition are no longer in vogue, a politically 
sanitary outlet still exists for her perverse, frustrated bent toward 
Puritanism -- which you may recall H.L. Mencken defined as "the secret 
fear that somewhere, someone is happy".
     Ladies and gentlemen, it's time to dump that attitude where it belongs, 
along with anyone persisting in it, on the midden of history. At this 
moment, the world reverberates to a clamor of a billion tongues shouting 
for freedom. What's most remarkable is that nobody cares any more whether 
oppression issues from the right, the left, or the militant middle --
whether it's justified with the rhetoric of Marx or Hitler, or the 
maunderings of George Bush. An equally remarkable thing is that you and 
others like you, especially the media, strain for the faintest echo of 
this clamor from the Philippines, South Korea, Panama, East Germany, 
Afghanistan, South Africa, Poland, or China. Yet you're stone deaf -- 
worse, you're indifferent -- to the same shout going up around you where 
you live. You experience a warm gush of democratic sympathy for the peasants 
of the world and at the same time peer down a long, elitist nose at those 
much closer to hand whom you'd rather dismiss as rustics.
     Contemplating current events, you shake your head at their 
intransigence of foreign leaders, at their inability to see the writing 
on the wall. You wonder what can be going on in whatever they use for 
minds. Don't wonder, examine your \own thoughts.\ Look into the mirror of 
whatever you use for a conscience and see their faces staring back, rigid 
with fury at the idea that any human being should be free to disobey them. 
Look at those you side with, sheriffs and police chiefs -- whose streetwise 
rank-and-file disagree with them -- stuffed uniforms ravenous for power 
and publicity.
     Whatever happened to whatever you believed in?
     Robert Heinlein once said that there are really only two kinds of people, 
those who believe others must be controlled and those who don't. You may 
not know that the Bill of Rights represents one side of a bargain struck 
between the former, who wanted a powerful state, and the latter, who didn't. 
Like most devil's bargains, this one hasn't worked. You and others like you 
have broken every promise ever made by your side, expecting others to go 
on keeping their half of the bargain nonetheless.
     This time your excuse is that the best available machinery for 
maintaining that bargain -- militia-class weaponry -- is "antisocial". But 
society, ladies and gentlemen, was built to serve the purposes of individuals, 
not the other way around. There's nothing historically unique about America 
which doesn't derive from that single idea. Contrary notions, often presented 
as uniquely American, in fact have a long record of application elsewhere, 
in places which remain primitive, poor, and futureless. Those who defend 
the right to own and carry weapons defend civilization itself.
     You may never have been told that any power you claim springs from the 
bargain you presently abuse and disregard. If you can disobey the law set 
forth by the state and federal constitutions, why should anyone obey laws 
you pass? Clearly, if you can't keep your half of the bargain, any obligation 
on the part of others is off, and in the absence of a valid social contract, 
what authority do you rely on besides brutality?
     History has nothing but contempt for those who, from political 
expedience or simple cowardice, opposed the Revolution or later accommodated 
the Nazis. It won't forgive those who advance the cause of fascism by trying 
to disarm its prospective victims, whatever rationalization they offer to 
justify it. As a writer, I consider it a solemn duty to see that it doesn't 
\forget\ them, not a century from now nor at the next election.
     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. No law can change that, nor, as you're about to discover, are 
thoughtful individuals willing any longer to obey such laws.
     Without speaking for the witness you tried to silence, I'll repeat his 
words, hoping that, unlike past leaders of the Philippines, South Korea, 
Panama, East Germany, Afghanistan, South Africa, Poland, and China -- 
despite your failure to hear and obey the clear imperatives of the state 
and federal constitutions -- you have brains enough to understand the 
warning he was trying to give you and rescind this malicious and destructive 
ordinance immediately: \There will be no Tien Anmen Square, ladies and 
gentlemen, in a nation born at Concord Bridge\.

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

L. NEIL SMITH'S \LEVER ACTION\ LETTER                        NUMBER 16
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.

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


X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X
 Another file downloaded from:                     The NIRVANAnet(tm) Seven

 & the Temple of the Screaming Electron   Taipan Enigma        510/935-5845
 Burn This Flag                           Zardoz               408/363-9766
 realitycheck                             Poindexter Fortran   510/527-1662
 Lies Unlimited                           Mick Freen           801/278-2699
 The New Dork Sublime                     Biffnix              415/864-DORK
 The Shrine                               Rif Raf              206/794-6674
 Planet Mirth                             Simon Jester         510/786-6560

                          "Raw Data for Raw Nerves"
X-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-X
