Refutes arguments of Reciprocity commentary
Dear Editor,
I take issue with the Commentary: An argument against national reciprocity, Freedom is messy by Tom R. Hall in Volume 7, Number 83, November, 2018 of Gun Mag,
Offhand I am not familiar with the specific wording of the Reciprocity bill this writer refers to but the principle he puts forward is in complete error. The article’s list of “facts” is misleading and imprecise. #2 states that the “War for Independence began when the British attempted to seize the colonists’ arms.” Actually, seizure of arms happened after the war had already begun and it wasn’t all the colonies; it was primarily Massachusetts, principally Boston. Our Bill of Rights was written after the Constitution because without it some of the framers did not think that it would be approved by voters without them. The Constitution came about because the earlier Articles of Confederation were not working and brought about conflict amongst the states. Order and consistency were needed.
Moving on to the argument about the Second Amendment; the writer contends that “Firearm laws legitimately reside with the States, not the Federal government.” If that were true, why is it restricted to the Second Amendment only? How about the First Amendment? Shall each state have the right to regulate the “establishment of religion”? Can a State establish a particular denomination to be the official state religion to the exclusion of all others? That simply doesn’t make sense. Can each state dictate what speech can be exercised and which cannot? Can they censor the press based on the majority of that state’s popular opinion?
How about the Third Amendment? The implication of the piece is that states can quarter soldiers in anyone’s house in time of peace but the feds can’t. Does that make sense? I don’t think so. How about Amendment Four? Can each state determine whether a warrant is needed to search your home or seize your property? The Supreme Court in a number of cases agrees with me that the Amendment applies throughout the country.
The article further contends that “It is not consistent with liberty to force the people of one state to do it the way the people of another state believes it should be done”. By implication the writer advocates one of the principles that many of our founders found repugnant, specifically, the “tyranny of the majority”. Reciprocity currently exists in a number of areas. People married in one state are legally married in all states even if the laws for marriage differ from state to state. Drivers’ licenses from one state are valid in all states even if the requirements for tests, driver’s ages or license fees are different.
The above are just a few examples that come to mind. The Bill of Rights has been imposed on not just the Federal Government but the state governments as well. The inconsistency proposed by this article leads to chaos. That was the condition of the original states under the Articles of Confederation, which made the Constitution and subsequently the Bill of Rights necessary.
Charlie Gruner
Knoxville, IL
Passing thought on gun rights vote record
Dear Editor,
The November 2018 issue of GunMag reached me today; as usual it contained a number of interesting articles/comments. That said the following might be of interest: By the time the next issue is distributed, the local, state and national elections will be artifacts of the past, though their results might well reverberate for some time. The elections over, will it turn out that “gunnies” slept through the festivities or might there be evidence showing that they finally awoke, and voted what one would assume were their legitimate interests. I wonder!
Alan Schultz
Allison Park, PA
