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Dear Editor:
The group Hoosier Gun Rights, which supports the measure of no permit gun carry, argues in a statement that “as a law-abiding citizen, you shouldn’t need any ‘permission slip’ from the government to keep and bear arms.”
Well, as a law-abiding citizen, I should not need a permission slip to drive a car; remove license requirements to drive. Nor should there be a license requirement to be a plumber or an architect or a psychologist or a doctor or a pilot or many other professional licensees. No government should have license requirements to ensure the overall safety of the public.
Let’s see who is “law-abiding” – that is the entire reason behind the background check and licensing requirement. Is the person just released form a mental hospital who was never convicted of a crime a law-abiding citizen? Under this bill they are. Maybe they were in the hospital because they want to kill people. What if they go off their meds and buy a gun?
The Constitution says, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
Okay, let’s apply this to the exact wording – to bear arms you must be a member of a “A well regulated Militia.” So, if you are in the National Guard or Military you are in a well regulated militia, but as an ordinary citizen, you are not and currently in Indiana need a license. To change this will allow more people who should not have a gun to get a gun. It’s a very bad bill.
Joe Weingarten
Fishers
Hamilton County Democratic Party Chair
Joe,
1. We should look to the Indiana constitution first: Article 1, Section 32. The people shall have a right to bear arms, for the defense of themselves and the State.
2. The state owns the roads, so licensing on its property makes some sense.
3. State-required and enforced licenses for the occupations listed are just cronyism/protectionism. For medicine, take it from a doctor:
https://mises.org/library/how-medical-boards-nationalized-health-care
4. Driving and professional licenses are not mentioned in the Indiana constitution, by the way.
Sir,
There’s a big difference between a ‘Right’, and a ‘Privilege’.
Driving is a privilege. A privilege that took more lives each year for the last 50 years than firearms took in this Country during the same time frame, and is licensed, monitored, controlled and at times punished or revoked by the State.
Like it or not, owning & carrying a firearm is covered by the 2nd Amendment. Period. When purchasing a firearm, ATF Form 4473 is filled out (new, more invasive form became mandatory 1 Nov 2020), and leads to a federal background check, prior to the sale and transfer of a firearm. A background check very similar to the one folks receive when entering military service, or a person working in the office of a Senator or House member in D.C. Any problems noted in that background check immediately stop the sale/transfer of a firearm and the denied purchaser has a path to appeal any/all contested information. Government can and does screw up as even Senator Ted Kennedy, (D, Mass), was once placed on the ‘no fly’ list by mistake!
One only has to look at history to realize why our 2nd Amendment must stand as is & not to succumb to an incremental approach of it’s removal. In history I give you the Armenian genocide, a guy named Adolph, another guy named Pol Pot. In each, the populace was disarmed under the guise of ‘Public Safety’, and the World was rocked by the resulting 40+ million deaths due to a then vulnerable population. General Yamamoto stated to his superiors that an invasion of the United States in WW2 was impossible as the population was armed. (Yamamoto studied English at Harvard…!)
If the 2nd Amendment bothers you so much, I’m sure that that another, more safe & hospitable nation, (in your view), will welcome you.
Part of this American attitude, American success, is to tell Government that the people run their lives, not the other way around. The 2nd Amendment keeps that balance.
(Before any comments can be made, I am not a member of ANY gun rights organization or club, but am a retired military person with 2 decades of service, with travel to 6 continents and experienced the lack of freedom and self-determination in each. It made me more appreciative of our Bill of Rights ever time I came ‘Home’.)
How would the status of ‘law abiding’ be determined under HB 1369 ? Honor system ?