Frontiersman, December 2000

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Frontiersman, December 2000

Reprint: Fatality Fumble: Football Kills As Many Students As School Shootings
The Libertarian Party, 2600 Virginia Avenue, NW, Suite 100, Washington DC 20037; http://www.LP.org
For additional information contact George Getz, Press Secretary,
(202) 333-0008 Ext. 222,
pressreleases@hq.LP.org
High school football killed as many students last year as did guns — which means politicians should either stop using school shootings as an excuse to attack the Second Amendment or start passing "football control" laws, the Libertarian Party said today.
"According to the latest statistics, a football is as deadly as a gun," said Steve Dasbach, the party's national director. "So why do first downs continue to be exalted while the Second Amendment continues to be vilified?"
A new study from the National School Safety Center (NSSC) reported that there were 15 "school-associated deaths" caused by violent crime — including guns — during the 1999-2000 school year.
That number is unchanged from the 1998-1999 school year, when 15 students were killed by guns, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
There have been zero student gun deaths so far during this school year.
By comparison, 15 high school football players died during regular season and playoff games in 1999, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.
Another 11 athletes have died in high school games and practices since late August of this year — and that number is expected to rise during playoffs. In addition, another 29 players this year have suffered "catastrophic injuries" on the field, leaving them paralyzed or seriously disabled.
These numbers have Libertarians wondering: Given the carnage on our nation's high school football fields, why the outcry about guns — and the utter silence about football fatalities?
"When 15 students are tragically killed by guns during a school year, every politician and anti-gun lobbying group expresses practiced outrage, and immediately demands new laws that infringe on the Second Amendment," said Dasbach. "But when 15 students are tragically killed by football, the silence is deafening.
"If the preventable death of any young person is a tragedy — and it is — then why wasn't there a Million Mom March demanding an end to high school football? Why no calls from Bill Clinton for 'reasonable' football control laws? Why no saturation media coverage as dead football players are carried off the field in stretchers? Why no class-action lawsuits against Spaulding for manufacturing cheap Saturday Night Special footballs?
"Could it be that politicians get more yardage attacking guns than attacking football?"
This "outrage gap" is especially puzzling, said Dasbach, because the Constitution doesn't guarantee an explicit right to "keep and bear" footballs.
"Football is nothing more than entertainment and sport. Guns are a Constitutionally protected civil right," he said. "While every new gun-control law triggers a fight about the scope of the Second Amendment, football has no such protection.
"If he wanted to, President Clinton could lobby for an absolute ban on high school football, in order to save the lives of 15 young people every year. The fact that he doesn't, and the fact that groups like Handgun Control, Inc. don't demand such legislation, reveals that their real motive is not to save lives, but to advance an anti-gun political agenda."
Of course, Libertarians wouldn't support a ban on football any more than they support a ban on guns, said Dasbach.
"Protecting the lives of young people who play high school football is the job of parents, school officials, and coaches, not politicians," he said. "And protecting the Second Amendment is the job of every American, since so many politicians have fumbled their duty to defend the fundamental human rights — including the right to keep and bear arms — guaranteed in the Constitution."

frontiersman@ida.net

Frontiersman, 479 E. 700 N., Firth, Idaho 83236
Also see The Pharos Connection at http://www.ida.net/users/pharos/

December 2000

Page 1

The Right to Protect One's Home, One's Business, and One's Self
John Webster
http://www.jwebster.com/speeches.htm#bear-arms

There has been a lot of talk and a number of laws both state and federal that have addressed the topic of Gun Control. Again, this is an example of the public and the legislature voting about something that the public does not even own, the right to defend and protect one's home and business. It is clear that this is one of the "unalienable rights" that was mentioned in the Declaration of Independence. So this right predates the US Constitution and therefore any argument as to whether or not that document guarantees the individual's "Right to Keep and Bear Arms" is meaningless.

Please remember that the "Bill of Rights" in the US Constitution does not grant us these rights but instead is that document's acknowledgement of those preexisting rights. In other words the "Bill of Rights" is in the US Constitution to protect the US Government by preventing it from becoming so tyrannical that an armed revolt against that government would be justified. What this means is that the very government that would want to control or prevent the individual from bearing arms is the same government that the public needs to arm itself against in preparation for an armed revolt.

Now the right to carry weapons on public streets is a totally different issue and is something that the public and the legislature does have the right to vote on. The limiting factor however is that an individual must always have the right to carry the weapons necessary to protect him/herself from threats that one could expect to meet on those public streets. In other words, the government can not "disarm the public in the hope that this will make the streets safe" in a "cart before the horse" move but must first make the streets safe before it can expect the public to travel on those public streets without weapons.

One must keep in mind that the gun control laws only control the weapons that the "law abiding citizen" carries and not what is carried by the criminal or "thug". Therefore those laws actually do the opposite of what they claim to do by making the public more vulnerable to the criminal element.

Also, our government and the public have this whole issue of concealed weapons totally backwards. The laws against carrying weapons on public streets should only apply to exposed and visible weapons. The carrying of totally hidden weapons should be completely legal since the enforcement of any law to the contrary would require a mass sweep of searches of individuals that clearly would be unreasonable and unwarranted.

Private and public buildings on the other hand can require that weapons be turned in at the door before entering and can use detection equipment to insure that this requirement is followed.

Letter to the Editor
Dear Sam,
You make several good points in your September 2000 newsletter about the double standard that Christians practice in this country when it comes to tolerating their beliefs and practices as opposed to those of people they oppose. Consider what it would mean if Christians (or at least puritan Christians) were treated in the same ways in which Christians have treated other Americans in the past:
Every police department in this country would have a special "religion section" (much as police departments now have "vice squads") which would target Christians who practiced their "sinful" beliefs. Police SWAT teams would kick in the doors of churches while services were being held and haul away churchgoers in handcuffs. Christian children in the classroom would be required to read literature on sexual freedom and any discussion of abstinence would be banned. There would be state sponsored public service announcements condemning abstinence and television would have hidden video programs exposing Christians engaged in marital sex. Crusading district attorneys would ban the Bible as having no socially redeeming value. It would go without saying that Christians would not be allowed to serve in the armed forces or government posts. The law would not recognize Christian marriages. Virginity would be considered a form of deviance and virgins would be sent to psychiatrists for rehabilitation. Christians, while in prison, would be required to engage in oral sex and other "unnatural" activities

December 2000
Page 2

Frontiersman, 479 E. 700 N., Firth, Idaho 83236
Also see The Pharos Connection at http://www.ida.net/users/pharos/

frontiersman@ida.net

in order to "straighten them out." And, of course, the Boy Scouts would be free to ban Christians from all their activities.

It's interesting to note that Christians complain when they have to suffer only a fraction of the oppression they have handed out to non-Christians (say, when they cannot post the Ten Commandments in a court room). Yet they show no hesitation in destroying the lives of millions of people with whom they disagree. Clearly, Christians do not play by the Enlightenment rules of tolerance and liberty. Indeed, they have spent much of the 20th century, at least in this country, forcing their beliefs on everyone else. Perhaps the time has come for the lovers of liberty to stop being so damned passive and instead counterattack by advocating laws which would criminalize Christian puritanism.

Now at this point, I hear people complaining that I am advocating force. Maybe. But consider that Christians and their allies in the government and police not only advocate violence against their foes, they actual practice it with their wars on "vice" and drugs. Note the double standard. When Christians and their allies use force (via the state) against homosexuals, sex workers, pornographers, abortion doctors and birth control providers, etc., they consider it to be legitimate. When the people the Christians attack dare to defend themselves, then it is called crime. I believe it was Ayn Rand who talked about the sanction of the victims.

Obviously, when you have two groups, one of which uses all means necessary to suppress its foes, and another which refuses to even defend itself, the first group will triumph regardless of whom has the superior principles. The trick has been that Christians and their allies in the state have managed to get the majority of people to accept their peculiar beliefs as the standard for legitimacy, while those of their foes are branded as "deviant" (the modem term for "heretic", if you please).

Something to think about.

Sincerely,

— Joseph; Northridge, California

When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives.

— from If this Goes On-, by Robert A. Heinlein

Liberty Video Movie Review
The Iron Giant
Reviewed by Don Cormier

One of the best films of 1999 was largely overlooked by audiences and award givers. That film was the animated feature, The Iron Giant.

The Iron Giant is a science fiction story about a huge alien robot who descends to earth in the late 1950's. The robot befriends a young boy, and learns about the ways of humans. Unfortunately, the government regards the robot as a threat, and tries to destroy him. The robot saves the young boy and the boy's town from a stray nuclear warhead, thus proving his benevolence and leading to the tale's happy ending.

Writers Brad Bird and Tim McCandies deserve congratulations for their witty spoofing of the science fiction genre. The 1951 classic, The Day The Earth Stood Still is heavily mined for material, and fans will recognize references to Frankenstein, E.T., and The X Files. However, The Iron Giant is more than a pastiche.

If an aging hippie were trying to explain to a five-year old what the Cold War was about, the result might be The Iron Giant. There's a tragic undertone to the story which is only slightly disguised by it's slapstick comedy. The writers have incorporated subtle references to McCarthyism, the Cuban missile crisis, and Vietnam — references which can hardly fail to provoke somber thoughts in those over forty. The film clearly teaches that governments are not to be trusted, and (somewhat less clearly) that force should be reserved for defence.

The Iron Giant is well worth seeing, but baby boomers should take the time to explain it to the kids.

This review reminded me of something that I saw about 20 or so years ago, while my oldest daughter was watching the Saturday morning cartoons. A lanky character stalked into view, turned back the lapel of his trench coat, revealing a badge, and said "Bureau of Federal Detection! That mean anything to you?"

I chuckled to myself, because the acronym for Bureau of Federal Detection is BFD. The meaning of BFD escaped my daughter as it apparently escaped the network censors, but it didn't escape me. I thought BFD was a dandy epithet for a government agency.

— editor

frontiersman@ida.net

Frontiersman, 479 E. 700 N., Firth, Idaho 83236
Also see The Pharos Connection at http://www.ida.net/users/pharos/

December 2000

Page 3

Frontiersman
479 E. 700 N.
Firth, Idaho 83236

Universal
Slavery
Association

Buck Hunter Shoots Off His Mouth
Dear Buck
Did you ever see a deer buck?

— Deer Hunter

Dear Deer Hunter
I've seen lots of bucks, but I never saw one buck.

Acknowledgments
• My thanks to Sir John the Generous http://www.jwebster.com/, Lady Helen the Gracious, and Sir Donald the Elusive for their contributions.
• My thanks to The Affiliate, http://www.the-grand-barn.com/, of Vankleek Hill, Ontario for regularly printing reviews of the Frontiersman.

— editor

Does Anybody Know?
Source Unknown — forwarded by Sir Donald the Elusive
•     If people from Poland are called Poles, then why aren't people from Holland called Holes?
•     If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?
•     Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?
•     If a person who plays the piano is called a pianist, then why isn't a person who drives a race car called a racist?
•     Why isn't a wise man the same thing as a wise guy?
•     Why isn't overlook the same thing as oversee?
•     "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could "I do" be the longest sentence?

Frontiersman

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— Sam Aurelius Milam III, editor

December 2000
Page 4

Frontiersman, 479 E. 700 N., Firth, Idaho 83236
Also see The Pharos Connection at http://www.ida.net/users/pharos/
— end of year 7 — Is there any hope? —

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