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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.
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L. NEIL SMITH'S \LEVER ACTION\ LETTER NUMBER l0b
AN OPEN LETTER TO POLITICAL LIBERTARIANS
== AND OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES ==
History will credit George Bush with altering the course of American
politics forever, creating a viable three-party system by letting
Libertarians walk away with five, ten, maybe even twenty million votes.
Just as California's Republican governor was banning semiautomatic
weapons, cancelling the Bill of Rights in that state, and the Republican-
leaning National Rifle Association was throwing semiauto owners to the
wolves, buying time for duck hunters and paper target punchers, the Jimmy
Carter of the Republican Party was outlawing importation of semiautomatics
and proposing federal laws similar to those in California.
\Why is the GOP kissing off its most loyal and grimly determined voting
bloc?\ It may be as simple and stupid as an internal party struggle, Bush
"pragmatists" differentiating themselves from Reagan "ideologues". If so,
their timing is bad. Most Democrats now see gun control as a hideous error
which turned several general elections into humiliating disasters. There's
also a conspiratorial reek in the air: Nixon's CIA created both national
antigun lobbies, maybe to disarm us all in preparation for a coup, more
likely as the political "tar baby" it turned out to be for gullible idiots,
and guess which gullible idiot, presently sitting in the White House, used
to run the CIA.
Libertarians could do worse than to focus exclusively on this single
issue for the next several years. More than a decade ago, Californians
successfully limited property taxes because even state workers think of
themselves as homeowners first and bureaucrats second. Here's our chance to
capitalize on the perceived treachery of a party which once offered sanctuary
to those who think of themselves first as gun owners. Whatever our overall
strategy, we must offer not just to defend the right to own and carry
weapons, but to extend it, compelling the Republicans to discredit themselves
even further by disavowing our position or to trail weakly along behind us.
Don't worry about anti-gunners. We haven't been getting their support
anyway and never will. No matter what they tell the opinion polls, they
don't vote this issue, while their opponents vote nothing else. Ripping off
five, ten, maybe even twenty million pro-gun votes from the Republican Party
is well worth whatever minuscule fraction of our usual measly quarter-million
we may lose by turning off the wine and cheese set.
An effective position demands unflinching assertion of the following:
The right to self-defense is neither conditional nor collective, but inherent
in the nature of each individual. It cannot be granted or denied by kings or
constitutions, legislative or judicial acts, nor is it subject to regulation
or the democratic process. It implies an unlimited right to obtain, own, and
carry weapons of any kind. This includes the right to self-defense against
the State. Power exercised by the State derives from the individual right and
is inferior to it. Any attempt by the State to deny or limit this right
constitutes criminal conflict of interest.
The individual right to self-defense demands repeal of any law: requiring
licensure or registration of weapons, owners, makers, gunsmiths, or dealers;
taxing ownership or transfer of weapons, accessories, parts, or ammunition;
denying choice of manufacture, price, acquisition, carry, concealment or
concealability, caliber, power or form of ammunition, configuration, "social
acceptability", "quality" or "safety", capacity, operating mode or rate;
regulating local, interstate, or international transport or transfer of any
weapon or associated item; restricting gas, electric, jointed, or edged
weapons, impact-resistant clothing, or any protective device; or permitting
the State or its employees to retain, sell, or destroy weapons taken from
individuals.
The individual right to self-defense requires that agencies enforcing
such laws be abolished, their records destroyed, that anyone arrested,
indicted, or convicted under such laws receive unconditional release and
restitution to all previous rights and property. Employees of such agencies
(rather than taxpayers) will be responsible for restitution. \Any public
official who introduces, sponsors, or votes for such laws will be removed
from office as the 14th Amendment provides and prosecuted under federal
felony statutes for violating his oath to uphold the Constitution\.
Gun people are ready. They have money and numbers, we have ideas. Sure,
they're conservatives. There's plenty in our overall agenda to offend them.
But it would be a mistake to apologize for that. Instead, tell them they can
have everything they want if they understand that absolute \political\
respect for the rights of others is the key.
Tell them no sane individual sacrifices rights he considers precious
merely for the sake of imposing his tastes or opinions on others. Point out
how sometimes it seems that each of us disapproves of (and wants to outlaw)
some one little thing somebody else likes, but with a quarter-billion of us
all working for some kind of Prohibition or another, the controls ratchet
tighter around our lives every day. Until now it's been a one-way process,
with everybody losing except politicians, bureaucrats, and lawyers, but we
can reverse that process with a simple commitment to respect each other's
rights no matter how much we may personally disapprove of any particular
exercise of them. The one limit is an absolute obligation never to
INITIATE force.
If you do nothing else, quote the Atlanta Declaration at the top of
this newsletter, from a 1987 convention speech I made in that city to
stiffen the resolve of those on our side whose timidity sometimes inclines
them toward damaging compromise.
Encourage Republicans to make the only threat that counts to their
own or any other party: NEXT TIME, I'M VOTING LIBERTARIAN.
\Above all, don't wait for the next election.\ Anti-gunners made this
a year-round issue at the federal, state, and local levels. Let gun people
hear from non-party Libertarians, individual party members, state parties,
think-tanks, the national organization, from all of us, without the usual
bickering and nit-picking which often characterize our movement, and those
five, ten, maybe even twenty million votes can be ours.
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L. NEIL SMITH'S \LEVER ACTION\ LETTER NUMBER 10b
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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