To Our Readers
GUNS are getting a lot of attention these days. This week, I got up each morning to a National Public Radio series examining how some Americans use them responsibly. Gunning for
responsibilityFriday's installment described a schoolteacher's taking a break from his lessons to run out to his car for his deer rifle after spotting a buck outside in the schoolyard. That was 20-odd years ago, not something you'd expect in post-Littleton America.
The Bill of Rights reads: "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." Somehow, we got from there to proposals for legalizing concealed pistols and requiring background checks of buyers at gun shows be done within 24 hours.
I recently met an Israeli army veteran who's now a columnist for a newspaper in Detroit. The likelihood of Israel's being pushed into the sea in the 1960s and early '70s was fairly high. My friend survived the Six Day and Yom Kippur Wars in uniform and has some strong feelings about guns.
He agrees that owning and knowing how to use guns to defend your family and country is a citizen's right, if not obligation. In the army, his life depended on it. He was trained to take apart, assemble, service and fire six different weapons including the Israeli Uzi, the standard NATO rifle, the Kalashnikov used by the Arabs and the U.S. M-16.
There is a relationship between national defense and the preservation of peace, order, commerce and the possibility of prosperity --even survival. Guns have a legitimate purpose within that context.
However, my Israeli-American friend feels gun rights shouldn't be unlimited.
"If somebody wants a gun, let them produce it for inspection once a year in good working order."
If they can't, because they lost it, let it get stolen or fall into disrepair, take away their gun privileges -- they're a danger to themselves and everybody else.
John Flanagan is editor and publisher of the Star-Bulletin.
To reach him call 525-8612, fax to 523-8509, send
e-mail to publisher@starbulletin.com or write to
P.O. Box 3080, Honolulu, Hawaii 96802.