<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"
http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Dear Jaime, <br>
<br>
Thanks for your reflections!<br>
<br>
When we lived in Cebu City and worked in Mindano, Basilan, and
elsewhere in the Philippines, often under the driver's seat
escorting us was a gun. We heard of numerous kidnappings of "rich
Americans" and always were grateful for that gun, and troubled,
but not trouble enough not to do the work until someone got shot.
Or at least I stopped because of that and not seeing my own
children while on circuit. I was also afraid because of the
sayings we heard, "Those who live by the gun, die by the gun."<br>
<br>
People kill people. Guns kill people faster. <br>
<br>
It is time for gun regulation in America, and else where in the
world.<br>
<br>
The Philbrooks did not allow anyone to have a toy gun, including
video games shooting people.<br>
<br>
Evelyn<br>
<br>
On 12/15/12 12:16 PM, Jaime R Vergara wrote<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:8CFA892240BD898-1AC4-F2DC@webmail-d004.sysops.aol.com"
type="cite"><font color="black" face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif" size="3"><font size="3">Sending two OpEd pieces for
Monday and Tuesday. The intended audience are readers in
Saipan.</font>
<div><font size="3"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font size="3">Sending it to this listserv, in case, anyone
is interested.</font></div>
<div><font size="3"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font size="3">Monday on Guns is along our currently gun
conversation.</font></div>
<div><font size="3"><br>
</font></div>
<div><font size="3">Sending articles separately.<br>
</font><br>
<div style="font-size: 16px; clear: both; ">j'aime la vie
<div style="color: black; "><br>
</div>
<div><i style="background-color: white; "><font
color="#000080"><b>Yesterday, appreciate; tomorrow,
anticipate; today, participate. In all, Celebrate!</b></font></i></div>
</div>
<br>
<br>
<div style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: helvetica, arial;
color: black; ">
<div id="AOLMsgPart_1_dffe3c06-2906-485b-9120-7eeee0043ca7"><font
color="black" face="Times New Roman, Times, serif"
size="4">
<div
style="font-family:helvetica,arial;font-size:10pt;color:black">
<br>
<div
id="AOLMsgPart_1_3635fd91-2b2a-49f6-99a0-f9b50bb4ffd4">
<font color="black" face="Times New Roman, Times,
serif" size="4">
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family: 'Times New
Roman'; ">GUNS</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">The
Sandy Hook incident in Newton, Connecticut had
our President drop a tear and
lowered the flags of the nation at half-mast.
In a shooting rampage reportedly of one named
Ryan Lanza, 27 people were
killed, 20 of them children. The school
has students from kindergarten to fourth
grade.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">Two
hundred twenty-one years ago, December 15,
1791, the United States Congress
passed the Bill of Rights. <span
style="color:#1A1A1A">The Second Amendment
is worded, "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." The first comma is missing in
the version
ratified by the States. No matter, the
right to bear arms is the intent of the
amendment.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">During
America's revolutionary period, there were
many reasons
to protect one's right to bear arms.
Wikipedia lists the following in no particular
order: </span><span style="font-family:">deterring
tyrannical government,<span
style="color:#1A1A1A"> </span>repelling
invasion, suppressing insurrection,
facilitating
a natural right of self-defense, participating
in law enforcement, and enabling
the people to organize a militia system.
The image of the <i>Minuteman </i>in
Lexington, MA is in every American's mental
playground!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">In
my social process scheme of the economic,
political, and cultural dynamics, the
impetus for the legislation in the political
was the desire to maintain
domestic tranquility. Case law has since
evolved to define that right, and to this day,
the right to bear arms remains a
US constitutional right fervently defended by
the powerful Vienna, VA-based
NRA.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">In
light of the recent assault on the American
consciousness brought about by the
Sandy Hook incident, preceded by the Oregon
Mall, Aurora Cinema, and the
Columbine rampage, we must once again raise
the issue of individual rights up
before the mirror of social responsibility.
Surely, the question of securing domestic
tranquility has gone way
beyond the capabilities of hand guns and
assault weapons, but in our cultural
heritage is a deeply seated defense of the
"gun culture", from Paul
Revere's alert of the Red Coat's heading to
Concord's armory, to our Texan's
ever vigilant call to remember the Alamo.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing"><span
style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';
font-size: 18px; ">A
country that spends half of its discretionary
budget on defense spending is not
too distant from a culture of mass
destruction.
Defense right (in the language of homeland
security) is foisted as a
rationale to maintaining order, domestically
and globally, in an unruly
universe, by the self-appointed police of the
world.</span><font face="Times New Roman,
Times, serif" size="4"> The metaphors of
competition, conflict, and war remain as the
primary image of our social discourse.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">On
the personal level, one of our own Saipan
residents, after his home and his
diminutive wife was assaulted by an intruder,
opined on the "draconian gun
ban" in the CNMI. He wrote in the
ST in 2010: <i>"Gun ownership in the
United States of America is a right, not a
privilege. Owning a car is a privilege.
Owning a cell phone is a privilege,
Internet
access... a privilege, having Cable TV... a
privilege... Self-defense is a right!"</i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><i><span style="font-family:"> </span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">Our
sympathies are with the writer. We do
note that any gun ban in American territory
has been observed in the breach
rather than the rule. My impression of
how authorities handle handguns and assault
weapons in their personal
capacities is not a favorable one. The
traffic of guns in the Pacific reportedly
occurs in the confluence of criminal
elements under legal cover.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">Individual
rights are always weighted in the context of
social responsibility. The historical context
to guns in America is
domestic tranquility, and that cannot be
maintained and sustained by simply
allowing citizens the right to bear arms.
In fact, the record holds the reverse.
Believing that access to tools to inflict
fatal solution on unwanted
intrusions has only been exploited by the
malcontents against the unwary, and
the innocents are known to suffer.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">We
think of the British ban on guns, and the
unarmed Bobby of London. The Yakuza, known to
inflict muscle on the
strength of the bullet, has not been deterred
by Japan's banning of the
handguns, a reason often used to returning the
right to bear arms back to
Nippon's citizens. The throve of
Japanese tourists in shooting galleries in
Saipan and all throughout the
Pacific (Waikiki hand bills shows bikini-clad
girls holding riffles) shows a
native fascination with guns in Japan since
Commodore Perry alighted on its
shores.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">In
2008, figures reveal that of the 12,000
homicide cases involving handguns in
the US, there were 11 in Japan. The US
has the loosest restriction in owning handguns
in the world! Japan holds one of the
strictest. There were two handgun-related
homicides
reported last year.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">What
is clear to me is to have a national and local
conversation on the second
amendment, then move it into every family's
dining table (Kilili's office might
want to get some figures from CNMI's
experience in aid of legislation). If guns
remain as the toy of choice (because
they are cheap as well as preferred) under the
Christmas tree this season, then
we further the culture of guns in a manner as
casually as we hold motherhood
and apple pie.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNoSpacing" style="font-family:
'Times New Roman', Times, serif; font-size:
18px; "><span style="font-family:">In
China's latest assault on schoolchildren, 22
were reported to have been slashed
with the knife. Just think if the
despairing culprit had a gun!</span></div>
<br>
<div style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', Times,
serif; font-size: 18px; clear: both; "><a
moz-do-not-send="true" style="font:lighter
10px Verdana, Arial;color:#000000;"><img
moz-do-not-send="true"
src="mailbox:///Users/icajoyful/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/1yge15vm.default/Mail/Local%20Folders/Drafts?number=170189841&sn=jrvergarajr2031"
align="absmiddle" border="0"></a> <font
color="black" face="arial" size="2">j'aime la
vie
<div><br>
</div>
<div><i><font class="Apple-style-span"
color="#ff0000"><b>Yesterday,
appreciate; tomorrow, anticipate;
today, participate. In all, </b></font></i></div>
<div><i><font class="Apple-style-span"
color="#ff0000"><b>Celebrate!</b></font></i></div>
</font></div>
</font>
</div>
</div>
</font>
</div>
<!-- end of AOLMsgPart_1_dffe3c06-2906-485b-9120-7eeee0043ca7 -->
</div>
</div>
</font>
<br>
<fieldset class="mimeAttachmentHeader"></fieldset>
<br>
<pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
OE mailing list
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:OE@lists.wedgeblade.net">OE@lists.wedgeblade.net</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net">http://lists.wedgeblade.net/listinfo.cgi/oe-wedgeblade.net</a>
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
</body>
</html>