Don't let commies set the gun debate

Noted

"communitarian" Amitai Etzioni penned a

column last week claiming that ordinary Americans do not have an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Only a moron or a communist would think that. Etzioni is no moron, so that leaves just one possibility.

His comfy little title of "communitarian" is little more than a hat trick attempt to reclassify himself. If he isn't an outright commie, he's the next best thing to one. Call him a "commie-lite," otherwise known in today's political climate as a raving socialist. Ideologically, there is little difference to me.

But that's OK, because in this country, you're allowed to prescribe to any political or religious belief you choose. However, since we do happen to live in a constitutional republic and not a socialist state, it would be appropriate not to let "commie-lites" control the gun-control debate.

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That's because historically, commies and socialists have always disliked the notion of private gun ownership. Lots of them over the years have disapproved and disallowed private gun ownership. Stalin, Mao, Kim Jong Il, and Vietnam's Gen. Nguyen Giap have all remained loyal communists and loyal advocates of a disarmed population.

But, I guess it doesn't strike Etzioni that without guns in the hands of private citizens, he couldn't say what he says about U.S. law or write what he writes when he trashes constitutional principles.

Furthermore, it escapes him that there have been plenty of American leaders in the past who could have become tyrants, and likely would have, were it not for the

Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

Speaking of would-be American tyrants, there is one in the White House now. The Clinton administration, at the behest of the president himself, has routinely flouted the law and stomped on as many individual liberties as possible in order to enact various agenda items. I'm convinced that because tens of millions of Americans are still armed, Clinton has never dared to try to completely take over power.

I also found Etizoni's impassioned defense of an unarmed populace using Supreme Court cases to "prove" that Americans have no inherent right to keep and bear arms insulting and a poor attempt to justify his argument. Supreme Court judges are human; they are prone to making mistakes. And there is evidence that they have indeed made mistakes in the past when judging what the Constitution actually does and does not say.

Most flawed in Etzioni's use of the high court to justify his argument is this: Who among us doubts that the same Supreme Court that found it somehow "constitutional" for women to murder their unborn babies would not also have found Etzioni's supposition to be true?

Regarding the few cases he cited by the high court and former chief justices commenting that they didn't think the Second Amendment gave individuals the right to keep and bear arms, why do 85 million of us still own about 210 million guns?

Besides, everyone knows you have to be a political partisan to even be chosen to be on the Supreme Court. Why do you think Bush and Gore have already spoken about and considered the kinds of judges they'd appoint? Because they know the high court can be "influenced" by a judge's personal political beliefs. It shouldn't be that way, but it is, so Etzioni's use of the court to "prove" the constitutionality of a given amendment -- which is clearly readable and understandable without his or the court's "expert" assessment -- doesn't mean a damned thing.

Etzioni is instead talking out of his rear end, saying things he would like to be true, rather than speaking from a position of truth. Typical for those who share his political leanings.