Recordpub.com - Bare arms, too

In the United States, we have a constitutionally protected right to bear arms. With that right comes the responsibility of the government to regulate the size, type and power of these arms, as well as the qualifications, mental stability and competence of those who would own them.

When the constitution was written, the "arms" that were owned by the common people were flintlocks that were crude, slow and inaccurate by today's standards. It therefore follows that reasonable limits should be placed on the manufacture and ownership of high-powered, multi-round guns and other armaments designed for military usage.

Guns don't kill people, people do. Therefore we also have the responsibility to bare arms. Those of us who are unarmed have as much right to know who is "packing heat" as anyone does to carry a weapon. While criminals will always carry concealed weapons, as more and more people purchase guns I want to know who is "loaded for bear" so that I might avoid a potentially life-threatening situation. Most murders are crimes of passion, and I do not want to be found on the passionate end of a bullet.

The Second Amendment guarantees the right to bear arms and it grants society the responsibility to have a "well regulated militia" of gun owners.

Rick Hawksley

Kent

15.	Posted by KentCouncilWatch July 20, 2009
	TRUE! --nervous --very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses --not destroyed --not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily --how calmly I can tell you the whole story. It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the Hawkman. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! He had the eye of a hawk --a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees --very gradually --I made up my mind to take the seat of the Hawkman, and thus rid myself of the eye forever. Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded --with what caution --with what foresight --with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the Hawkman than during the weeks I circulated the recall petitions. Every day, from dawn to dusk, I paced the streets in search of the disgruntled citizen, any who could not bear his designs for our troubled city. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I enlisted them in my desperation, subscribing themselves to my defamous petitions. And every morning, when the day broke, I counted them, again and again, anxious that the number be adequate to withstand the trial of verification. And I imagined the disgraced Hawkman driven from Council while I kept vigil, seeing his heart torn out by disenchanted voters, his designs rent asunder. And have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the sense? The dread of that piercing eye, that devil's eye, compelled the exhaustive circumspection I took with the petitions. Each night I arduously compared the signatures affixed to them with the lists of registered voters for the city and ward. I enumerated only those that matched, envisioning each a needle stabbing the relentless Evil eye, that hawk eye, of the Hawkman. My mind saw the Hawkman blinded, stumbling from the council chamber into darkness, never more to return. I knew that in that darkness, bare of arms, he would certainly perish at the hands of the lawless, the riotous student, and the impoverished citizen. Then the deed was done, the petitions filed, and the signatures tallied. The day of recall was selected and the infamy published. Eagerly I awaited that day but with increasing apprehension. What if the Hawkman prevailed? How would I avoid the stare of that cold eye, that evil eye, that would discover my designs for his unseating? If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the voter rolls and newspaper accounts. The night of the election waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered each newspaper. I cut out the articles and the letters to the editor. I place all, voter rolls and clippings, in folders, bound together, and locked in a steel box, a casket for the stricken heart of the Hawkman. I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye --not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out --no stain of any kind --no beer spill whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all --ha! ha! When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock --still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart, --for what had I now to fear? There entered three, trish83, rocky56, and Liberal Exposer, faces grim, each a bearer of unhappy tidings, we had achieved defeat and nothing more. "Again?" I inquired. Quoth the Exposer, "Nevermore."