Citizens at meeting were exercising right to carry guns
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Marvin Marin
Published: September 19, 2008
Mr. Meriwether wrote on Wednesday about a recent experience he had at the Culpeper Town Council meeting (“Town Council trick-or-treat”). In that article he details his thoughts on openly armed citizens expressing their thoughts to elected officials in a public hall. The writer attempts to be humorous but only presents a very distorted and prejudicial view of our fellow citizens.
Mr. Meriwether discusses how those persons armed in attendance were ready to “repel any potential evildoers from disrupting the proceedings, be they immigrants, truants, terrorists, ground hogs or leftover communists.”
Mr. Meriwether doesn’t understand that carrying a firearm is one of the most important civil responsibilities we can have as a citizenry and that the choice to ever take another human life at gunpoint is not something relished by any legal gun carrier. Making jokes about who these people would capriciously use their firearms on is disingenuous and is a discredit to the respect one person should have for another in any civilized society.
Mr. Meriwether, you were able to lobby your councilmen without any disruptment from those around you, were you not? Why would you then take it upon yourself to disparage your fellow citizens for peacefully assembling in a public hall to lobby and to petition the govern-ment for a redress of a grievance? Those men were performing a civil service by exercising their First Amendment right to petition the government.
While doing so they were also exercising their Second Amendment right. In Virginia, citizens may exercise that right to provide for our personal self-defense, the defense of others and to defend our freedom from any government that was to become tyrannical. To me those concepts seem simple — to others it may seem more complex.
Mr. Meriwether, I would ask that you research the beginnings of gun control (to control the black population in the south) and current Virginia law regarding open and concealed carry of firearms and where carry is restricted.
Marvin Marin
Dumfries
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Reader Reactions
Posted by ( copper ) on September 23, 2008 at 8:57 am
I guess we should model our Laws after the District of Columbia, no guns carried by any citizen, concealed or open carried, then everyone here would feel safe like they do in D.C.. What you say, there are daily murders, rapes and robberies in D.C., but how can that be, citizens can’t carry guns, it should be wonderful and perfectly safe living there and all they gun haters should be happy. D.C. has failed it citizens by passing useless gun control measures, because we all know, criminals don’t follow the law and will carry guns and since the D.C. government has taken away citizen’s rights to defend themselves, they are easy victims for criminals. Criminals flourish wherever there is gun control and Citizens suffer. Remember the father of gun control, Adolf Hitler, we know how that turned out!
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Posted by ( semper fi mom ) on September 22, 2008 at 9:35 am
The problem was simply that uninvited, non-residents put their unwanted/unsolicited input into a local Town meeting concerning a local issue. No one is denying the 2nd Amendment right to bear/own/carry weaponry—the issue was making reasonable, responsible preventive choices about firing weapons within an now higher populated area. No one was taking away anyone’s right to own/carry/collect weaponry; just not wanting them fired in such congested areas. The Town of Vienna has not allowed firearms OR bb/air guns to be discharged in Town limits for decades. Like the current political situation, this issue tends to bring out the rabid individuals on both sides.
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Posted by ( Hippie ) on September 20, 2008 at 11:51 am
Everybody had their feelings hurt when Obama pointed out how bitter we were clinging to our guns - thanks for proving his point.
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Posted by ( wonderbread ) on September 20, 2008 at 11:30 am
I almost forgot ... Thanks so much, from your home or office 60 miles away in Dumfries for chiming in on yet another gun control issue in our fair town. We really appreciate your gun-toting pals coming down and feel safe not only because you all will surely carry your firearms, but will watch the issue and any praise or criticism like a hunter with a deer in his sights.
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Posted by ( wonderbread ) on September 20, 2008 at 11:24 am
Then how come I don’t feel safer knowing all of you good stewards of our rights may be carrying a weapon, either concealed or not? CAn you - or others - share some statistics of how many crimes (assaults, break-ins, etc.) are taken care of by citizens who are proud weapon carriers?
If I had wanted to live in the Old West I would have ... oops, wait, I forgot, I can’t change the fact that I live in 2008. Maybe there are other rights that are more important to the rest of us.
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Posted by ( cul_peper ) on September 20, 2008 at 6:10 am
Another voice from Northern Virginia telling a columnist (his opinion) what to think. These gun-toting Northern Virginia residents came here to tell our government how to operate. Surely they can wear their gins in Dumfries and all other places. It was showtime for these guys nothing more and nothing less. They could have just as easily made their statements, if anyone really cared, without wearing a gun but they didn’t want to do that. They wanted to show they could wear a gun and whether they want to admit it or not, made some people uncomfortable, including Mr. Meriwether and he had the right as well to say so. So for these guys it was show and really not the tell.
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Posted by ( rjma ) on September 20, 2008 at 5:55 am
Well I’ll take your word that you have the right, (I’m less sure about your “responsibility”) to pack heat in a council chambers. But here is where you make a mistake. You may know for sure that you will act sanely…..but we don’t know for sure and when you pack heat many people will know that you have the potential to kill many people and they will be afraid of you. Maybe that’s your goal. I just don’t know.
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