Well, Matthew, you may want to learn how to check your facts properly before filing a story if you want to be a journalist. First, there's no such thing as a semi-automatic machine gun. A machine gun, by definition, is an automatic weapon.

Second, the Founders primarily included the Second Amendment so that the citizens could protect themselves from government tyranny. They cannot do that if they do not have access to the same type of arms as government agents and armies. You need to read the Federalist Papers sometime.

Third, the Second Amendment is not about hunting. Read it. You will see no metion of hunting in it. Additionally, the hunting test was developed by the nazis and adopted by politicians here.

Third, by definition a "semi-automatic" gun is one that fires every time you depress the trigger. Ratzmann was able to kill so many because he could pull the trigger quickly. He did not have a machine gun. The government has ALREADY cracked down on machine guns. You can't own one unless you get special permission from the Department of Justice and pay several hundred dollars in fees.

You may want to listen a bit less to Brady propaganda and read a bit more fact.

Matthew,

As someone who is a journalism major, you should be more concerned with presenting the facts and less with emotionalistic hyperbole. Your opinion piece shows a complete ignorance of firearms and a disregard for discovering the truth. It has all of the signs of the opinion of someone who has been brainwashed by the Brady Campaign and simply spews out what they have heard somewhere.

For a moment, let's briefly address the ludicrous notion that "violence" is anything but neutral. Violence can be a positive as well as a negative. Both hunting and protection ARE violence. But, the more important issue here is the 2nd Amendment civil rights issue. The individual has a contitutionally protected human and civil right to possess firearms. The emotionalism or opinions of even a majority of the society do not take precedence over the right an individual holds.

You are wrong to conclude that the Founders would not want the citizenry armed with the most effective firearms. The very weaponry which they used to creat their free country were the "state of the art" weapons of their day. They wanted the citizenry to be able to overthrow an abusive government if necessary. To do so, the citizenry must have access to the same type of weaponry as the government. To give the subjective government the power to disarm the very ruler which has the power to disband it is a dangerous thing.

There is no such thing as a "semi-automatic machine gun". "Semi-automatic" is a firearm of any type -- including those "rifles or pistols" -- that fire one round with each pull of the trigger. A "machine gun" is a firearm which fires rounds as long as the trigger is depressed. They are two different things. A semi-automatic is no faster than that "regular handgun" you mentioned; partly because that "regular handgun" fires with the same speed and partly because some of what you call a "regular handgun" are the semi-automatics.

Terry Ratzmann used a completely legal firearm. He did not us the "machine gun" you falsely presented him as using and want banned. The true "machine gun" has been essentially banned by regulations since 1934 when restrictions were put into place which made it nearly impossible to own one legally. Since 1986, new machine guns have been banned to anyone except governmental entities. Since 1934, only 2 -- that's right, 2 -- homicides have been committed with a legally owned machine gun. Of those two murders, one was committed by a police officer. In addition, less than 1% of murders were committed with **illegally** owned machine guns.

You need to stop listening to the emotionalistic tripe of the anti-gun crowd and start looking at facts.

Matthew,
I understand your a Jounalism major and you probably had a dead line to file this article. You probably didn't have a lot of time to research so maybe you took a short cut here or there. Bottom line you sound like you didn't research at all.
First of all your thoughts on the founding fathers are wacked. The revolutionary war wasn't just fought with privately owned Muskets. Many private citizens owned canons and stored large quanities of shot and powder, for example. Matter of fact, you remember the shot heard around the world, it was fired to stop the British from seizing a cache of Militia owned arms.
Some sugestions, if you want to write about the Gun Control/Rights issue, learn about firearms. I would suggest an NRA Basic Home Firearms Safety course. Don't worry there is no shooting involved but you learn what things are. Also, take some history classes and read the Constitution.

Thanks

Kevin

The previous comments were generous. I think all that is warranted here is to

POINT AND LAUGH



my name isn't "spam8", it is:

- grun

Mr. Werlein,

The media shows us the unfortunate side of gun violence at every opportunity. What they fail to show is how many times a day a murder, rape, assault or robbery are stopped because a law abiding citizen uses a fire-arm to defend themselves and the ones they love. Almost always, it's a semi-automatic. One pull of the trigger, one shot. Almost all of today's fire-arms are of this design. Even most "Revolvers" will deliver one shot for every pull of the trigger. While it's a shame that we don't live in a lovely world where no-one wants do us harm, the benefits of fire-arm use in self defense, grossly outnumber the incidents that we get shoved down our throat on a daily basis from the "Main-stream" media.

The United Kingdom and Australia have virtually banned all gun ownership, yet crime is higher than ever before (by ALL accounts) in those countries. As a matter of fact, there are more shootings than ever before. Gun laws don't deter criminals.

Strangely enough, in the United States, there are more guns than ever before and crime continues to go down (by ALL accounts). This too seems to be overlooked by the media.

While on the surface, it seems sensible to say "Less Guns equal less crime" the statistics are extremely clear that real life doesn't work this way. Criminals do not, and will not obey the law. I encourage everyone to shake off the propaganda that Sarah Brady and the (substantially less than) "Million Moms" push and research it for themselves.

Andrew Sundberg,
Aurora, Colorado

Matt Weirlein claims to be a "full-fledged supporter" of the second amendment" on one hand and then claims the government should violate it the next minute by banning so-called "assault weapons." Mr. Weirlein correctly noted the second amendment exists because our founding fathers wanted citizens to be able to protect themselves from an invasion or tyranny. There was never any mention made about "hunting." If we should --God forbid -- ever again be in a situation we need to protect ourselves from an invasion, or tyranny, even with the arms we are presently allowed it would be difficult if at all possible to fight against a force armed with better, bigger weapons. Does Mr. Weirlein expect our predicument to IMPROVE ifhe has his way?
I realize it's a tragedy when a psycho shoots a number of people with a firearm. Punishing everyone who did NOT commit that crime is vile and counterproductive.
He should seriously re-evaluate his philosophy.
Thank you, M.H. Townsend

First let me say you don't have many facts, and you need to check your spelling.
Fact 1. The firearm used is a version of a semi-auto not an auto.

Fact 2. people don't hunt with automatic rifles, these are also semi-auto.
Fact 3. and this is from the justice dept.

Justice Department: Gun Violence Falls 63%
By Jim Kouri, CPP
MichNews.com
Mar 17, 2005

Firearms Violence 200% Higher for Blacks Than For Whites

In spite of all the hoopla regarding gun violence in America, a study by the US Department of Justice appears to dispel claims of rising gun deaths. The government study received minimal if any mainstream media attention.

Estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey indicate that between 1993 and 2001 approximately 26% of the average annual 8.9 million violent victimizations were committed by offenders armed with a weapon. About 10%, or 846,950 victimizations each year, involved a firearm.



* For nonfatal violent crimes, offenders were more likely to have a firearm than a knife or club. From 1993 to 2001 the rate of firearm violence fell 63%

the rest is on keepandbeararms.com page

And these facts are just a real small bit of the whole gun story that you seem to really know nothing about, to be a fair journalist you have to print the truth even if you don't like it and always have the all facts and a good understanding of what you are talking about. and you don't have either as you story shows.

Matthew Werlein is this paper's COPY EDITOR? He's MAJORING in print journalism?

Whether you like guns or not, whether they scare you or not, whether you know anything about them or not, you need to read the unbelievable opinion piece by this kid. If you know zero about guns, his piece will make you feel like a genius. I still am in disbelief that he is this paper's COPY EDITOR, and am rolling on the floor laughing that he is actually majoring in print journalism. Let's start with the title of his 6th grade level writing: "Government should determine which weapons are legal." Would someone please inform this kid/copy editor that since 1934, governments in the U.S. have passed 20,000 gun laws that ONLY EXIST TO DETERMINE WHAT IS LEGAL AND WHAT IS NOT! For majoring in journalism, he desperately needs a tutor to help him do BASIC research BEFORE he makes a complete and total idiot out of himself in public. Matt, my man, if you read this, what the hell is a "semi automatic machine gun" that you mentioned? He makes it worse by proclaiming how he's against using a "machine gun to bag a deer" when deer hunters use ENTIRELY different guns. Somebody who has gone deer hunting please please tell Matt what they and every other deer hunter uses to kill a deer that's hundreds of yards away. Introduce Matt to what a bolt action rifle is, and especially explain to him the difference between semi automatic and 'machine gun.' (Deer hunters usually use bolt actions and Matt would know that if he did a tiny bit of fact checking). Matt puts his stupidity on display when he references the recent hotel killings. Matt ACTUALLY SAID THIS: "Would he have been able to shoot off as many rounds as he did if he was using a rifle or a regular handgun?" HEY MATT, WHAT THE HELL IS A 'REGULAR' HANDGUN??? Is that a handgun that is getting plenty of FIBER in it's diet? Matt seems to lack basic legal education. He writes as if most guns are somehow illegal but no one's really sure. He could have done a quick web search to find out what the law is. Matt wrote, "How, do you ask, did he get a gun like that in the first place?" Uh, Matt, ever heard of a place called a store. See, it's a place where you go to buy things. They have them for tools, food, shampoo, and yes, even guns. Geez what a moron. By the way Matt, a gun like WHAT? For majoring in print journalism (which I still don't believe) do you really not know how to ask a specific question? The bad guy had a pistol and an extra magazine (I'm afraid to ask if Matt even knows what a gun magazine is, I mean, he IS after all JUST the copy editor!) Matt likes to use highly descriptive phrases like "I feel" to cover for his lack of research. I personally loved how he said "We, as a collective society, need to..." I'm so glad we have self appointed people like Matt speaking for our entire society. It's also nice that he views our nation as a "collective." Just when I thought his writing could not possibly get any worse, he spelled uzi "Uzzi." Nice research Matt. Not many "copy editors" misspell uzi, but I guess you have a gift. To top his steaming pile of manure off, he ended with a world class self contradiction: "We need to open our eyes and find the answer to getting rid of these guns." I won't focus on trying to figure out what he means by the phrase "these guns," but instead, here's what he said in the beginning of his little opinion piece, "I am a full-fledged supporter of the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms..." Somebody buy this kid a dictionary so he doesn't make a public fool of himself in the future. I guess they don't give 'copy editors' and 'journalism majors' dictionaries anymore. Or maybe just show him how to do research on that thingy with the keyboard that he plays games on. I suspect his inflatable girlfriend knows more about guns than he does.

The Second Amendment is about machineguns and nothing to do with hunting. The Founding Fathers were concerned with one thing: Seeing that the populace at large were equally well armed as the armies of the day. That included at the time rifles, muskets and even cannon. Believe it or not there were some canon in private possession. Even by todays standard they are still powerful weapons if used correctly.

Mr. Werlein,

As a journalism major, your responsibility is to report the truth; ie, the facts - not just spew forth the drivel produced by Handgun Control, the Violence Policy Center and others of that ilk.

Correct - the framers of the Constitution were not "aware" of semiautomatic weapons at that time; of course, neither were they aware of computers, T-1 data lines, instant messaging, blogs, television and a myriad of other devices and systems that have been developed to allow information to be transmitted worldwide in a matter of seconds. Does that eliminate the need for the First Amendment? Of course not.

If you read the Federalist Papers (the precursors to the Constitution), you'll see the intent of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment says NOTHING about hunting or sporting purposes...

Mr. Werlein, I've been in law enforcement for over 25 years - I've seen what passage of the "feel-good, do-nothing" laws result in. Look at those cities/states with the highest crime rates per capita - they have the most gun laws. I would rather have a legal armed populace than the citizens disarmed by the politicians, leaving only the "illegally-armed" criminals to prey upon the disarmed.

Get your facts straight and learn about dealing with the truth and facts before calling yourself a "journalist." You cannot let your personal biases interfere with the facts if you expect to be taken seriously, and not as a shill for the VPC, HCI and the other anti-gun crowds.

"Uzzi" is spelled with one z.

Intellect Control Reform needed: the inexperienced adult (Werlein) posits that the Founding Fathers couldn't envision the process of firearms modernization, a fascinating failure of Werlein's own logic. To wit- the Founding Fathers also failed miserably to envision automobiles, the Internet, student newspapers, and similar "processes of modernization".
The obvious extension of Werlien's failed logic would then presume that additional "automobile control", "Internet Control", student newspaper control, (and probably ethanol control) should be imposed upon those of us who are law-abiding citizens (roughly 99% of the population).
Werlein, wake up- your mental masturbation may well prove to be personally gratifying to you, but to the rest of us onlookers, I assure you, it is eminently repugnant. Get a life. Learn to think, rather than parrot some idiot's ignorance. Study history: you'd learn a lot from Mao- your thinking seems right up his alley. Ignore Ghandi, MLK, Chavez (I was a bodyguard for him while an undergrad). and the like- your logic is based in fascism (the denial of rights).
Post Script: my firearms are used for a process you never considered: recreational target practice, which happens to be the largest single category of usage. According to FBI stats, (note to W: learn to do valid research before opening your immature mouth), firearms are used approximately 2 million times per year by Citizens to protect themselves from felonious acts.
If I could afford one, I'd probably purchase a sub-machine gun; they're fun to shoot, although it's the fastest known way to turn money into noise...which segues nicely back to your "opinion" -noise.
Ask yourself why there are hundreds of millions of firearms in American households, and less than 1% of them ever are involved in felonious acts.
Good news, Werlein: hoplophobia can be successfully treated, usually without medication- simply apply common sense and clear thinking. Help is readly available- why, you might even join Michael Moore as a member of the NRA some day! (psst- "investigate" the NRA- wow, I'll bet you'll discover that that incoming President is female, graduated cum laude from both Stanford and Harvard Law).
Aim your fears at something more valid, like children's drownings, or inappropriate medication (pharmaceutical) deaths. Now, those are legitimate topics relating to public safety.

Mr Werlein,
You are extremely misguided. This seems to be what the schools are teaching to youth these days. It would be a good idea for you to research your materials before you go running at the mouth (pen) with alledged facts that have no hint at the truth. If you are what we can count on from a journalism major then this country is in deeper doo doo than I thought that it was.

Matt,

As the Managing Editor for a national publication, I find it appalling that you didn't check your facts before publication. Perhaps you should begin using a quill on parchment before you put your ideas down. After all, the Founding Fathers couldn't have imagined word processors and the internet back when they included the Second Amendment in the Constitution.

Training, not reform needed.
This editorial is completely wrong.
The pistol used was not illegal or any different then the semi-automatic pistols available for the last 100 years.

The murderer was able to shoot so many times because he reloaded, and no one was armed and able or willing to stop him.
Clearly the problem is that people have forgotten how to use firearms and be self reliant.
If they had been properly trained, then they would have defended themselves, and prevented this tragedy.
And that is really what the 2nd Amendment is all about.
When people rely on government instead of being armed themselves, then they not only will be defenseless, but it causes government to become corrupt as well.
We need to go back to being self reliant, as the founders intended.

My God man, are you actually passing your journalism major classes? Did you write this on a whim 30 minutes before the deadline? get your facts straight (Google is a wonderful tool).

Matthew,

Where to begin?

"These founding fathers had in mind that each individual had the right to own their rifles or pistols, and, while they never specifically clarified what type of arms these are, I really cannot fathom that AK-47s and semi-automatic machine guns were what they had in mind."

First. I think that our founding fathers would have loved to have semi automatic weapons to fight for our independence. Absolutely!! They knew the value of life, and would, and did, take any and all advantage. After all they hid behind cover when fighting the British, rather than line up in a nice row. Not very cricket!

"However, and please someone correct me if I'm wrong here, I've never known a hunter who needed to use a machine gun to bag a deer."

Second. As other posters pointed out, the Second Amendment has NOTHING, what so ever, to do with hunting, and EVERYTHING to do with defending ones self and country from enemies both foreign and domestic. By the way, it's called "The Bill of Rights", NOT "The Bill of Needs".

"........why are we allowing citizens to buy them?"

What a disturbing phrase! Government doesn't have to power to "ALLOW" us to do anything. Government has limits on its power, called the Bill of Rights. You should read it sometime. We are a nation of laws. The supreme law is the Constitution. If you want to ban weapons guaranteed by the Second Amendment, there is a process for that.

"At the same time, if the government were to step in and crackdown on these deadly weapons, which have a sole purpose to instigate violence, I believe these criminals would have a more difficult time obtaining the guns. Thus, I feel we wouldn't have as many of these brutal murders that we do now."

Which one of the 20,000 current gun laws would have prevented this crime? By their very definition criminals do not obey the law. What new law would have stopped him? I'll tell you what would have stopped him, an armed citizen.

"Can we really look the other way and claim that regulating certain types of weapons is infringing on the rights of individuals?"

Oh perfect! Yeah, that's what I want. I want the government to decide which weapons should be used on them if it ever became necessary as our founding fathers envisioned. If you really want to stop useless death, ban swimming pools. Here in Arizona we are treated to daily reports of toddlers drowning. How about the automobile? Statically speaking driving deaths still kill more people than anything else. But then this isn't really about saving lives is it?

It's time that we take personal responsibility. It goes hand and hand with freedom. You can't have one without the other. We have a duty to be armed for the purpose of deterring crime and to remind our leaders who the masters are. But don't let MY radical opinions convince you, listen to what these other radicals had to say.........

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -- Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and punishment (1764).

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety".-- Benjamin Franklin

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government". -- George Washington

"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." -- The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times) speaking at the "Educating Heart Summit" in Portland, Oregon, when asked by a girl how to react when a shooter takes aim at a classmate

I am perfectly comfortable with the company I keep

Sincerely,

M Trcic

Oh, By the way,

I forgot to mention, if we follow your thinking to its logical conclusion regarding our founding fathers not speaking about semi automatic weapons.......... Then the same would necessarily be true for protection of the free press. You Sir should stop using your computer and word processor, as they are not protected under the First Amendment. Our founding fathers were only talking about the type of press you need to set by hand.

Lastly, I'm sorry son, but better men than you have spilled better blood than runs through your veins to give us Liberty. Don't be the generation to throw it all away.

M T

Journalism Reform Needed.

While I am a full-fledged supporter of the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, I have a really hard time believing that our forefathers, when writing the Amendment, thought ordinary citizens would end up hiding behind it to distribute inaccurate, incomplete and biased information over the internet.

The original reason these gentlemen added this amendment was because they believed citizens of the newly created United States of America deserved to speak (and write) their minds freely on matters of political discourse without fear of imprisonment or government retribution.

These founding fathers had in mind that each individual had the right to express their viewpoint publicly and in writing and distribute their writings through the use of printing presses, and, while they never specifically clarified what type of presses these are, I really cannot fathom that electronic typesetting machines, wordprocessing computers, and satellite broadcase television were what they had in mind.

In the past, people wrote their own letters and papers and they were distributed by hand, and some people continue to do just that. However, high speed worldwide communication makes it possible to distribute false and dangerous information to millions of people with a single touch of a button. Many people have had their lives ruined because of erroneous, malicious, and/or inaccurate articles and stories written about them by "journalists" and published in the newspapers, magazines, on the internet, or even broadcast worldwide on television. In some cases, the reporting of certain information has resulted in mass riots and death - i.e. the announcement of the Rodney King verdict.

As much as I do not believe in the government regulating what ordinary citizens can write and publish, I do believe it needs to step in and regulate what means journalists are allowed to use to distribute their writing and when they should be allowed to do so.

In other words - be careful what you wish for.

I don't know why everyone is being so harsh on poor Matt.
He is, after all, a print journalism major. He's supposed to be learning to write just like the main-stream big boys. Matt's lack of fact checking, made up terms (semi-automatic machine gun?), and subtle distorting of other facts are worthy of an A+. Keep up the good work Matt, you've shown you have EXACTLY what it takes to become a "professional" journalist. Congratulations!

Mr. Werlein, you should read the Federalist Papers, but since you probably won't, let me suggest an essay I wrote months ago that is a bit simpler for you to understand.

http://confederateyankee.blogspot.com/2004/11/neither-muskets-nor-ducks.html

You've conclusively proven you don't know the difference between a semi-automatic (which fires one shot per trigger pull, like most guns) and a machine gun (multiple shots per trigger pull), and it is no surprise that you know so little about our Founder's intentions.

As a one-time college instructor and advisor's office assistant, I'd suggest a American history class in your senior year.

You seem to have missed it so far.

im sure the framers of the constitution didn't envision automatic weapons, just as they didn't envision the car or the airplane. just because it wasn't invented yet dosen't mean that the rules don't apply. like saying free speech dosen't apply because something was typed on the internet instead of written on fine paper using a quill. it was meant so that the government knows that it derives its power from us, like it says in the declaration of independence. and so that in a case where they restrict our liberties too much, we can use them to fight back. its not a pretty thought to me, but it someday may be necessary. Ben franklin thought thier should be an armed uprising at least every 20 years to remind the govt who they work for, and that the losses would be worth the freedom that the rest of humanity would gain. if only 5 million of americans had guns, the armed forces would loose in a war even if we had higher death tolls, besides the fact that many of them believe similar to me. they swore an allegience first to the constitution. flintlocks were the best technology of the day, so imagine that they decided that they are only used to kill people so maybe people should be restricted to bows and arrows, because you can still adequately hunt with them.

so yes, guns are meant to kill people. and thats what they should be used for, in the defense of freedom or of our fellow humans. so fine, give up your right to freedom, and when you have an opinion contrary to what the government wants you to believe, don't be supprised if you find yourself being threatened or killed with the things that you believed so strongly should be outlawed.