<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by tacfoley:
<strong> </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Originally posted by Michael Zeleny:
I must be blunt, because life is brief. You appear to know next to nothing about the traditional rights of British subjects. My time is running short, so I can only offer a reading suggestion in lieu of providing personal explanations. Read Joyce Lee Malcolm, To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right. If a trip to the library is too much trouble, a more or less accurate synopsis is available online at
http://www.davekopel.com/2A/LawRev/It_Isn't_About_Duck_Hunting.htm
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">Dear Mr Zeleny - thank you for your advice. I have taken it and read this excellent article on the historical rights of the British people to bear arms. As for knowing nothing about the traditional rights of the British citizen, unlike you, I am not a highly-paid foreign lawyer,who can easily pontificate from 3000 miles away and deliver snide asides about my lack of legal knowledge - such cheap jibes, Sir, are neither gentlemanly nor warranted, especially on a public forum such as this. If you wish to abuse my ignorance, have the decency to do it on the private e-mail, where you will find that I can be as scathing and belittling in my attacks on you as you have been to me on this public forum.
Not having had the benefit of your legal education, I am not privy to the machinations of the legal poobahs who reign over us in the big house on the thames, but nevertheless I have to live with the results of their decisions. The decisions taken by Oliver Cromwell and other historical figures are as valid today in this country as if they were taken by Micky mouse, especially where the arming of the populace are concerned. This government, and most before it since the end of WW1 in 1918, have been determined to reduce to zero the number of privately-owned weapons in this country, by putting so many obstacles in the way of onwership as to make it difficult, to say the least. But not impossible. I have 16 weapons, proof in itself that we can still own firearms.
I welcome constructive comment, but not destructive aprobation.
I am truly sorry that your 'time is short', perhaps, had you been spared longer, you would have made a friend of me, instead of being remembered as a 'superior being' who deigned to respond to a fellow shooter with scorn.
</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana,Tahoma,Arial,Helvetica,Geneva">We will have to disagree as to what response to expressions of apodictic certainty ungrounded in real knowledge is warranted in a public forum. Nevertheless, I mean neither scorn nor approbation. I am not a lawyer, except in so far as is required by dire legal circumstances beyond my control, which are responsible for the brevity and bluntness of my reply. I simply lack the wherewithal to engage in lengthy dialectics in the service of remedial education. But as sorry as I am that my time is running short, I remain grateful for its extension by my society recognizing the human right to self-defense and ensuring its citizens' access to tools for doing so. I wish you an opportunity to discover the necessity of this social recognition in a more relaxed setting.