From: anonymous@extropia.wimsey.com
Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 14:56:35 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Illegal Gun Texts
Message-ID: <199402151335.AA29861@xtropia>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


 * Reply to msg originally in CYPHERPUNKS

 Uu> From: hayden@krypton.mankato.msus.edu ("Robert A. Hayden")

 Uu> Actually, with the gun paranoia in the US today, this law could very
 Uu> well  be upheld, dispite 1st amendments ramifications.

I think that when one observes the blatantly unconstitutional USSC
decisions regarding Amendments Two, Four, Five and Ten, there's no
reason to believe that they will respect the First, either.

As Snyder pointed out in his "A Nation of Cowards" article, we are a
society ruled, and a culture led, by persons who overestimate the power
of the word.  Everything else that would enhance physical empowerment
of the individual is suspect.

The collision is when the "word" is about physical empowerment.
Michigan (like socialist Canada) has outlawed these texts.  The BATF is
straining to stretch "aiding and abetting" to cover sales of printed
information.

I have no doubt the USSC would uphold bans on "dangerous, terrorist"
texts.  I know that the Second Amendment advocates who take the
constitutional concept of the General Militia very seriously are heavily
investigating encryption and electronic security.

["One armed man controls one hundred unarmed men." - V.I. Lenin]