From: "Vladimir Z. Nuri" <vznuri@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 7 Oct 1997 09:05:27 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: govt goes gun nuts
Message-ID: <199710070058.RAA13958@netcom13.netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



for the libertarians & govt haters

------- Forwarded Message

Date: Sat, 04 Oct 1997 19:36:29 -0500
From: "Chris W. Stark - GOA Texas Rep." <gunowner@OnRamp.NET>
To: ignition-point@majordomo.pobox.com
Subject: IP: 60,000 Pistol Packing Feds - Up 2,436 in 1 year!

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60,000 pistol-packing federal bureaucrats
show why people fear the government

        WASHINGTON, DC -- A new report revealing that almost 60,000
federal employees now carry weapons has prompted the Libertarian Party
to come out in favor of gun control -- for the federal government.

        According to a study by the General Accounting Office (GAO), an
astounding 60,000 government employees in 45 different agencies now
carry guns as a routine part of their job.

        And it's not just law enforcement agents: Poultry inspectors,
park rangers, and disaster aid workers are all allowed to carry
weapons -- in addition to special agents from the Small Business
Administration, NASA, the Department of Education, the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service, and even the Department of Veterans Affairs, noted
Steve Dasbach, national chairman of the Libertarian Party.

        "Federal employees have gone nuts -- gun nuts," he said. "It's
time to impose a waiting period on the federal government, while the
American people conduct a background check on these armed and
potentially dangerous bureaucrats."

        According to the GAO investigation, the number of federal
employees with guns is growing rapidly -- up by 20% in the last 10
years. In fact, 2,436 armed personnel were added to the federal
government's payroll last year alone.

        Even worse, federal employees are getting more powerful
weapons. According to the GAO, the Energy Department now has access to
machine guns, and other agencies can summon tanks and military
helicopters. In addition, the Western Journalism Center discovered that
the National Park Service and the Department of Health & Human Services
now have their own SWAT teams.

        Machines guns? Tanks? SWAT teams? What's going on?

        Dasbach said he has a theory: "Congress has passed over 3,000
criminal laws, and federal agencies have churned out hundreds of
thousands of regulations that carry criminal penalties. The result is
that ordinary Americans run a constant risk of violating laws they've
never even heard of as federal agents scramble to enforce those laws at
the point of a gun."

        And Libertarians aren't the only ones who have noticed this
disturbing trend, he said.

        For example, Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) last month blasted the
"massive buildup of a virtual army of armed regulators." Larry Pratt,
head of Gun Owners of America, described the 60,000 armed federal
employees as "a standing army -- it's outrageous." And Greg Lojein,
legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said the
acquisition of "heavy equipment" like tanks and helicopters by federal
agencies is "more characteristic of war than law enforcement."

        "No wonder Americans don't trust their government; their
government doesn't trust them," said Dasbach. "But trust doesn't grow
out of the barrel of a gun -- or from the sight of a pistol-packing
poultry inspector.

        "If we want to live in an America where ordinary citizens don't
have to fear their own government -- and where the government doesn't
have 60,000 guns pointed at ordinary citizens -- the solution is to
demand a government that obeys the Constitution and protects the
liberties of its citizens," he said.

        "And the first step: Gun control for the federal government.
Let's end this federal arms race, and turn the federal bureaucracy into
a demilitarized zone."

The Libertarian Party
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****************************************************************
Chris W. Stark
Gun Owners of America - Texas Representative
e-mail: gunowner@onramp.net

Visit our Web Page at: http://rampages.onramp.net/~gunowner

Support "The only no compromise gun lobby in Washington & Texas."
                *****************************
             ***Become a member of GOA TODAY!***
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   "No class or group or party in Germany could escape its share 
of responsibility for the abandonment of the democratic Republic
and the advent of Adolf Hitler. The cardinal error of the Germans
who opposed Nazism was their failure to unite against it.
....the 63% of the German people who expressed their opposition
to Hitler were much too divided and shortsighted to combine against
a common danger which they must have known would overwhelm them
unless they united, HOWEVER TEMPORARY, to stamp it out."

 -William L. Shirer, author of "The rise and fall of
the Third Reich"
  p.259
.....they who do not learn from History are DOOMED to repeat it!!


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