a message from Craig Goodrich, Candidate for US Congress, 5th District
[July, 1996] Republican Bob Dole recently announced that he has abandoned his attempt to pass repeal of the Clinton "Assault Weapon" ban in the Senate. No surprise: Dole's grasp of this issue has always been weak, to say the least.
Remember that Bob Dole slipped the Brady Bill through the Senate several years ago when many senators were prepared to filibuster it. And last year in a speech to the National Press Club he said that the ban wouldn't do any good, that new versions of the guns were "already back on the streets," the same line he used in his announcement. This is completely wrong for several reasons:
The "weapons of choice" of criminals are now and always have been essentially the same as the "weapons of choice" of the police: Robin Hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham fought it out with longbows, swords and pikes; Matt Dillon and Jesse James shot at each other with Colts and Winchesters; bootleggers and cops battled with tommyguns and .38 revolvers during Prohibition; and police and drug dealers (the bootleggers of our modern-day Prohibition) now both generally prefer 9mm pistols and .357 magnums. The idea that somehow our police are "outgunned" is ridiculous; if they are, it's because their politicized department bosses in places like New York City don't trust them with modern weapons.
Libertarians don't use the phrase "gun control" much; we refer to "victim disarmament laws" instead, since their sole effect is to render the innocent citizen helpless against criminal violence. Gun laws are obeyed by people who obey the law, and people who obey the law are not the problem.
Your Libertarian candidates pledge to fight for the repeal of all Federal gun laws -- the National Firearms Act of 1934, which was used as a pretext for the murders at Ruby Ridge and the massacre at Waco; the Gun Control Act of 1968, which makes it a crime for someone in Huntsville to sell a .22 to someone from Nashville; and of course Bill Clinton's wretched "Crime Bill". Libertarians believe that violence should be punished, not ownership of some weapon, and it makes no difference whether the violent thug uses a tommygun, a baseball bat, a jackknife, or his bare hands.
You can vote for the Democrats - the party of Bill Clinton and Charles Schumer, the Republicans - the party of Bob Dole and Sarah Brady, or the Libertarians - the third-largest party in the country and the only party to stand unequivocally for absolute protection of your right to arms for self-defense.
Bob Dole is a Main Street Republican, decent and patriotic enough, but he's fallen into the Republican trap of believing that the voters' concern for freedom begins and ends at their wallets. It doesn't. And more and more Americans are coming to realize that only the Libertarian Party stands for "individual liberty and individual responsibility, on all issues, at all times, without exception," as our Presidential candidate Harry Browne says. We're not afraid of the chi-chi Washington media establishment. And we won't "cut deals" with your rights!Only the Libertarian Party will do what has to be done.
Craig Goodrich for US Congress
Mark Thornton for US Senate
Harry Browne for President