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Freedom Action of the Week
Email List Archive
Free-Market.Net's F r e e d o m A c t i o n o f t h e W e e k
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Edited by Thomas L. Knapp. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this and
other lists, click to: http://www.free-market.net/features/lists/
----- Featured Action of the Week -----
Third Week of December, 2001
Rally for two brave activists
If any of you needed as much recovery time from your Bill of Rights
Day
festivities as I did from mine (the brew was Sam Adams, of course, and
the
speech became quite free, if a bit slurred, after a few bottles), then
you're probably just about ready to yawn, stretch and get back to
work.
I recently had a piece of email from an Action of the Week reader. It
wasn't a complaint, per se, but it was rather pointed. Should I
consider,
asked the reader, renaming this column "Gun Rights Action of the
Week?" The
question seemed to have a bit of merit, so I went back to do some
looking
through the archive.
Of the last 29 Actions of the Week, seven have been related to the
right to
keep and bear arms. This column will make me eight for 30. It's not
that I
think gun rights are the only issue, although I freely admit that they
are
near the top of my list of important issues. It's just that so much is
happening on that front that there are a lot of opportunities for
productive action.
This one, in particular, is a matter of timing and, as it happens,
coincides with the happenings of last weekend. In particular, a Bill
of
Rights Day rally in Denver, Colorado.
Two brave individuals -- Rick Stanley and Duncan Philp -- chose to use
Bill
of Rights Day as a platform for some civil disobedience in the
tradition of
Henry David Thoreau and Rosa Parks. Having previously notified the
police
of their intentions (and Stanley, a Libertarian candidate for U.S.
Senate,
having made a rousing speech to the crowd), they strapped on their
pistols
and were promptly arrested.
Denver's public officials, you see, have a reading comprehension
problem.
They can't parse "shall not be infringed." Denver Revised Municipal
Code
38-117.5(b)] declares it "illegal" to carry a deadly weapon. Stanley
and
Philp are challenging the constitutionality of the ordinance, and
they're
putting their freedom at risk to do so.
Depending on where you live, there are different ways in which you can
support Rick Stanley and Duncan Philp in their fight for their rights,
your
rights and the rights of every human being to self-defense and
individual
liberty.
If you live in the Denver area, you can be one of the crowd packing
the
courthouse for their hearings. A supportive crowd can make a
difference in
how the judge handles the case and how the jury sees it. Their
attorney,
civil rights lawyer Paul Grant, has asked for maximum participation.
Even if you don't live in the area, you can help with letters to the
editor. The volume of mail received by the Denver Post and other area
publications will certainly impact the amount and angle of their
coverage.
Well-written, thoughtful defenses of the right to keep and bear arms
can
carry public opinion.
We all celebrated Bill of Rights Day on December 15th -- but these two
guys
honored it superbly with their courage, fortitude and actions. They
are
leaders. Let's make sure that when they look behind them, they find
that
they didn't leave the trenches to assault the enemy position alone.
Rick Stanley's information page on the arrests:
http://www.stanley2002.org/denvsconstitution.htm
Rick's speech to the Bill of Rights Day rally:
http://www.stanley2002.org/borspeech.htm
An article on the rally, the speech and the arrests, with pictures:
http://www.lpcolorado.org/cl/2001/12billofrights.html
Free-Market.Net's letters to the editor forum:
http://www.free-market.net/forums/lte0101/
Area newspaper letter to the editor links:
The Denver Post:
letters@denverpost.com
Rocky Mountain News:
letters@RockyMountainNews.com
Colorado Springs Independent:
letters@csindy.com
Denver Business Journal:
http://denver.bcentral.com/denver/contactus/lettertotheeditor.html
WestWord:
http://www.newsdirectory.com/go/?f=&r=co&u=www.westword.com
Action of the Week Archive:
http://www.free-market.net/features/list-archives/activism/maillist.html
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In December 2004 this page was modified significantly from its original form for archiving purposes.
, founded in 1995, is now a part of ISIL.
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