By Pete Hamilton

As I was driving down the interstate recently, it occurred to me that perhaps the National Rifle Association is on to something.

There I was, driving along in the right-hand lane, striving to remain within striking distance of the posted speed limit while staying at least a heartbeat in front of the continuing stream of grilles that kept looming up ominously in my rearview mirror. I tried to ignore the glares of the drivers of these vehicles when they zipped past me as soon as a brief gap in the oncoming traffic in the passing lane opened up.

Continue reading.

Hamilton is a retired business executive who lives in Rockbridge County.

By Keith Martin

Re: Ed Palm’s commentary, “Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition,” published on May 8:

First, I would like to thank Palm for his service to our country, and congratulate him on his first grandchild.

Although I am not quite sure what motivated Palm to pen this article, I know what has caused me to respond. My oldest daughter is graduating high school in a couple of weeks and will be attending Liberty University in the fall. She is more precious to me than oxygen, and I would never want to put her in a place that is unsafe.

That is one of the reasons that I approve of her decision to attend Liberty this fall. I firmly believe that Liberty is a safer environment because of concealed carry.

Continue reading.

Martin lives in Roanoke.

by Glenn Rose

It’s a good thing automobiles weren’t invented when the Constitution of the United States was being written. Our Founding Fathers may have felt compelled to add an amendment outlining the horseless carriage’s place in our society. It might have read, “While recognizing these contraptions are unreliable and most likely a passing fad, the right of the people to own and operate Automobiles shall not be infringed.”

No doubt we would now have another N.R.A., the National Right to Automobiles, resisting any laws to regulate and control the use of motorized vehicles, now far more pervasive in our society, far more powerful, and far more lethal than in their infancy.

Read more.

Rose is a former educator, broadcaster, and business owner living in Rockbridge County.

by Bob Crawford

Contrary to the claims central to much of the argument of the pro-gun lobby, the right to bear arms, as provided by the Constitution’s Second Amendment, is not absolute in the sense of disallowing any regulating or limiting conditions.

With any right, limitations apply at the point where one right meets competing demands of another right.

Read more.

Crawford is an artist and writer living in Roanoke County.

By Ed Palm

One of the most maudlin themes of the Western melodrama is that of the callow young man who, intent on commanding respect, insists on wearing a gun. Johnny Cash’s 1958 hit “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” for instance, relates how one such would-be gunslinger comes to a bad end. I thought of Cash’s ballad recently when I learned that Liberty University — the Christian university founded in 1971 by Jerry Falwell in Lynchburg — now allows faculty, staff, students and visitors to carry concealed weapons on campus and in campus buildings.

In all fairness, Liberty claims to be requiring anyone who would bring a gun on campus to have a concealed-weapon permit and to register with the campus police. People who carry concealed weapons, however, generally keep them concealed. And, as with most universities, anyone can walk on to Liberty’s campus and into its buildings without security screening. The requirements to have a permit and to register with the campus police, therefore, are unenforceable.

Continue reading.

Palm is a Vietnam veteran and retired Marine officer who went on to a second career in university teaching and administration. He is temporarily residing in Lynchburg, getting acquainted with his first grandchild.

The NRA rejects reason and stokes fear at its annual convention.

The National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Houston was a three-day carnival of shrill pandering by organization leaders and tone-deaf politicians, who used recent national tragedies to stoke fear and paranoia rather than seek sensible solutions to gun violence.

Instead of joining a growing national consensus in favor of expanding background checks, or even engaging in a civilized discussion about reducing gun violence, NRA leaders and their political agitators embraced the battle slogan “Stand and Fight” as they began to load up for the 2014 congressional elections. Incoming NRA President James Porter called it “a culture war.”

Indeed it is. We can count the casualties in places like Newtown, Conn.; Aurora, Colo.; and Blacksburg. They are the victims in a war the NRA appears bent on furthering with overheated rhetoric and zealous opposition to even the most narrow gun control proposals.

Continue reading this editorial.

The Republican nomination fight for the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors, reflections on Secretariat and the Boston bombings in Tuesday’s letters to the editor.

For real safety, machine guns

In her April 29 letter (“There’d be a fight for gun rights”), Jane Harmon said she resented NRA members being called “lackeys.”  No one called the NRA lackeys: David A. De Wolf had written that senators doing the NRA’s bidding were lackeys.

Patriotically, A.D. Smith also wrote thanking God those same senators defended our constitutional rights (“The Constitution’s protections worked,” April 29 letter).

Right-thinking Americans know that since the National Firearms Act of 1934, socialists and stooges of the U.N. have chipped away our Second Amendment rights to the point where only 300 million privately owned firearms are in this country. Gun violence is practically nonexistent only because so many lawful people own guns.

It’s time the NRA stood up for America. Stop advocating assault weapons: They’re already legal. It should fight for the right of anyone with cash to purchase a Thompson machine gun. No ID required. The Constitution never mentions the right to keep and bear candy bars. However, unlike guns, anyone can buy candy without ID or background check. Something is wrong here.

If gun-grabbers whine about public safety, point out that well- armed citizens would take out any lunatic armed with a Thompson before, at most, 40 casualties occurred.

RAYMOND FLORY

ROANOKE

By Betsy Biesenbach

On Jan. 19, this newspaper ran an Associated Press story, “Bill would require gun insurance.” It described proposed legislation filed in Massachusetts that would make gun owners purchase liability insurance in case a firearm they owned caused an injury. Supporters say it would give the injured parties a legal recourse and would create financial incentives that would reduce accidents and fatalities, just as car insurance does.

State gun control activists have called it a creative way of dealing with gun violence. Many would-be gun owners might be priced out of the market by high premiums, and the policies would require gun owners to keep their weapons locked up.

According to the article, while government agencies can’t enter your home to check that your guns are stored safely, your insurance company can. Of course, gun-rights supporters would consider this an unfair intrusion and an infringement of their right to bear arms. For those of us who want more controls on firearms, this type of insurance could be a godsend.

While this kind of bill might pass in a liberal state such as Massachusetts, it probably wouldn’t have a chance in most of the rest of the country. Pro-business and pro-gun legislators — just as much in the pockets of the insurance industry as they are in the National Rifle Association’s — would be forced to make a choice between the two.

But who needs a law? According to Katha Treanor, senior information resources specialist for Virginia’s State Corporation Commission, “most insurance products in Virginia are not required by law but are products the insurance industry sees as providing a marketable value to consumers.” No doubt they would not hesitate to enter what would be a large and lucrative market, if they could.

Continue reading.

Biesenbach, of Roanoke, is a freelance writer, title examiner and author
of “Bits O’ Betsy Biesenbach.”

Guns, cyclists, and the Roanoke County Board of Supervisors elections in today’s letters to the editor.

A worthy tribute to a great horse

Evolution and guns in today’s letters to the editor.

Empowering terrorists for the almighty dollar

In the wake of the Boston bombing, we need to have a national conversation about whether there’s such a thing as “good” terrorism. Consider Washington’s support for the proto-Taliban against the Soviets or the Chechen separatists against the current Russian state.

And while Boston was gripped with fear, Secretary of State John Kerry was overseas trying to drum up support for the destruction of Syria as a unified political entity by any means necessary. That nation is presently attracting violent Salafist mercenaries from across the Arab world, some of whom just recently took two Syrian bishops hostage.

What’s it all for? Qatar and Turkey wish to construct a pipeline across a post-Assad Syria, and Washington, I suppose, is pleased to see plans for a competing Iranian pipeline scuttled.

I would argue that allowing profit motives to dominate our foreign policy has nothing to do with making America safer and, in some cases, achieves quite the opposite.

SCOTT BARRIOS

ROANOKE