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Charlotte Amalie
Friday, March 29, 2024
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Washington, Jefferson and Hitler

Dear Source:

I commend Scott on his idea of a gun-free V.I.. It is a wonderful dream. Sadly, it is no more than that. If we vote to make guns illegal, it will only affect the law abiding citizens. Criminals will laugh because then they would have nothing to fear from the unarmed populace. Look what happened in Australia when they made guns illegal: violent crime rates went up. The gun violence is not coming from the law abiding citizens who went through the proper channels to obtain a firearm. Gun violence is caused by the influx of illegal weapons from the states and elsewhere. Before you take away defense weapons from the lawful citizenry, you have to clean up the violent criminals.
Here we still have to contend with barbarians who are happy to shoot you if you don't hand over your watch. When they don't want to use guns, they use machetes on each other or on innocent victims. We have to have armed guards in our stores, insurance companies and other places have to lock their doors and buzz people in. Choice Communications among other places keeps its money collectors behind bullet proof glass. You can't leave items unattended at the beach, or in your car. If you lock your car, you are inviting someone to break the glass to get in. CEO's steal money from their businesses (at least at one hospital we know of and so do some bank tellers.) There is a huge malaise in this society and guns are frankly not the problem. Misuse of firearms is just a symptom.
Instead of trying to get rid of guns in the hands of honest people willing to accept the responsibility to defend themselves from the criminal element, we should be working to teach our young self-respect. We should teach them about God and His way. We should put prayer back in schools and insist that our children be given a sound moral compass with which to navigate life. Our men need to be taught to be responsible for themselves and their families. We must teach our young women that you shouldn't make a baby if you can't afford to raise one. We must teach ourselves how to get off welfare and take responsibility for our lives. We must cause our judges, attorneys, and police to actually punish evil-doers. instead of dismissing charges or putting everyone on suspended sentences. We have to stop letting people go because they are somebody's cousin or brother or sister. We need to insist that our senators and Governor do whatever is necessary to beef up our police force and also do the audits necessary to clean up our government and police force and we must help them by turning in our brothers, cousins and uncles when we know they are breaking the law. Honesty and honor must come from the top down. As the Bible says, "If my people, who are called by my name shall turn from their wicked ways and humble themselves and pray, then I shall hear from heaven and heal their land.
Some final thoughts: "A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government." — George Washington
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms…disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes…Such laws make things worse for the assualted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." — Thomas Jefferson
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing." — Adolph Hitler
Peter Abbot
Queens Quarter, Christiansted

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