Editor:

It is with gladness that I read the letter in the Jan. 19 issue by Mr. Masturzo. Thank you, sir. I would ask everyone in Bee County who can read to read to those who cannot read and, for the sake of liberty, read them the Constitution and the amendments thereto. At the very least once a year. In July would be appropriate don’t you think?

Now to my reason for this missive. The one problem that I have with what Mr. Masturzo wrote is this: He wrote, “Our founding fathers were far smarter than we think they were. When they gave us the Second Amendment rights, they knew there would be a political faction that would want to eliminate it.” I do not argue with the founding fathers being smarter than they are given credit for these days. Nor do I argue with their knowing that someone in the future would want to disarm the people. I argue with “When they gave us the Second Amendment rights...,” and the reason that I argue with that point is that the founding fathers did not give us any of our rights. Not. Even. One. All of our rights, and there are far too many to list*, came to us at our birth and from our Creator. Government had nothing to do with the process at all. The rights enumerated in the amendments to the Constitution are protected, supposedly, for us by their inclusion in the Bill of Rights. The Constitution is not a list of rules for we the people to heed and follow. It is a list of rules we the people wrote down for government to follow.**

Unfortunately, our elected 3P’s (Professional – Political – Parasites)have so misconstrued the system that, today, the Constitution is barely given lip service by the very folks it was meant to control. It is good to remember that any right that is not defended has been surrendered. My grateful thanks go out to Mr. Masturzo and to all in our county, state and country that read, support and defend the Constitution of these United States.

*That there were too many natural rights to list is addressed in the Bill of Rights by the Ninth Amendment, which says; “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

** That the Constitution is a list of rules for government to follow is addressed in the Tenth Amendment, which says: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

For liberty,

Capt. Gregory Gooch