um.

[sisyphusshrugged]

Keyes. What a whacky guy.

Declaring "the front line of the war against terror once again involves the citizens," Republican Alan Keyes said Tuesday he believes the U.S. Constitution grants properly trained private individuals the right to own and carry machine guns.

"You're not talking about giving citizens access to atom bombs and other things," the former presidential candidate said. "That's ridiculous."

But the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate argued the founding fathers intended the Second Amendment to allow people to carry the types of weapons "customarily carried in those days by ordinary infantry soldiers."

"And, yes, does that mean that in this day and age people would have the right to have access to the kind of the weapons our ordinary infantry people have access to? With proper training and so forth to make sure that they could handle them successfully, that's exactly what was meant."

Keyes made the remarks at a news conference he called to attack the "ideological extremism" of his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barack Obama.

The Republican lit into Obama for voting against a bill in Springfield earlier this year that would have allowed people who use handguns to fend off home invaders or attackers to argue self-defense as a possible legal defense against prosecution for violating any local anti-firearm possession ordinances.

The measure passed the Legislature with bi-partisan support, but Gov. Blagojevich vetoed it last week.

Keyes called Obama's vote against the measure an "appalling . . . lack of common sense."

"This seems to be a man who is absolutely determined to make the world safe for criminals, while making sure that law-abiding citizens have no opportunity to defend themselves against the criminals," Keyes said.

...

Keyes only indirectly answered a reporter's question about whether he would "be comfortable if the entire society was walking around with Uzis, as long as they were properly trained."

"Have you ever been to Israel?" Keyes asked the reporter. "Because if you've ever been to Israel, you wouldn't ask that question. And in the midst of terrifying dangers, you walk around the streets of Israel and you see every other person carrying arms and Uzis and so forth and so on, and believe me, you do not feel less safe on that account."

Comments

[lawgeekgurl.livejournal.com]

yeah, the Tribune put Obama 51 points ahead of Keyes the other day. I think this is the last desperate gasp of a media whore puppet candidate.

[(Anonymous)]

Once upon a time I passed through the civilized near-anarchy of Free Christiania, an autonomous neighborhood inside Copenhagen, Denmark. I say "near-anarchy" because there are four rules. One of these rules is "No bullet-proof vests."

Now, why would you make that a rule? Part of the idea, I think, is that there is an inherent egalitarianism in an anarchy, and weapons shift the balance, and weapons together with defensive measures perhaps shift it too far. As one person told me, if someone is wearing a bulletproof vest, it means there's a gun around. (Incidentally, this wasn't a back-door attempt to restrain the Danish police force from entering the area. One of the four rules was, in fact, "No police are allowed in." The other two rules: "No photos on Pusher Street," where they sell soft drugs like marijuana, hashish, and shrooms, and "No hard drugs.")

Alan Keyes says he's would not feel less safe because folks with Uzis are idling on every corner; in my mind, it's much like the bulletproof vest, though: The presence of the heavily armed indicates an inherent instability to the situation. Keyes may be fine with the resulting tension and fear, but I would choose differently.

Ficus