STATEMENT BY PATRICK J. BUCHANAN ON THE SECOND AMENDMENT

 Press Release by Buchanan for President distrubuted in New 
Hampshire, Summer, 1995.
 

The Second Amendment guarantees the fundamental individual right to own, 
possess, and use personal firearms.  This right is a personal and 
individual right that the Constitution says shall not be infringed.  If I 
am elected President, it will not be infringed.


The gun-control lobby has long peddled the myth that gun ownership causes 
crime.  That is the very opposite of the truth.  It is decades of liberal 
policies in law enforcement, jurisprudence, education and welfare that 
have made the streets of our greatest cities unsafe for the traffic and 
commerce of decent people.  Our nation's capital, where it is virtually 
illegal to own a gun, has nearly the highest per capita murder rate in 
the country.  New York is not far behind. Yet, the gun-control lobby 
still offers as a solution to urban barbarism an assault on the Second 
Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans.  Far from contributing to 
crime, the private ownership of guns gives the citizens of the free 
republic the means to protect life, liberty and property.


As President, Bill Clinton has repeatedly attacked the right of 
law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms--through both the Brady Act 
and the ban on certain semiautomatic guns.  The semiautomatic ban is an 
unambiguous violation of the Second Amendment.  The Brady Act violates 
not only the Second Amendment, but the Tenth--by imposing an unfunded 
mandate on local law enforcement agencies.  The Republican Congress 
should repeal both laws--and challenge Mr. Clinton's veto threats.  As 
President, I would use all the constitutional powers of that office, to 
ensure that the rights of American gun owners, as provided for in the 
Bill of Rights, are fully and faithfully protected.