Second Amendment Sisters is extremely proud of Marilyn Jost, our State Coordinator in New Jersey for her appearance in a debate with a member of Ceasefire before an audience of 150 young people during Junior State of America. The following is her opening statement.

“Good morning and thank you for this opportunity. I’m fairly sure that when you heard that a ‘pro – gun’ speaker would be here, a 53-year-old Jewish mother with a BA in Fine Art was not the image that jumped into your head. And there’s an unfortunate reason for that. Gun owners are overwhelmingly portrayed as dangerous, evil and often stupid people, by those who wish to make more and stricter laws.

In my years as a firearms instructor, I can tell you gun owners cross every political, socio-economic, religious, racial, sexual orientation and age boundary. Gun Safety is something that should be taught to everyone, even if you never wish to own a gun.

The Second Amendment Sisters is an all-volunteer group who believe that ‘Self defense is a basic human right™’. Our Founding Fathers included in the Constitution the statement that every human being had the right to ‘Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness’. That means we have a right to defend that life and also a right to the means to do so.

Let me dispel the concept that the 2nd Amendment relates to hunting. Gun ownership is deeply imbedded in American History. In the 1700’s, hunting was not a sport; it was a way of life. If you wanted to eat, you hunted. In fact, it was often the job of the young boys in the family to provide meat for the family. The thought that the 2nd Amendment referred to hunting is absurd. The right to eat was so basic it would never have occurred to the authors of the Constitution to even mention it.

At the time the Constitution was adopted, a number of states expressed a desire to ensure that government did not abuse it’s power, and they created the Bill of Rights, which is a list of rights we are all born with, and upon which the Government may not infringe.

Amendment I, describes how the government shall not infringe on the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, the freedom of the press or the ‘right of the people’ to peaceably assemble.

Amendment II, explains that in order to protect the security and freedom of citizens, the ”right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed”. The clause ‘A well regulated militia’ is mentioned to distinguish ‘armed citizens’ from a standing army of the government. It also does not refer to the National Guard, which was created 100 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified.

Even the most Liberal Legal minds (Alan Dershowitz of The Harvard Law School, for example), agree that the phrase ‘right of the people’ in both instances means an individual right, not a collective right. Therefore, Gun Control by definition can only be described as a direct assault on the Second Amendment of our Constitution.

Remember: If you have to ask permission f the government to exercise a right, it is no longer a right but a privilege. A government with the power to grant privileges also has the power to take them away.

Throughout history, from the Ottoman Empire 1911, Germany 1938, Cambodia 1956 right up to today in Darfur…. the total number of citizen deaths directly caused by Gun Control is 56 million and growing daily. What Gun Control really does is allow those who have disarmed others to control them.

More children die each year drowning in their backyard pools, than by being shot. We don’t ban pools. . .We teach water safety!

More children die each year in automobile accidents than by being shot. We don’t ban the use of cars. . .We teach driver safety.

Every one of us was taught to responsibly use fire and electricity….we don’t ban stoves or electric power tools!

Why is it different for Guns? Because you never hear about the positive uses of guns, and groups like Ceasefire would like to keep it that way. It’s hard to ban something if you can’t first ‘demonize’ it.

Take the term ‘Gun Crime,’ which appeals to your emotions and suggests that the gun itself is somehow responsible for the crime being committed. Guns do not have mind control powers. Picking up a gun will not turn you into a crazed lunatic wanting to rob and murder people. Guns are misused by criminals, yes, but they are also used to save lives.

A pro-gun, gay rights group called the Pink Pistols has a member who tells the story of being followed after exiting a club in Philadelphia, by several men who were verbally threatening to harm him. He turned and presented his firearm and told them to stop. They ran away, and he lived to tell the story. . .without a shot being fired! Why wasn’t that in the news? Because a crime didn’t happen. Without that gun, his story may have been told, but with a completely different ending.

An estimated 2 million people a year use a firearm to defend themselves and their families, but you won’t see it in the evening news, because a woman not being raped isn’t considered newsworthy.

So, we know criminals use guns to commit crimes, and Ceasefire’s answer to this is to disarm the law abiding? Einstein once said that the definition of insanity is repeating the same behavior and expecting different results! Over 40 years of gun control, over 20,000 gun laws, criminals still commit crimes and Ceasefire wants more laws!

Here’s a thought. Since the majority of shooting crimes are committed by recidivist criminals with long histories of crime and violence, perhaps we should consider stiffer penalties & longer jail sentences for these people? When did pre-punishing the law abiding for something they might someday do become an acceptable concept?

Every ‘Gun Free Zone’ that has been created is actually a ‘crime friendly zone’. Every one of the school shootings in recent history is a testament to that flawed policy. At Virginia Tech, there were students and professors who were legally allowed to Carry Concealed in supermarkets, movie theatres and many places in town, but when they arrived at College, they had to lock up their firearms. The shooter, ignoring the law, took his time walking around to systematically shoot people. He had time to reload….more than once. If even one student had been armed in one of those classrooms, lives would have been saved.

We didn’t learn our lesson at Columbine, Pennsylvania or Virginia Tech. Japan didn’t learn it in Osaka. Russia didn’t learn it in Beslan. Perhaps it’s time for us to stop repeating the same behavior.

SAS would like you to consider instead the concept of ‘Safety Zones’. Allow those individuals, students and professors, who have passed the requirements to legally carry a firearm, to do so on College Campuses. I have two sons in college, and I know I would sleep better at night if I knew that could happen.

When seconds count, the police are minutes away! The Police are not Crime Prevention, they are Law Enforcement. How do you envision defending yourself against an attack like the one at Virginia Tech? If a shooter were to enter this auditorium right now, what defense could anyone here offer? Wouldn’t you be relieved if even one person (like me, for instance) had a means to stop a shooter? When you go home, call information and time how long it takes to connect and get the number you want. Add at least 10 minutes to that time…that’s how long help will be in getting to you. Compare that time to the 1.2 seconds it takes to present a firearm.

Now reconsider members of your faculty being armed as if your life depended on it… because, make no mistake, it does. Thank you.”

Second Amendment Sisters is a grassroots organization dedicated to preserving the individual basic human right to self-defense.

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