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WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the barrage of commercials, news editorials and political grandstanding over the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary continues unabated, one father’s reasoned response has until now gone largely unnoticed.
Bill Stevens, a father of a child in the Newtown Public School District, made an impassioned plea to remember the 2nd Amendment before the Working Group on Gun Control on January 28th that is just now beginning to be addressed by the media. Steven’s daughter attends another school in the district but had classmates whose siblings were killed in that tragedy.
While some parents called for new gun laws in reaction to what happened at Sandy Hook, Stevens chastised lawmakers for failing to understand American history and its guiding document, the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. During his impassioned statement before the hearing he wondered aloud if the lawmakers might possibly have “American history”.
“My fifth grade daughter was in lock-down on Dec. 14, 2012. Unfortunately, her classmate’s little sister was murdered in Sandy Hook that day when lock-down and 9-11 weren’t enough to protect her from an evil person — not protect her from an assault rifle or some other inanimate object but from an evil person,” he said during his testimony.
“I’m frankly shocked,” said the father, “by some of the testimony today. In case some here failed American history, there is something called the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and a process by which to amend it. The same goes for the state Constitution. These rights are inalienable and endowed by our Creator — not you politicians — to all citizens regardless of gender, race or creed. In order to limit the rights of individual there is something called due process and legislation is not due process. You want to take my rights away? Let’s go to court.”
Stevens also pointed out that an official report about the Sandy Hook probably won’t come out until the summer and that any legislation preceding that would be premature. He also took exception to attempts to paint law abiding gun owners in the same light as serial killers and mentally disturbed assailants.
“My guns are not dangerous. They are at home locked up collecting dust and cat hair,” he proclaims. “But criminals and tyrants — tyrants especially — beware. Lockdown is not an option at the Stevens residence. And 9-11 will be dialed after the security of my home has been established.”
