OT-Condoleezza Rice on Gun rights.
- From: "Chuck" <chuckadams05@xxxxxxx>
- Date: 17 May 2005 18:49:36 -0700
Rice says gun rights are as important as right to free speech and
religion
WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, recalling how her
father took up arms to defend fellow blacks from racist whites in the
segregated South, said Wednesday the constitutional right of Americans
to own guns is as important as their rights to free speech and
religion.
In an interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," Rice said she came to that
view from personal experience. She said her father, a black minister,
and his friends armed themselves to defend the black community in
Birmingham, Ala., against the White Knight Riders in 1962 and 1963. She
said if local authorities had had lists of registered weapons, she did
not think her father and other blacks would have been able to defend
themselves.
Birmingham, where Rice was born in 1954, was a focal point of racial
tension. Four black girls were killed when a bomb exploded at a
Birmingham church in 1963, a galvanizing moment in the fight for civil
rights.
Rice said she favored background checks and controls at gun shows.
However, she added, "we have to be very careful when we start abridging
rights that the Founding Fathers thought very important."
Rice said the Founding Fathers understood "there might be circumstances
that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Ala., when, in
fact, the police weren't going to protect you."
"I also don't think we get to pick and choose from the Constitution,"
she said in the interview, which was taped for airing Wednesday night.
"The Second Amendment is as important as the First Amendment."
The First Amendment protects religious, press and speech freedoms as
well as the rights to assemble and petition the government. The Second
Amendment guarantees "a well-regulated militia" and "the right of the
people to keep and bear arms." Gun-rights supporters and those who
favor gun control disagree over whether the amendment guarantees
individual gun ownership.
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