Dear Sir: I read your statement with dismay and alarm regarding your position on the ongoing civil rights lawsuit regarding the CNMI’s unconstitutional ban on armed self-defense and the outright denial of every CNMI resident’s rights, as protected by our Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I felt dismay at an apparent lack of understanding demonstrated in those statements made pertaining to both the nature and applicability of our natural rights as codified in the U.S. Constitution, and the subject of armed self-defense in general. It was further disappointing to read false assumptions, and conclusions jumped to regarding the nature of this lawsuit and its implications.
Do you remember the oath you took to become a member of the U.S. House of Representatives? “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
When we elected you to represent us in the U.S. House of representatives, you made a promise to uphold the law of the land, and it is a promise that I as a taxpayer expect our elected servants to keep.
Your statement pledging to introduce legislation to nullify the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands—as adopted in Article 501 of the CNMI Covenant through a plebiscite vote, along with the other portions of the Bill of Rights—is at its core a bold-faced contradiction of that oath you took.
This begs the question: Which of the other God-given natural rights of all people living under the flag of the United States do you or others elected to serve us believe should also be denied? What is next? Our freedom of speech? Freedom of religion? Right to a lawyer if accused of a crime?
In the statements, there was much made of the idea that we in the Northern Marianas are treated as second-class citizens, that we are denied a right to representation within the federal system of the United States. And on the whole, our inability to vote in presidential elections and the non-voting status of our representative in Congress are valid complaints, which in principle I tend to agree with. That said, we are free of the burden of federal taxation while reaping the benefits of federal tax dollars being apportioned to our islands…but that is another conversation.
How ironic it is that in one breath there is a lament of our mistreatment by the federal government in the denial of certain rights of representation for the government of the CNMI, to be used as a justification to deny the rights of individual citizens!
Your Dec. 5th statement brings up the rights of the people of the CNMI several times. An issue that seems to be confused in your statement is that the bill of rights outlines the rights of the people as individuals, not collectively as the government. Our republic is based on that concept. Where the general will of the majority is balanced with the rights of the minority, be it the right of gay people to marry, Muslims to build a mosque, Chamorros to preserve their language, or individual citizens to be armed for the purpose of self-defense.
I understand that there is a deep prejudice and fear in many people here in the CNMI against the concept of individual citizens owning firearms for the purposes outlined in our 2nd Amendment. To many, this is outside of their life experience and many people fear what they don’t understand. The misperception is that somehow our islands will be flooded with unrestricted and uncontrolled weaponry! This is on its face a ridiculous notion—as ridiculous as those notions that caused many southern states in the U.S. to enact Jim Crow laws, ban interracial marriage, and segregate schools.
Similar arguments made in your statement about this current federal court case being against the will of the “people” have been made throughout history by men like George C Wallace in order to block the rights of other people based on the prejudice and fear of a perceived majority. The same types arguments to deprive Americans of their constitutionally protected civil rights have been made to keep gay people from being able to marry, to keep American Indians from practicing their religions and speaking their languages, and putting Japanese-Americans into concentration camps during WWII.
Your statement describes the legitimate concerns of citizens like myself regarding violent crime and terrorism. “With each new mass shooting in the United States I have grown more concerned that the people I represent have no means to protect themselves and their families from such acts of violence.” That is true…people you represent have been denied those means by an unconstitutional set of laws.
In places where these laws do not exist, it is proven statistically that there is less violence and less crime! First off, mass shootings are in fact extremely rare, despite the sensational reporting of these dramatic events. The US DOJ has commissioned a study on this (Blair, J. Pete, and Schweit, Katherine W. (2014). A Study of Active Shooter Incidents, 2000 – 2013. Texas State University and Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington D.C. 2014), available online for free at:
https://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2014/september/fbi-releases-study-on-ac....
It is true that there have been 160 active shooter incidents between 2000 and 2013 nationwide including the one on Saipan in 2009. (Blair et al. 1014), and there have been 1,043 casualties, including 486 deaths from mass shootings. How many Americans (including the people of the CNMI) have been wrongfully killed by police officers in the same amount of time? An interesting side note to these numbers is that on average, the number of people killed in a mass shooting where it is stopped by the police is 14.29. On the other hand, the average number of people killed in a mass shooting where an armed citizen stops the attack is 2.33! This is because the average response time for the police is measured in minutes, whereas the response time for a lawful concealed carry permit holder responding to an assault is measured in seconds. Despite this fact, there are many who believe that only the police and soldiers should be armed. That said, I recall seeing a film where police and soldiers were the only ones allowed to be armed; it was called Schindler’s List!
On the same note, one thing that is disturbing is that there are laws in only 14 states and no federal law that prevents felons from becoming police officers, whereas it is already a federal law that anyone with a felony conviction or even a misdemeanor for domestic violence cannot own a firearm. That said, I agree with the law against owning a gun for those convicted of crimes; it makes sense. But if a convicted felon can’t own a firearm as a civilian, why would anybody want a convicted felon becoming an armed police officer?
Don’t get me wrong…I have the utmost respect for law enforcement officers as a general rule. I have relatives and friends who wear or have worn a badge. One thing I learned in the military was the importance of our Constitution and the protection of the rights codified within as a man who swore an oath to protect and defend it. An oath similar to the one you took when you became our representative in D.C.
You said in your Dec. 5 statement the following: Yes, they could all arm themselves. But, as President Reagan said of this policy of mutual destruction: ‘Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill…our only recourse is to threaten killing…?’
President Reagan was talking about the United States and the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons proliferation, which has absolutely no bearing on the subject of the right of citizens to armed self-defense. Still the idea of deterrence is a valid one and one of the reasons for our right to keep and bear arms. Criminals are less likely to attack people if there is a good chance that that potential victim can fight back, just as the U.S. having nukes was a deterrent to the Soviets from starting WWIII! That said, I also think it is valid to point out that almost all these mass shootings people are concerned about happen in “gun-free zones.”
This brings me to the lawsuit you and many are so concerned about. Again, to read your statement and the statements of many others in the CNMI, I see a narrative full of falsehoods and outlandish conclusions, that when the unconstitutional aspects of the CNMI Weapons Control Act are overturned, somehow there will be guns dumped into the community without any type of reasonable restriction! This is totally ridiculous, and I think you are smart enough to know this!
Your Dec. 5 statement points out the following: “We have already had one mass shooting in our small community. So even our own local laws do not provide complete protection.”
This is true. Even a total ban on the ownership of handguns and most long guns, and a ban on armed self-defense or carry in the home to affect such self-defense did not provide complete protection! Just as all of the draconian gun laws in California did not stop the San Bernadino shooting, when those two crazy jihadists murdered 14 of their colleagues! Just as the rules banning soldiers from carrying guns on Army bases did not stop the Fort Hood shootings and so on! None of these draconian gun laws have prevented bad people from getting guns. We just had a crazy woman in Las Vegas run down some 40 pedestrians last weekend, killing several, and in 2013 we had a disturbed young man murder four and injure dozens in Guam with a car and a knife! Yet where is your call to ban cars and knives?
In 2012, the CDC reported on gun violence, followed up by the Pew Research Center in 2013. These reports show that 61 percent of the average 30,000 annual deaths where firearms were the implement used were suicides. On the other hand, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Program, as cited in the CDC report, it stated that between 2007 and 2011 over 600,000 reported facing an assailant in a defensive situation with a gun and of those only 4 percent of the time the gun was ever fired! That is an average of over 120,000 people defending themselves with a gun. Considering that the number of people murdered with guns last year was 8,100 nationally, with the murder rate dropping, he number of people saved by good guys with guns facing down criminals far outweighs the number of innocent people murdered with guns or those who are victims of accidents.
The fact is the majority of homicides where firearms are used are a byproduct of the current war on drugs in the form of gang violence and street crime, committed by thugs who couldn’t care less about laws! The fact that we have criminals running around the CNMI selling ice and packing pistols is testament to this!
In your statement of Dec. 5, you said: “The safety and the rights of my constituents should not be held hostage by a national debate in which we cannot fully participate.”
Well, the lawsuit against the unconstitutional gun laws in the CNMI is participation in this national debate, and the people being held hostage are the people of the CNMI, American citizens, who are being denied their civil rights to armed self-defense by a local government that imposes restrictions on its people out of fear and prejudice, making us second-class citizens compared to those living in the rest of the country! Furthermore, the lawsuit challenges the CNMI government’s assertion that it can ban the ownership of handguns and restrict most calibers. It challenges the CNMI’s ban on armed self-defense and carry in the home—provisions that on their face violate the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution. It does not in any way challenge the CNMI’s ability to require background checks for criminals (which I support, by the way). The suit does not challenge the requirement for safety training (which I fully support, and actually feel in its present format as offered by DPS to be inadequate), nor does it in any way enable criminals, insane people, children, or any other person who would pose a danger should they be armed to have a gun! It simply asserts that those of us who are not criminals, should not be denied our rights to self-defense!
That said, Mr. Sablan, I do not expect this letter to sway your opinion. I have come to the conclusion your mind is made up. This is more for the benefit of the people out there who are on the fence on this topic.
Andre Kozij
Capital Hill, Saipan
