PRESIDENTIAL PARADIGMS
Second Amendment Rights Too Precious to Lose
Charles Wilfong, President, West Virginia Farm Bureau
Our
Second
Amendment
rights to
own and
use firearms
are under
the greatest
threat in our
history. The efforts to curtail our
rights of gun use and ownership
are being led by President Obama
and his liberal supporters in the
media and in Congress. We
cannot take for granted that our
gun rights are safe. Those who
oppose our rights to keep and
bear arms will say or do anything
to achieve their goal of a gunless citizenry, as demonstrated
repeatedly in the news.
It is frightening to know that
4 of our 9 U.S. Supreme Court
justices also believe that gun
rights are not an individual right,
and that only people acting
collectively in the service of the
state have the right to bear arms.
This totally perverts the intent
of the Second Amendment. Just
one more liberal appointment
to the Supreme Court will tip
the balance and our individual
gun rights will most likely
disappear. Ironically, the Second
Amendment was intended to
protect us as individuals from the
type of tyranny and oppressive
government which the Obama
administration seems bent on
imposing.
A great deal of propaganda
has been put out by the left
concerning crime and gun
control, to garner public support.
However, gun control does not
reduce crime, as evidenced
by law enforcement statistics.
Localities that have imposed the
strictest gun control measures
have seen the number of murders
and other crimes skyrocket. For
example, Washington, D.C.
passed a city ordinance in 1976
which prohibited residents from
possessing a handgun. The
law remained in effect until
see Wilfong, page 10
Innovation is Anything but Business as Usual
Bob Stallman, President, American Farm Bureau Federation
Albert
Einstein
once said,
“If you
always do
what you
always did,
you will
always get
what you always got.” I’ve tried to
adhere to this mantra throughout
my life by embracing risk and
thinking outside of the box.
American agriculture, too,
follows this philosophy pretty
darn well. Through innovation
and thinking big, U.S. farmers
and ranchers have transformed
agriculture from mule and plow
4 West Virginia Farm Bureau News
operations into one of the most
tech-savvy and society-changing
industr