Rep. Don Young on Schaeffer Cox Letter of Declaration

STARK: There's this group, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, that's asked you to re-affirm your oath of office. What they've taken from the letter is the part where they call for the abolition of the American government if new taxes or other gun control measures were passed by the government.

YOUNG: And if they take my gun, I would not say this is the nation that I represent. To me, the Second Amendment is the key to all the other amendments, and that's what I stand for, and if they don't understand that, that's their problem. And they keep insisting that no one should be armed but the police.

STARK: Well I understand that this...

YOUNG: Don't argue with me. And I'm saying "No." An armed civilian militia, an armed civilian, is a deterrent for a government that does not in fact represent the people, if that was to occur. I'm a gun owner as you can see, and a gun user, and I've been that way since I was six years old and I was taught by my father that it is really very important that you have a right to defend your home against all intruders, and that's what I said.

STARK: What I was going to say was that you signed the Declaration in April of 2009. Now that must have been a pretty heady times for a lot of people. Barack Obama had just taken office. I think a lot of people were concerned about movements towards increased gun control. As it happens, exactly the opposite has occurred. He's opened up National Parks to guns...

YOUNG: He did that because Congress insisted upon it.

STARK: Well, it was a Democratic Congress when it happened.

YOUNG: No, no, no. The Congress insisted upon it and if they didn't do that, then they'd have been in serious trouble.

STARK: And again, I'd agree with the same point you just made that the Assault Weapons Ban lapsed because Congress didn't have the political weight to keep it going. Or at least gun control advocates in Congress didn't have the political weight to keep it going. But the idea is that the Declaration actually says that if you take measures to pass stricter gun control laws—and I would count a ban on assault weapons or a tax on ammunition—you call for the abolition of the American government. Now that sounds like it conflict with the oath of office which says you will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

YOUNG: The Constitution says we have a right to bear arms.

STARK: Taxing ammunition isn't taking...

YOUNG: They're penalizing someone that has the right to have ammunition and adding impunity damage to it and that's nonsense. [Inaudible]

STARK: So you would call for the abolition of the United States government if there was an ammunition tax?

YOUNG: If they were to propose something like that [inaudible] arms and taxing ammunition—and by the way ammunition is taxed already, but it goes through the conservation, they just wouldn't tax it to a point where you can't purchase it.

STARK: Right, it was a confiscatory tax that made it impossible to purchase I think everyone would see through that and people would say that that's taking arms away.

YOUNG: Now you've got to remember something. You Liberals, you guys never give up. You don't want free enterprise and [inaudible] government. You want to have the government control everybody. That's what the health bill was about. That's what any of this legislation that's come under the Obama administration. And you Liberals, very frankly, have been pushing this agenda for the past 55 years.

STARK: Well, we think there's common sense gun control measures that can be taken. Terrorists can't fly but they can buy guns in this country. People can go out and buy hollow point bullets that kill cops.

YOUNG: Go on, go on, I've had enough of you. You just want to argue.

STARK: Listen, you were great for the time that you did give me. Thanks very much. I'm sorry that it ended up angrying you in the end.

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News & Politics

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• Representative Don Young
• Schaeffer Cox

[enemy2k10]

Another right wing nutjob.

[rangers1919]

Thanks for posting this. I'm unfortunate enough to live in this clown's state, and although he has stated I do not matter, and that he does not represent me because I did not vote for him, it is nice to see somebody actually question him since he won't even come to the state unless he is at the end of a tight election.