To the Editor:

The gun-grabbers of the country are alive and well; fortunately, so is the National Rifle Association (NRA). The battle over gun control is again heating up. Pick your side, I'll take the NRA.

The House of Representatives just passed the Brady Bill. If the Senate does the same and President Bush doesn't veto it (although he says he would) the legislation would establish a federal seven-day waiting period for would-be purchasers of handguns.

This bill, doing nothing to hinder crime, would serve to get the federal "foot in the door" for further, more restrictive legislation.

Rep. Bill Emerson of Cape Girardeau voted against the Brady Bill. I wrote him a letter commending him for his good sense. I agree with the majority of his votes.

The national media in this country generally favors gun control the disarming of the good guys. It's liberal thinking that does the greatest harm silly, unworkable ideas not connected with reality.

The mission of the NRA is to defend our right to keep and bear arms. It should be an individual's mission too. The most important part of firearms ownership goes straight to what the Founding Fathers had in mind.

The entire Bill of Rights provided protection against the new American government being created. Those protections were created as a balance against the government prohibiting free speech, free assembly, free religion.

To be sure these rights were protected they gave us the Second Amendment which provided that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Like the bumper sticker says: "The Second Amendment Ain't About Deer Hunting."

Bad guys do not buy their guns through regulated, licensed dealers. Most buy them on the street or steal them. These gun control laws are not aimed at the bad guys. Ultimately, they're aimed to achieve federal gun registration. After that comes gun confiscation. There is no other purpose.

Our Founding Fathers did not trust the government to be responsive to the people for very long. So they provided a balance an armed populace.

The beauty of the plan is that as long as the people are armed, their right to bear arms will never have to be exercised, because the government will never try to mess with them.

It's not about hunting squirrels with assault rifles or blasting tin cans with "street sweeper" shotguns. It's about an armed people as a counterweight to a government that doesn't trust its own people. It's what James Madison talked about in Federalist Paper No. 46.

Jim Obert

Ellington, Mo.