Contact: John M. Snyder, St. Gabriel Possenti Society, Inc, 703-212-9863, info@possentisociety.com

ARLINGTON, Va., Mar. 8 /Standard Newswire/ -- John M. Snyder submits the following for publication, and is available for comment:

One of the most important elements in the ongoing private gun ownership controversy involves the right to self-defense as an underlying reason for the right to keep and bear arms.

From a philosophic perspective, the right to keep and bear arms is a guarantor of the right to self-defense, of the right to life itself. This is probably the major reason defenders of private gun rights regard the Second Amendment as so significant. It is a guarantor of other human rights, especially the right to self-defense, of the very right to life itself.

In recent years, gun grabbers have attempted to undermine this philosophic and often very practical rationale for Americans' gun rights. They have introduced the concept of "sporting use" or "sporting purpose" as a substitute for the right to self-defense rationale for the right to bear arms. Under this substitution, the right to keep and bear arms somehow depends on whether or not there is "a sporting purpose for a firearm," rather than on whether or not an individual's right to self-defense in and of itself is sufficient reason for a right to keep and bear arms.

In addition to the philosophic obtuseness of the argument, on a practical note it simply ignores the millions of times firearms of various types are used each year in the United States for legitimate defensive purposes.

To combat directly this erroneous "sporting purpose" legislative approach, Congressman Ron Paul of Texas recently introduced a measure that would repeal provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and the federal criminal code distinguishing firearms used or suitable for sporting purposes from firearms generally.

The Paul bill would do much to eliminate the "sporting purpose" rationale from the equation and restore the right to self-defense rationale to its rightful place.

Titled the Second Amendment Protection Act of 2007, the bill, H.R. 1096, has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee and in addition to the House Committee on Ways and Means.

Even though the powers that be in the U.S. House of Representatives at the present time are not favorably disposed towards the right of self-defense rationale for the right to bear arms, House leaders should realize that tens of millions of law-abiding American gun owners see matters from the same perspective as that contemplated by the Paul bill.