Mastrogiacomo
New member
For those of you that missed her interview on Larry King Live on May 11th, here's a partial transcript of her position on guns and gun control:
"KING: What do you make, Madam Secretary, of violence as an answer? Well, we were born in violence, right? We (UNINTELLIGIBLE). That fellow, when in the course of human events.
RICE: Yes.
KING: We have a Second Amendment. People can own guns. By the way, what do you think about gun control?
RICE: The way I come out of my own personal experience, in which in Birmingham, Alabama, my father and his friends defended our community in 1962 and 1963 against White Knight Riders by going to the head of the community, the head of the cul-de-sac, and sitting there, armed. And so I'm very concerned about any abridgement of the Second Amendment.
I'll tell you that I know that if Bull Conner had had lists of -- of registered weapons, I don't think my father and his friends would have been sitting at the head of the community, defending the community.
KING: So you would not change the Second Amendment? You would not...
RICE: I also don't think we get to pick and choose from the Constitution. The Second Amendment is as important as the First Amendment.
KING: But doesn't having the guns, while it's protection, also leads to people killing people?
RICE: Well, obviously, the sources of violence are many, and we need to -- to get at the source of the violence. Obviously, I'm very much in favor of things like background checks, and you know, controlling it at gun shows. And there are lots of things we can do.
But we have to be very careful when we start abridging rights that our Founding Fathers thought very important. On this one, I think that they understood that there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Alabama, when in fact, the police weren't going to protect you.
KING: Did you see him take the gun?
RICE: Oh, absolutely. Every -- every night he and his -- he and his friends kind of organized a little brigade.
KING: How old were you?
RICE: I was 8. Eight years old.
KING: You remember that?
RICE: I remember it very, very well.
KING: Did you understand it? And 8-year-old? Why?
RICE: I -- I understood that something was deeply wrong in Birmingham, Alabama. When I didn't have a white classmate until we moved to Denver, Colorado. I knew that these were separate societies. Our parents -- I grew up in a very nice, sheltered little middle class community in Birmingham. My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father was a minister and a high school guidance counselor. And I'm still friends with a lot of the kids from that community.
And we recognized that we had very special circumstances. Our parents told us. All right. Maybe that you can't have a hamburger at the Woolworth's lunch counter. And it may be that you can't go to this amusement park, Kiddieland. But don't worry. You could do anything you want. Your horizons should be limitless in America. And we believed it."
"KING: What do you make, Madam Secretary, of violence as an answer? Well, we were born in violence, right? We (UNINTELLIGIBLE). That fellow, when in the course of human events.
RICE: Yes.
KING: We have a Second Amendment. People can own guns. By the way, what do you think about gun control?
RICE: The way I come out of my own personal experience, in which in Birmingham, Alabama, my father and his friends defended our community in 1962 and 1963 against White Knight Riders by going to the head of the community, the head of the cul-de-sac, and sitting there, armed. And so I'm very concerned about any abridgement of the Second Amendment.
I'll tell you that I know that if Bull Conner had had lists of -- of registered weapons, I don't think my father and his friends would have been sitting at the head of the community, defending the community.
KING: So you would not change the Second Amendment? You would not...
RICE: I also don't think we get to pick and choose from the Constitution. The Second Amendment is as important as the First Amendment.
KING: But doesn't having the guns, while it's protection, also leads to people killing people?
RICE: Well, obviously, the sources of violence are many, and we need to -- to get at the source of the violence. Obviously, I'm very much in favor of things like background checks, and you know, controlling it at gun shows. And there are lots of things we can do.
But we have to be very careful when we start abridging rights that our Founding Fathers thought very important. On this one, I think that they understood that there might be circumstances that people like my father experienced in Birmingham, Alabama, when in fact, the police weren't going to protect you.
KING: Did you see him take the gun?
RICE: Oh, absolutely. Every -- every night he and his -- he and his friends kind of organized a little brigade.
KING: How old were you?
RICE: I was 8. Eight years old.
KING: You remember that?
RICE: I remember it very, very well.
KING: Did you understand it? And 8-year-old? Why?
RICE: I -- I understood that something was deeply wrong in Birmingham, Alabama. When I didn't have a white classmate until we moved to Denver, Colorado. I knew that these were separate societies. Our parents -- I grew up in a very nice, sheltered little middle class community in Birmingham. My mother was a schoolteacher, and my father was a minister and a high school guidance counselor. And I'm still friends with a lot of the kids from that community.
And we recognized that we had very special circumstances. Our parents told us. All right. Maybe that you can't have a hamburger at the Woolworth's lunch counter. And it may be that you can't go to this amusement park, Kiddieland. But don't worry. You could do anything you want. Your horizons should be limitless in America. And we believed it."
