 Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Richard Mack talks to students Thursday about gun rights and the ban against gay marriages. (Katrina Joslin/University Journal) |
Libertarian gubernatorial candidate Richard Mack addressed students Thursday as part of SUU's "Meet the Gubernatorial Candidate Series" and spoke against gun control laws and the gay marriage ban.
"(Our ancestors) bought our freedom and our chance to be free with their (guns)," he said. "Do you think America would be here today if we had not used guns? The American government is rewriting history and reprogramming you.
"Unless I commit a crime with it, you have to leave me alone, and I can own as many guns as I want," he added. "Look at all the people being arrested for gun control laws we have in our country: they've never committed a crime, they've never intended to commit a crime, and yet we are sending people to jail anyway, with no criminal record, for merely possessing a gun."
Mack quoted Thomas Jefferson's views about the second amendment: "Laws that forbid the carrying of guns disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailant."
Mack said he believes the problem with law enforcement in Utah and nationwide is there are too many laws that enable police officers to create criminals.
"They're not discovering criminals; they're creating them," he said.
He also addressed the gay marriage ban and said he thinks no one should have to ask the government for the right to get married.
"What is the purpose behind the law?" he asked.
Mack said there is nothing the democrats or republicans have made better.
"(The government has) made the debt bigger, not better," he said. "They've made the bureaucracy bigger; they've made taxation bigger . . . the welfare problem, the poverty problems -- you can just go on and on about the things they have promised. They've proven the old Ronald Reagan quote: 'Government isn't the answer to the problem. Government is the problem.'
"I finally agree with both the democrats and republicans," Mack added. "They both say don't vote for the other one. I agree. We shouldn't. They're both right."
He said his candidacy is based on getting the government out of the citizens' lives.
"If you want the perpetuation of the welfare state, if you want the continuation of exorbitant taxation, if you want the continuation of bureaucrats and law enforcement officers forcing you to breathe, have a job, where to walk, how to talk, how to think, what to think -- then vote for the democrats or republicans who will be facing up against me in December," Mack said. "But if you want to control your own life and you want to control your own family and to control your own education, then I'm the only alternative."
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