Three Practical Principles

    1.   Talk impressively in easy words, and promote active peace around us.

    2.   Social practices from a humanitarian stand point.

    3.   For peace by civility, for daily life by politics.

Five Fundamental Purposes

    1.   Peace actions that our behaviors indicate.

    2.   Be role models of awareness revolution for next generations.

    3.   Create new legacies of global civilizations and hand them down.

    4.   Coalition of goodness by dialogues like Socrates in decaying civilization.

    5.   Dedicate us to what is the most important.

http://groups.google.com/group/sgi-peace/browse_thread/thread/79039654aab9185c?hl=en_US
Steven Crandell wrote:

What a week!

-- An extra $5 billion on nuclear weapons

-- The Pentagon's $150 million missing missile defence test

-- Biden's praise for WMD jobs.

--unquote

Santa Barbara County, at the center of which Nuclear Age Peace Foundation sits, itself is very much "legal community" surrounding traditional Court House. You have got rid of garbage cans from every road and citizens are disciplined to keep your environment clean. Skies are dark and you see Milky Way like my home village Gero, Japan, because every illumination outside has been set to light downward keeping skies dark; if you have fireflies like Gero they prefer darkness (^o^) Your community colleges focus on global citizenship and concerned students are joining disarmament movement one after another. David Krieger speaks gently and quietly but resolutely to play a main role of world disarmament, Tamaki is deeply impressed.

The United States has been settled with religious ideals written such as the Mayflower Compact. Original Settlers defined themselves "Puritan Separatist," isn't which the Declaration of Independence? We fought and got democracy of ourselves, by ourselves, and for ourselves.

But, the Constitution of United States of America reads:
Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
http://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_Am2.html

The Constitution of Japan (came to effect 1947) reads:
Preamble
...We, the Japanese people, desire peace for all time and are deeply conscious of the high ideals controlling human relationship, and we have determined to preserve our security and existence, trusting in the justice and faith of the peace-loving peoples of the world. We desire to occupy an honored place in an international society striving for the preservation of peace, and the banishment of tyranny and slavery, oppression and intolerance for all time from the earth. We recognize that all peoples of the world have the right to live in peace, free from fear and want. We believe that no nation is responsible to itself alone, but that laws of political morality are universal; and that obedience to such laws is incumbent upon all nations who would sustain their own sovereignty and justify their sovereign relationship with other nations...

Chapter II. Renunciation of War
* Article 9.
 Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.
(2) In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.
http://www.peace-ashram.org/constitution/index-jp.html#c2

In the U.S., instead of mentioning Gun Control we had better abolish Amendment 2 of the Constitution of United States, because how do we need private militia and the human rights of weaponry possession after Pentagon, FBI, and CIA? We have become having strongest arms in the world, but the most violent and dangerous country, supported by death merchants. We need tools for culture of peace and may need policemen in the world, but never destructive weapons.

General Douglas MaArthur and American Occupation Army wished to disable dangerous Japanese military after World War II, but changed the policy at the Korean War and wanted Japan's militarization again. Prevailing interpretation of Article 9 then was that the existence of SDFs are violation of the Constitution, but precedents have been changed by coward Supreme Court. Now the statement of so-called Pacifist Constitution of Japan and Article 9 especially are even violated by having Self Defense Forces dispatched to Middle East, their own NMD system, spy satellites, and Defense Ministry progressed by former conservatist Administration before Hatoyama, but younger generations and concerned activists are promoting Global Article 9 movement starting 2008. Hatoyama and Democrats Administration withdrew from Indian Ocean SDF mission and supports humanitarian reconstruction of the Middle East instead.
http://www.article-9.org/en/index.html

Sincerely,

Tamaki, PT, Malden, MA
http://peace.webspace.ne.jp/bbs/peace_tree_r_64.html Amending Article 9, a plan
Call for Nobel Peace Prize for the Mahatma M. K. Gandhi, Tsunesaburo Makiguchi, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.!