For Those Just Tuning In, We Have Been Having a "National Conversation"

So, now the gun grabbers want to pretend that we haven't had "national conversation about firearms." That's the conclusion of an article at the Huffington Post by Patrick J. Charles entitled The Tale of Two Second Amendments. Now, since at least the 1960s, with the assassination of President Kennedy, and the subsequent assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, we have been having a debate. The gun grabbers asserted, without much evidence to go on, that if we gave up our guns, we all would be safer. Society initially bought the idea. After all, it seems reasonable that if guns are used to murder people, then get rid of the guns, and fewer people will be murdered. But like so many solutions to intractable human problems, the truth is more complicated.   To answer the gun grabbers, people have been working for decades now to supply us with arguments that guns are not the problem.

Let's review some of the literature that has been generated on the Second Amendment.  First up is Dave Hardy's Of Arms and the Law. Check out some of his law review articles, and purchase his documentary film In Search of the Second Amendment.   Another lawyer and libertarian writer who writes eloquently about the moral principles underlying the right to self defense is Jeff Snyder whose seminal A Nation of Cowards is required reading for those who want to escape the utilitarian box inside of which the gun grabbers always try to keep gun rights debates. Then there is Stephen Holbrook's excellent book That Every Man be Armed. Or, how about David B. Kopel, Stephen Holbrook and Alan Korwin writing about two hundred years of Supreme Court Gun Cases copyright 2004 by Bloomfield Press. The book appears to be out of print, but if you can find it, you will find there is more there than the gun grabbers want you to know. In terms of providing statistical evidence to back up what we have been arguing is John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime. Besides such scholarly works, there are literally hundreds of pro-gun sites on the World Wide Web. You can find some of them on my side bar. But I want to highlight one or two. The first is Keep and Bear Arms which finds and presents news stories of the day on all sides of the gun issue. Indeed, that's where I found the Huffington Post article. Many of the stories show the practical effect of people defending themselves with firearms, Many of these people are old or infirm, and without a gun, would have become victims of violent criminals. Instead, they were able to defend themselves, sometimes without even firing a shot. The other site is An NC Gun Blog which regularly makes the point that it is criminals using guns that is the problem, and not peaceful gun owners.

So, with that as a background, what do our gun grabbers think there is left to discuss?  Well, for one thing, they seem intent on reimposing the failed "Assault Weapon Ban" only of course this time they are sure to make it "effective." First of all, the term "assault weapon" has no real meaning. Assault rifles, selective fire for either semiautomatic, or full automatic, are generally denied to American citizens if these weapons are manufactured after 1986. So, "assault weapons" are semiautomatic only and have certain military style features which make them look scary. The term was coined by Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy Center to scare the general public. Assault weapons could as easily have wooden furniture and suddenly they are no longer assault weapons.  For preventing crime, the Assault Weapons Ban was ineffective.  Its only value was  symbolic, to begin chipping away at gun ownership a piece at a time.  In true Alinskyite fashion, the gun grabbers had established their target, isolated it, demonized it, and now they were banning it.  On to the next class of guns.

Democrats routinely mouth the words that they defend the Second Amendment, but it is hard to take them seriously.  If the Democrats really supported the spirit of the Second Amendment, they would recognize that the security of a free State, the one reason given out of several for the Second Amendment, demands that the public be armed with the same small arms as our military carries. That would mean an actual assault rifle.  Of course if the public widely owned and used assault rifles, then the whole "assault weapon" issue would go away.  Yet, here it is again.

The other change they want to make is to close the so-called gun show loophole. Of course, there is not "loophole." If you own a piece of property, you can sell that property without permission from the State. What they want to impose is that before you sell a gun, you must get permission from the State, in the form of a background check. Now, understand that they are burdening a fundamental right with a prior restraint. It would be as if before you published an article, you would have to submit it to the government to ensure you didn't write something that in their eyes was wrong.  Please note that  Democrats don't want anyone to be required to show even a photographic identification to vote, another fundamental right. The difference treatment of these two fundamental rights is striking.

So, if we have already had the "national conversation" that the gun grabbers pretend didn't take place, what is it they really are up to? Why do they insist that we need to start over again, after nearly 50 years of failed gun control ideas? The reasons they want to grab all the guns is not to control crime, which may explain why it never worked to control crime. The reason is because without guns, the government will have a monopoly of force, to impose a Marxist, socialist society on us,.  If course, Marxism has failed everywhere it has been tried.  Because of that, those who want to impose it are fearful that we would surely revolt, unless they take all the guns. Seems outlandish? Perhaps. But ask yourself at what point do the policies of the current government cross your line in the sand?  Also ask yourself, would you rather fear the government, or have the government fear you?