‘Only the cops need guns” simply could not live forever alongside, “The cops are racist and will kill you.” And so, at long last, the two circles of the Venn Diagram have filed for an amicable divorce. In the end, the differences proved irreconcilable.
At least, they proved irreconcilable without descending into farce. I have been told more times that I can count that “if you want to own an AR-15, you should join the army or the police.” Oh, really. Why? So that I can be pulled back when the rioting starts, lest I inflame those wielding bricks and Molotov cocktails? So that I can be called a fascist, acting in the service of a dictator? So that I can be part of the problem? In light of the new fashions, these old injunctions look rather silly, don’t they? “You don’t need 15 rounds; you’re not a cop! Also, the police are corrupt from top to bottom, and should probably be abolished.”
Pick one, perhaps?I know the Left is not big on logic, but I know you, dear readers, are. Furthermore, you must realize that there are always those who do not observe the rules of ordered liberty, so must be policed. But, when the police do not do their jobs, or are ordered not to by their political bosses, the public at large is on its own. You are always your own first responder.
In any case, the idea that the existence of police officers in some way negates the right to bear arms has always been a ridiculous one. Police are an auxiliary force that we hire to do a particular job — there to supplement, not to replace, my rights and responsibilities. Every time we debate gun control in the United States, I am informed that the Sheriff of Whatever County is opposed to liberalization. To which I always think, “So what?” My right to keep and bear arms is merely the practical expression of my underlying right to self-defense. That, as a polity, we have decided to hire certain people to take the first shot at keeping the peace is fine. But it has no bearing on my liberties.
And how could it, given that I do not live in a police station? The old saw that “when seconds count, the police are minutes away” is trotted out as often as it is because it is unquestionably true. Whether the average police department is virtuous or evil is irrelevant here. What matters is that no government has the right — and in America, mercifully, no government has the legal power — to farm out, and then to abolish, my elementary rights. It would not fly if the government hired people to speak for me and then shut down my speech; if would not fly if the government hired people to worship for me and then restricted my right to exercise my religion; and it will not fly for the government to hire a security agency and then to remove, or limit, my access to weaponry. This is a personal question, not an aggregate question: I have one life, and I am entitled to defend it in any way I see fit against those who would do me harm. If there is a single principle that has animated this realm since the time of the Emperor Justinian, it is that.Oh, and by the way, just because a court decides that a government does have the legal power to take away your rights...any of your rights...does not make it so. The U. S. Constitution stands, as written, not as interpreted by the latest Federal Court ruling. The power to change the Constitution through rulings was a self serving power arrogated to themselves, and is not in the Constitution. And those who take an oath to defend it against all enemies foreign and domestic, are supposed to defend the Constitution as written, not based on the latest fad du jour.
Historically, the Sheriff of the County was the only police force there was. He, of course, if need be, could call up various members of the public as a posse and deputize them. The Sheriff, then as now, operated to support the county courts. Other than that, there was no dedicated police force at the local level. The first police department in the United States was New York City in 1845. Now, every city seems to have a police department, but it is true that cities could contract with another agency to provide police services. But, again, the existence of a police force does not negate the individuals right (or need) for keeping and bearing weapons for self defense, defense of one's family and neighbors, and defense of one's property.
Please go read Cooke's piece. It is one of the best explanations of the place of the Second Amendment in American life that I have read. Does it really require an immigrant to see this? Oh, one last quote from this excellent article:
Underlying most of the arguments that are leveled by the gun-control movement is the assumption that the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is historically contingent: upon a time, upon a people, upon a place. They are wrong. The Second Amendment is as relevant today as it was during the totalitarian 20th century; as it was when Ida B. Wells was observing that “the only case where [a] proposed lynching did not occur, was where the men armed themselves”; as it was in the revolutionary era; as it was when all roads led to Rome. There will be no age in which it becomes unnecessary, nor any transmutation of the human character that renders it moot. This is History. Right now. And Samuel Colt ain’t abandoning anyone.Just in case you are unsure about where the rage of the mob is going, and why you may need to be armed, here is a piece by Christopher Bedford at The Federalist entitled Everywhere Statues Are Torn Down By The Mob, History Promises People Are Nest. Bedford uses the French Revolution as his prime example, but he is correct in his assertion that it always happens everywhere. Go read Bedrford's article as well.
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