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We Are Supposed to Be Armed
Over the last hundred or so years we have been step-by-step robbed of two of the most important elements essential to retaining our heritage, the American Character which produced it and the liberty that they both are grounded in.
One of these is a sense of true history. The other is the ability to reason objectively. Both are failures in education and in applying these elements to our daily lives. Nothing illustrates this more than almost constant national “discussion” on gun control and the Second Amendment.
Both sides seem to ignore the very real and “politically incorrect” fact that an unarmed society can never be a free society.
Do we, as human beings born under the hand of a God who passes along natural rights have the right to self-defense? Of course, we do! But although vital and necessary, it is not even the first concern of the Second Amendment.
Do gun control laws place all citizens in more danger from all crime, especially murder. Of course, they do! And it is an easy and strong case to make. Empirically, the numbers are easily found, almost endless and completely one-sided.
True, the left will ignore and lie about those numbers. But they are real and show the vast numbers of lives and property that are so much safer because of the availability of proper weapons to citizens. These numbers are true not just on a state by state or city by city basis here in the United States but also in those utopian paradises so often cited by the left as having more “reasonable” gun laws.
As an example, Professor Joyce Lee Malcolm has done great work in lacing together the full story of gun control in England and its cost in her book, Guns and Violence: The English Experience. Dr. John Lott has done extensive work on gun control results here in the US and his personal website, as well as that of the Crime Prevention Research Center, can give an exact answer to anything that the left can scream about “common sense gun laws.”
But even that precise and true argument evades the first and most American of reasons for the Second Amendment.
It is plainly there in the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration was not a hasty written “we are outta here” Dear John letter to Great Britain. It was a thoughtful, precise and objective statement to the rest of the world as well as the colonies. It was first drafted by Jefferson, true. But then it went through a discussion and revision by the committee of five including names such as Adams, Sherman, and Franklin. It then went to the full body of those men who would pledge their “lives, fortunes and sacred honor” for discussion. It was a combination of the hard lessons of history which to them plainly illustrated the roots of tyranny in all its forms and century-old ponderings of The Enlightenment.
The document did not just establish the concept of natural, unalienable rights (as in God-given) but made them the real purpose of any legitimate government.
Within the first sentence of the second paragraph is the first and most profound reason for the Second Amendment, “That whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.”
To these men, it is not just the right of a free people to be armed, but it was a duty. As with all rights and duties, each individual has to take that mantle up on their own. Some will decline it. That is their choice in a free society.
But the Declaration makes clear that the people themselves are responsible for not just their own defense but also the defense of those principles of government which make it (government) legitimate. When their government fails in those principles, it is not just their right but their duty to change or abolish it.
Yes, there really is a right to revolution. At another time, it might be useful to discuss the difference between rebellion and revolution. Rebellion is an insurrection against legitimate authority while Revolution is a legitimate exercise of the people’s right to change their government and its leadership, to retain the free society they are by nature entitled to.
An armed citizenry, knowledgeable of its rights, is the bane of tyranny. Governments are power. They cannot be opposed by a timid or “toothless” people. That armed citizenry is one of the few ways in which the people can say not just “no” but “hell, no.”
It is the very presence of that armed citizenry which serves as a protector of all the other rights. Without it all rights are in danger of being overpowered.
All of the other devices installed by the Framers (rule of law, limited government, divided government, federalism, etc.) can be easily corrupted by the power that naturally comes with governing others. It is the citizens themselves who have to stand as both the first and the last defenders of liberty if a free society is to last. I content it is the duty of every individual who values liberty over promised safety to be armed. Nothing invites tyranny more than an unwillingness (and inability) to fight back.
The Framers gave us several means to fight back ranging from the simple ballot box to the actual ability to amend the Constitution without the hand of the Congress (as found in Article Five). To remain in control of our own lives, futures, and liberty we have to use them all. But the first and most basic is the ability to stand as an armed citizenry with the ability not just to defend our persons but our natural rights and liberty. To reject that ability and that right is to reject liberty itself.
Published in Guns
You are my hero.
Since I can’t even take a photo without getting my index finger in front of the lens, I just cannot see myself “defending” anyone else by using a gun.
But I certainly support the Second Amendment.
Precisely. The Constitution, and the subsequent Militia Act of 1792, make it clear that the body of citizens were to have access to the arms necessary to preserve freedom, separate from whatever standing army the Federal government might raise. The 2A is all about the right of collective defense against tyranny, not in support of it.
Just about the only thing I agree with him on.
The question is not if we are supposed to be armed. That is a given. The question is should be we be armed. The answer to that depends on if you believe your side will prevail in the ideological debate. The Left thinks their side will prevail so they want arms to be illegal so their Leftist government can beat down the last of the resistance. The Right knows the Left will eventually do this and want to be armed for the coming conflict.
I always have two thoughts about the “common sense” gun control conversation:
I suggest it’s the poor job we’ve done of exercising our responsibilities at the latter that have done so much damage to the liberties guaranteed by the former.
I think the point of the OP was certainly correct at the time the Declaration was drafted and the Constitution was adopted. It is not true today. That was a time of militias rather than standing armies, and when citizens had access to the same weapons as the military. That era has passed.
In the event of a true tyranny in the US, an armed citizenry would stand no chance against M1 Abrams tanks, armored and mechanized infantry, and A-10 Warthogs. Our protection against a military tyranny is that our military would not follow an order from their Commander in Chief to attack American civilians. But if the military stands behind the government, the chances of an armed revolution overthrowing the government are precisely zero. Don’t kid yourself.
Let me add that I am a fervent advocate of gun rights, and self-protection. But against thugs. Not against the government. Let’s be real.
You make a very sound point here, and one that makes perfect sense from the professional military point of view predominant in our current American culture.
We had (have) M1 Abrams, mechanized infantry and A-10s in Iraq and Afghanistan. We nearly lost the war in one of those two theaters, and are on the way to losing the war in the other. Our enemy in both cases had (or has) none of these technological advantages.
More to your point, the question becomes whether or not one can safely assume that the US Armed Forces would throw down their arms if ordered to use force to restore order in the event of civil unrest, or more likely in the event of an order to enforce an unpopular law. If such was the case, might not the mutinous Soldiers be thought of as having become de facto elements of the militia?
An armed citizenry begets a (slightly more) polite government. If the Left succeeds in sucking the love of liberty out of our young people who join the military, I would agree with you. Fortunately, it’s still mostly liberty-loving youngsters who join up.
I worry more about the police (with due love and respect for Ricochet’s active and retired police). I can imagine the Left making a lot of headway infiltrating the “enforcement” element of government.
Of course. No one thinks the citizenry could stand against the military in a set piece battle. But they’d have to get out of their tanks and A-10’s at some point. If ten or fifteen million citizens were upset enough to take up arms against the government, I don’t think the military would be very effective.
Very true, but we are not currently a military tyranny and our enemy in Iraq was not the civilian population. The main weapon of our enemies in Iraq is not long guns and IED’s, but our own reluctance to cause collateral damage. Without that reluctance, we could kill them all in a matter of days.
Once again, very true; I know that is how I felt in 2004.
Also I think it must be said that, even with the Constitutional right to be armed with whatever technology is necessary to effectively counter the measure of “whoop-a**” possible by the standing army, the logistics base necessary to sustain such technology is completely out of the range of the private citizenry. There simply is no market for the private ownership of an A-10 Warthog. (More’s the pity…)
That being said, I think it has tremendous value to recognize that the principle of the 2A remains the same as it did in 1789, even if it serves only to protect the legality of armed resistance to tyranny.
Sure it will. Well parts of it will. The leaders will be loyal to the government or they would not be in their positions. Most of the military fights for its self and its people anyway. Do a bit of sorting of personal to create groups with regional animosities. City boys would not have much issue killing hillbillies, minority units killing whites, etc. Sure some units would be unreliable so you send them out of country beforehand. But civil wars happen all the time and the military joins the fight on both sides. Ours is no different.
Ours is no different? Is that your take on American Exceptionalism? I respectfully disagree.
History is on my side. Even in this country the military has a history of making war on the populace.
I don’t expect to see tanks rolling over protesters in
TiamamenTimes Square any time soon. No military commander would give the order. No tank driver would carry it out. I think you’re mistaken. I also hope you’re mistaken.This discussion does make me worry about the hollow navy and political generals we hear about these days. I hope our citizen military is truly what we think it is.
The JAG corps has been showing worrying signs recently.
I’m a passionate advocate for a strong militia, however I am also honest about the current state of affairs. The militia as the Founding Fathers envisioned does not exist. The National Guard functions as an auxiliary of the Regular Army, although it could be re-claimed to fulfill it traditional constitutionally-mandated role. This would take tremendous political will and an awful lot of education on the part of the US general public. I try to be hopeful, but realistic.
BTW – your comment regarding “hollow navy and political generals” is frighteningly true, in my humble opinion.
Actually the absurd hatred that the Left now possesses toward Donald Trump has led more than one group of “progressives” to start insisting that people in their group obtain guns.
It is also necessary for those of us who desire a continuation of democratic processes in this country to insist not only on our right to bear arms, but also an absolute need to bring about the return of The Fourth Estate. The Corporate-controlled swamp of today’s typical news people has no relation at all to reporting the truth. (Except for some rather cute or heart warming stories at the end of most news shows about animals or animals being rescued.)
Examine the newest type of 21st Century weaponry, which includes the government’s ability to initialize micro waves that would totally disrupt a human being’s ability to think or to even act in a coherent manner. This type of weaponry has already been utilized by ISIS against Iraqi government troops. In that instance, a small number of ISIS “freedom fighters” were able to cause a significantly higher number of Iraqi troops to run from them, tossing off their clothing as they fled.
In theory, the American situation is supposedly extremely different from that of other societies. But the Powers that Be have had thirty years to figure out how to provoke a population to turn on itself. In Guatemala, for instance, young men from the south of that nation were convinced they needed to travel with the governmental military to the north of the country to serve as “Death Squads” against that section of the country’s populace. I don’t know the rhetoric employed – it could be anything that stirred them up. Same thing occurred to convince the young men from the northern regions to travel to the opposite end of their country to kill people there. In return for “their patriotic military service” all of these men were promised such luxuries as shoes! Nice new shoes – something none of the young men had owned before.
One of the reasons that I am on this board is because in the summer of 2016, while leafletting for Bernie Sanders with a young woman I had not known previously, I made the mistake of mispronouncing the hispanic surname of Calif’s Secretary of State. It was over 98 degrees that day – in my defense, my brain slips back into childhood pronunciations when I am that overheated. This woman turned to me and with the most venom I have ever experienced, told me that I need to realize the correct way to say double l’s in Spanish. I swear if there had been several other women like her with us and a rope and a tree branch, I wouldn’t be here now. Those who are being told of the history of repression and oppression and that no iota of misconduct should be tolerated are just ready and waiting for whatever signal comes their way to go full out massacre-mode to bring about “justice” to their side of the equation. And no “new shoe promises” are even needed!
And because of Facebook and other ubiquitous social media, the Military Overlords in charge of a mass civil unrest would know exactly where every other person in the military stands on any issue.
So someone here doesn’t think there are such military overlords? Then why was it listed right on the official CIA website circa 2001 to 2002, that one of the main concerns of the CIA was how to have military personnel turn on their fellow citizens?!? They presented that issue as being extremely vexing to them.
Your mistake is thinking that their hatred is about Trump. Trump makes it a bit easier on them since the Right hates him too so they have a bit more cover but back during the election before the nomination my Lefty friends / coworkers equally hated the other nominees. Their hatred for Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush and Scott Walker astonished me. You see their hatred is not Trump but for all thing Right, for all thing GOP, for all of us.
I have a book, “The Forever Hero” in which there is a character named Caroljoy. Is that where you got your handle?
What you are saying is supported by the fact that up until the very recent (Nov 2016) legalization of all marijuana uses, somewhere across the state, Californians were arrested at the rate of one every 48 minutes. (I know the state is perceived as being quite liberal, but that is hardly the case.) Meanwhile in Alaska, where almost everyone has a gun, the police left its marijuana enthusiasts alone.
Not liberal — Left. As a left wing state, it makes perfect sense that Californians would be subject to all kinds of bullying from law enforcement and suffer the loss of their freedom. Leftists are driven by totalitarian impulses.
It’s not called “the Left coast” for nuthin’!
And we’re going to hand over our right of self-defense to these people? I don’t think so.
Thank you WC. It is a pet peeve of mine that these leftists have the gall to call themselves “liberals.” Their philosophy is the exact opposite of liberalism. They steal an honorable word, and hide behind it. At least Bernie has the honesty (or is it stupidity?) to call himself a socialist.
I’ve always thought of Bernie as the most honest leftist out there. It’s a credit to him, even if his ideology is bat-guano crazy.
Not to mention how exceedingly rare it is to find a leftist who prioritizes truth over the acquisition of power.