Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
Gun control advocates seem to feel especially clever when making the argument that (a) the sole reason for the Second Amendment was for citizens to be able to effectively resist if the government became tyrannous; (b) the government’s military capacity is now so strong that private arms would be useless. Therefore, (c) there is no point in keeping this silly right-to-bear-arms anachronism alive in law. Recall Biden’s eloquent remarks two weeks ago repeating his trope about needing fighter jets to oppose his regime:
So, anyway, look — and I love people who say, “The blood of liberty” — or excuse me, the — excuse me — “The tree of liberty is watered with the blood of patriots.” Well, guess what, man? I didn’t see a whole lot of patriots that are out there wa- — walking around making sure that we have these weapons. Well — and if you really want to worry about the government, you need an F-16. You don’t need an AR-15. (Laughter.) No, I’m not — no, I’m serious. I mean, think about it. (Laughter.) I’m not joking. Because that’s one of the arguments made by the right, that we need to be able to protect ourselves against the government. [from the actual White House transcript]
Missing from that hackneyed analysis is what happens when government asserts a monopoly on providing protection from violence but then decides to withdraw such protection from its political enemies.
In the 1750s, Ben Franklin led strained negotiations between the elected Pennsylvania Assembly and the Deputy Governor who allegedly had arrived at the bright idea of luring the Delaware and Shawnee away from their alliance with the French by promising that he would not permit regular troops or militia to defend settlements west of an agreed line if the tribes promised not to raid east of it. The government would effectively withdraw all protection from those lawfully constructed colonial communities. He later denied making the offer.
The express withdrawal of police support was a hallmark of Hugo Chavez's regime. Venezuelan police were ordered to stand by and watch while Hugo Chavez’s imported Cuban thugs attacked disfavored newspaper offices and applied beatings to reporters and editors in full view.
The bizarre litigation posture of the Biden Administration that Texans have no right to defend their border seems more like Hugo Chavez than colonial governor Robert Hunter Morris.
With respect to the need for self-defense, I see remarkable little difference between Pennsylvania settlers facing hostile warriors in league with General Montcalm in 1755 and besieged shopkeepers or homeowners in a decaying community with a 40-minute response time (if any) from an underfunded, prosecutorially unsupported, demoralized police force. In close combat, a personal F-16 is not the weapon of choice anyway.
A safe, content, prosperous American population might feel gradually detached from the need for a direct means of personal protection but the sheer chaos and social destruction wrought by the left is the strongest argument for the Second Amendment since the British yielded political authority over the thirteen colonies. And lefties are just far too clever to see that.
Discussion (57)
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
It may be true that we could not resist today's government armament. But tell that to the surviving family of the first jackass that tries to get through my door in a violent manner.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
And speaking of Venezuela, during the riots people were shot by police. Venezuela might be very different today if the Venezuelans had simple arms.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
If part of the Constitution is believed to be obsolete, then that part needs to be repealed. Until that happens, it makes no sense to claim it should be ignored, which is what it sounds like Biden was saying.
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Ask anyone in the military how occupying a hostile country with 100 million guns would go. When any smiling face in the street could be your assassin. A 9mm pistol will kill an F16 pilot if I catch him filling his gas tank. When every trip to the store could be your last. Are they going to live perpetually in compounds isolated from the rest of the country? Will they obey orders to shoot their neighbors, cousins, fellow church members?
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
After Pearl Harbor, the reason the Japanese didn't invade the USA was that a Japanese analyst pointed out that during deer season, Wisconsin deer hunters became the fifth largest standing army in the world (or something like that). And that's just one state. And there's 50 states.
So they bombed an isolated base on an island and went home. Very sensible.
You're seeing five of 57 comments. Sign in, or join for just $5 per month, to read them all and add your own.