“I don’t think legitimate sportsmen are going to say, ‘I need an assault weapon to go hunting,’” Cuomo said, according to the New York Times. “There is a balance here — I understand the rights of gun owners; I understand the rights of hunters.”
Cuomo indicated the state will likely force some kind of permit process on owners of semi-automatic “assault weapons.” In addition to generating revenue and expanding the size and reach of government, the effort will allow the state to confiscate the weapons of citizens who do not comply.
“Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it,” the governor said.
This is the governor of one of the largest states (population-wise) in the country! We have devolved to a point in the gun rights argument that we’re reverting back to the very thing from which e sought independence. The Declaration of Independence lists several grievances that led to the Revolutionary War.
King George was an oppressive ruler. He quartered troops in private homes to keep the citizens in check. He forced sailors to take up arms against fellow contrymen. He taxed them into oblivion without any representation. He made up laws on the fly to deal with trouble makers and denied them due process.
In Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1803), St. George Tucker, a lawyer, Revolutionary War militia offcer, legal scholar, and later a U.S. District Court judge (appointed by James Madison in 1813), wrote of the 2nd Amendment that, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government.”
Yes, I’m a nerd. I read and RESEARCH the meanings of the Constitution, especially the most fundamental and important of our rights. Delving into the Appendix, Tucker explains further the meaning of the 2nd Amendment (emphasis is mine).
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty …. The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.
Sound familiar? Today’s progressive movement has sought to turn the 2nd Amendment’s meaning into something it isn’t. Our lofty politicians – protected with their throngs of security guards, armored vehicles, and other protections – and their lapdog media have succeeded at convincing the “low information voters,” as Rush Limbaugh likes to say, that this right is meant to apply to hunters only. Or in your home only.
In addition, they have tried to tell us that even if we were hunters, we “don’t need those kinds of weapons for hunting.” Nearly every argument I have with a progressive gun grabber usually incorporates the statements that there is no use for any type of magazine that can carry more than 10 rounds or to own a weapon that looks black and evil. Personally, I think that’s racist that they are trying to ban so-called “black rifles.”
Another constitutional scholar to our Founders, William Rawle, wrote a book in 1829 called, “A View of the Constitution of the United States of America.” In this book, he talks about the reach and authority of the 2nd Amendment while also discussing the limitations on those that would attempt to circumvent it. He, rightly so, points out that the 27 words that make up the 2nd Amendment are composed of two, separate clauses; not one run-on sentence. Of the first clause (a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free state), he writes:
Although in actual war, the services of regular troops are confessedly more valuable; yet, while peace prevails, and in the commencement of a war before a regular force can be raised, the militia form the palladium of the country. They are ready to repel invasion, to suppress insurrection, and preserve the good order and peace of government. That they should be well regulated, is judiciously added. A disorderly militia is disgraceful to itself, and dangerous not to the enemy, but to its own country. The duty of the state government is, to adopt such regulations as will tend to make good soldiers with the least interruptions of the ordinary and useful occupations of civil life. In this all the Union has a strong and visible interest.
Some would point to the National Guard and say that this is what constitutes the “well regulated Militia” of the 2nd Amendment. However, such is not the case. The National Guard is frequently called upon to take on standing military operations. Our politicians and government have done a stellar job at preventing “the people” from forming their own “well regulated Militias” by labeling such groups as extremist, hate, or seditious collections. Can anyone honestly say that if our government became so corrupt as to turn on its own people that the National Guard would be in place to oppose the regular military forces? We all know that the Guard’s troops are equipped with mostly secondhand equipment and arms. If – and this is a very long shot – the country was ordered into martial law either the National Guard would be called up to augment the active forces or would be defeated without support if it stood up for the people.
This is why militias comprised of “the people” are included in the Constitution. Imagine if the people were allowed to form these militias in Los Angeles before the LA riots. Neighborhoods of people could defend their homes and businesses. Heck, one only needs to look at this picture from the riots of what property owners were doing to defend and protect their property. These citizens were protecting Korea town.
There are videos online of the LA Riots of literal gun battles between looters and armed merchants protecting their assets. There were no police officers anywhere nearby and it was left to the citizen to protect himself and his belongings.
But, Rawle pointed out the distinctions in his book between the two clauses in the 2nd Amendment and there are two. Of the second clause – the right of the people to keep and bear arms – he said the following:
The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by any rule of construction be conceived to give to congress a power to disarm the people. Such a flagitious (ie: criminal – CJ) attempt could only be made under some general pretence by a state legislature. But if in any blind pursuit of inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be appealed to as a restraint on both.
Rawle also understood that such rights are encumbered with certain responsibilities. Just because you have a right to “keep and bear arms” doesn’t mean you have a right to be an ass. Obviously, there is a certain etiquette to exercising all of our rights. For example, you can’t shout “FIRE” or “BOMB” in any crowded environment so as to induce panic. Rawle identified the limitation to exercising your 2nd Amendment rights this way:
This right ought not, however, in any government, to be abused to the disturbance of the public peace.
An assemblage of persons with arms, for an unlawful purpose, is an indictable offence, and even the carrying of arms abroad by a single, individual, attended with circumstances giving just reason to fear that he purposes to make an unlawful use of them, would be sufficient cause to require him to give surety of the peace. If he refused he would be liable to imprisonments.
In other words, ordering a Big Mac with fries and a Diet Dr. Pepper with a pistol in your hand would probably be defined as a “disturbance of the public peace.” Walking around the mall with an AK strapped to your back would probably also qualify as “an indictable offence.”
Rawle makes it quite clear that “the People” refers to individuals and not the military, or Militia. This isn’t someone over 200 years after the amendment was written trying to opine as to the true meaning of its words. This is of a man who was present during the debates and knew what the Founders meant when it was written.
Another founding contemporary was Justice Story, a Supreme Court Associate Justice appointed by James Madison in 1811. He wrote a book called “Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States” in 1833. Again, this is a man that was present for the ensuing discussion and explanatory speeches by the Founders and writers of our Constitution. He obviously never imagined that we would have such Constitution-hating liberals filling offices to which they were sworn to protect and defend the very thing they hate.
The modern-day Democrat party talks more about the need to change the Constitution – and specifically the need to change the 2nd Amendment – than they talk about defending and supporting it. Without studying the words of those actually present during the 1880s to 1890s, they deign to just make up stuff and simply define that sacred document as “living” and “breathing.” Mayor Bloomingturd and Governor Cuckuomo obviously never “duly reflected upon the subject” of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment.
The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.
In his essay “Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution,” which was published in the Federal Gazette on June 18, 1789 Tench Coxe wrote that it is the responsibility of the people (again, speaking as individuals) to be the final check on government. He writes:
As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.
I could go on and on. There is simply no factual basis behind the 2nd Amendment referring specifically to hunting or even that it was intended to restrict certain arms simply because of their physical appearance. Today’s liberal elite and their zombie-like followers won’t “carry [them]selves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed” as Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Johnson in 1823 (please read the great book, “The Complete Jefferson” to find other nuggets of intellectual knowledge on the founding of this country). Instead, they assign new and evolving meaning that suits their collective agendas.
“The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” — Thomas Jefferson
Perhaps, this is really why the rulers in Washington are so intent on taking away our weapons. Let there be no doubt now as we engage our intellectual inferiors on this subject about the true meaning and intent of our Founders when they debated and passed the Bill of Rights and specifically the 2nd Amendment. It’s time to put gun control to bed once and for all.
And as for the belief that “if we just ban high capacity magazines, the shooter won’t kill as many people” I offer you the following video on just how long it takes a trained or practiced shooter to change the magazine on these so-called “assault rifles.”
[youtube]http://youtu.be/Hx0JzYcwUiY[/youtube]
And now for something completely different:
A big obstacle to commonsense gun control is the Right’s false historical narrative that the Founders wanted an armed American public that could fight its own government.
Excellent piece CJ, I am learning a great deal about the Second; Especially, obvious is the Left’s continuous effort to divert, deflect, and obfuscate the meaning and intent of the Second with their own excuses for totalitarian measures, designed to make the country safer for tyrannical statism.
Greg’s example above is a perfect example: to the casual observer, the author is allowed to imply that we want the right to engage our government with arms; however, this is a gross misrepresentation of the truth by rather clumsy manipulation of the writer’s pen. We and the founders want to be ready to confront tyranny.
A tyrant can’t impose his will on the people unless he ignores or alters the Constitution. When a leader bypasses our normal governmental procedures for the passage of laws to impose his will or personal ideas of how the country should be run, he has begun to implement the prerequisite for tyranny.
Presently, many of our legislative leaders tacitly condone the president’s overreach by not protesting such actions. While many of us, who are not struck with the silliness of celebrity, recoil with disgust and revulsion implied by one man ego who sees himself above and beyond the normal workings of our government and feels entitled to impose his own will on the people of our country.
Such attitudes by our leadership coupled with a populace who worships a strong leader, regardless of faults and corruption, is the impetus for tyranny. While some skip down the Primrose Path of tyranny with expressions of glee and wonder, there are many who step back into the shadows to make a more objective assessment.
This Constitution and this country wasn’t designed and maintained to be fundamentally altered and or destroyed by one man’s figurative pipe dreams. This country was meant to stand on the foundation of the Constitution, but when we have an adoring but uninformed public, the importance and relevancy of our Constitution can be eroded and neutralized by one charismatic tyrant who wants to “fundamentally” transform America.
To him, and his faithful followers, we the legitimate gun owners who understand the Second Amendment represent a major roadblock in the installation of a totalitarian form of statism of the benevolent dictator or tyrant.
America wants stronger regulation of the sale of firearms. That is not unconstitutional. Painting it as “taking our guns” is just evasive hysteria. Inventing a false argument to rage against is telling. If you had to argue against what’s actually being proposed, then you’d have to argue for something that does nothing but make our society a breeding ground for mass murder as the cost for granting the gun industy free reign to make billions fulfilling suburban Rambo fantasies.
Well done CJ, but it isn’t just the 2nd under attack. The 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 9th are also under attack, read them carefully and you’ll see what I mean. We cannot let these attacks go unanswered, I’m just not sure which angle we should take in defense.
@Tom:
Tommy Boy, just exactly where in the Second Amendment does it say the federal government has the right to regulate arms in any respect? The powers of the federal government are enumerated quite clearly in the Constitution, but since you seem to know that they have the power to do what is not written, I am asking you to show me where you found that rule.
@Tom: Gee Tom, 300,000,000 privately owned firearms were NOT used yesterday to commit crimes. And since we have something that resembles a free market system here, you know, that old supply an demand thing, do you believe for a minute the gun manufacturers would survive if people quit buying? Obviously, there’s a market.
Also, would you care to explain, in all your brilliance, how more laws and restrictions are going to stop people who, by the nature of the crimes they commit, could care less about existing laws? That is the arguement you have to win.
@retire05:
I never said “in any respect”. Nice try. If regulation was unconstitutional than all regulation would have been struck down, as indeed some was in Columbia v Heller. If you want to argue otherwise, best of luck. SCOTUS thinks otherwise.
@Scott in Oklahoma:
I’m sure there would be a market for sarin gas, Scott. Why isn’t that sold at Walmart? Or heroin? At least heroin doesn’t get away from its owner and slaughter twenty children. I’m 25 miles from Newtown right now, visiting relatives, and there is no logical reason for someone to have an AR 15 here. If your argument is “I want it because I want it” then say that, but expect that your neighbors might think their children’s lives shouldn’t be secondary to your gun fetish.
Tom: ” I’m 25 miles from Newtown right now, visiting relatives, and there is no logical reason for someone to have an AR 15 here.”
You being within 25 miles of Newtown has no more bearing on this argument as me being 25 miles from Fort Hood would make me an expert on Muslims in the military. My entire post explains the “logic” of why someone could and should have an AR.
“If your argument is “I want it because I want it” then say that, but expect that your neighbors might think their children’s lives shouldn’t be secondary to your gun fetish.”
I want it because I can and they are fun to shoot. Now, explain to me how my mere ownership of several ARs is somehow endangering my neighbor’s kids. I’m dying to hear that since you basically just called me a child killer.
@Tom:
Apples and oranges. I never mentioned SCOTUS. I referred to the U.S. Constitution, something SCOTUS oft times seems unaware that it is supposed to uphold.
Tommy Boy, you are the King of Obfuscation, aren’t you?
@Tom:
And there is no logical reason for anyone to own a Corvette which can reach speeds of 130 mph, but I don’t see you working to out law them or place governors on all vehicles which can exceed national speed limits.
Where does the Constitution state that our ability to own things is limited to only those things we need?
@Tom: The response from the Left on the restriction of weapons has been all over the board. There is a major problem with people who have little or no knowledge of firearms trying to regulate them.
I will give you an example: The AR15 is a major fly in the pudding for most people who know nothing about weapons. The reason is because of the look of the weapon. It doesn’t have the fine Walnut or Maple stock that characterizes antique and expensive hunting weapons. It is a bare bones weapon that to me looks like it was made in a maintenance shop by self-taught designer. It “looks” lethal; however, the standard round is the 223, a light weight bullet with fast velocity that is easily deflected. It is a semi-automatic weapon: meaning, you pull the trigger once and it fires once. Most hunting weapons use a bolt action mechanism; however, you can purchase much heavier weaponry, like the 30-06 ( a much more effective round if you are shooting big game moose or grizzly or men) with the same semi-automatic action with a walnut stock. The 223 can be deflected way off target by the smallest twig and the AR15 has limited ability at ranges over 300 meters: the 30-06 (06 refers to the year, 1906 the round was developed) can knock an animal down by shooting through a ten inch tree and is extremely accurate at a 1,000 meters. The hunting rifle with the walnut stock is beautiful, people can’t resist reaching out to touch the wood. The AR15 to me, a man who has been around weapons all his life, looks like a tool found in a plumber’s toolbox. I would prefer the 30-06 in a grim situation, because in my opinion, it is a much more lethal weapon, but if I need to carry 200 rounds for 60 miles a day for several days, give me that plumber’s tool.
It is the image of the AR15 that scares everyone, it is not a military weapon. Soldiers and Marines would be damn mad if you handed them such an inferior weapon and expected them to take it on patrol. A sniper would make do with the 30-06, for it is an effective weapon for his job.
We have the scary weapon and we have the lethal weapon, there are advantages and disadvantages with each one, but in the eyes of the public, the AR15 is evil. Yet to me, it isn’t a serious weapon.
Of course, my overwhelming experience has been hunting big game, animals that aren’t affected by images and animals that can sometimes be a lot more dangerous than men, especially when they are wounded.
@retire05:
The right to bear arms is not the right to bear whatever deadly projectile has been conceived in the past two centuries. Assault rifles may very well fall on the wrong side of that divide. Seeing as they serve no purpose but to efficiently kill people, the government would have good reason to consider testing that hypotheses. Like I said, just because you happen to like them doesn’t seem like much of an argument weighed against 26 murders. You can disagree with regulation, but you can’t disprove that it is perfectly constitutional. If you could, you would have made that point long ago, just like if you could prove that an AR 15 served any legitimate purpose in our society you would have made that point too.
Tom: ” The right to bear arms is not the right to bear whatever deadly projectile has been conceived in the past two centuries. Assault rifles may very well fall on the wrong side of that divide.”
By that logic, the Constitution does not protect Mormons, Seventh Day Adventists, or the Jehovah’s Witnesses to worship freely since those religions weren’t around in the 1700s.
Retire: There are several cars sold that will do way over 130 and some that will do over 200, but they limit motorcycles to 185. Is this discrimination?
@Skookum:
Thanks for the information. I’ve said multiple times gun experts should be participants in any efforts to craft legislation to lend meaningful expertise. As for the AR 15, it seemed powerful enough a week ago to the lay eye, but I would submit it’s the capacity and rate of fire, not the gauge, that’s most concerning. If you can kill 20 plus people in five minutes I don’t think a potentially easily evaded guard on premises is going to make a huge difference.
@Tom: The Second Amendment wasn’t written to protect the rights of hunters. The Second is written to prevent tyrannical usurpation of our Constitution. Weapons are designed to be effective or lethal. Since the first crude weapons, the evolution of firearms has been a continuous effort to make the rifle a more effective weapon.
Sport hunting or putting venison on the table didn’t enter into the consciousness of the founding fathers, protecting the Constitution and our form of government was their only concern.
@Tom: The clips are misleading as well. A clip is basically a long metal or plastic box with a spring inside. The twenty or thirty round clip sounds impressive, but when you fully load that clip the spring becomes weak and tends to malfunction. We have read where these killers have had jams and malfunctions, it is probably a result of being unaware of this fact of weapons, especially when they are left loaded for extended periods of time. If you have a twenty round capacity, it is best to only load sixteen or seventeen rounds or you will have a jam.
The greater the capacity, the greater strain there is on the spring. It is much more effective to tape two clips together, so that one is upside down. This in effect allows you a 34 round capacity that can be rotated in the length of time it takes to get a sight picture.
If you notice, nearly all the killers have been dumb asses when it comes to the knowledge of weaponry (thank goodness) or we could have much worse disasters. They also fold when faced with the threat of real and intimidating resistance (armed); at this point they either surrender or put a round through their own gourd. In Washington, it was just the sight of a CCW man drawing a bead on the moron, that made the coward decide to end his own miserable life.
@CJ:
Does Adam Lanza’s mother bear any responsibility for what happened? I understand she liked to target practice. I wonder if she would have thought it was worth all the fun. We live in a society and there are reasonable expectations that we can place upon our neighbors for our common safety. Why is it guns are the one exception to this general rule of conduct? If your neighbor carelessly left his pit bull out and it attacked your child, would your first response be to congratulate him for exercising his right to own a dog? Gun owners use the Second Amendment as a shield to deny all responsibility for carelessness when it pays a price. What I don’t understand is why responsible owners don’t push for a higher bar. Why don’t they say: “if you can’t live up to my high standard, you don’t deserve to share this right i am responsibly exercising”? You’re a highly trained and educated person when it comes to firearms, yet you have no issue with anyone getting their hands on any number or make of guns with zero training. That makes sense to you?
@ CJ,
In this paranoid vision of tyranny where Obama declares martial law and orders the military to go house by house confiscation guns and shooting resisters, you would go along with this, if you are active duty? You really think the bulk of the military will? Look at the paranoia and fear that drives this insanity, really look at it, and tell me, is it real?
@Tom:
Do you have any experience with firearms?
@Tom: The government that bypasses normal protocol and legislates by Executive Order does nothing to alleviate the fear of encroaching tyranny. Overreach and bypassing normal procedures destroys the individual’s faith in the president. Starting a proxy war in Libya after consulting the UN and ignoring his own government is the type of overreach that makes a percentage of the public begin to question just how much power this president presumes he can take before he meets resistance.
The Lanza woman was an irresponsible gun owner. She did not keep her weapons secure. She also allowed her son with violent tendencies access to those weapons. Yes, she has a lot of blame in this tragedy. Taking care of family members with mental illness means you have a greater responsibility to secure your weapons. You secure them from theft: you should secure them from the unstable. It was a major error!
@Tom:
Actually, Tom, the U.S. Constitution doesn’t address dog ownership. Now, perhaps it should have since I am sure there were mean dogs whose owners didn’t keep them penned up during the time when the Constitution was written. Perhaps the authors of the Constitution just figured that people would assume responsibility for their own actions, unlike today where we have a “victim” culture where no one is responsible for what they do, except for perhaps, gun owners.
I’m sure the Newtown shooter’s mother (I refuse to say his name any give him any print space) realized when her son murdered her that she was paying for any mistakes she might have made. But you make it sound like paying for her mistakes with her life was not a great enough payment. What would you have society do? Dig her up and put her on trial?
And would you also require training by a professional prior to allowing someone to get a driver’s license that puts them in a multi-ton vehicle capable of running a person over and killing them? How far do you want to take that? You see, Tom, not being a gun owner yourself, you are incapable of thinking like 99.9% of us. You fear what you don’t understand. And that is normal. But to constantly rail on those who do understand gun ownership, by making outlandish demands on them, and not the people who enacted laws that are not enforced, you place the blame on the wrong people.
Let me give you a senario: a shooter enters a mall and starts shooting shoppers. A shopper has a CCW and is armed. After the shooter is taken out, and the armed shopper is interviewed, does he say “Well, I saw him shooting people but I waited until he pointed his weapon at me and then I shot him. It really wasn’t my place to defend all those other people.”
You can’t comprehend what you don’t know or understand. Not once, never, has an armed citizen waited while a mad man killed others until the armed citizen thought he would be harmed. The entire idea is to end the threat, no matter who it is toward. You can’t seem to comprehend that. After the Killeen Luby’s shootings, Texas changed its law on CCW. And what happened, Tom? Crime went down. In just one year, 2010-2011, the murder by gun rate has decreased in Texas by 13%. In California, who has much stricter gun laws, the murder by gun rate is double what it is in Texas, although it does not have double the population, and has decreased by only 3%. The biggest threat to a would be killer is an honest, legally armed citizen who will most certainly muck up the killer’s plans.
If you were intellectually honest, which you are not, you would want to have a conversation about what works, and what doesn’t (like stricter gun laws that affect only law abiding citizens), and how the gun laws that are already on the books have done nothing to prevent bad people from getting their hands on illegal weapons to do bad things. Until you can enforce the laws already on the books, more laws is just hyperbole.
@Tom:
No, the fear comes from an administration that willing allowed guns to be placed in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels, all the while trying to blame that action on gun dealers who were ordered by the ATF to allow straw purchases. Do you think all those weapons have remained in Mexico, and will never make their way north to your area? I think Brian Terry’s family would disagree with that premise.
And who will protect you if a bad guy with a F & F gun wants to take your stuff? The police? What is the response time in your area (be sure to name your area so we can keep you honest)? A bad guy, with a F & F weapon, can kick in your door and make you dead as a rock before you can dial 9, much less 911.
There are bad people who want to do bad things to good people. But good people who own firearms intend to make the playing field just a bit more level.
I just have a minute… Skook, you and others might be a little premature throwing the shooter’s mother under the bus. I have yet to hear how she chose to secure (or not, fair enough) her weapons. I don’t have a gun safe, nor is it likely that I’ll buy one just for that purpose. I do have a garage full of tools, with some of those tools I can defeat any safe in short order; yeah, serious tools. So regardless of how she secured her guns, the possibility exists that he just broke in to get them. I won’t pass judgement on her until I hear how she kept her weapons.
@Scott in Oklahoma:
The problem is that when a tragedy like Newtown, or Columbine, or Aurora happens, the knee jerk reaction is to find someone/something quickly to blame. Here is the bottom line:
you can’t predict evil, and yes, evil walks among us, and you can’t second guess someone who is mentally unstable. And you can’t legislate away evil doers or their deeds. Laws are, for the most part, reactive, not proactive. So a tragedy happens, legislatures react, and most of the time their cure is worse than the illness. Our laws on the rights of those mentally ill are so absurd that it is almost impossible for a school official, boss or anyone else to warn others of potential danger.
Don’t believe me? John Hinckley, Jr. shot President Reagan and Jim Brody. No, Hinckley didn’t kill them, but it was not for the lack of trying. Now, Hinckley is released to visit his mother, allowed to freely walk the streets with no physical monitoring, and the authorities rely on a cell phone GPS tracking system to know where he is. One man, a forensic psychiatrist, has deemed Hinckley to no longer be a threat to society, and has recommended he be released from St. Elizabeth’s permanently. Insanity, pure insanity. Hinckley should never see the light of day unless it is through the window of his cell.
Tom wants to dump all the responsibility on gun owners for the shootings that are committed by those with illegal weapons. Frankly, that is not just wrong headed, it is dangerous. What about the courts, and the politicians who lobby for laws, that let dangerous people out on the streets of our nation on a daily basis? Do they really think that 30 years in jail and a few sessions with a shrink makes those evil people less evil?
@Scott in Oklahoma: It’s true, we don’t know what measures she took to secure the firearms, and there is no way to stop a guy with good tools. However, she had a potential problem, and refused to face up to the possibility of hat could go wrong. Either way, she played the odds and many people lost.
If you have a mentally unbalanced person in the house, it is time to either have the weapons secure enough or kept away from home. That includes drug users and drunks. We as weapon owners have responsibilities, and one of those is to make sure our weapons don’t fall into the wrong hands. Most weapons are stolen to either sell or commit crimes.
We don’t have in the info because of the MSM’s efforts to make this into a political agenda; consequently, we have been fed an enormous amount of lies, not bogus information, just outright lies to mount this crusade against weapons. Every instance of a gun owner having weapons stolen is a black mark against us.
As far as I’ve been able to tell, no-one has released any official information that the victims were shot with a rifle. I have read that the shooter had several pistols along. I have also read that the rifle had been left in the Mother’s car. A rifle is only of more use at distance while a pistol is a much more efficient weapon at close quarters.
It’s also possible that the goal of the shooter was to inspire just the reaction we are seeing today from the silly socialists who propagandize here. He was, after all, a vegan who hated his survivalist mother enough to shoot her in the face multiple times. If the FBI investigation into his background and browsing habits uncovers a moonbat loonie, it won’t become public knowledge. Bet on that.
Think about that. The leftist stooges may be helping the child killer realize his dreams! Who knows?
@Scott in Oklahoma: The 22 nd will be under attack within three years.
@DaNang67: I have contacted the Connecticut State Police about this. There are now reports saying he used the .223 rifle to kill those kids. Those stories didn’t surface, of course, until AFTER the gun control argument started gaining steam. Earlier reports were that the rifle was found in his car. So, I’ve sent media inquiries to the state and local police for a clarification just on this issue. So far, I’ve been passed off to two separate agencies and I’m waiting on the response from the third.
While some focus on the errors made by the mother, where the hell was the father? We have heard about the mother, and her life, watched as the media accused the brother of being part of the shooting rampage, but nothing about the father, and what role he played in his son’s life. Where was the man who was tasked with being a role model for his young son?
Have fathers become so inconsequential in our society that we are not questioning his actions, his handling of his responsibilities? Surely, he knew his son was mentally unbalanced and on medications. Surely he knew that the shooter’s mother was having a hard time with him. So where was he? I don’t see the media digging around trying to find out where he was when his son planned such carnage.
DaNange67, the shooter was not stupid. He was crazy. He destroyed his hard drive before he started his killing spree. Apparently, he took a simple hammer and trashed it into pieces. I read one report that the FBI is concerned that they will not be able to retrieve any information from it.
@Greg: Every man is entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to make up facts out of thin air to support it.
The antis always seem to have one fact in common – they’ve never read more history than will fit on the back of a cereal box. EVERY tyranny in the world has come about (and is maintained) because the people were reduced by the masters to physical impotence. Does ol’ Tommy know that the two worst mass murders in the modern world, (outside of wars), were committed by policemen? No, he doesn’t, because he can’t see beyond his own nose, and doesn’t care to. Tommy, if your home and family someday need defending against a howling mob, carrying military weapons gifted to them by corrupt army officers, and acting under the protection of crooked politicians, and I promise upon my honor that I will not use my M4 to help you. Will that satisfy you? Think it can’t happen? That’s parts of Mexico today.
@Wm T Sherman:
I fired guns in the Boy Scouts and they gave us, as you can image, extensive safety training, much of which I recall, although we’re talking over 25 years ago. There are likely people buying guns as i write this who haven’t a tenth of the training I possess and i have not handled a gun in decades.
@Tom:
Unless you are an over-the-road trucker with a CDL, can you tell us what extensive training, taken from a professional, that you have in order to be able to drive a multi-ton vehicle? What training have you received in order to use a hammer, a baseball bat, a kitchen knife, an axe or any other tool that can be, and has been, used as a weapon?
Because with all the stabbing deaths that occur in this country, I think you should refrain from using a knive unless you have been properly trained by a professional knife handler.
@Greg: Greg – That is exactly what our forefathers meant… EXACTLY!
This all boils down to control. One segment of our population believes we should have one set of beliefs, those being theirs. Be it gun control, raising taxes on one group to redistribute their wealth to another, telling you what you can and cannot say (i.e. being PC), telling you what can or cannot eat and drink, telling religious groups what their birth control positions are to be, etc. etc. The government is their means to force their beliefs onto the rest of us. History is ripe with examples of one group trying to shove their beliefs down the throats of others. In many cases it doesn’t turn out so well.
@Skookum: When you think about it, muskets were the “assault weapons” of the Revolutionary War. They weren’t as accurate as the rifle but they had a much higher rate of fire. Same goes for the Sharps in the CW. The argument that “assault weapons” weren’t around back when the Constitution was written isn’t valid.
That should read:
“Today’s
progressiveOPPRESSIVE movement”To be truthful about them.
@Tom:
Gee Tom, you’re the greatest.
Your contempt for the average American often seeps through, but not usually so clearly. Perhaps the idea that the knowledge could be passed down or acquired without a centralized formal organization escapes you. I learned on my own by reading, discussing with others, and familiarizing myself with the equipment. For general safe handling of a rifle or shotgun that can be quite sufficient for a motivated individual. If I were going to carry a concealed handgun I would consider getting formal training, but that is not absolutely necessary either.
People handle other things competently without formal training: chainsaws, gasoline, pesticides, power tools…
There are a lot of people out there that have no idea what an assault rifle is or is designed for. As a collector, I have a M-1 with the original stock, that I have never shot. It is the equivalent to a 308. It’s primary purpose was a sniper weapon. Didn’t have a large clip, if you were good, didn’t need one. Designed to take out the enemy at 100 yards plus. The new sniper weapons are good for 3000 yards or 3/4 mile or better. My M-1 is perfectly suited for hunting and looks like a normal hunting rifle. MOST OF YOU would not call it an assault weapon. The second amendment gives me the right to protect all our rights from a government that would take over our citizens. It has happened in other countries and could happen here except we are protected by the second amendment, “The right to bear arms” not to hunt bears. I will continue to hold my weapons as a symbol of our right to a free society. We have enough laws on the books to regulate guns and immigration, we simply do not enforce them. To write more laws will only serve to make the do-gooders feel like they have accomplished something. Why not take on the first amendment and shut down Hollywood glamour of 1000 deaths in 2 hours or video game that reward mass killing? Do you know that Hollywood lobbies spend twice the money that the NRA does? Oh, well your mind is made up and nothing will change it. So is mine, except our forefathers saw fit to allow me to protect the second amendment. If I give it up, then you too will suffer the loss of the first.
@Wm T Sherman: Good point, other than military training, I’ve never had one-second of training, but I feel confident and have built my own bows, crossbows, rifles, pistols, shotguns, black powder weapons and knives. The military no longer has training in bows, crossbows, and black powder weapons. I also reload my own ammo, but I don’t consider myself to be a gun aficionado.
@Wm T Sherman:
Contempt? If you think it’s contemptuous to believe that people handling dangerous tools that can harm others should have training, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is and get on a plane piloted by someone whose knowledge of flying was “passed down or acquired without a centralized formal organization”? Oh, I forgot, one can’t pilot a plane without a pilot’s licence. Damn oppressive government. It won’t even allow a man the freedom to buy his own plane and fly it, perhaps occasionally into an elementary school. Don’t blame the plane, and don’t blame the untrained fool. Blame the fact that you’re not flying too. Anyone who isn’t flying a plane has only himself to blame if he’s earthbound and something just happens to crash into his house.
What about that contempt I keep reading about for those who don’t have guns, or in your parlance, those who refuse to defend themselves? Is that your point, that the cannon fodder doesn’t really rate an opinion?
This massacre was the result of a “Perfect Storm” of events coming together uncommonly. From the son’s limitations, to the mother’s decisions including her decisions on guns and gun-training of her son, to other facts yet revealed.
No one can legislate against a “Perfect Storm,” and no amount of rights restrictions, or policies, or decrees will ever prevent that Perfect Storm. Still, it is no surprise that progressive statists use the event to stomp on individual liberty and freedom, pushing for government overreach – damn the consequences.
@retire05:
Don’t ask these progressives to hand out serious jail time to criminals. Liberals are a criminal’s best friends.
Folks, tom is just another hate filled bigot who wants to decide what rights people he hates should have.
On a previous thread he stereotyped gun owners as “Rambo” wannabes and nutty in general.
He is your typical leftist wannabe fascist, blind to what drives him. He tells himself his desire to violate you right is driven by “what’s right” as opposed to bigotry. He also justifies it further by pretending it isn’t a right you have.
The left always justifies it’s fascism.
BTW tom, repeating the same thing over and over doesn’t make things a fact. On three threads now your claims have been destroyed. You are fooling no one but yourself.
If I have the time, I will write up the left’s attempts at banning guns over the last 30 years. What you will see is that they come up with proposal after proposal that is a Trojan horse. It sounds reasonable, then you learn how it is really meant to ban very large numbers of guns on false pretenses.
@Ted C Burhenn: I trained with and carried both of these rifles, and I consider them to be among the best rifles ever made for precise shooting at long range. However, the M14 is the 308 and the M1 Garrand is the 30-06. Can you check the stats on your rifle.
I would love to pack either one as a hunting rifle. It would take me back to another day and age.
The 14 replaced the M1 in the mid 60’s, but it is heavy at 11.65 pounds if memory serves well. The 308 was the size cartridge adopted by NATO to have a common round to fit our allies rifles. It is more commonly called the 7.62 NATO round.
@Tom:
They should have knowledge. Your contempt lies in assuming that typically, the knowledge is lacking because ‘that sort of people’ must be reckless and ignorant.
Apples and oranges. It takes years to become a competent pilot, hours to learn the basic principles of proper gun safety. People who own guns legally generally understand them. I asked earlier if you had any experience with firearms, because you tend to express naive sentiments such as thinking it’s as difficult to learn gun safety basics as it is to fly a plane. And as a matter of fact a great deal of formal training does take place — performed in many cases by organizations such as the scapegoat du jour, the NRA. The non-formal gaining of knowledge I referred to is an aspect of another Leftist boogeyman – the so-called gun culture, which is largely based on exchange of knowledge. Like people who care about computers or any other specialty, people who are interested in guns tend to talk to like-minded people — a lot.
I’ve written absolutely nothing about people who prefer not to own guns. It’s their business and they have nothing to explain. Perhaps you are having trouble telling people apart, or perhaps you detect one or two indicators in someone and then think you know everything else about them. Which is, wait for it — prejudice.
You really are a silly paranoid little man. You’re worried about the wrong things. And apparently you think you can read minds. You can’t.
Cannon fodder: the people killed in gun free zones, the people killed by Operation Fast and Furious guns, the State Department employees sacrificed in Benghazi, the people who are going to be killed by Libyan weapons distributed to Islamic extremists, any Christian or Jew in a ‘liberated’ Arab Spring country, anyone attacked by a ginned-up mob in our deliberately balkanized nation…
You denounce us as callous and cold for favoring pragmatism and facts over emotions. But nobody’s colder than a Progressive. To them, the accumulated and future dead are “bumps in the road.”
How corrupt and ridiculous is the Progressive establishment? This much:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/229718/hurricane-west-cornel-west-and-american-radicalism/david-horowitz#
@Wm T Sherman:
And they sure know how to use them. 32,000 people killed a year by guns in the US. Is that the deep understanding you speak of? Oh, I forgot, guns don’t kill people.
Point our exactly where I specifically accused you of writing about people who don’t own guns. When you can, perhaps the rest of your rant will have meaning.
You’re right. We should probably shut up about all those children who were murdered. What a waste of time, trying to figure out how to prevent that in the future. Some idiots keep linking all those gun murders in America to guns, while pointing out that industrialized nations that don’t have guns, don’t have children shot in the face. No one wants to think about that while they’re polishing their favorite piece in anticipation of the annual Christmas moose hunt.
@Wm T Sherman:
You mean those facts like nations with strong gun laws have remarkably lower gun deaths than the US? Not “sort of lower”, remarkably lower, like over 100 times lower. Or states with stronger gun laws have less gun violence than states with weaker gun laws? What exactly is this “pragmatism” you speak of? Unless of course you own stock in both the gun industry and the funeral industry, then I can understand. That is pragmatic. Great business model.
@Tom:
That is also the total number of suicides by any method. About half of suicides use firearms. There are about 10,000 homicides per year that use guns. Accidents, which would tend to indicate your assertion of poor training, are a realtively minor contributor.
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states
Here:
My parlance, you say. I wrote no such thing.
Nobody on this side of the argument wants the conversation suppressed. It has been discussed at length and you are no doubt perfectly aware of that. We disagree about how to prevent it in the future and would like to see reasoning, facts, and empirical evidnce applied to the problem, and not your preferred mode: emotion, hysteria, and demonization of people who have reached a different conclusion from you.
Incorrect. European nations with strict gun control laws have had mass murders with firearms. You must be aware of that. Switzerland, which requires men of military age to keep military assault rifles in their houses, is so far not among them.
Countries like Mexico for example.
The author states:
Remember that.
I’ll put your study up against this one, which reaches a different conclusion: http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/
That gun free zones do not preserve life, they get people killed. That stricter gun control laws, in this country, do not save lives. That mass murderers like the individual in Connecticut almost always surrender or commit suicide when confronted with deadly force, whether it’s the police or a civilian concealed carrier – they do not fight it out. That someone who refuses to even consider the possibility of a paradoxical or unanticipated empirical truth in conflict with what they call “common sense” is not pragmatic, and actually lacks common sense as well.
@Wm T Sherman:
Is that it? Since you claim to want to have a fact based discussion, how does that compare to other industrialized nations? Is it not an egregious total by any measure? Yet you find my suggestion that regulation of who might own a firearm is spurious, as if there is no basis for questioning the wisdom of the current arrangement.
Fair enough. My apologies for that characterization if you feel I’ve misrepresented you.
You’ve (plural) been given the empirical evidence on gun deaths in the US, and you’re (plural) response is a resounding “Second Amendment”. I’ve had this discussion for a week with people, and I’ve heard every possible reason against gun control, from the Second Amendment and freedom from tyranny, to they’re “fun”. Those aren’t arguments how to stop mass shootings, they’re arguments how to stop gun control. Tell me how I should view the fact you (plural) can’t offer one sensible suggestion on how to regulate guns better?
Shoot this suggestion down: No gun shall be sold in this country, by licensed dealer or private citizen, without a background check performed. If one is sold without a background check, and that gun ends up being used in a crime, the seller will be held responsible (whether criminally or othewise is up to further debate).
@Scott in Oklahoma:
I highly recommend that all gun owners do exactly what Julian Heicklen has done (JURY RIGHTS ACTIVISM), repeatedly, in defense of proper jury trials. Jury trials have been slowly degraded and eroded, just like every other protection of individual rights, but jury trials are the most extreme limitation of government power. To get a proper jury trial, only ONE person on the jury needs to be informed. Read about the historical loss of jury trials here, and
Understand this: the 2nd Amendment has been eroded as well, but ultimately, its practice can still be both USEFUL and OPTIMIZED.
Example of USEFUL: You can go out and buy a handgun, and then you’ll be much safer than someone who is disarmed, when it comes to defense against rape and assault. When it comes to an unconstitutional stormtrooper telling you to fetch your wife and kids from inside the house, and line up on the sidewalk, you’re not in a good situation, but you’re in a far, far, far better situation than someone who is completely disarmed. (The Jews in the warsaw ghetto uprising first used crappy little black market revolvers to shoot guards, and take their rifles. In that case, their possession of black market revolvers saved their lives, and they held off an entire German army division for longer than the entire nation of France did. Untold lives were saved by that fact: they occupied the time of murderers of men, women, and chilren, so they could not be murdering others who were entirely disarmed, for this entire three month period.)
Example of OPTIMIZED: Even though you cannot be equally armed to the general infantry man as Federalist Paper #46 (Madison, the author of the 2nd Amendment) indicates (for that to happen, you’d need to be able to own a select-fire AR-15, a fully auto BAR, etc…), you can own something close: a semi-automatic battle rifle, which you have practiced with to proficiency at up to 300 yards. Even if you live in IL, you can buy such a tool, and practice at Maxon’s gun range in Des Plaines. Further, you can own several revolvers, enough for each family member, so that noone in your family needs to “get on the truck.” “Useful” is at the beginning of the scale, the end of which is “optimized.”
It might seem “far fetched” or “paranoid” to the emasculated, whiny, unphilosophical, uneducated, whimpering fiat-currency serfs (socialists who, not knowing the history of the word liberal, call themselves “liberals”) who are now bleating to be rendered completely defenseless. But SCREW THEM. They’re too uneducated to know that “gun control” is already responsible for over 4,000 murdered (“lynched”) blacks in the South –the first “Jim Crow” law passed in the South (in several states, immediately following the civil war) required a Sheriff’s permit to carry a firearm. Guess what race got permits from the (always) white (often) KKK-member sheriffs? Whites only! Guess what turned the tide in the battle for civil rights in the South? White, liberal, anti-racist “civil rights attorneys” who all carried guns, came down South from the North to protect black families. Don Kates, a white, liberal lawyer states that “We all carried guns.” (See: “In Search of the Second Amendment” by David T. Hardy Without guns, those civil rights attorneys simply would have been lynched as well.
The pathetically-misinformed gun grabbers never got an education in history in the government youth propaganda camps, and they’re too dishonest and stupid to have read the Federalist Papers, or to have watched David Hardy’s documentary “In Search of the Second Amendment.” So, they are bleating to be stripped of a right they don’t understand, and to be stripped of tools they know nothing about, and they are bleating to strip those who do understand these tools of them as well. That’s the same kind of mindless evil that sent 6 million innocent Jews to their deaths, before and during WWII. If the USA hadn’t entered the war, it would have been many millions more. (Good thing the Jews weren’t negroes, like the Tutsis in Rwanda! The USA under the gun-grabber Clinton administration didn’t give a rat’s ass about them. Also, he didn’t want to get sucked into another Somalia. So, when we could have at least spoken up about the genocide, and placed pressure on the world to disallow the genocide, the USA was silent and uninvolved. Moreover, the USA’s anti-gun policies made it impossible to send private relief and private defense to Rwanda. But the US knew what was going on –they had very accurate reports of the genocide as it began, and as it unfolded. When the “Hutu Power” majority enacted a universal gun ban against the Tutsis, those who obeyed the law were all murdered by the Hutu “soldiers.”)
What Bloomberg is championing is totalitarianism: a government with absolute power. I’m amazed he defends that position (albeit lyingly and inconsistently) in public.
Here’s another example from history: In the early 1970s, my father’s draft number came up. But he understood the appeals process. An army truck appeared one day, in Charleston, IL ( Where Eastern, IL University is, and where Lincoln once gave his famous racist speech, stating that his goal was not to make negroes equal under the law, but to “preserve the Union”), and a military man in uniform told my father: “Get on the truck.” Several people already on the truck looked on in disbelief as my father refused to board the truck, destined for bringing newly-aquired military slaves to a military induction center.
My father had done more research into his rights, and he knew that he had yet to exhaust the appeals process. So, to his immense credit, he didn’t get on the truck. And he THEREFORE wasn’t sent to Vietnam. Because the USA was nation with a solid gun culture at that time, he also wasn’t summarily executed in front of the other draftees. He certainly would have been shot dead, or imprisoned, in Soviet Russia (where private ownership of guns was banned at the same time period) for a similar refusal. He certainly would have been shot dead, or imprisoned, in communist China (where private ownership of guns was banned at the same time period) for a similar refusal.
Now, morons will miss the point and take this as their cue to defend the Vietnam war, and that’s their right. But I didn’t mention my father’s unwillingness to “get on the truck” to argue against the Vietnam war. I mentioned it to note the difference between what happens to someone in a country of gun owners who disobeys an unlawful order, and what happens to someone in an unfree country of disarmed victims who disobeys an unlawful order.
Jews who didn’t obey nazi orders to get on the cattle cars were promptly shot, or forced onto the cars to be murdered at their destination. Their lives were over in an instant, and their public murders were a message to anyone who might be likewise tempted to resist. That message was “The government holds absolute power. Disobey us, and you will be murdered. The individual is nothing, the collective is everything.” They openly said as much, once the public was disarmed. (“Du bist nichts; Dein Volk ist alles.” Translated: You are nothing; your people is everything. German Nazi Führer (Leader) Adolf Hitler. Note that this core premise, collectivism, is the opposite of the American premise, individualism.)
…One might expect the legal heir of Ayn Rand to comprehend this fact. He wrote an eloquent and 100% truthful book about how the decline of the Weimar Republic (in 1920s, and 1930s Germany) is similar in many ways to the decline of our own Republic. That book is called “The Ominous Parallels,” and I highly recommend it. However, he later agreed with the US government’s massacre of a church of innocent people in Texas, when the BATFE massacred the Branch Davidians, in Waco Texas. He bought the government’s story, hook, line, and sinker, with seemingly no investigation into the legitimacy of the warrants. On a radio show, he repulsively agreed with their massacre (even of the innocents who the government was allegedly trying to save). You can read all about it at ARI Watch
What am I getting at here? Why mention “The Ominous Parallels” and then criticize Peikoff for his “about-face” support of the Branch Davidian massacre?
Authorities, even legitimate ones, sometimes come to the wrong conclusions about what is best for INDIVIDUALS. They have a wrong opinion, and, when they’re siding with collectivism, and government over-reach, their opinions can have disastrous “unintended consequences.” Authorities have the microphone, and they can direct hordes of uncritical thinkers to that same wrong conclusion. In Germany, those who sympathized with the ostracism and legal inequality of the Jews were wrong, and evil. But those championing “the final solution” had the microphone. They had the political power. …And the German citizenry went along with the 1938 Nazi Weapons Act, which disarmed the Jews, and Germans who were not members of the Nazi Party. In America, where the public had a right to keep and bear arms, the individual decides for himself what path he’ll follow.
Here in America, we have not made the FATAL MISTAKE of ceding individual choice to the government. Here in America, we own the weapons necessary to say “No. …I refuse.”
So, my father can be a “peacenik.” He can refuse to go and die for a bullshit false cause, when his country wants him to make a fatal mistake. He can disagree, and he can LIVE TO TELL THE TALE. Any criticism of the USA must note its superiority to a nation where there are only disarmed subjects. Because, even though the promise of America may be false, America retains its ability to back away from the precipice of total destruction —so long as it retains its right to private firearms ownership and target practice. With a restriction of either of those rights, the gun culture and American freedom with it, are only temporary. With a restriction of firearms ownership, there can be no reliable gun culture. With a restriction of “backdoor” firearms bans on shooting ranges, there can be no reliable gun culture. America’s gun culture is what ultimately guarantees our individual freedom. America’s gun culture is the ability to say “I insist you leave me alone,” after the “Please leave me alone” is ignored.
I never use the term “gun control,” and I correct people who do use it. I say “Do you mean ‘gun chaos’? …Or do you mean ‘slave control’?” Because the phrase ‘gun control,’ as you’re using it, contains two false premises. The first false premise is that government restrictions on firearms ownership results in increased control of firearms. That’s not true, it’s never been true, and you cannot factually point to any instance in the history of mankind where it has been true. In 100% of the cases where private gun ownership has been restricted, those who have refused to give up their firearms (the police and the criminals) have increased their illegitimate power over the law-abiding citizens who had given up their firearms. In the best examples, this has made the Yakuza superior in power to the average japanese civilian. It has lowered japanese women under the power of male rapists, and allowed rapists to accurately and correctly predict that Japanese women are inferior in power to them, increasing rape and sexual assault. It has resulted in humiliation and defeat for women who were put in a position to be raped. Similarly in the UK and in Australia, criminal aggression, rape, and assault all skyrocketed after the bans on firearm carry and ownership. (Watch the movie “Romper Stomper” for good examples of the kind of grotesque violence of white supremacists and other street thugs that resulted from their victims being disarmed, and law-abiding citizens being cowed into inaction. It’s the same kind of violence that now emboldens street thugs in Chicago, New York, and Washington D.C.) In cases where a dangerous snake was in someone’s house, or a razorback was menacing someone in Australia, it lowered the citizen in power below even the wildlife. This disgusting lowering of human integrity, the debasement of man to dangerous animals, further empowers the government: they want you to be defenseless. Rather than being able to shoot a coyote that attacks your child, they’d prefer you call 911, or “animal control.” After all, that makes legislators and bureaucrats important. Legislators and bureaucrats are as important as a case of athlete’s foot to an armed and independent free man. This is what really galls people like Bloomberg: the idea that we’d be able to solve our own problems without their regressive social engineering.
Governments like a nation of inferior humans, disarmed and begging to be kept safe. It’s a power trip for them. It’s a power trip for disgusting bullies like Bloomberg, who don’t go anywhere without an armed escort. (“For me, but not for thee!”) And the net effect is to make every law-abiding individual in the entire USA less capable of defending themselves from armed aggression. How much less? Let’s hope we never find out.
Hitler steered clear of Switzerland, and the nazis laundered their money in the Swiss banking system. Many Swiss were appalled at the nazis, but they remained neutral, and capable of defending themselves, and never had to deal with them. So are we to believe Hitler avoided Switzerland because he didn’t want enough gold to arm every regimen in each of his occupying forces to the hilt? Are we to believe that, when photos of camp guards towards the end of the war show that many of the guards’ rifles are UNLOADED, due to lack of ammunition, that Hitler wouldn’t have wanted to confiscate Switzerland’s gold? That’s simply not credible. Hitler avoided marching into the Swiss Alps because snipers armed with automatic weapons from Cantonal militias would have safely turned his troops into Swiss cheese from mountainous cover positions.
My father was appalled at the North Vietnamese. …But he knew better than to put his life under the control of someone else who might not value it as much as he did. He knew better than to surrender autonomy over his own destiny. He lived to raise a family, and lead an enchanted life in a relatively free market economy. 58,000 of his fellow citizen-peers (young men) were not so lucky, and perished in Vietnam, for a war we didn’t need to win. Now, we trade with Vietnam, and they can honestly claim to have fewer people, per capita, in prison than the USA does. Do they now have a right to march into Chicago, and liberate Chicagoans from an oppressive regime? No. …But the Vietnam war was still a pointless, foolish sacrifice of American life. And my father was right to avoid it like the politicians’ plague that it was.
NEVER GIVE UP YOUR FIREARMS. YOUR FIREARMS ARE YOUR FREEDOM. EVEN IF YOU ARE A DEFENSELESS COWARD, OTHER PEOPLE’S FIREARMS HAVE BLESSED YOU WITH A HIGH STANDARD OF LIVING. GUN RIGHTS ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE, BECAUSE WITHOUT THEM, THERE IS GOVERNMENT-ENACTED TOTALITARIAN CHAOS.
Which brings me to the difference between “control” and “chaos.” In the roaring 1920s in the USA, there was “chaos.” The mob had a lot of machine guns, because owning one only required paying a $200 transfer tax, and a “lawful” registration. This situation continued even after the supply of machine guns was limited by the “Gun Control (Gun Chaos) Act of 1968.” After the GCA 1968, there was a one-month amnesty registration of all machine guns, and buying a new machine gun became illegal for everyone besides the police. (So, the police have new automatic weapons, and the submitizen slaves have automatic weapons that get older, and older, and older, and eventually fall apart or are bought by collectors. This is creeping, incremental gun prohibition of weapons that make the individual equal to government soldiers.) It was still possible for anyone who wanted to buy an old machine gun to do so, if they agreed to submit 14 sets of fingerprints, and register themselves as the machine gun owner. Many otherwise law-abiding citizens were arrested, prosecuted, and jailed for such violations, as were many violent criminals (who had a greater “every day” need for extreme firepower). Later, the mislabeled “assault weapons ban” (signed into law by George Herbert Walker Bush) banned semi-automatic rifles that that were cosmetically different than other weapons that had the exact same functionality. For instance, if a rifle had a flash suppressor (which makes it easier to shoot in low-light) it was mislabeled an “assault weapon” and banned. This introduced confusion and chaos among law-abiding people who owned rifles that were cosmetically different from a normal .30-o6 hunting rifle. For several years, those who owned such weapons were technically felons, even though very few people (to their credit) turned in their “scary looking rifles.” When George W. Bush allowed this onerous ban to expire, those felons once again became regular old law-abiding citizens. Would we have been better off if the police were able to perfectly enforce that ban, and send those 300,000 (estimate) Americans to prison? We already have more people in prison, per capita, than any other country in the entire world. (…But we’re a free country, right?) So, a whole bunch of otherwise non-criminal Americans were branded felons, and some of them had their lives ruined, because of a law that later wasn’t deemed worthy of keeping on the books.
OK, so that’s what “weak firearm restrictions,” mislabeled “gun control” look like, and this is what is labeled unacceptably “chaos” (the opposite of control) by the establishment. This situation is deemed so chaotic that further government controls, including possible confiscation, are necessary. What about stronger gun control? What does that look like? Well, the Nazi Weapons Act forbade anyone who wasn’t a Nazi Party member from owning weapons. The result of the Nazi Weapons Act was 6-8,000,000 innocent Jews murdered during peacetime, not including battle deaths. Another 10-12,000,000 innocent German civilian dissenters, gypsies, homosexuals, artists, and other non-party members were also murdered while there was “100% gun control” in Germany. In Russia, where non-police were banned from gun ownership, 50,000,000 innocent civilians were murdered, with 20,000,000 of them murdered because Stalin’s military carted off the food they needed to survive the harsh Ukrainian winter. In Mao’s China, a similar 60,000,000 innocent civilians were murdered, and in Pol Pot’s Cambodia, over 95% of the entire country’s population was murdered, for offenses such as “wearing eyeglasses.” You can get all these statistics and more at the website “The Democratic Peace” website of Professor R. J. Rummel at the University of Hawaii
So, if we have a moderate amount of “gun control” we can expect, at minimum, rapists and violent criminals to be emboldened, and for assault, robbery, and rape levels to increase (as they have in all areas of the USA where guns are banned, such as Chicago and Washington D.C.). Moderate levels of “gun control” have the opposite effect of passing a “shall issue” concealed carry handgun permit law, as several States have done over the past 20 years. Each time such a “shall-issue” law is passed, rape, assault, and robbery rapidly decrease, and unoccupied car theft increases, because unoccupied cars can’t shoot back (According to the landmark study of county-by-county violent crime data by sociologist Gary Kleck). I don’t know about you, but I’d rather that my car was broken into, than that a woman in my family was raped by a rapist who presumed that she was law-abiding and therefore not carrying “the great equalizer.”
So we can encourage rape, if we give Bloomberg and his regressive gun-grabbers part of what they want. We can confuse people who want to own rifles that are cosmetically different than normal hunting rifles, and that will result in some of them being caught by the police state and prison system, their lives ruined for no good reason. We can further embolden cowardly, ineffectual young male murderers, by posting signs on our schools that say “gun free zone,” which is interpreted by them as “welcome to the shooting gallery.” Such signs indicate, to the deranged multiple murderer: “If you want to kill us, we have call 911, and wait for the police to get here, while you shoot us. We are defenseless victims, and even if you only have a pump shotgun, you can kill us as fast as you can reload. We’re a shooting gallery of defenseless targets. So, if you have a deranged hatred of all teachers, or feel they have wronged you, you can take away the one thing that is precious to them: the lives of the children who they are entrusted to protect.”
That’s a moderate level of “gun control,” and a level that totalitarians like Bloomberg might actually succeed in enacting into a law that contradicts the highest law of the land, the 2nd Amendment. This would then result in the legal chaos that we’re experiencing right now, where the Supreme Court and States have made it clear that gun control is unlawful, but the regressive socialists in the Federal Government and various regressive socialist cities now contradict the law, and enforce self-contradictory statutes, rather than obeying the law of the land. (Guess which law the police –who all took oaths to uphold the U.S. Constitution as the highest law of the land– will enforce? That’s right: the kind of person who signs up to be a cop will typically follow whatever law their watch commander says will result in them getting another paycheck. Otherwise, no cop could ever write a victimless traffic ticket, confiscate and arrest people for drug possession, arrest people for tax evasion, etc.)
And if we allow Bloomberg and his regressives to win? To enact sweeping gun control? An extreme level of “gun control” results in mass murder of innocent civilians by a totalitarian government. Of course, mass murder of innocent civilians by all-powerful uniformed bureaucrats might seem like “order” or “control,” but it really is CHAOS. It is chaos to have an unpredictable environment, where at any time, a few armed stormtroopers can begin ordering your neighbors onto trucks. In Rwanda, many Hutus –who were not subject to gun control– objected to their Tutsi neighbors being ordered out of their houses, and shot to death, or hacked up with machetes. They objected to the systematic rape and then genital mutilation of Tutsi women (so they couldn’t reproduce). But the bands of armed “Hutu Power” uniformed thugs knew that those Hutus were in the minority, and they killed them, too (Such Hutu voices of dissent were labeled as “traitors” and executed along with the Tutsi minority). Those unelected government thugs had been shipped rifles, machetes, and uniforms by the United Nations’ former leader, Boutros Boutros Ghali. Those thugs were “the law.” Now, they weren’t the legitimate law. There were laws on the books forbidding murder in Rwanda. But once the guns were confiscated, and the orders were given, the Tutsis and their few Hutu defenders didn’t have the ABILITY to fight back.
The lesson history teaches us is this: Legitimate laws create predictability and emergent order (true “gun control,” because individual law-abiding citizens are then, except in limited cases of theft, in control of their firearms). The supreme law of the USA, the 2nd Amendment, has prevented the total centralization of power in the USA. Therefore, even though a moderate level of gun control has made us much more of a police state, there is still a fairly orderly and fairly controlled society. The fact that power is still more or less decentralized has not created the chaos of mass murder. It has not created an environment where US civilians would be forced to sit by while their neighbors are ordered onto trucks for “orderly” deportation or murder. (Forced government deportation and murder is closer to chaos than millions of law-abiding citizens being armed, and this would be true even if one in ten of them was a psychopath, since even psychopaths are disincentivized to act out their psychopathy if it will mean their death at the hands of law-abiding gun owners.) There are simply too many guns in the hands of private citizens for “democide” (mass murder by government during peacetime) to be possible.
The US government, cannot, tomorrow, order all negroes to report to the local trainyard. The US government cannot send trucks full of uniformed “homeland security” agents to our neighborhoods to collect all firearms, and shoot all dissenters in public, as a message to the general public. Although the US public stupidly has allowed door-to-door searches in black neighborhoods, for “drugs,” the government cannot treat all civilians this way. …It would result in a successful armed rebellion against the incumbent government.
BACK DOOR GUN GRABS:
So, crafty totalitarians like Bloomberg and Obama are pursuing a different strategy. They are trying to make gun ownership appear “uncaring” and “indifferent” to the murder of innocents. The opposite is true, of course. …But there are millions of “fairweather” friends of individual freedom. There are millions of civilians (voters) whom libertarian legal philosopher Lysander Spooner termed “dupes, knaves, and cowards.” Such people wrongly assume good intentions when government trots out a new policy that is horribly mislabeled. They are duped into thinking “It’s just what they say it is. It’s a ‘middle of the road’ compromise that doesn’t really hurt anyone. I can still have a gun, I just can’t have a gun that makes me equal in power to a soldier.” Others are the knaves, such as people who work for homeland security, or have other bureaucratic posts with the government. They think to themselves “Well, this ‘gun control’ stuff is going to be bad for the gun owners, but who cares? I’m not one of them, and I can carry a gun while I’m at work. Plus, it’s a guarantee that I’ll have job security, processing the paperwork of all the poor bastards I’ll be helping to send to prison.”
Which brings us to the last category: the cowards. The thinking of the cowards is much the same as the first two groups. But they know in their hearts that when they try to write off gun control as “harmless” that it’s enabling future Newtown shootings, or far worse. They say to themselves at work: “I better not let my political views be known. My boss might fire me, or someone might report me to the ‘Department of Homeland Security’ which seems to have more power and unconstitutional authority as every day passes. How did things get this bad? Oh well, I guess I’d better not make waves. I’d better not raise a stink in public. I might be one of the poor bastards they retaliate against.”
Nazi Germany had those kinds of cowards, too. Here’s a quote from one of them:
First they came for the communists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist.
Then they came for the socialists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Pastor Martin Niemoller said this. He was sent to a death camp, but managed to survive the war. Do you think he would have described the bombing of Dresden as “controlled” or “orderly?” What about the rape of disarmed German women by Hitler Youth soldiers, who were encouraged to “Get women pregnant so that Germany would have an strong, increasing population of Aryans”? Would that be considered “order”? What about the disarmed, starving Jews who were shot in public by strutting totalitarian sociopaths, or pushed into mass graves? What about the parents who had to whisper around the Hitler Youth (their own children!), lest they be reported as “unpatriotic.” (Much like the DEA and ONDCP encourage American kids to turn in their parents for drug use! Such kids are the USA’s own “Hitler Youth.” The twisted grotesquery of uneducated children ruling adults on behalf of a police state.) All of the prior represent “chaos” in my mind. Yet, each one of the prior cases is a case created by lawmaking! Could it be that the results of laws don’t live up to their promised effects? And who is promising all the wonderful effects of enacting gun prohibitions? It is career politicians, the economically uneducated, and the tools of the central bankers. …All groups whose paychecks rely on your continuing ignorance!
What about you? Are you smart enough to see that legislative attempts at centralized control do not increase control, but instead, result in first pushing market behavior into uncontrolled and chaotic “black markets,” and later, into uncontrollable government-orchestrated devastation?
Mass impoverishment, and laws that have large rates of disobedience, do not result in “control.” Such “gun control” laws are only the COMMAND of control. They are not the control itself. In fact, such laws result in an imbalance of power that encourages death and destruction, to the extent they are implemented and enforced. The more strictly they are enforced, the more disordered chaos results.
In the USA, we are now creating our own generation of future murder victims and future Martin Niemollers. In one possible future, the dupes, knaves, and cowards of America allow the government to pass sweeping “slave control” laws. After the slaves are brought under control, as the German population once was, the government will then have the power to pass “gun chaos” laws (a complete ban on effective defensive weaponry that can be used to resist groups of armed soldiers). If we allow this to happen, and we survive, we might be able to write our own version of Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous quote:
First they came for the unlicensed lawyers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t an unlicensed lawyer.
Then they came for the drug users and dealers,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a drug user or dealer.
Then they came for the rifle owners,
and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a rifle owner.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.
If you’ve read this entire post, thus far, then congratulations! You’re a truth-seeker. You’ve found the truth on a dusty corner of the internet. Although I’ve said that we shouldn’t accept tyranny in this post, I haven’t given too many alternatives. But I did give the most important first step possible: learn your rights and responsibilities as a jury member. Understand, that, as soon as you are seated on a jury, you are SUPERIOR in power to the judge, according to the successfully appealed verdict of “Kriho v. Colorado.” (Read the book “Send in the Waco Killers” by Vin Suprynowicz, for more on this subject.)
Laura Kriho was a jury member who was punished for not volunteering information that would have prevented her from being seated on a jury in a drug case. Laura was a strong-willed American with a backbone (amazing how few of those are men, these days! Marcy Brooks is another, who refused to convict Illinois resident Whitey Harrell for income tax nonpayment). Kriho refused to convict one of her fellow Americans for a drug offense. She had read the Bill of Rights, and the 4th amendment, that says we have a right to “be secure in our persons, papers, and effects” and the 9th and 10th amendments which reserves those rights not enumerated in the Constitution to the people. She reasoned that without property rights, there are no rights of any kind. …And she didn’t take the grotesque imprisonment and punishment of a fellow American lightly. Moreover, she had once been the victim of a drug prosecution as well, so she understood the injustice they were asking of her, and she didn’t comply. She resisted! She didn’t bow down to the unconstitutional and thus unlawful instructions of the prosecutor and tyrant judge (himself a former government-licensed prosecutor). She voted “not guilty” and refused to change her vote, even under the pressure of the brainwashed jurors the prosecutor and judge had selected to sit with her on the jury.
The defendant went free. The benevolence of one single juror saved them a terrible government punishment (for owning plant products that were legal 100 years ago).
SO WHAT IS THE JURY? …WHAT ARE JURY RIGHTS?
The jury is the entire body of the American people. Unlike what you may have “learned” in your “government” class in highschool, the jury is not a group of people that “blindly obeys the judge.” Nor is the jury “a part of the judicial branch.” Nor is the jury subject to the balances of the other three branches of government.
The Jury is the 4th Branch of Government, the supreme branch of government. The jury is “We, the People.” The Jury includes every gun-owner, pot-smoker, and tax resistor in the USA who is a part of the voter rolls. The jury box is the final line of defense against injustice, before the cartridge box. In the USA all juries have a right to vote their consciences, even if their consciences be in direct disagreement with the law. (In fact, the prior sentence was read to jurors all across the nation, prior to 1895.)
Now, if you stand in front of your local courthouse disseminating this truth, the prosecutors and judges inside the courthouse will send out a bailiff or cop who will threaten you with arrest for “jury tampering.” They’ll be operating under the incorrect assumption that not every person in the potential jury pool is a member of “The Jury, The Fourth and Superior Branch of Government.” For their purposes, they’ll assume that you’re there to influence a specific court case (which is illegal, even though such illegality amounts to a ban on speaking the actual truth in public). In short, they will threaten you with arrest, for simply telling people the plain truth, in front of the courthouse. They may even violate your First Amendment right to free political speech, especially if they profile you as someone who cannot afford a solid legal defense, as they did Frank Turney, in Alaska. Of course, as evidence in your case, they’d be forced to hand the jury copies of your pamphlets, so ideally, you’d have pamphlets that taught the history of jury rights, and how juries are currently hand-picked by the prosecution, against the letter and intent of constitutional law.
SO, HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO GUN RIGHTS?
It makes gun prohibition unenforceable. …Frank Turney, a resident of Fairbanks, Alaska, spoke the truth to incoming jury members in front of the Fairbanks courthouse, and a man accused of unlawful possession of a firearm was acquitted by an informed jury.
Frank was arrested for “jury tampering” even though he only told those jurors the truth about the power they possessed. He was prosecuted under Alaska’s unconstitutional “jury tampering” law, and found guilty by a jury that was hand-picked by the judge and prosecutor during the unconstitutional pre-trial practice of “voir dire.” The jury that sentenced him was comprised of obedient, mindless conformists who believed that “the judge and prosecutor wouldn’t lead us astray” and “they do this for a living, they must know best.” (The opposite is true. Those prosecutors, and prosecutors with black robes have sought careers of collectivist political power in a time-degraded democratic republic. They are the very last people whose opinion you should trust.)
Frank served his prison time, (about half a year), and then went right back to speaking the truth in front of the courthouse. He refused to be dominated by injustice. ..And they refused to arrest him again.
The same resistance to unlawful arrest and prosecution is true of Julian Heicklen, whose many videos of civil disobedience and jury rights activism are posted on youtube. The same is true of Julian’s young friend, activist Antonio Musumeci. In Chicago, liberal jury rights activist Mike Kalas and his friend have been informing the public of their jury rights in front of the Cook County Courthouse (Video available at the Fully Informed Jury Association website). They were also threatened with arrest, and they also ignored those threats and continued their outreach. They were not arrested, the threats were a bluff (perhaps one that will be acted on in the future if they continue their activism). The point is this: all of these people risked imprisonment to uphold the supremacy and literacy of their local Jury. They decided not to accept the universal miseducation being taught to our children in the grotesque and unenlightened government propaganda camps that the bureaucrats and politicians lyingly call “public schools.”
There are a growing number of these jury rights activists in the USA. They are the ones who are saying “YOU CANNOT TAKE MY FREE COUNTRY AWAY FROM ME WITHOUT A FIGHT.”
They are liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. They are politically involved, and (otherwise) politically uninvolved. They are not from any one single Political Party. They are all AMERICANS who understand that the government has gotten too powerful, and it is abusing its ability to punish innocent people. They are the people who, whatever their opinions on social order, or organization, disbelieve in the punishment of innocent people for victimless crime offenses. They are the people who believe that if a jury believes a punishment is not deserved, then THEY KNOW BETTER THAN THE JUDGE AND PROSECUTOR, SINCE THE JUDGE AND PROSECUTOR ARE PAID AGENTS OF THE STATE, AND ARE THEREFORE CORRUPTED BY UNCONSTITUTIONAL POWER.
In the recent past in Montana, 40 people called for jury duty stated that they would refuse to enforce the state’s marijuana laws (the defendant was set free with only a slap on the wrist, rather than risking the judge calling a mistrial, and ordering a new trial date). In other cases, rather than be kicked off a jury, individual jurors kept their mouths shut until they were on the jury, and voted NOT GUILTY and refused to change their vote to one that would fill another tax-financed prison cell.
We’re all paying taxes to the government-connected prison profiteers for prison cells. Those cells contain conservative gun owners, and conservative tax resistors. Those cells contain liberal drug users, and liberal drug dealers. Those cells contain libertarians and other people like marijuana seed seller Marc Emery, who dared to criticize the DEA and ONDCP. (At first, just to show you how evil the prohibitionists are, they were seeking the death penalty for Marc Emery, for selling marijuana seeds that are now perfectly legal to own in Colorado and Washington States. Would the USA have been better off with Marc Emery being murdered by the government? Are we now better off with him in prison? Only a pig-headed conformist could answer “yes” to those questions.)
If you want to prevent the system from further decaying, you should buy at least one rifle and one side-arm, become skilled with their use, always make sure you have more than enough ammunition for both, and make an oath to yourself: “I will never allow my government to arrest or kill people in my neighborhood during door-to-door warrantless searches.” This is a good “line in the sand.” If the civilians in Nazi germany had taken such a stand, the democide (mass murder by government) of late 1930s and early 1940s Germany might have been entirely avoided.
If you want to IMPROVE or RESTORE the system, then the methods used by Julian Heicklen (libertarian), Frank Turney (conservative libertarian), Antonio Musumeci (libertarian), and Mike Kalas (liberal) are leading the way. They are the ones who said “To hell with sitting by and watching the destruction of America, the transition of a free country into a police state populated by prisoners and overseers.” Maybe you can’t put in as much time to such outreach as these (true) patriots have, but you can do something to educate your local jury. …Even if you only educate one person, if you educate them fully, you will have taken one small step. If you take to the courthouse steps or door-to-door canvassing, you will have taken one large step. My point here is only to show you that there is more that you can do than sitting passively by while your American heritage is stripped from you by an army of faceless bureaucrats.
You can still speak the truth in public. You can speak in defense of those who are being maligned, not because they are irresponsible and don’t take personal responsibility for the defense of the innocent, but because they DO take responsibility for their own defense and the defense of the innocents around them. You can explain that it would be morally wrong to send someone to prison for a victimless crime offense (including a gun offense), if there was no clear individual victim whose rights had been violated by that “offense.”
You can speak out to your family, your friends, or random strangers in front of your local courthouse. You can carry a notebook with you, for when you meet like-minded people who want to join you.
BUT ISN’T THIS ENCOURAGING LAW-BREAKING? ISN’T THE APPROPRIATE MEANS OF CHANGING THE LAW TO LOBBY LEGISLATORS?
Well, no. Legislators have figured out ways of winning the allegiance of interest groups, many of which are bought-off by unconstitutional government largess. Many legislators are licensed lawyers, who support the unconstitutional licensing racket that puts their free market competition out of business. They are corrupted by unconstitutional power. (Neither Abraham Lincoln, nor Lysander Spooner were licensed lawyers, but both were practicing lawyers.)
The government schools encourage the view that electoral participation and lobbying are the only proper way to influence the law. But this view makes legislators all-important to the process, when it is supposed to be “We, The People” who hold the right to determine when government has become destructive to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If that’s the case, the Declaration of Independence (the document that told the colonists why they were rebelling against British rule) states that we have the right to “alter or abolish” our government. Our only means of altering a government that has become unconstitutional is to prevent it from enforcing those unconstitutional laws. The legislators, government bureaucrat school administrators, and others who are politically-connected like to encourage you to “get involved in politics” because they know that that doesn’t work. They know that interest groups of bought off voters determing the outcome of elections.
Moreover, jury supremacy is THE LAW. It is 100% legal to ignore judges’ instructions, and return a verdict in accord with your conscience. If it were not legal, you could be punished for the verdict you return. This is not the case. Moreover, to make it the case would be to throw out the Supreme law of the land, the Bill of Rights and U.S. Constitution. The politicians and legislators make millions of unconstitutional laws, and they rely on the ignorance of the general public to enforce these laws. Consider this quote from Thomas Jefferson: “I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.”
The Founders of America predicted that government would eventually overgrow the limits they had placed upon it. This is simply what happens when legislators have time on their hands. They figure out ways to trick the public into parting with their freedom, for personal financial gain. Also, legislators, being self-interested have a “first rule” that makes the expansion of government unavoidable: don’t oppose the overreach of other lawmakers, and they won’t oppose the overreach that you propose. It’s an unwritten law of (sociopathic) legislative action. Maybe one day, we’ll figure out a way to keep sociopaths out of the legislature. Until then, our primary protections are: free speech, jury trials, and gun rights.
In India, during Gandhi’s civil disobedience campaign, once the crowds of people listening to Gandhi became large enough, the British oppressors simply gave up and withdrew. The vocal pressure, the media pressure, the public civil disobedience, showed the world that their rule was illegitimate, and wrong. Gandhi learned his methods of organization from reading Henry David Thoreau, who counseled individuals to “cling with your whole weight against the system.” I’ll leave you with a quote from Gandhi.
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.
——-Gandhi, An Autobiography, p. 446 (Beacon Press paperback edition)
(Note: Gandhi did not believe in violence, even for resistance to abject tyranny. He even counseled that the Jews should nonviolently resist the Germans, even if it resulted in their slaughter. …But he knew that when power is centralized, those who lack power will be murdered and oppressed. His path was similar to the jury rights activist of the USA: to resist actively, but nonviolently. Moreover, this presents a pathway away from tyranny, since the more the authorities crack down on jury rights activism, the more they call attention to the truth that the system no longer functions as designed. The author does not share Gandhi’s dedication to nonviolence, but I do share his belief that if nonviolent methods can be used offensively, those methods are far better than being forced to resort to even justified and defensive violence. For more on nonviolent political organization, read “The Politics of Nonviolent Action: vol I-III” by Gene Sharp)
In Pursuit of Freedom,
Jake Witmer
2012-12-24