|
The REAL Reason for Gun Ownership
by The Company of Freeman
The State Creates Its Own Enemies.
Ghoulishly capitalizing on the tragedy of a mass murder, the
anti-gun forces are surging forward with their plans for total
gun confiscation. If law-abiding private citizens were disarmed,
they claim, criminals and crazies would be unable to kill and
maim. That's an obvious lie - criminals, by definition, disobey
laws, and madmen can kill with knives, cars or champagne bottles
as easily and as senselessly as they can with guns. The not-so-secret
agenda of the State and its apologists is clear: disarm
peaceful citizens to render them powerless. Turn law-abiding
Americans into criminals with the stroke of a legislative pen.
Anyone who refuses to surrender his or her weapons would become
an Enemy of the State, much the same as any armed citizen is
right now in the Soviet Union, or Communist China, or Fascist El
Salvador, or Monarchist Great Britain. Gun confiscation is non-partisan - it is always and forever aimed at anyone disliked by
the current gang in power.
Gun Seizure Sparked 1776 Revolution.
The American Revolution began in a dispute over gun control when
British Redcoats marched toward Lexington and Concord to disarm
farmers there. London claimed to be the "legitimate" government
ruling America, just as Washington or Sacramento claims to be
today. And their attempt to disarm us, stems from the same power
lust that drove King George. We must therefore, hold onto our
guns - legally or illegally - for the very same reason the colonists did.
The Truth About Gun Ownership
The anti-gunners, certain that the role of government is to grant
privileges and dictate behavior, shout that citizens have no
reason to be "allowed" to own assault rifles, which have "no
legitimate sporting use." The Constitution, though says nothing
about "a well-regulated hunting club" being necessary. We do not
own handguns, assault rifles, shotguns, and other powerful weapons because we are hunters or plinkers or collectors. We do not
even own guns because the Constitution "allows" us to. The
Constitution does not "grant" rights. It recognizes rights
already and irrevocably held forever by the people themselves
(individuals), and forbids government from trampling on them. We
have a right to keep and bear arms regardless of whether the
Second Amendment exists or not! All Article Two guarantees is
that we shouldn't have to defend that right against "our" federal
government. We've seen that simple guarantee erode, though,
haven't we.
The real reason for gun ownership is to protect the individual
from the State, whether it be an invading State from across the
seas or a domestic State grown tyrannical and oppressive. The
goal of total, repressive confiscation is clear in the subtle,
shifting arguments of the anti-gun forces. When handguns were
the target, they clamored for prohibition because handguns were
not militia-type weapons protected by the Second Amendment. Now
they cry for assault rifle bans because "mere citizens" have no
business possessing "military-style" weapons!
These eager confiscators rightly point out that assault rifles,
handguns, and indeed all "weapons" have only one purpose: to
kill. Again they speak a truth, but only partially. The unasked
question is, "To kill whom? And under what circumstances?" The
answer is, "To kill any who attempt to rob, maim, rape, or kill
us." Even that answer, though, does not fully express the most
important reason or gun ownership. Only a small number of people
are actually touched by criminal violence. The State, though,
touches each and every one of us every hour of every day. People
in government seek to tax our earning to pay for their whims, to
draft our children to fight in wars they start, to regulate and
interfere with our lives out of the pure love of power and their
desire to wield it. They have become as tyrannical as any Tory
redcoat, Soviet commissar, or Nazi Gestapo. And they are coming
to steal your last line of defense against them. Will you meekly
obey?
Gun Control Enforced At Gunpoint.
When any law against guns is passed, how is it backed up? How
will the State remove banned weapons from private hands? How
will agents of the State disarm the citizenry? Why, by the use
of guns, of course! This contradiction has never bothered statists. Why are handguns and assault rifles evil and wicked in the
hands of private citizens yet perfectly fine in the hands of
employees of the State? If this is truly "government by the
people" why do we see the servants disarming their masters by
force? What do they fear from us, if theirs is a legitimate,
benevolent government? If the State does not seek to control us,
why does it want us disarmed?
The usual answer - stripped of equivocation - is that "mere
citizens" are half-witted children, incapable of safely handling
"dangerous" commodities such as weapons or explosives or medicines or information. And only when some half-witted children
pass a civil service exam or are elected by other halfwits to
work for the wise and benevolent State do they magically become
smart and honest and trustworthy enough to carry weapons and
decide whom shall be "allowed" to possess guns and what sort of
design, shape, or weight such weapons shall be.
Sounds pretty condescending and paternalistic, doesn't it?
That's how they view us. Sheep for the shearing at tax time,
cannon fodder during war time, and dangerous idiots the rest of
the time.
And they dare ask us to obey their decrees?
Government Creates Crime.
What many gun owners refuse to face, usually by saying "it can't
happen in America," is that the government can and does create
new classes of criminals with the mere stroke of a pen. In 1919,
Prohibition turned millions of people overnight from sociable
drinkers to Enemies Of The State. The victimless crime of ingesting alcohol turned neighborly, peaceful people into fair game
for imprisonment, fines, and seizure of property. Some fought
back, often with simple shotguns against "revenooers" armed with
assault rifles (the Thompson sub-machine gun) in a modern version
of the Whiskey Rebellion. The Prohibition amendment created
crime by definition. If, tomorrow, smoking or drinking coffee or
owning a book were declared illegal, the State would suddenly
point to a new "criminal underworld" of massive proportions. In
the eyes of the State they would become "a new breed of criminal"
to be weeded out of society and thrown into prisons. So it is
with any prohibition of popular activities, including gun ownership.
Gun Prohibition Disarms The Poor.
Let's face it - police respond faster to calls from Beverly Hills
than they do to calls from Watts. And the rich can afford armed
guards, to boot! When so-called Saturday Night Specials are
banned, does it affect those who can spend hundreds on a fine
pistol? No. Does it prevent criminals from stealing whatever
weapon they want or buying it on the black market? No. The only
people harmed by a "cheap handgun" ban are the honest poor who
have hardly enough money to feed their children, let alone defend
them from inner-city marauders.
Any form of gun control disarms those least able to defend themselves. And what good is a 15 day waiting period to someone who
is threatened by an armed criminal coming by tonight? When one
perceives a threat, one should be able to acquire protection
immediately.
Gun Prohibition Is Racist.
The Gun Control Act of 1968 was rammed down the throats of the
American public, blatantly exploiting then-current fears of gun-toting black rioters by implying that the law would help to
disarm American Blacks, other minorities, and all dissenters at a
time of civil upheaval. To paraphrase a popular slogan, "If the
government does not trust minorities with guns, minorities cannot
trust government." Ask any Native American.
In a mirror image case 20 years later, assault rile bans are
being ramrodded through legislatures by appealing to fears that
gun-toting white racists are on the loose.
The real and only purpose of gun control is to disarm the innocent and the peaceful, of whatever race, creed, or social status.
Gun Prohibition Is Sexist.
The same goes for women. Police purported feminists urge women
to resist rape with fists, fingernails, keyrings, and screams.
But why should any woman allow an assailant to get within arm's
reach of her? Why don't Women's Rights activists in or out of
government reveal the most effective way for a woman to defend
herself: to buy a gun and learn to use it? The truth is, they
want women to feel weak and perpetually threatened so that they
will beg the State for protection. A woman standing proud,
armed, and fearless is the last thing most self-proclaimed
"feminists" want (since that would undercut their perverse longing for a huge paternalistic government!)
Governments Kill More Than Any Mass-Murderer.
How can people who work for or worship the State - statists -
point to the murder of five children in schoolyard or twenty
people in a restaurant and claim that as sufficient reason to
disarm tens of millions of Americans? Are they so presumptuous
as to suggest that we are capable of such violent madness?
Perhaps there is a degree of psychological projection going on
here: statists feel within themselves the urge to kill and
project it onto the people fear the most - us, the victims of the
State. For while tens of millions of people own guns, only a
minuscule fraction ever use those guns to aggress against others.
Every State, however has guns and even more powerful and terrifying weapons in its clutches and every State has used them, will
use them, and are using them murder hundreds, thousands, and
millions of innocent people.
How can the insane mind of a Patrick Purdy even dream of matching
the death toll of the most minor skirmish in the smallest of wars
or "police actions?" The murder of five innocent children is
heart-renderingly tragic, but how many thousands of innocent
children were roasted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How many unarmed, peaceful young people were slaughtered in Tien An Men
Square? How many women, children, and old people have been shot
by the bullets of "their own" government in Vietnam, Cambodia,
Angola, Nicaragua, El Salvador, India, Israel, Afghanistan,
Tibet, Argentina, Libya, Ireland, Russia, South Africa, Chile,
Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Iran, and on and on and on for every State
you can name, even "our" United States. For statists to use the
"mass murder" of a few people as an excuse to disarm Americans
when the State is the largest, bloodiest, longest-lived institution of mass-murder in all of history is appallingly hypocritical. Do we owe allegiance to the apologists for such atrocities?
NEVER!
Private ownership of weaponry is the last defense against all
tyranny, foreign and domestic. The thought that there might come
a time when peaceable gun owners (even members of the patriotic
NRA) must take arms against an American Li Peng commanding the
local police and the US military is anathema to nearly everyone.
The possibility, however, must be faced. A lot of colonists were
horrified at the thought of defending themselves against "their"
king's army, too.
Civilian-Based Defense Preferred To Standing Army.
Some say that the Constitution "granted" the right to keep and
bear arms to provide for a "well-regulated militia." Since we
have a standing army, the argument goes, civilians no longer need
to own guns. Yet that amendment was written precisely because
the British used that exact argument in their attempts (from 1768
to 1777) to disarm the colonists. Americans detested the standing armies of the British government and knew that civilian-based
defense was the ultimate, perhaps the only, protection against
any threat to liberty, whether from London, Moscow, or Washington
D.C.
Defying Unjust Laws Is Right And Proper!
When the day comes (and it will, if we don't raise our voices in
protest now) that the Imperial State commands its subjects
(that's how they view you and me, regardless of that they say) to
turn in our weapons, what will we do? Make no mistake - if
people refuse to surrender or destroy their weapons, they will be
dealt with by heavily armed police; they will be imprisoned,
fined, perhaps even shot if they try to defend their Constitutional - nay, their human - rights.
Of whom should we be more wary - invading foreign troops whose
rule we would never sanction, or "our own" government, to which
most of us grant some legitimacy and which is right here, right
now, all around us? Perhaps paraphrasing a parents's question
will help provide an answer: If the State passed a law telling
you to jump off a cliff, would you? No fair answering that "good
pure, sober, honest politicians wouldn't let that happen." With
guns, it is happening right now.
And when that friendly cop on the beat (whom most gun owners
exalt as a good man just doing his job and who may even be a
fellow NRA member!) comes around to your house, he will come
armed with "good government" handguns and assault rifles. "Sorry
pal," he'll say, "but the law is the law."
That possibility is something many gun owners - staunch defenders
of law and order and supporters of local police - refuse to face.
They blank out the fact that even - perhaps especially - in
America, they may have to choose between owning their guns and
facing the full implication of the Declaration of Independence,
that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of
these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish..."
Some would rather surrender meekly to the State, giving up their
last shred of defense against tyranny, rather than face that
choice. But if they do surrender their firepower, the choice
will have been made. And it won't matter whether our new masters
speak Russian, Chinese, Japanese, English, or American Bureaucratese. They will be our masters nonetheless.
What To Do.
First of all, keep your guns! Do not turn them in just because
some law is passed ordering you to do so. That's just what they
want - sheeplike compliance. You are not a criminal. Don't let
the State declare you one or treat you like one. The colonists
who turned in their weapons to their Tory town governments soon
learned the folly of their actions. Any government that outlaws
gun ownership is an outlaw government! It is no more necessary
to obey an oppressive, tyrannical State than is to obey any thief
who demands that you turn over your property under threat of
death. We know the free person's answer to such a demand. So
does the State. That is why statists seek to browbeat us into
disarming without a fight. They need the sanction of the victim.
They cannot hope to disarm us by force. That would tip their
hand and guarantee a revolution. But by stealth, instilled
guilt, and appeals to our peaceful, law-abiding natures will they
attempt to expropriate our only defense against their continued
and increasing predations.
Resist the urge to obey the edicts of self-proclaimed rulers.
Don't walk timidly into a concentration camp filled with once-free men and women. Decry with every fiber of your being this
trampling of our fundamental rights!
THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS A CIVIL RIGHT, WITHOUT WHICH ALL OTHER
CIVIL RIGHTS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEND.
THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS THE RIGHT TO OWN - AND PROTECT - YOUR
BODY AND YOUR PROPERTY.
THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS THE RIGHT TO RESIST TYRANNY.
ANY WHO SEIZE GUNS ARE THIEVES OR TYRANTS.
Every law restricting free, immediate access to firearms is a
direct attack on individual freedom. The course of action is up
to you. Demand the repeal of all such laws or ignore them with
impunity. But never accept them as legitimate restraints upon
your liberty. Nothing legitimate can issue from the pen of
tyrants.
|
|