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Gun
Ownership: the Right that Guarantees the Others Individual people have the right to own guns. Further, it’s the one right that firmly guarantees all our other rights. Any reasoning Liberal or Conservative who’s not too strident about the subject should be able to explain why. Simply put, the ability of millions of individuals to project force has a way of keeping oppressive governments, foreign invaders, and the thug on the corner from becoming too aggressive. Kings and dictators know this, and whenever they could, have worked to prevent the people from being armed. I place absolutely no trust in a country where the government has guns but the people don’t. I’d like to tell you that the power of ideas is now predominant, or that there’s an alternative to maintaining a threat of armed resistance to power. I’d like to, but it’s not true yet. Ghandi’s non-violent approach to change is the exception, not the rule. Historically, it seems one person or group is always out trying to take rights away from another group. The founders of our country justifiably feared repression of a people by its own government. They were repressed by England. First, we tried negotiation. Later, because we were an armed population, we were able to beat the pants off the world’s strongest military power. No firearms would have meant no Revolution. When the founders prepared the Constitution, I think their reasoning proceeded as follows: 1) They believed people were endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights – life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 2) They knew repression by tyrants, via standing armies, was always a threat to the inalienable rights of the people. 3) They knew the people wouldn’t accept the Constitution without an enumeration of rights, including freedom of religion, speech, the press, peaceable assembly, and the freedom to bear arms. And I believe that last one was there to guarantee the first ones. The Bill of Rights, Amendment II, as I’m sure you know, states: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Some say a “well regulated Militia” is an organ of the State – the national guard, not you and me. Some argue that the “the people” refers to the states instead of the people. They’re wrong. The national guard is effectively a standing army, and Thomas Jefferson wrote extensively against standing armies. YOU are the people, and YOU have the right to keep and bear arms. Why would you? Hunting, target practice, and collecting firearms? No, they are hobbies. The answer: to protect your way of life from domestic oppressors. Personal possession of arms means we can assert our right to change the structure of the current government any time the ballot box fails. And that’s a concept that should appeal to Liberals and Conservatives alike. There are, however, negative side effects to living in a country that believes in gun ownership. First, petty criminals, gangs and crackpots can get guns. This means that some crime, including domestic violence, involves firearms. Criminals also use knives, clubs, cars, bombs, alcohol, drugs, computers, and stock certificates. Decreasing crime by limiting gun ownership is a fatuous argument. Second, politicians prattle on incessantly about the issue of guns and crime. Dianne Feinstein’s “junk gun” proposal advances that tired old argument that the gun itself produces the crime, not the individual. This is shameful, as it should be the job of a Democratic Senator to solve the causes of crime, not ban the instruments. And when any deranged schoolboy blows his classmates away, both Democrats and Republican promise us new bans on weapons. That’s because they don’t dare tell us they’re incapable of addressing the real causes of violence in our society. Third, our police officers are exposed to danger. They are our hardest-working public servants, and they have the toughest jobs imaginable. Although they carry guns, and are trained extensively to use them, they must also exercise supreme restraint. Police officers may be confronted by criminals with guns. Yet I’d be surprised to find many law enforcement officers who don’t own non-duty guns, and a large number of them are members of the NRA. Gun ownership is a powerful right and there is no good reason to give it up. Its core benefit is Liberty. Barry Schoenborn is a technical writer, and a ten-year resident of Nevada County. You can write to him at barry@wvswrite.com. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of The Union.
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