Molon Labe

Why gun laws don’t work

The United States has had, until relatively recently, a long history of private ownership of firearms based on the Second Amendment with relatively low incidents of gun violence in proportion to its population.  What has happened to change that?   Has the change occurred because of a greater proliferation of firearms or because we can now purchase “assault rifles” and “high capacity magazines” or because we are exposed to violence in video games, television and movies as those pushing for more stringent gun laws and a weakening of the Second Amendment would have us believe?   I would say “NO!”, the root cause of gun violence, and violence in general in our society, has nothing to do with the weapons themselves but with the societal decay that has resulted from the pervasive shift from a center right nation to a center left one, the spread of political correctness that has crippled law enforcement, and the abandonment of traditional, faith based moral values in deference to the secular pseudo-religion of atheism.  

Is the answer to gun violence and domestic terrorism more stringent gun laws limiting the types of firearms Americans can own based on a firearm’s appearance or which disallow the sale and possession of magazines based on capacity or requiring gun owners to register their firearms or limiting the number of firearms or amount of ammunition an American can own or is the answer heavily taxing firearm and ammunition purchases or,  as some left-wing, progressive intellectuals have suggested, the total abandonment of the United States Constitution and with it the right to “keep and bear arms”?

Why do the liberal-left, progressive (the new term for communist), anti-gun lobbies and proponents not understand that gun laws do not reduce gun violence nor do they reduce incidents of domestic terrorism such as Aurora and Sandy Hook.  If stringent gun laws did then it follows that New York City and Chicago would be the safest cities in the U.S.  The history of gun laws indicate that they do nothing to reduce gun violence and the locales that have the most stringent firearms control laws, such as New York City and Chicago, actually are among, if not the, most dangerous locales!  Why?  Because it is a simple truth that only law abiding people obey laws.  Those with malevolent intentions do not obey the law!  The idea that someone who would use a firearm to commit murder or who is intent on using a firearm to rob would be deterred by the fact that the firearm they were using was unregistered, was of a banned type, contained a banned magazine or was obtained without a background check is not just naive but is moronic and legislators who subscribe to that idea should be removed from office for criminal incompetency.   The truth is that disarming the general public only makes them easier targets for those intent on victimizing the disarmed. 

We, as a nation, must realize that we will never totally eliminate violence.  Violence is the fatal flaw in our human DNA, but if we are intent on reducing violence in our society then we must attack those true root causes for the proliferation of violence and not be diverted by attacking the inanimate objects that have the potential of being the instruments of violence.  We must attack and eliminate that societal decay, that spread of political correctness, and that abandonment of traditional, faith based morality that has brought us to our present condition.   Our legislators need to reverse that societal decay by reducing the “mommy state”, restoring personal responsibility and enforcing the laws that we have, they need to eliminate “political correctness” in all its forms and restore the authority of the police to police by allowing them to “profile” and target those anti-social individuals and groups in a community who are the perpetrators of violence with particular emphasis on gangs and “gang bangers”, and, perhaps most importantly, they need to reset our national moral compass by inviting God back into our national conscience through the  re-establishment of the original intent of the First Amendment . . . the prohibition against the state establishing a state religion not, as the liberal-left has perverted its meaning, the separation of the state and the people from God.

If all the foregoing be true then why are some of our leaders pushing gun control so strongly and ignoring the issues of societal decay, the destructive nature of political correctness, and the abandonment of traditional, faith based moral values?   In my view it’s simple, these elements do not fit into their political agenda which is the abandonment of the United States Constitution and the transformation of our Republic into a socialist state in which privileges flow from the state and rights are non-existent; where we are ruled  by the edicts ("executive orders") and dictates of our chief magistrates rather than governed by them under the protections of a constitution.  Those who conspire in this agenda fear that such an overt attack on the Constitution and the Republic would be responded to as the architects of the Second Amendment intended . . . by the people working in concert in armed rebellion for the preservation of both.  They, those who so conspire, realize that advancing their agenda with impunity requires that the means to belligerently and successfully resist must be eliminated, ergo the weakening and eventual elimination of the people’s inalienable right to “keep and bear” arms.   I contend that the continued denial of this intent is the proof of this agenda.  

The liberal-left and their progressive allies have begun blaming our national woes on the American people’s insistence on obedience to the Constitution and who characterize it as archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil.  Professor Louis Michael Seidman, who calls for politicians and judges to engage in “constitutional disobedience”, has said “ ‘We the people’ is impossibly Utopian.  If so, we have to give up on the claim that we are a self-governing people who can settle our disagreements through mature and tolerant debate. But before abandoning our heritage of self-government, we ought to try extricating ourselves from constitutional bondage so that we can give real freedom a chance.”

Each president and legislator takes an oath to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”  Violation of this oath in an act of “constitutional disobedience” is, in my opinion, not just  a mere broken campaign promise, not only an impeachable offense but rather, it is, arguably, an act of treason and the higher the office the higher the treason. As John Adams stated, “We are a nation of laws, not of men.” , being such requires strict adherence to our foundational laws, the United States Constitution.  It appears to me that this president and some member of our current federal legislature and judiciary are intentionally practicing constitutional disobedience and are aided and abetted by a small albeit vocal and strategically placed cadre of liberal-left wing and progressive operatives.

We, the people, must take the opportunity of this "debate" to remind those that we have chosen to govern that they are not the masters, we are and they are our servants; that it is not for them to decide what rights they will allow us but to defend the rights granted to us by the Constitution; that the Constitution is not a group of suggestions for them to pick and chose which to comply with and which to ignore but that it is the law they must conform to and obey and finally, that we will not tolerate any further attacks on our rights and demand the full reinstatement on those rights that have been thus far compromised and infringed on.  It is time for our states through their governors, legislatures, and judiciaries to reassert their sovereignty and dominance over the federal government and support the Constitution by exercising nullification of laws, court rulings, and “executive orders” that violate that Constitution.   

Finally we must bear in mind that no power on earth can wrest our freedoms from us so long as we maintain the means to resist but we can lose it none the less through apathy and inaction when that means is threatened.