Behind the Beard

The thing that few Americans seem to be unable to grasp is that the push by the current regime in Washington and its left-wing, anti-gun base has almost nothing to do with guns themselves but with expanding control over an increasingly docile and apathetic citizenry.  Guns are but the current “beard” behind which anti-Constitutionalists hide their real agenda. The current “debate” over gun control is in reality an attack by ever more aggressive left-wing forces on the Constitution and the very freedom of the American people.   I have saluted too many flag draped coffins of men and women, some of who gave their last full measure of devotion to this nation, to allow our Constitution to be abandoned without my opposing those elements which would turn us from a Constitutional Republic to a socialist paradise ruled by the whims and dictates of a “beloved leader” rather than a nation governed by law.  

The arguments of those that are the current aggressors to the Constitution are that guns are the cause of violence in our society and that more stringent gun laws are the answer.  When the statistics of violence in our society are examined this assertion proves fallacious.  According to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) figures for 2011, 323 people were killed with “assault rifles” in the United States while during the same period 496 people were killed with hammers.  Would it not make sense therefore that, if their real intent were to reduce violence in society and an article were to be identified as the cause of that violence, we’d be outlawing or licensing, replete with background checks, hammers since they were used more than twice as many times in killings?   Likewise, since 72% of violent crimes committed with firearms were committed with handguns rather than long guns and that it is twice as likely that a long gun used in a violent crime would be a shotgun as opposed to a rifle of any sort, would it not therefore make sense to focus on those weapons?  Once again according to FBI figures 99.9% of all firearms in the United States are not used in violent crimes, 99.8% of all firearms were not used in any crime at all and only 4% of those firearms used in crimes were obtained legally.  Why then the attack on “assault rifles” and firearms legally procured?

If more stringent gun laws were the answer then how can one explain contradictions to their assertions such as the fact that after Washington, D.C. passed gun control laws banning people from owning firearms in 1974 the murder rate in the District went up by 134% while the murder rate in the rest of the U.S. went down 2% over the same period or that Chicago, with among the most stringent gun laws in the nation, has among the highest gun violence rates or that it appears that on every occasion and in every location when  conceal-carry gun laws have been allowed the crime rate has gone down?

How do these antagonists explain the fact that while private gun ownership in the United States is at all time highs overall gun violence, including murders, nationally are declining?   

All these facts come together to testify that there is no real causative relationship between violence and private firearms ownership and I would put forward that the real causative relationship is between violence and the moral decay brought on by the abandonment of the basic moral principles that this nation was built on and their being replaced by left-wing, liberal political correctness. 

What then is behind the beard?  To quote Noah Webster "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe."   

Throughout modern history enslavement of a free people has always been preceded by, primarily, three things; the destruction of the family unit and its replacement by fidelity to a charismatic leader, the conversion of a free press to the propaganda arm of the state, and the removal of the means of resistance from the people.  If we examine the state of American society today we can easily identify that two of these precursors, the destruction of the family unit and conversion of the free press, are well on their way to being accomplished and that the liberal-left and progressives have now turned their attack on the last, the means to resist enslavement. Their focus in this attack is on “assault” type weapons and high capacity magazines even though there is no real causative relationship between those items and violence anymore than there is between hammers and violence.   Why then the attack?  Simple, pistols, shotguns, and bolt action rifles pose no real threat to an opposing force armed with modern, fully automatic weapons and, in spite of what the anti-gun/anti-constitution leftist attack squads would like us to believe, the possibility of the people having to defend the Republic and the Constitution against a standing army raised and supported by a future tyrannical national government was the original intent of the Second Amendment.   

Today nontraditional news sources are ripe with the story of the Department of Homeland Security and FEMA purchasing 1.6 billion rounds of military grade ammunition, 2700 heavily armoured urban assault vehicles, and thousands of fully automatic “assault rifles” for “support of their response in natural disasters”.  Of course the traditional news media, when they acknowledge the purchases, are quick to point out that the ammunition purchases were simply a matter of the economics of scale, the Department was making a bulk purchase of ammunition for all government civil agencies as a cost savings; that the armoured vehicles are not assault vehicles but were purchased for use as ambulances or to transport supplies under adverse conditions which occur in natural disasters; and, while the firearms may look like “assault rifles”, they are in fact defensive, personal protection weapons for Department personnel in cases of “civil unrest”.  What is the truth, I don’t know, I’ll leave that up to the reader, but I would ask “If the ammunition purchase was to take advantage of economies of scale, why wasn’t the purchase made through the Department of Defense?” and “If the vehicles were not for urban assaults then why are they armoured when unarmored vehicles of the same type are so much cheaper and provide the same performance?”  and finally,  “Why, with an Army, Marine Corps, and National Guard would we need to arm a civilian force with fully automatic weapons?”   On July 2, 2008, in a speech he gave in Denver Mr. Obama said, “We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set.  We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.”, in case you’ve missed it, as did most of America at the time, notice the use of the royal “We” in describing  his plan.   Can this be the force he was suggesting?  I don’t know, all I do know is that by allowing the unconstitutional changes to the Second Amendment being proposed we will be damned by yet unborn generations for allowing the gift of the liberty we enjoyed being stolen from them. 

Contact your Governor and demand he sign all pro-gun legislation into law and demand that your representatives, both state and federal, publicly and privately defend the Second Amendment and the Constitution and stop all anti-gun legislation.

Who is the Militia?

“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.”  The liberal-left, anti-gun/anti-Constitution movement focus primarily on  one word in the Second Amendment to nullify its application to the general population, “Militia”, declaring with non-existent authority that it is proof positive that the Second Amendment’s original intent was to establish a government controlled reserve armed force.  Is that true?  Just who is the militia?

The modern, legal definition of the “militia” is set forth in Section 311 of the United States Code (USC) Title 10, entitled “Militia: composition and classes”

"(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.

(b) The classes of the militia are —

(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and

(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia."

So, according to today’s definition, the militia is all citizens who are not members of the “organized militia”.

The original meaning, in the Constitution, of the word militia can be found in the words of, among other founding fathers, Richard Henry Lee who defined it as “A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves…and include all men capable of bearing arms.” and George Mason who said “I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.”   Support for their definitions can be found in the Militia Act of 1792, a document contemporary with them and the Constitution, which codified the militia as “. . . each and every free able-bodied white male citizen of the respective States, resident therein, who is or shall be of age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years (except as is herein after excepted) shall severally and respectively be enrolled in the militia . . . “.  It is evident therefore to any rational mind that both currently and at the time of the establishment of the Constitution that the militia was, and is intended to be, the entirety of the citizenry of the United States.  

Those that would disarm the people would counter by quoting the Second again, “A well regulated Militia . . .” They then would contend that “regulated” implies under the control of the federal government such as is the case of the National Guard.  However, such government regulation was not the intended meaning.  In the context of the Bill of Rights the term meant only what it says, that the militia be well regulated, but not by the federal government.   It just does not make sense that the Bill of Rights, being a proscription on the power and authority of the federal government, would introduce such an incongruity as to grant the power of regulation of the militia to the federal government especially when considering “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” was a militia that might, at some future time, be required to fight against a standing army raised and supported by a future tyrannical national government. 

“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press,  or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; . . . or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.” – Samuel Adams

The Constitution and its Amendments are the supreme law of the land and as such cannot be overridden or superseded by state or federal statute, judicial decision, nor by “executive order” but only by Amendment as described in Article V.  The attempt to deprive any citizen of the United States of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution under colour of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage (commonly referred to as under colour of authority) is punishable under Title 42, Sections 1983, 1985, and 1986  and Title 18, Sections 241 and 242 of the United States Code.   Current and past actions of all three branches of the federal, state, and municipal governments have, under colour of authority, infringed on the Second Amendment and unlawfully deprived citizens of the United States of rights, privileges, and immunities secured by the Constitution.  Every citizen, in defense of the Constitution and their liberty, should demand that, at the very least, those members of the Legislative, the Judiciary, and the Executive branches (of municipal, state, and federal governments) be subjected to prosecution under Title 42 for their current attempts at deprivation of those Second Amendment rights. 

Perhaps Trent Coxe said it best, “Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”  It is up to us, the people, to defend the Constitution, our liberty, and our rights and not cheaply trade them for the illusion of momentary safety. 

 Write to your Governor and your legislators and demand an end to the current attack on the Second Amendment, their support for the original intent of the Second, the rescinding of current unconstitutional gun laws, and a return to Constitutional governance.   All changes to the Second Amendment or any part of the Constitution must be through the amendment process.