The Liberty Sphere Draws Fire Over Gun Rights

Washington, DC (TLS). The Liberty Sphere has drawn fire over gun rights for the past couple of days. As most of our regular readers know, the NRA's 'Anti-Gun Blacklist' was published here in order to shine the spotlight on those agencies, corporations, and individuals who are on record for supporting measures that would essentially negate the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which is part of the 'Bill of Rights' afforded to individual citizens.

No amount of spin or revisionist history can cloud the simple fact that the rights protected in the Bill of Rights apply to individuals as birthrights. That is, the Founders viewed them as so sacred, so essential to human liberty, that they referred to those rights as 'unalienable.'

One reader, however, insists that the 2nd Amendment contains no such individual right, a view which in itself is suspect since the Bill of Rights refer to individual citizens. If these rights do not apply to citizens individually, then they cannot be applied collectively either. It takes each individual citizen being afforded liberty in order for the collective society to be free as a whole. Take away individual rights, and you automatically make null and void collective rights.

For example, if free speech is viewed as a collective right only, if individual citizens are not afforded the right of free expression, then how can it be possible for the society to be free collectively? What you have at that point is a government dominated totalitarian state that presumes it can speak for the citizens. Thus, the 'collective' right of free speech automatically negates the freedom of individuals to speak their minds without government reprisal.

Be that as it may, the reader in question, who identifies herself as Mara S., states the following:

'I have been the victim of a crime. Many years ago, my house was broken into while I slept one night, and I'm glad there was no gun in the house because it would probably have been stolen along with my jewlery and some other valuables. If I'd awakened and surprised the thief, he might well have killed me with it in confusion and panic. Actually, a few days later, police caught the thief in the act of breaking into another person's home and they shot him when he tried to get away. If he'd found a gun in my house and escaped with it, he might have used it then to return fire, possibly killing a policeman or someone else. Or he might have fenced it long before that confrontation, with God-knows-what results in some distant city, if not my home town. Any of those outcomes would have been far more likely than the chance I might have awakened, fully alert, in time to use the hypothetical gun to protect $700-worth of insured valuables.

'Currently, I own what's known in my neck of the woods as a "varmint rifle," the varmint at issue being groundhogs. I enjoy removing my rifle from its secure hiding place now and then for target practice at a nice range near my home, where NRA instructors let me also try out handguns of different calibers. I'm a good shot with most of the weapons I've fired, if I do say so myself. The instructors officially agree, even going so far as to suggest I consider getting involved in competitive shooting. Maybe I will someday. As you might guess, I have no problem with people owning guns if they need them, whether for the business of protecting their crops or for sport.

'And yet -- now, please try to wrap your brain around this without squealing -- I fully support laws requiring people to register their guns and store them safely, as well as restricting ownership to those who can be plausibly expected not to harm innocent people with them by intent, accident, or negligence.

'I believe law enforcement professionals from street cops to attorneys general who tell me that well-written gun laws, properly administered, are among the best weapons we have for prosecuting the perpetrators of violent crimes, if not preventing such crimes outright.

'There is no unconditional right to own a gun expressed in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I resent the NRA's distortion of the amendment's language to suggest otherwise.

'The amendment was penned at a time in our nation's history when our land-based military might consisted of farmers behind trees, uniforms optional. In order for such a militia -- our only "army" at the time -- to be effective, it was prudent to ensure that citizens had their government's permission to keep guns handy.

'It's insulting to the intelligence of the American people to expect us to extrapolate from this that our nation -- now blessed with a military force armed to the teeth, when deployed (and then only) with the most sophisticated weapons known to mankind -- stillo needs civilians skulking around with flintlock pistols jammed into their waistbands to protect us from enemies both seen and unseen.

'And you know, that is the only valid argument I believe we pull out of the Second Amendment. Much as some might wish it were otherwise, the amendment does not say "the heroic circumvention of 3 a.m. rape scenarios being a male fantasy that just won't go away, the right of guys throughout the land to keep Colt Pythons in their night tables shall not be infringed."

'See how silly that sounds?

'Speaking of irritating word-play, I resent being labeled "anti-gun" because I am pro-reason, just as I resent being labeled "pro-abortion" because I disagree with many of the policies and philosophies promoted by self-styled "pro-life" or "right-to-life" organizations.

'Is it not possible to explore differences of opinion on complex and volatile issues without resorting to simplistic name-calling? People do not reverse themselves to consider the merits of a cause they reject simply because they've been forced to endure non-stop hysterical hyperbole from its proponents and can't stand it anymore. That is in the realm of brainwashing and torture, I believe.'

And that is 'the word' from Mara S.

Her argument disintegrates upon five salient points.

First, the brainwashing that has been done over the last 50 years has been perpetrated by leftist revisionists who fail to consider the original intent of the Framers when interpreting the Constitution. For too long individual law-abiding citizens have watched as these purveyors of government control slowly whittle away our rights. We have been on the defensive for much too long. What you are seeing now is our offensive. The gloves are coming off. We refuse to allow this to take place any longer. The hysteria and hyperbole were perfected by anti-gun bigots who portray those of us who support gun rights as 'snaggle-toothed, ignorant, rednecked hillbillies from the backwoods,' who are to be feared because we may go on a shooting spree at the drop of a hat.

As a proud gun-owner, I have never fired my weapon at a human being. I hope I never have to. But I will not hesitate to do so if my life, my family, and my property are threatened.

Second, before assuming that what some legal scholars or law enforcement officials have to say about the matter, it is wise to consider the words of the Founders themselves, who stated repeatedly that the beginning of tyranny is the removal of the rights of the people to keep and bear arms. The issue is NOT the purpose of having the guns but the principle that government has no right to take them away. THAT is the issue. Jefferson's philosophy was very clear: government that is powerful enough to remove the individual rights of citizens, including the right to own guns, is a tyrannical government to be feared. He even went as far at to say that such government has lost its moral authority to govern.

Third, over 100 million law-abiding citizens own guns. Less than one percent of these guns are used in committing crimes. It is the height of stupidity to claim that law abiding citizens must be punished for what a small minority does. That, too, is tyranny. This is tantamount to saying that because one citizen out of 100,000 in a town yelled 'fire' in a crowded theater, causing scores to be trampled to death, that government should then ban free speech. This argument is entirely illogical and quite dangerous.

There are some law enforcement groups that have a vested interest in doing precisely what is unfair, illogical, and dangerous, i.e., make all citizens pay for what the minority criminal element does. These law enforcement groups believe that only they have the right to weapons. That is called 'a police state.' No part of the Constitution grants the right to own guns to law enforcement officials only.

Four, licensing and registration is an unconstitutional practice. An innate right needs no permission from government, according to Jefferson. History is our teacher in this regard. Licensing and registration is a precursor to confiscation. The first thing Germany did to set the stage for Hitler's program of confiscation was licensing and registration. Government had to have the names of the citizens who owned guns so that when the time came for confiscation, they would know who to go after.

Increasingly, gun owners are wary of such laws. And steps are being taken to protect ourselves. For example, many are making their own guns. Some are buying guns from sources where there is no serial number that can be traced. These are the desperate steps of otherwise good citizens who see the handwriting on the wall. Just as prohibition did not work because, one, you cannot permanently squelch human liberty, i.e., the people will find a way to do what they want, and second, such prohibitions only create a vast underground black market, so it is that restricting the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms will not work but result in civil disobedience and a vast underground black market of weapons that will make them even more readily available.

As gun owners find themselves the targets of laws aimed at taking away their rights, steps are taken to insure their continued possession of firearms. Government can either stop with the march of madness to rob the citizens of their rights, or it will face an army of millions underground who will find a way to keep and bear arms. It is really quite that simple.

Five, each year thousands of crimes are prevented by gun owners. This is well-documented, though you will not hear anything about it in the mainstream media, which has a vested interest in keeping such facts from the general public.

Consider these statistics:

* Law-abiding citizens use guns to defend themselves against criminals as many as 2.5 million times every year -- or about 6,850 times a day. This means that each year, firearms are used more than 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.

* Of the 2.5 million self-defense cases, as many as 200,000 are by women defending themselves against sexual abuse.

* Citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as police do every year (1,527 to 606). And readers of Newsweek learned in 1993 that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The "error rate" for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."

* Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker.

* Handguns are the weapon of choice for self-defense. Citizens use handguns to protect themselves over 1.9 million times a year. Many of these self-defense handguns could be labeled as "Saturday Night Specials."

So you see, Mara S., your argument simply does not wash. You have bought into the propaganda of collectivists who run roughshod over individual rights.

However, I appreciate the opportunity to respond to your post. It is essential that we have these debates in America.