From:
http://robertringer.com/archives.php
Now that the Supreme Court is involved in the Washington, D.C. handgun-ban issue, both sides are bringing the same old arguments to the forefront. The nation’s capital, perhaps the most violence-prone city in America, also has some of our strictest gun-control laws.
Nevertheless, D.C.’s city fathers say that their handgun ban is “a governmental duty of the highest order.” Gun-control opponents, of course, claim that the ban infringes on their Second Amendment rights — specifically, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”
The authors of the Second Amendment had important reasons for adding it to the Constitution. Having been tyrannized by Great Britain, they saw the right to bear arms not only as a way for American citizens to protect themselves and their property from other individuals, but as a last-resort defense against an oppressive government.
That is precisely why it is in the best interest of today’s government to disarm the public. It has cleverly masked this violation of Constitutional and natural rights by appealing to the emotions of a populace grown weary of violence.
Notwithstanding their continual efforts to build a case against gun ownership, government legislators have failed in their attempts to show that gun control lowers crime rates. On the contrary, the results of tests and studies have shown quite the opposite to be true. Plain and simple, owning guns does not cause crime. If anything, it prevents crime.
The old saying “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have them” is a self-evident truth. Certainly, even the most zealous gun-control advocate understands that criminals in every city in America are walking the streets carrying concealed weapons. Which means gun*control laws have the very real effect of giving criminals a huge advantage over noncriminals. It certainly is a great country … for them!
Like an overly protective parent, our government wags its finger in our faces and tells us: “You mustn’t own guns, because you might accidentally hurt yourself or someone else.” The assumption is that just because something can be used to harm someone, it will be used for that purpose.
There’s no question that thousands of people are killed each year by handguns, which is an unfortunate fact of life. Nevertheless, it’s only a small percentage of the number of people killed by automobiles. Yet, it would make no sense to suggest that responsible individuals should be denied the right to drive.
And the same logic should apply to guns. Just because some people use guns negligently — or for criminal purposes — is no reason to deny prudent, law-abiding citizens the right to own them.
I told you that
I am not a big fan of the Second Amendment. It’s not that I disagree with its content. It’s just that I have a problem with the concept of the government granting rights to Americans through amendments to the Constitution.
The concept of amending the Constitution to grant rights implies that any rights not specifically granted by government edict or Constitutional amendment do not exist. It’s a dangerous trap, and one that we have walked into willingly while anesthetized by the phenomenon of gradualism.
So, while it’s nice that the Second Amendment grants us the right keep and bear arms, it is, more importantly, superfluous.
You have the right to own a gun for the same reason you have a right to own anything. The corollary to this is that the government has no right to forbid you to own a gun for the same reason it has no right to forbid anyone from owning anything.
The term gun control, therefore, is a misnomer. When politicians talk about “gun control,” what they are really talking about is
people control. As Morgan Norval put it: “‘Order’ may be the excuse; ‘law’ may be the argument; ‘keeping someone else in his place’ may be the emotional rationale; ‘supporting the police’ may be the civic slogan; ‘ending violence’ may be the dream — but the nightmare of reality is total tyranny of the state.”
Thus, not only are all arguments that favor gun control invalid on the basis of logic, fact, and morality, but even those who are against it usually miss the real point. Gun control is a freedom issue. Guns are a tool for self-*defense, and when government takes away any tool of self-defense, it not only violates our rights, it endangers our lives.
A gun is the individual’s ultimate means of preserving his freedom, which is why the right to bear arms should be defended to the bitter end. Because in the bitter end, as the American Revolutionaries discovered, it may very well get down to a matter of whether or not you have access to weapons.
One last word of advice: A gun is a means of protecting your life and property from those who would try to take them from you. You should never point a gun at someone for any other reason.
Also, never pull out a gun unless you’ve already made the decision to use it. It is not a toy. It is not a means of threatening someone. It is not a prop for showing off. Though it is socially impolite to talk about it, guns were invented for the purpose of killing people (which is why governments own millions of them).
Bottom line: If you’re not ready to kill, don’t pull out a gun. Better yet, don’t even own one. You’ll only end up getting yourself killed.
But for the sake of your own freedom – whether or not you choose to own a gun – you should oppose any attempt to restrict the right of law-abiding citizens to own firearms. The right to own a gun, as with the right to own anything, is inherited at birth. It is not up to a group of politicians to grant such a right through a Constitutional amendment.
If you’re tired of politicians telling you what you can and can’t do, stand up and be counted. Consider the idea of teaching of freedom as an avocation. Remember, every person you educate is one more person on the side of freedom — and in a democracy, numbers count.
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