In Support of Gun Rights
Hot Air’s “Doctor Zero” makes an excellent, tie-all-the-loose-knots-together argument in favor of the right of private citizens to own guns. Some clips are below.
I wish the Supreme Court would do more than rule the Second Amendment applies to the states. It’s long past time the last, ridiculous cobwebs of ambiguity were cleared away from the right to keep and bear arms. Gun control has been simmering on low heat for a while, after boiling over in the Nineties. We should clear it off the Constitutional stove altogether. We have better things to do than slip into another bitter, tedious argument about whether the government can interfere with our right, and duty, to defend ourselves.
The very areas of privacy that allow us to relax with our friends and families will always be soft targets for criminals… unless we fortify them ourselves. The police arrived at my house several minutes too late to play a role in my attempted execution. They made excellent time – there happened to be a unit in the area. If things had gone a little different, they might have arrived just in time to avenge me.
Citizen access to firearms has reduced crime rates time and again, but this is more than a matter of practicality. It’s a question of principle. The people of an orderly nation surrender the business of vengeance to the government, replacing it with the rule of law. They cannot be expected to surrender the right of defense. The right to protect yourself, and your family, from injury and death is an essential part of your dignity as a free man or woman. Without the First Amendment, you are a slave. Without the Second, you are a child.
Losing the dignity of self-defense is part of the degeneration from master of the State to its client. As this dignity fades, the people and their government speak less of responsibilities, and more of entitlements.
The Second Amendment is a concrete expression of the American birthright of independence. With the right of self-defense bargained away, our rights to speak and vote give us modest influence in a collective. The Founders wanted more, and better, for us.
The New York Times article about the case before the Supreme Court ends this way:
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority has made clear that it is very concerned about the right to bear arms. There is another right, however, that should not get lost: the right of people, through their elected representatives, to adopt carefully drawn laws that protect them against other people’s guns.
Carefully drawn laws will not protect you from other people’s guns. Believe me. None of the people carefully drawing those laws will rely upon them for their protection.
Doctor Zero points out the many facets of supporting private ownership of guns. Those who say we need onerous regulations because of the high number of gun deaths per capita in America- at least, when compared to other countries- forget that it is not the weapon that causes harm, it is the person pulling the trigger. To paraphrase what a professor told me before class once, every male over 18 in Switzerland has a weapon. They are all deputized. The high gun deaths in America take place because we are a more violent country, not because we have a lot of guns.
My professor was correct. If you want fewer gun deaths, create a culture of responsibility. Do not put people at risk. After all, if we take guns away from the law-abiding citizens, who will have weapons? Only those are with the government or law-breakers. I don’t trust the latter to protect me, and in fact can guarantee they will use guns frequently in their crimes, which will happen with more and more frequency themselves. Too, while the vast majority of police and military members are hard-working, dedicated citizens, tyranny is not something I want to avoid through trust in government. Guns are a great political, physical and psychological deterrent to taking away the rights of a nation’s people.
