Guns and America

I will begin by saying that this is a political blog. I will follow up by saying that I fully and completely support the Second Amendment. I say that unequivocally because many of my friends and relatives who support gun rights will now think I don't believe in them. And all because I do not think that individual rights in America revolve around gun ownership.

Do you think our guns won the Revolution? They did not. French guns, Dutch money and, perhaps more importantly, the grace of God won the Revolution. Without that our guns meant little: it's that simple. We would be more British than American today without the outside help which, I must add at least with regard to the French and Dutch, didn't really care about our gun ownership anyway.

But to the point: our rights do not revolve around gun ownership. Our rights are about the ideas which support them, namely life, liberty, and property (I wish Jefferson had said property and not pursuit of happiness, but that's an idea for another time). Quite bluntly then, there are more, and I will argue more important, issues than gun rights. What's more important is encouraging the belief that rights are based on our overall obligation to do our part to create and manage a just society.

We need to convince people that our rights, all of them, come from God. We need to emphasize that if our rights, all of them, are not protected as a whole then each individual one means less. If we don't believe in free speech or freedom of religion, our insistence on gun rights is superfluous, and even shallow and unworthy of us, because guns can protect and promote even evil, as history clearly shows. Gun ownership and gun use by themselves are moral neutrals.

So then, as a practical matter it is not our guns which keep us free. It is our attitude towards freedom, our patriotism and more importantly our belief in a just God which keep us free. Lose that attitude, or worse, allow the nation as a whole to lose that attitude, and your right to have a gun means zilch. That right will be squashed alongside every other right.

Fear This

I'm going to run the risk this morning of being the cranky old guy that everyone avoids. It's my right as a cranky old guy. Anyway, my blog, my rules. I'll write what I want, and you can avoid it if you want.

I'm sick of the fearmongering in this world. I shouldn't be; it's nothing new under the sun. It's always been here and likely always will. Still, there are times it really grates on a guy.

When I was 14 and a freshman in high school (to save you the time figuring out when, it was 1974) I remember our science teacher giving us a handout which said we would be out of oil by 1985. Period, end of report, no doubt about it. Yet here we are today with a couple hundred years of known reserves. Right about the same time we were pummeled with tales of a nuclear winter which would freeze us all out before 1990. Now we're apparently growing too hot. I think I'm within my rights to ask, what the hell? Why do you want to scare kids like that? And why are you still doing it today?

Ronald Reagan was supposedly leading us into nuclear holocaust. When AIDS was first discovered I read an article which claimed that the United States Army alone would have a million cases by 1995 or so. Neither concern hit anywhere near the heights which were predicted. And need I even mention COVID as an example of what government inspired hysteria causes?

Just to show that this rant isn't driven only by my personal philosophy, the right does it too. Barack Obama was not a particularly good President so far as I'm concerned, but he wasn't His Satanic Majesty either. Trying to remove President Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal merely created a sideshow that wasted our time and energy. Few people out to gut the Second Amendment are fire breathing commies. Many of them are otherwise good people who simply disagree with you. We don't need to insult anyone, we should strive not to insult anyone, especially those we may actually convert to our line of reasoning if we're patient and civil.

It all becomes one big game of the boy who cried wolf. One of these days a true crisis may arise which actually threatens life, the universe, and everything. Yet a lot of folks (like me) are going to say humbug simply because we've heard it all before. We need to be better about seeing things as they are and acting from that rather than trying to play people, especially the young, like puppets. We need to begin speaking to others, or at least not merely speaking at them as though they're great stupid fools too ignorant to believe the 'obvious'. It's beneath our dignity as human beings, and I'm sick of the whole thing.

Thinking out loud Tuesday

Do you get the impression that the left were disappointed that there were no fireworks at yesterday's pro Second Amendment rally in Virginia? Sometimes I think they want to goad gun rights activists into a scrum.

Will you watch any of the debate circus? I'll watch a bit, if only to hear Alan Dershowitz tear into the Democrats' arguments. Come on, folks, when a renowned Constitutional scholar (and left leaning Democrat) sees the proceedings as a sham, you gotta believe it's a sham.

In a way though, I do like the impeachment sideshow. So long as Washington is tied up with it the politicos can't do much other harm.

I'm going to do a video blog today. Yes, I'm going to do a video blog today. But in a few hours. Let's let this wonderful written one gather steam first.

Registering cars and guns

Gun control is at the top of the news lately, and obviously because of the Orlando murders. Myself, I am a firm believer in the Second Amendment. And while I admit (as a personal belief) that I don't see the reason to have rapid fire weapons either for self defense or hunting, I don't see how the nation can logically ban them without violating the Constitution. The debate ends there, so far as I'm concerned. If you want it different, you have to work for an amendment to that Amendment.

Many of the ideas about banning or regulating guns and gun ownership and/or purchase are bandied about just the same. One such argument goes that, well, we have to register our cars with the government. Why can't the government effect gun controls that way? My response to that is, maybe we need to reconsider whether we ought be made to register our cars.

To keep track of ownership, perhaps? But why should the government care about that? If I don't want to title my car I must believe that I should not have to. The government has no right whatsoever to know what kind of car I drive. For a similar reason this is also why I am increasingly opposed to an income tax of any type at any level. Enforcement means having to tell the government how much money I make, and that, quite frankly, is none of the government's business.

To get tax money? That's the only real reason I see for annual vehicle registration. And we do money for the roads. Yet we can get that without title fees or registrations: through sales taxes at the pump. The more you drive, the more you pay for the highways and bi-ways. That seems reasonable enough to me.

For the purposes of fighting crime? Making people have license plates might make solving certain crimes easier, so the argument would go. But isn't that a form of guilty until proven innocent? It presumes that if I own a car I will use it for violence. I've always thought that violated my rights.

Really, though, my overriding point is that simply because we allow the government to do some things in some areas of civil life doesn't mean the government can act similarly in any and all areas of civil life. It may be merely that we've come to accept so much of what government does without question, that we've hit the point where we try to justify new government acts in new areas solely on the fact that government acts likewise elsewhere.

Given a moment's thought, it is really a rather shallow argument.

Georgia's gun law not radical

They've gone and done it. The state of Georgia has made it legal for licensed gun owners to carry their guns almost anywhere. The NRA loves it andgun control advocates hate it.

But what real effect might it have? Only about 5% of Georgians are licensed to carry; it seems a stretch to believe that opening up the laws on where to carry a gun will induce a lot more people to do it. Surely those who do not have the permits to carry haven't been waiting for a move like this. Within reason, those who have permits are the only ones affected by the law. By all indications, they have been responsible gun owners.

We admit that we can't see any particular reason why one would want to carry a gun to church, for example, but we also note that to carry a gun in church or a school still requires the express consent of the place of worship or the school. This is good, as no one has the moral right to carry on someone else's private property anyway, and schools should have greater self regulator powers seeing as they in place of the parents for large potions of the day.

As to other supposedly offensive provisions of the law, firearms dealers no longer need to maintain records of sales and purchases, and the governor loses his authority to suspend or limit the carrying or sale of guns. But why ought these things have been mandatory anyway? The one thing which many of the anti-gun crowd never appear to admit is that registering your weapon in any form actually amounts to a presumption of guilt. Don't we live in a presumed innocent society? Why then assume that gun owners will use their guns for illegal purposes?

The Second Amendment is not the most important part of the Bill of Rights, and gun ownership really isn't a shirt sleeve issue for us. Still, the Amendment is there, and for very valid reasons. Governments however well intentioned and police officers however noble cannot offer the same degree of self protection which a person can for himself. This means that persons who want guns and are willing to learn to use them safely, that is, take on the responsibility of gun ownership and potential use, must be allowed to carry them. Georgia's actions are merely recognizing that fact. There seems little to say after that.

The Gun Control Debacle

Suffer the little children to come unto me. That could be the mantra of Christ Jesus admonishing his followers to allow children to approach Him freely. Yet it could also and easily be the mantra of President Barack Obama, who summoned children as a backdrop to the announcement of his gun control plans.

What is the difference? One is not using children but, rather, wanting them to approach him for their own good. The other is a political hack employing children as an emotional backdrop to his own selfish pandering towards an electorate, which, he says, wants answers.

Well, what answers are there? There is nothing in the President's ideas which would have prevented the Sandy Hook massacre or Aurora, Colorado theater attack. Nothing. The plain fact is that the only type of gun control which may, and we stress very much the word may, actually affect violent acts would be to ban guns entirely. That, of course, can only be brought about by totalitarianism. Even then, would there not be a black market, and underground movement of guns and attack paraphernalia? In short, those intending to do great harm to their fellows will still be quite readily able to do so.

By what sense can it be usefully argued that adding hardships to innocent citizens will make any given thing better? To be sure, there are times when we must try: laws against murder must be on the books despite the knowledge that murders will still be committed, as a symbol of what we stand for as a nation truly interested in the well being of the person. What will all these Executive Orders and what not really do? Nothing except to impose additional and unwarranted difficulties on the law abiding.

The situation isn't much different from what Americans face daily as the result of the border hassles brought on by 9/11. In the name of fighting terrorism we have made it harder for law abiding citizens to do something as simple and straightforward as visiting Canada. There is no particular reason to believe that making things tough on legal gun owners (or even potential legal gunholders) will keep savagery at bay in the future.

But the government has to do something, right? Barack Obama can't just sit there while all sorts of bogeymen lay in wait for the children, can he? This is political grandstanding at its very worst, for the worst of all possible reasons: one man's legacy.

The President is using children as deflector shields in his continuing assault on the Constitution. Such acts are not admirable. 

Gun Rights and Gun Control

Guns sales have spiked considerably since the attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School last week in Newtown, Connecticut. This is not surprising; gun sales have been considerable since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008. Many will see the tragedy, as they did Obama's election, as an excuse by gun control advocates to limit the availability of firearms in the United States.

No doubt that both events have and will serve that purpose to the left. But we do have to believe that gun rights advocates aren't helping their cause with what appears to be panic buying. It is something which may only cause quicker and deeper actions against firearms.

We are not bleeding hearts by any stretch of the imagination. Nor are we soft conservatives who don't believe in the Second Amendment. Still, the idea that we have to be armed seems a stretch of the imagination. Yes, guns are used for self protection by the civilized citizenry far more than for wanton violence. Yes, we have the right to be armed for protection even against government, should the need arise.

But do we need to appear as though we must be armed to the teeth in order to be safe either? How often have gun owners actually needed their guns for rational purposes? Yes, again, we accept the argument that criminals will become more bold with less chance that a homeowner has a gun in his house, or that the next target will not have a concealed weapon. We get it.

That doesn't mean that we should play into the hands of our adversaries. Especially, be fair, with the realization that direct personal attacks on law abiding citizens are rare and random. Why not sit a spell, take a breath, and at least see how things play out in the gun control arena before rushing out and loading up on weapons and ammunition? As it is, it makes the gun rights lobby look like exactly what it says it's not: a rabble ready to shoot first and ask questions later.

We know that isn't true. But we harm rather help our cause to even appear that way. It's just something to think about before reacting in any manner which may be construed as knee jerk. The liberal knee jerks will only take advantage of us.