The issue in the cartoon is gun
control, so what's that about? If, for now, we leave aside the
extrapolations that folks make, especially conservatives and
libertarians, gun control refers to government action that is
intended to reduce the possibility of the loss of innocent life as
the result of the discharge of a firearm and to enhance the ability
of law enforcement to determine the identity of an attacker who uses
a gun in an assault. There is nothing wrong with this. In fact, if
government doesn't do this, it is failing to carry out its only
legitimate purpose, which is to protect people's property rights.
No person with sufficient intelligence to hold an opinion worth consideration would suggest that government should have no involvement in the manufacture, distribution, and possession of weaponry. This is true at all levels – national, state, and local.
No person with sufficient intelligence to hold an opinion worth consideration would suggest that government should have no involvement in the manufacture, distribution, and possession of weaponry. This is true at all levels – national, state, and local.
Now then, what does gun control consist
of? Well, it largely depends on where you are at the moment.
First, it is necessary to dispense with
two common misconceptions, both of which are almost universal in
American society.
The first is the notion that the 2nd Amendment gives us the right to keep and bear arms. This is absurd. This right is ours by virtue of the fact that we exist. Government can no more give us the right to keep and bear arms than it can give us the right to breathe. The sole purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to prevent the national government from doing something it has no legal or moral authority to do – prohibit the ownership and carrying of firearms.
The first is the notion that the 2nd Amendment gives us the right to keep and bear arms. This is absurd. This right is ours by virtue of the fact that we exist. Government can no more give us the right to keep and bear arms than it can give us the right to breathe. The sole purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to prevent the national government from doing something it has no legal or moral authority to do – prohibit the ownership and carrying of firearms.
This leads us to the second
misconception: that the 2nd Amendment applies directly to
the citizenry. This is a far more insidious lie, as it is more
difficult for most citizens to understand, steeped as we are in the
judicial fiction of incorporation.
One of the most irresponsible actions – or inactions – of American society is to accept the silly notion
that the Bill of Rights extends to the states. This is what is known
as incorporation, a hoax that began to be foisted on an
intellectually lazy public in earnest in 1925 with the Supreme
Court's ruling in Gitlow v. New York. in
which the Court specifically mandated that the state must protect free
speech. Since then, most of the restrictions found in The
Bill of Rights has been forced on the states. This concept is the
equivalent of thinking that a prohibition against smoking at an
employer's facilities means the employee can't smoke anywhere at all.
The Founders were quite clear that the Constitution, including the
Bill of Rights, applied only to the national government. It is only
because we have had a corrupt judiciary since a handful of years
after the Constitution's ratification and a society of presumptuous
dullards regarding liberty that this situation exists. In the
Founders world, should Virginia decide to pass any law whatsoever
regarding personal firearms, Congress has absolutely no legal
authority to involve itself in the matter.
So then, in the real world – one where most American citizens find themselves very uncomfortable – the 2nd Amendment restricts only the United States Congress from passing laws that would in any way prevent us from owning and carrying firearms for the clearly expressed purpose of defending ourselves against foreign and domestic enemies, the latter being responsible throughout history for far more murders of the citizenry than the former. Please remember that these men had recently been part of a war to displace an occupying army that, until December of 1775, had been the army of their own country. They had a very clear view of the reality of foreign and domestic enemies, and it was their expressed intent to see to it that the national government couldn't disarm the citizenry.
So then, in the real world – one where most American citizens find themselves very uncomfortable – the 2nd Amendment restricts only the United States Congress from passing laws that would in any way prevent us from owning and carrying firearms for the clearly expressed purpose of defending ourselves against foreign and domestic enemies, the latter being responsible throughout history for far more murders of the citizenry than the former. Please remember that these men had recently been part of a war to displace an occupying army that, until December of 1775, had been the army of their own country. They had a very clear view of the reality of foreign and domestic enemies, and it was their expressed intent to see to it that the national government couldn't disarm the citizenry.
What this means is that every state has
the responsibility to protect the right of its citizens to own,
carry, and employ firearms in defense of their property. Here in the
Commonwealth of Virginia, The Constitution of Virginia Bill of
Rights, Section 13 states “That a well regulated militia, composed
of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural,
and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people
to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed;”
This is the reason gun control will
vary from place to place in the country. In Chicago, a city
completely in the thrall of the all-but-indescribable stupidity of
the Democratic Party, you will find a ban on personal weaponry and
one of the highest murder rates in the nation. In Kennesaw, Georgia,
where every head of household must own a personal weapon unless he is
known to be mentally incompetent, a felon, a pauper, or a religious
dissenter, violent crime is negligible
However, because government has the one
proper function of protecting people's property rights, it is
obligated to see to it that such ownership, carrying, and use is
regulated in the most efficient manner possible to achieve that end.
It does the same regarding automobiles, zoning, business licensing,
essentially everything that involves the potential for one individual
to affect the property of another. This is normal and good, the
first and only reason to have government.
So then, what would any reasonable
person expect government to do regarding guns?
Given the fact that virtually every state requires an applicant for a driver's license to display a measure of proficiency before issuing such a license, one would think that the same thing should apply to guns. Cars, after all, are very good at injuring, maiming, and killing people, but that's not what they are intended for. Regardless, because they can and will if you put a large number of them in close proximity and begin moving them in a chaotic manner at high and varying velocities, government, in order to fulfill its one obligation, must institute rules to reduce the chances of that happening. Hence, DMVs with troopers that make you drive around for a little while to see if you can avoid the fire hydrants.
Guns, on the other hand, are designed and intended specifically to terminate life, human or otherwise. Accordingly, one would expect the state to require anyone wishing to purchase a gun to show a degree of proficiency in its use – how to carry it, store it, clean it, aim it, and so forth. Then, one would also expect the state to do a thorough job of determining a person's mental fitness to own a gun, just as it does a person who wants to continue having a driver's license as they go through their golden years.
The state would also reasonably be expected to consider what is actually meant by the word “arms” - as that is the word that is typically used in state constitutions. This would be necessary to avoid the silly arguments about whether or not the right to keep and bear arms means it's okay to own a howitzer or a tank. One would think that the term “arms” would settle the meaning of the word, but this is America, a place where we have to tell people not to take hand lotion internally or use their blow dryer in the shower.
Given the fact that virtually every state requires an applicant for a driver's license to display a measure of proficiency before issuing such a license, one would think that the same thing should apply to guns. Cars, after all, are very good at injuring, maiming, and killing people, but that's not what they are intended for. Regardless, because they can and will if you put a large number of them in close proximity and begin moving them in a chaotic manner at high and varying velocities, government, in order to fulfill its one obligation, must institute rules to reduce the chances of that happening. Hence, DMVs with troopers that make you drive around for a little while to see if you can avoid the fire hydrants.
Guns, on the other hand, are designed and intended specifically to terminate life, human or otherwise. Accordingly, one would expect the state to require anyone wishing to purchase a gun to show a degree of proficiency in its use – how to carry it, store it, clean it, aim it, and so forth. Then, one would also expect the state to do a thorough job of determining a person's mental fitness to own a gun, just as it does a person who wants to continue having a driver's license as they go through their golden years.
The state would also reasonably be expected to consider what is actually meant by the word “arms” - as that is the word that is typically used in state constitutions. This would be necessary to avoid the silly arguments about whether or not the right to keep and bear arms means it's okay to own a howitzer or a tank. One would think that the term “arms” would settle the meaning of the word, but this is America, a place where we have to tell people not to take hand lotion internally or use their blow dryer in the shower.
All this is gun control in its correct
and moral form.
However, all this is not all gun
control is in our society. And that is because gun control, like all
government regulation, is subject to perversion by both major
political parties.
Initially, as gun control begins to be perverted, it is used in a stupid and utterly moronic attempt to eliminate criminal activity, even though none of these same people who propose such perversion actually think that laws against speeding are actually going to eliminate speeding. This is done by both the well-meaning but silly, as well as the evil and cunning, who have another ultimate end in mind.
In each and every case, gun control is perverted when it goes beyond what is necessary – meaning effectual – to protect property rights. Government has an obligation to see to it that gun dealers don't sell guns to the mentally ill, or those with violent crime records, or 7-year-olds. It has no right at all, under any circumstances or for any reason to prevent them being sold in any quantity, style, or caliber to anyone who displays normal mental characteristics. It can reasonably dictate how they must be stored, as this can be a source of danger to the innocent, but not how many are stored. In my possession, for example, 146 guns stored in locked safes are no more dangerous than 1 carried on my hip.
Initially, as gun control begins to be perverted, it is used in a stupid and utterly moronic attempt to eliminate criminal activity, even though none of these same people who propose such perversion actually think that laws against speeding are actually going to eliminate speeding. This is done by both the well-meaning but silly, as well as the evil and cunning, who have another ultimate end in mind.
In each and every case, gun control is perverted when it goes beyond what is necessary – meaning effectual – to protect property rights. Government has an obligation to see to it that gun dealers don't sell guns to the mentally ill, or those with violent crime records, or 7-year-olds. It has no right at all, under any circumstances or for any reason to prevent them being sold in any quantity, style, or caliber to anyone who displays normal mental characteristics. It can reasonably dictate how they must be stored, as this can be a source of danger to the innocent, but not how many are stored. In my possession, for example, 146 guns stored in locked safes are no more dangerous than 1 carried on my hip.
But now we reach the point where the gullible, the “it-won't-happen-here-aholics”, and the flower
children go for a dive in the deep end with their wrists and ankles
zip-tied together while taking a deep breath. They actually think
that gun control in the hands of career politicians has anything
other than the ultimate goal of disarming the population, even as it
is happening. Did we suddenly ship Chicago overseas? Not that that
wouldn't be a bad idea . . .
Assuming that what we are being told
about Sandy Hook Elementary School is true, an assumption I don't
make but will go with now for the sake of the illustration, then here
is what we know:
1. There were a minimum of 6 people – adults who, had they the wherewithal, were capable of radically changing the ultimate outcome of the attack.
1. There were a minimum of 6 people – adults who, had they the wherewithal, were capable of radically changing the ultimate outcome of the attack.
2. Had they requested the wherewithal,
they would have been refused because of the current perversion of gun
control by the politicians of the state.
3. The current perversion of gun
control in Connecticut, and worse perversion, is the stated goal of
many politicians around the states and in the national government.
4. Because those 6 adults and the
others did not have personal weaponry and the training to use it
properly, there was no one on the premises who was in a position to
alter the progress of the attack.
5. There is no evidence that this type
of attack will spontaneously cease to occur.
6. When responsible, law-abiding types
have their right to properly own and carry a weapon arbitrarily
infringed, their exposure, and those for whom they are responsible,
to bodily harm and death is greatly increased.
How say you, cousin, that law-abiding types have nothing to worry about?
How say you, cousin, that law-abiding types have nothing to worry about?
They did at
Sandy Hook.
