Every call for gun confiscation is a call for unrelenting government violence against the American people

Tuesday, January 05, 2016 by: J. D. Heyes
Tags: Founding Fathers, Second Amendment, gun control

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(NaturalNews) Oddly, the mass shootings that have occurred with increasingly frequency during the Obama administration, have always been followed by rancorous calls for more and more gun control. That has even been the case following terrorist attacks, as in the most recent jihadi-inspired shootings in San Bernardino, Calif. – religiously inspired murders that led the editorial staff of The New York Times to publish a front-page editorial – the first since 1920 – to call for more gun control and the banning of "weapons of war."

I say this behavior is odd, because some of the same people who are calling for gun bans and gun control – even to the point of disarming the populace – also regularly decry centralized government power and the "militarization" of local police.

Some of those people can't help themselves because they have been indoctrinated to believe that "all guns are bad" and "the only way to be safe is to be disarmed" by gun control activists in politics, the mainstream media and in academia – the latter demonstrated just recently by students at the University of Texas, Austin in reaction to a staged mock mass shooting held to demonstrate the futility of so-called "gun-free zones."

The founders' vision and experience informed the Second Amendment

Well, it's not possible to write a single column that argues powerfully enough to convince Americans dead set against an armed citizenry that their position is wrong. Most, when their position is challenged, will simply close their minds and shut off debate.

But once upon a time, when the country was founded, there were men who had the vision and experience to make convincing arguments for an armed citizenry. And, though many will claim that "that was then and this is now," there is little difference in today's America than in the America of those times, in terms of human and societal behavior. There were miscreants, thieves, murderers and tyrants in the 18th century, just as there are today, and they were every bit as much of a threat then as they are now. That's what makes our founders' perspective on an armed citizenry as prescient in 2015 as it was in 1775.

-- "...if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?" — Delegate Sedgwick, during the Massachusetts Convention, rhetorically asking if an oppressive standing army could prevail.

-- "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." — Tench Coxe, in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution," under the Pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette.

To critics of gun rights who want to argue that "a bunch of rifle-toting so-and-so's from the boonies can't stand up to the U.S. military," I would counter, "Tell that to the resistance fighters in Iraq and Afghanistan, whom I have seen stand up to the U.S. military on a daily basis and, in some cases, prevail or – at least, not lose." Or better still, tell that to the rebel fighters in Ukraine; if a fight came between American "rebels" and the government, don't for one second believe that the "rebels" would not get their hands on U.S. military weapons systems. The point is, an armed populace makes a would-be tyrant think twice and three times before becoming tyrannical.

Words of wisdom

More from the founders on whom should be armed, and why:

-- "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." — George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution

-- "The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." — Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

-- "That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ... " -- Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

-- "[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." --James Madison, The Federalist Papers

Tyranny, ill-intent, criminal behavior and even terrorism are not 18th century constructs. These dangers to life, liberty and property existed then and they exist today, as our founders knew they would.

That's why it is right and proper to suspect and oppose anyone who seeks to usurp "the right of the people" to "keep and bear arms."

Sources:

NYTimes.com

EconFaculty.GMU.edu

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