Dear Friends,
It seems to me, guns are the most regulated tools in the United States, despite the clear prohibition against gun regulation in the United States Constitution. The Second Amendment of the US Constitution states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Those who oppose limits on government, limits that are the very reason for our Constitution in the first place, spuriously argue the Second Amendment is to give government the right to keep and bear arms, which of course is absurd on the face of it and is based on perverting the meaning of the word “militia,” and ignoring the phrase, “being necessary to the security of a free State.” They bolster their argument by claiming guns are dangerous, and as dangerous tools they must be regulated, for the safety of us all. But, is that really why guns are so regulated, or are these just distractions to the real purpose of gun control? I would posit that the real reason the political, cultural and social elite seek gun control is for a far more insidious agenda.
Of course regulation is the very definition of an infringement. Regulation and laws are there to keep people from doing something, or having something, the elite have decided are bad. In infringing on an action, product or thought, the argument is always that it is for the greater good. In the case of laws against murder, the reason for them is that if a person’s life is taken, that person has been denied his or her fundamental individual Right to exist. In the case of laws against theft, the rational is that people have the Right to their possessions, and taking something from someone denies them the enjoyment of that possession. Right law protects individuals – not society. In all cases law that is in keeping with Our Constitution are there to protect our person, property or liberty. Gun control however is different, gun laws are there to deny us the ability to defend our lives, to protect our property and to make it possible to remove our liberty, the exact opposite of right law.
The rabid gun control advocate demands all people, especially law abiding citizens give up guns so the fearful man or woman can feel safer. In that the crux of their argument is “guns are dangerous and therefore they must be regulated, the Constitution can go to Hell.” But in making such arguments they forget that all the Rights enumerated in the Constitution are dangerous. The Right to free speech is very dangerous, far more dangerous than the Right to keep and bear arms. The most an armed lunatic can kill is a hundred, maybe a few more, but the damage an armed terrorist can visit on humanity is limited by the response of law abiding armed citizens as well as law enforcement. The damage a pamphleteer can do to the well ordering of society is exponentially worse. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf which in large part abetted the slaughter of sixty million human beings and the rewriting of the world’s map. Marx and Engels penned The Communist Manifesto which to date has justified the extermination of well over one hundred million innocent people! Clearly, if safety is what the gun control advocate wants, freedom of speech is far more dangerous then the Right to keep and bear arms, and so must be outlawed.
If we examine the results of gun control laws, both in the united States and elsewhere, a clear pattern emerges. In the cities with the greatest infringement on the Right to keep and bear arms, violence of all kinds is out of control, especially gun violence. In those places where guns are the least regulated, there is the least violence, especially gun violence. Furthermore, where guns are outlawed most of the violence is stranger on stranger violence, and where guns are legally protected, almost all the violence is between people who know each other, in other words, crimes of passion. In countries where guns have been outlawed, like Australia, gun violence has skyrocketed. So the argument that gun laws keep people safe is obviously untrue.
The new class elite who seek to take guns from the hands of law abiding citizens, argue that since the Right was prefaced by the term Well regulated Militia, it was meant to apply to the government and not to individuals. Even a perfunctory examination of this argument shows it to be absurd. That the founders would place a Right in the Bill of Rights that gives government a Right, that has already been granted elsewhere is clearly spurious, that they would place a government Right among Rights specifically designated for individuals to protect us from tyranny, shows it to be sophistry of the most diabolical kind. The Bill of Rights was specifically designed, under great debate, to protect the people from a despotic government. Certainly not to empower government to become despotic! Madison himself said, “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” At the time the Bill of Rights was written militia meant all able bodied men. Like I said, even a cursory glance at the spurious claim that the Second Amendment is to give government the sole power to keep and bear arms is absurd.
The Bill of Rights was added to our Constitution as a secondary bulwark against government becoming despotic. Madison initially objected, arguing what need a of a Bill of Rights, since the Constitution forbade government from doing anything it is not specifically allowed to do under the Constitution. Going further he reasoned, if the Bill of Rights forbade the regulation of jumping jacks, could it then therefore regulate tiddlywinks? He eventually came on board with the Federalists who called for a Bill of Rights and wrote them himself. But as we now see, our government has become so extra constitutional, even the “parchment barriers” of our Bill of Rights can be ignored by a government intent on ignoring them. Now that our Constitution, and even our Bill of Rights means nothing, tyranny cannot be far away. That my friends is why we need to add a Fourth Branch… but that is another article for another time.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
