‘Leave the Wolf Alone!’…Cried the Sheep

Photo credit: Rutger Fredrik von Essen

Gun Control Politics

The ruling class doesn’t care about public safety. Having made it very difficult for States and localities to police themselves, having left ordinary citizens with no choice but to protect themselves as best they can, they now try to take our guns away. In fact, they blame us and our guns for crime. This is so wrong that it cannot be an honest mistake. – former Wyoming Senator Malcolm Wallop

Frank Lloyd Wright once said, “I’m all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools…let’s start with typewriters.” Although the technology used by “journalists’ has improved, their tendency towards foolishness…and outright idiocy… has only worsened. As Wright also wrote, “There is nothing as uncommon as common sense.”

So let’s remove the knee-jerk hysteria that the liberals/progressives/socialists or whatever they’re calling themselves today always introduce, and discuss the topic of guns from a common sense perspective. Author Tiffany Madison wrote, “Our Founders grasped that self-defense is three-fold: every free individual must protect themselves against the evil will of the man, the mob and the state.”

First, protecting ourselves from other men. Unless you’ve lived in a protective cocoon all your life, you’re surely aware that some people in this country will bully and otherwise torment those weaker than themselves. In the schoolyard, on the street, at the workplace, wherever humans interact, there are always some who are willing to use their greater power – size, strength, toughness, etc. – to obtain what they want, even if it means trampling on and harming others.

In the Old West life proved to be “nasty, brutish and short” if you couldn’t defend yourself and your family from wild animals, Indians, outlaws, etc. Referred to as “the Great Equalizer,” the Colt .45 revolver gave even the weakest former city dweller an opportunity to stand up to those physically stronger and of brutal temperament. “God made men. . .but Sam Colt made them equal” was not just a pithy saying, for the Colt pistol did more to protect the innocent than all the legendary lawmen combined.

But that was in wilder times, you argue, before the rule of law was established, along with a criminal justice system, the courts, police departments, etc., which protect the weak from the strong today. While that’s largely true, the fact remains that “when seconds count, the police are only moments away,” and even the police will tell you that if you’re counting on them to prevent a mugging, rape, home invasion or other assault, you’re just being irresponsible.

Next, protecting ourselves from the mob. Several years ago my grown son had dinner at our house.  Then, upon leaving, he turned a corner and was blocked by a mob that had left a nearby park and were swarming into the street chanting and shouting about some injustice or another. He and others were trapped in their vehicles, unable to move, at the mercy of the mob. No police were in sight, although sirens indicated they were on their way, and he thought he would be victim to the anger and vehemence being displayed. Thankfully, all they threw were vile slogans and angry taunts, and as soon as they cleared the street, he quickly went on his way.

As we’ve seen more recently, it doesn’t always turn out that way. The virulently racist group Black Lives Matter have repeatedly rioted, burned and looted, supposedly as a way of calling for “justice” for black men shot by the police. Do you want to trust your safety and that of your loved ones to the non-existent mercy of a mindless mob, regardless of how noble/just (or not) their cause?

Unfortunately, there are individuals and mobs today who are willing to inflict all manner of violence not just on other people but also on the very society that has accepted and nurtured them. I’m speaking, of course, of radical Islamists. What fool believes that human reason or moral persuasion protects against those so consumed with hatred and violence? I prefer to trust my semi-automatic pistol, which in any of the Islam-generated tragedies over the past few years would have saved countless lives.

Finally, protecting ourselves from the state, that insatiable wolf that’s always lurking at the door of liberty. The Founders were crystal clear in their thoughts on the necessity for individual citizens to be armed to prevent and, if need be, resist tyranny. Nevertheless, the Left has been successful in attacking the Second Amendment, and in claiming that “assault rifles” (a media invention) are needed only by the police and the military. . .you know, the institutions that serve those in power. There are hundreds of quotes from the Founders defending the right of individual citizens to be armed, but they can be condensed into this anonymous quote: “An armed man is a citizen. A disarmed man is a subject.” C. S. Wheatley stated, “Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence…the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference…”

Politicians on the left and the media would have you believe that there is currently an “epidemic” of shootings and killing all across this nation, while the truth is that homocide, by any means, is only the 28th leading cause of death in the U.S. In fact, deaths from automobile accidents typically account for three times the 11,000 annual firearm-related deaths, but we don’t hear the Left calling for a ban on automobiles. Why is that, do you think? This quote from William Pitt (the Younger) gives a clue: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

Firearms simply reduce the power differential between the law-abiding and the criminal, making it harder for the strong to prey upon the weak. Like any tool, a firearm can be used irresponsibly and even criminally, as the nightly news shows. But instead of trying to ban automobiles, we focus on educating drivers and warning them about the dangers of drinking or texting while driving, and hold them accountable for violations that result in injury or deaths to others. Why not that same approach to firearms, instead of deeming them “evil” (as if an inanimate object possesses a will)?

Over two million times annually firearms are used to thwart violence, assaults, muggings, rapes, etc., but the Left’s politicians and the media never mention that. Do you think they don’t know it? Or is it for some other reason that they claim the “necessity” of restricting and reducing the ownership of firearms?

We’re not living in the Nirvana the liberals keep telling us they’re creating by their anti-Constitutional polices. There are dangerous characters out there who prey on those they perceive as weak and vulnerable, and all the police do is make out a report and draw chalk around the body, or protect the firemen who try to limit the damage of mobs, or carry out the sometimes unjust orders of their political bosses. There are 100 million Americans who own guns and use those tools in a sensible, responsible manner, never resulting in harm, or even threat, to others. Yet the incessant call from the Left is for ever stronger gun control laws, as if criminals and tyrants gave a damn about the law.

Guns are not the problem, for they can’t do anything unless a human being with a will picks them up and uses them. The problem for the Left is their own success: for the past fifty years they’ve dismantled the moral foundations of this society, replacing the rule of law that used to be internalized by all Americans, native-born or immigrants, with the divisiveness of entitled identity groups and racial politics, pitting Americans against one another. Ask yourself, “Who benefits from that scheme?” The answer is only those in power, who must mediate between all the conflicting agendas and desires, acquiring ever more power for themselves. They know an armed citizenry is capable of reducing, or removing, that power.

When I was just a youth (17), I volunteered to serve this nation, and gladly gave four years of my life doing so, including fighting in what turned out to be a failed war. I was naïve enough to believe their rhetoric and their claims of good intentions for their deceitful plans. Vietnam was a tragedy because of the spineless, amoral politicians of both parties who cared more about their own power than the lives of young Americans, or the future of the people of South Vietnam, whom we shamelessly abandoned.

I’m no longer young, nor so naïve, and I see in this gun control frenzy the same deceit, the same amoral pandering to people’s fears and ignorance. No matter which party puppet is in office, we allow government to disarm us only at the cost of what little bit of freedom remains.

Ben Franklin said it best: “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Please think about that come November.

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Formerly a liberal and an atheist, Paul E. Scates served as a Marine in Vietnam and is a lifelong student of American history, politics and culture. A former contributor to national website TooGoodReports.com, he writes his staunchly independent Conservative and informed Christian commentary for his fellow ordinary, working Americans, the “we, the people” who are ultimately responsible for preserving our Constitutional liberties.

Paul E. Scates

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