OPINION

The Newest Liberal Criminal Assault: The Right to Self Defense

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Now it all becomes clear: Liberals want you to lay still and think of England while all manner of people molest your peace, you property and your body.

Three cheers for old King George!

At least that’s what it’s come to in a growing number of self-defense cases around the country. Not only are we questioning a person’s right to arm themselves, we are questioning a person’s right to defend themselves at all.

It’s happening in Reading, Pennsylvania; Sanford, Florida; Mesquite, Texas; Seattle, Washington.

My body, my choice apparently only applies to killing innocent babies, not threats to YOUR life and property.

By leaps and bounds, liberals are trying to stifle your right to self-defense because, you know, that’s the government’s RIGHT, not the right of private citizens.

“And you don't know if you feel like you're going to be raped,” said Uber-Liberal Rep. Luis Salazar (R)ocky Mountain Highness) on the debate about restricting the 2nd Amendment, “or if you feel like someone's been following you around or if you feel like you're in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop ... pop a round at somebody.”

Yes, because the government knows better whether I might be raped than I do. Better that they get to decide who gets a round popped into them.

It’s best to let the authorities straighten things out, like they did once they got involved in the Trayvon Martin case.

That worked out well for everyone.

The Martin case was a clear case of self-defense under the law, if in fact George Zimmerman felt threatened.

As my friend and constitutional scholar Henry Holzer explained to me: “The only thing that matters was what was Zimmerman’s state of mind at the time of the shooting?”

If he thought he was acting in self-defense, he was acting in self-defense.

The Zimmerman-Martin case wasn’t about liberal use of racism to pander for votes as we all assumed. It was about taking away the right to self-defense.

Last week I wrote about the families of two bad guys who were upset with a citizen for shooting and killing the robbers after they robbed a store in Reading, Pennsylvania.

"He had no right to lose his life over something that man could have called the police for," said the dead robber’s mom. "He [the self-defending citizen] took the law into his own hands and walked away scot-free."

Yeah, I suppose, if one thinks self-defense is a crime. Which apparently one of the relations to the robbers does think it’s a crime: “How about if people just start running around here, policing the city on their own? How much worse is it going to get?" said Peter Ratel, one of the robbers cousins.

Now comes word from Gonzaga University that two students have been placed on probation because they drove off, by gunpoint, an intruder who tried to break into their apartment.

“Gonzaga University has placed two students on probation for violating a weapons policy after one of them displayed a gun to drive off an intruder at their apartment,” says the Associated Press. “Seniors Erik Fagan and Daniel McIntosh were informed Sunday of the probation, which allows them to remain in the Washington state school. They had been facing expulsion. Both plan to appeal.”

Well THAT’S reassuring. I wasn’t aware that a university could suspend the 2nd Amendment.

I’m glad the university allows those young fellows to vote. I’m sure they aren’t allowed to express their political views unrestricted, however, since, you know… it’s a UNIVERSITY, a school of higher learning and only the liberal side need be heard there.

It shouldn’t surprise us that a society that is truly confused that the “gun-free” zone they created behind the main building of the New York Public Library didn’t prevent a 16-year old from shooting someone over a coat he wanted; that that society also can’t understand the concept of "self-defense."

And it’s not just confined to New York either. The contagion has spread to Texas.

Yeah. Texas!

In 2012, a Houston-area man was arrested after firing a gun into the ground to warn off burglars who were trying to break through his fence into his yard.

It worked…kind of. The burglars were scared off, but the man was arrested for illegally discharging a firearm…into the ground…ground that he owns.

No word as of yet whether any endangered species of worm was at risk in the shooting.*

“The Mesquite Police Dept issued a statement in this case,” writes former Harris County prosecutor Katherine Cabaniss. “They reported that they did not believe the homeowner should have felt threatened by the burglar’s actions. The police stated that because they believed the homeowner’s actions were reckless and unreasonable, the use of the weapon was unlawful. For this reason, they discounted the self-defense laws and arrested the homeowner for discharging a weapon.”

Here’s my counter statement: “I do not believe that the Mesquite Police Dept, the administrators of Gonzaga University or the extended family of the slain robbers in Reading, Pennsylvania should feel threatened by private individuals exercising their right to self-defense. I think that NOT defending ourselves would be reckless and unreasonable. The alternative is relying upon the Mesquite Police Dept, the administrators of Gonzaga University or the extended family of the slain robbers in Reading, Pennsylvania for self-defense. And you know what that would get us.”

Dead, that’s what.

Long live the King. The rest of us, not so much.

*I could come up with dozens of case like this where people are arrested for self-defense, but even my column has to have some limits. So I have limited myself to three examples.