The anti-gun movement has held out the falsehood that they are not coming after people’s guns as a central core of their effort to hide their existential goal. The lid was blown off that charade when a 97-year-old man who previously occupied a position at the top level of our country (retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens) advocated for the abolition of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in the paper of record – The New York Times.
Before anyone jumps off a cliff about this proposition, let me state who I am on this issue. I am not a gun owner. I am not a member of the National Rifle Association nor any other group that supports gun rights. I was fairly ignorant about essential elements of guns and gun owners until I did a series of columns on the subject and became knowledgeable about the subject of guns through extensive research and interviews.
I strongly support the right to bear arms. I don’t care about or believe that garbage about a well-armed militia. The Second Amendment was put in place and obtained its lofty position as the “Second Amendment” right behind the most essential amendment giving us free speech etc., etc., for a reason. The people who founded this country did not trust government. Even though they were possibly the most talented, intelligent and capable group of people ever assembled for one cause, they lacked the arrogance of most people in government that government was or is the answer.
Today we have a multitude of reasons to have a high concern about a government that has become far too large, too invasive in too many issues and operated by people who are almost impervious to being fired for normal matters that citizens have to face in their own lives.
When I have discussions with people wanting to shrink the rights of gun owners, they discount this essential aspect of why citizens should be allowed to own guns. When I ask them to explain the explosion of armed representatives of the government in non-military agencies, they are universally ignorant of that fact. Here are just a few:
- The IRS has 2,300 Special Agents armed with AR-15s, P90 tactical rifles and other heavy weaponry. The IRS recently spent $12 million on ammo and weapons.
- The Small Business Administration (SBA) spent tens of thousands on Glock hand guns.
- In 1996 the Veterans Administration had no armed employees. Today they have 3,700 officers armed with millions of dollars worth of guns.
- The list goes on.
As a Jew, I have a problem with any government having all the guns. The last time we allowed that to happen, it ended with millions of dead Jews. I believe any Jew who denies that reality puts their own political naiveté above the survival of the Jewish people.
If you think that is far-fetched because it happened over 70 years ago, then just cast your eyes south to Venezuela. Hugo Chavez took over a country that had open elections and was the most prosperous in South America in 1999. In less than 20 years Chavez and his successor Maduro have run an educated, productive country into the ground. It is a human disaster and they control all the guns while people are starving.
Let’s look at the current move by the anti-gun people to limit guns.They call a restriction of certain long guns “common sense” legislation. First let me say, these people have destroyed the use of the words “common sense” for all of us just like they destroyed the word “liberal.” In both cases, the use of the words was driven into oblivion by using them in an Orwellian manner.
Let us believe that the banning of these guns was achieved as they previously were for 10 years with non-existent benefit. Toward what end? The fact is that deaths from long guns average one per day. If you exclude suicides, gun death by hand guns are 42 per day. If you include all gun deaths (suicides) by hand guns it is 104 per day. We are led to believe by their rhetoric that once the anti-gun goal of banning certain long guns has been achieved (guns responsible for one death per day), they will stop and not go after guns that are used to kill 104 per day. Balderdash.
Those of us who have some experience in life know that is not the way it works with the Left. They play a long game and are happy to move the ball forward with mini steps until they achieve their goal. That is how they moved a free market for medical care in America just 55 short years ago to a position that some states like California are toying with 100% government-run health care. There is an expression that could be used in this situation – if that ever happens, just shoot me.
I don’t trust the government and this country was established on that bedrock principle. I don’t trust the people who are lying to us about what their true intentions are about gun control just like they lied to us about government-run health care. They want all guns in the control of government-controlled apparatchiks.
As Charlton Heston said: “From my cold, dead hands.”