John Zmirak, one of the most powerful and inspiring conservative writers of this era, has published another book, No Second Amendment, No First: God, Guns, and the Government. The Yale-educated journalist and former college professor shows how gun control efforts are misguided, damaging and incompatible with church teaching, in contrast to the right to keep and bear arms, which flows from “the very heart of Biblical faith and reason.”
The ambitious book digs deeply into the history of the Christian church, American history and its precursors in ancient history where the Founding Fathers got their principles. The right to keep and bear arms comes from natural law.
Zmirak dedicated it to three people who lost their lives after around 2020 due to the left’s “anarcho-tyranny:” Jake Gardner, Ashli Babbitt and Rosanne Boyland. It begins with a quote by former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard explaining why she had to leave the Democratic Party.
Bestselling author and talk show host Eric Metaxasprovided a foreword, where he relayed how he attended Yale when Zmirak did, but was warned by progressives to stay away from the “conservative Christian fascist.” After becoming miserable listening to his friends’ advice and views in the college full of elitists, he became a Christian, which changed his political views.
In his introduction, Zmirak stated, “The most effective practical tool these elites are using is a weaponized perversion of the concept of ‘public health.’” He cited New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham declaring a public health emergency last September in order to suspend laws that allow open and concealed carry of firearms in Albuquerque for 30 days. He pointed at the abuse Kyle Rittenhouse and Gardner endured through the legal system for defending themselves with guns from progressive rioters. The Iraq War veteran killed himself after realizing he could end up spending the rest of his life in prison. Zmirak dedicated a heartbreaking epilogue to him.
Zmirak said three legal scholars concluded after an in-depth study, “The historical record shows that, almost without exception, genocide is preceded by a very careful government program that disarms the future victims.” He went over the danger of Red Flag laws, where the burden of proof is wrongly placed on the gun owner.
The first part of the book “explores the degeneration of the Judeo-Christian worldview that made possible the founding of a self-governing, free republic such as the United States of America.”
Instead, “we now see ourselves and our neighbors as termites in a hive — dependent on top-down management and constant protection by our ‘betters.’”
The second part of the book offers solutions, and the third part goes over the historical background of “how the biblical view of man helped create (unique to the West) a philosophy of freedom.”
He derisively observed that “journalists, leftist flaks, and massively funded anti-gun activists might as well have a template on their computers, so interchangeable do the statements seem whenever a mass shooting occurs.” They act like there is an “awakening of common sense” in the face of “an epidemic of gun violence.”
Zmirak denounced the “sold-out churches;” the mainline Protestant religious congregations that issue a “long list of Woke buzzwords” after mass shootings. Cleverly, he crafted his own draft statement that churches should issue instead, which emphasizes the victims and how to stop the societal problems that create dangerous killers, instead of focusing on “gun violence.”
He discussed the history of Christianity in the U.S., and how the state began replacing God as the source of salvation — including as the source of defending yourself. He said the last great Christian moment was the Civil Rights movement.
The book is full of the classic lines Zmirak is known for, like this one regarding wokism: “Go deeper into the cult and the disciplines get more rigorous.” In reference to the Second Amendment, he sarcastically said, “Aristocrats warn the commoners that we are unworthy of the liberties our forefathers deeded us,” so the government must control all the weapons so “we sheep may safely graze.”
He derisively referred to a “brilliant piece of marketing” by Black Lives Matter, which was “weaponizing a perfectly legitimate biblical sentiment in service of a Marxist sect of street thugs and corporate shakedown experts.” It didn’t work. “The rate of homicides with black victims increased 53% since the protests after the death of George Floyd,” Zmirak said.
Florida State University criminologists Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz estimated that defensive use of guns, which includes merely brandishing one, occurs by Americans between 2.2 million to 2.5 million times each year.
Zmirak recommended legal scholar David Kopel’s book, The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Tradition, for more information on Jewish scriptural support for the Second Amendment. Kopel cited Exodus 22:2, which states, “If a thief is found breaking in, and is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt for him; but if the sun has risen upon him, there shall be bloodguilt for him.”
Zmirak denounced weak pastors in Hitler’s Germany who used Romans 13 to justify capitulating to the Nazis. While the Apostle Paul said Christians must be subject to the governing authorities, Zmirak clarified, “If your reading of a Bible verse leads to outrageous consequences that violate Natural Law or vitiate the Old Testament, or that seem to condemn the behavior of many saints . . . then you are indeed reading it wrong.”
Zmirak provided a fascinating account of The Crusades, pointing out that the atrocities were committed by “disorganized bands of commoners who attached themselves to the crusaders,” attacking others “[a]gainst the explicit orders of local bishops and Christian nobles.”
Zmirak didn’t just cover the Second Amendment, but related topics to provide context.
The book is full of so many fascinating, little known historical facts and spot-on analysis that it is a must read in order to understand our history and how we got to where we are today.