“Americans used to roar like lions for liberty; now we bleat like sheep for security.”
— Norman Vincent Peale

Gun Free Zone

The latest outrage involving police and the on going march towards full governmental tyranny took place in Missouri recently. A group of girls eating at a Subway restaurant inside a Missouri Wal-Mart illustrates the point. Apparently someone saw the girls openly carrying firearms and did not like it. The girls were in full compliance with Missouri’s Open Carry law and had permits, however that did not matter. Law enforcement was called and Wal-Mart asked the girls to leave the store. A video was made by one of the group capturing the officer’s discussion with the girls and his explanation why they had to leave. Despite his sympathetic support of the 2nd Amendment he still enforced the local ordinance.

Apparently the local jurisdiction has an unconstitutional ordinance that if someone feels threatened by the appearance of firearms in public this is enough for police to respond, demand to see identification, and ask the offending party to leave. I don’t know the whole story but it seems like a pretty good illustration of the divide taking place in America over sticky subjects like individual freedom.

Armed

Do I think its a good idea to walk down the street with a gun on your hip. Depends on the circumstances and where you are. In a Wal-Mart full of soccer moms with little children probably not. Concealed? Sure why not. The point however is that we have an amendment to the Constitution that allegedly protects the citizens natural right to keep and bear arms. That right does not have stipulations written into it like: only concealed on your person, in zones where permitted, if you had a background check, if you passed a training class, if you paid the government some money, if you don’t offend people who are afraid of seeing firearms in the hands of anyone but the government, etc,etc

The 2nd amendment just says you have a right to keep and bear arms. That apparently is very troublesome to some people. I will not attempt to get into the whole 2nd amendment justification or why more Americans seem willing to overlook those sticky parts in the Constitution they don’t like, but it seems to me more and more people are perfectly willing to throw the Constitution under the bus in favor of “reasonable” or “common sense” legislation limiting individual rights. It seems some of us can help ourselves and want to be controlled.  As Ayn Rand once said the largest minority in the world is the individual. In today’s modern era this is oh so true.

Anti-gun movement sculpture

• I believe if we are ever going to fix this issue a few things have to take place:

  Tort reform. People and businesses should not be held liable for actions taken by citizens defending themselves with firearms exercising their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If a person or more specifically a business establishment can be assured that they will not be sued or held liable when some one pulls a gun out defending themselves they would I think be more likely agreeable to permitting firearms in their establishment as they once were years ago. The government however would have nothing to say about it other than to enforce the law. It really wasn’t until lawyers started winning huge civil liability suits that businesses started to refuse people entry with guns, that and the anti-gun movement. In reality law abiding citizens carrying firearms open or concealed provide a level of protection against the would be psycho hell bent on slaughtering people in mass with his gun or guns.

  Public perception must change. An individual’s right to keep and bear arms is a natural right that can and should never be taken away. I personally believe for a firearm to do good it needs to be in the hands of good people whenever and wherever it is needed. Church, school, anywhere. If you are capable of safely firing a firearm then you should be permitted to carry it anywhere at anytime. These restrictions of open carry and concealed carry are wrong. Restrictions at schools, churches, business establishments are wrong. As has been proven, bad guys with guns enter these establishments knowing full well people cannot resist them with force. Also the idea that innocent people might get killed because some “untrained” person might shoot them by mistake or the argument of one of my relatives makes that we would be returning to the Wild West is false. Yes innocent people might get killed but that could happen anyway when anyone taking action armed or unarmed to resist against armed criminal aggression. This would include actions taken by law enforcement.

  Are we the kind of people that stands up for ourselves or look to some government master to take care of us? Our country was founded on the former but today’s socialists would have us believe they were wrong. Are we always just to throw up our hands and willingly surrender to aggression putting our fate in the hands of the armed criminals and hope they are merciful or rely on Jesus to save us. When did it somehow become morally superior to call some government authority for help rather than defend ourselves or worse become a victim? To use the old saying when seconds count between life and death you can find “comfort” (sarcasm) in the fact that police are only minutes away. And besides Law Enforcement doesn’t have any legal duty or obligation to protect you anyway, despite the slogan “to protect and serve” painted on their patrol cars. Our founding fathers must be rolling in their graves about now and would find this local ordinance utter nonsense.

SWAT police

Irrational Fear. When did Americans become so fearful of firearms? We used to be a brave and courageous people not afraid to take risks and lose our lives if necessary defending someone in desperate need to include ourselves. Have we become so comfortable that nothing is worth risking or dying for anymore? We can never take risks ourselves and must call the government to the rescue? People cannot all expect to live to 100 and die in their sleep. Why do we keep insisting that no life is worth losing ever and no risk is worth taking?

Here’s an example of societal change taking place that I believe illustrates our sheepish or sissy tendencies these days. Just for some perspective, we lost over 400,000 killed and over 600,000 wounded in five years during theSecond World War. Today’s battlefield casualties in total for ten years of war don’t add up to a fraction of this and are more like the casualty list for one major battle in WWII. Suffering from war is universal but the sacrifices everyone is making today in this country do not come close to the dark days of WWII. Do not get me wrong I do not want to belittle the sacrifices made by our soldiers but to hear politicians these days you’d think the entire country is suffering greatly and all because George Bush took us to war, a war that is ongoing. What rubbish. We are suffering because government cannot restrain itself financially and wants to stick its nose in everyone’s business.
Cowardly. When did we become like sheep to be so easily manipulated and controlled by propaganda masters? Are we so willing to surrender all our freedoms to include the right to defend ourselves so we can live in some fictional world where everything is taken care of by benevolent government masters? Up until the 20th century Americans would have been repulsed by the idea of militant SWAT police forces in every major city armed to the teeth with the latest military war making equipment. They would equally be repulsed by laws requiring people not fight back and instead retreat and call authorities. Zero tolerance school polices that charge children with assault for having a fist fight and stigmatizing and suspending them because they make pop tarts look like pistols they would have found ridiculous. However after a century or more of socialist thinking influencing the masses spread by our entertainment media, schools and newsrooms, a sort of brainwashing has occurred. Many Americans now a days are afraid of everything and believe that only governmental authorities can and must protect them. Anyone thinking otherwise or God forbid carry a firearm must be a kook of some kind like those NRA guys. Why would anyone want to carry a concealed gun I was told once by a government employee I interviewed. Why indeed. The anti-gun crowd and sheep that call in the police and authorities for everything I believe are dead wrong. This kind of thinking is antithetical to the USA, a free Republic with free thinking individual citizens and more akin to beasts of burden lead around by the nose and subjects of a ruling despotic class.

We the People

• Lastly the idea that only law enforcement and military personnel are trained and qualified enough to carry firearms particularly automatic weapons is rubbish. This is a late 20th century invention when crime was rampant in Chicago, New York and other big cities and innocent civilians were getting gunned down on the street. Fear propagated by those supporting government control (FDR for example) pushed gun control legislation into being. What people don’t understand was that corruption in law enforcement and local government and the courts was so high that criminals had virtual immunity. When the federal government stepped in and overstepped its authority, they may have denied those few criminals without organized crime connections access to automatic weapons but they more importantly denied the entire law abiding civilian population with the ability to effectively defeat government oppression if necessary.

  They still are trying to do that to this day by taking all guns away or making it as difficult as possible to own one. It has always been about Control and the ability to maintain it. The founders believed control should rest with We the People; Socialists and Communists believe just the opposite.

  I just read a story this week, there are plans in the books right now put in place by President Obama to call in the US military for use against the civilian population in times of civil unrest. The founders would be appalled.

  So yes the right to bear arms written into the US constitution was written exactly for the purpose of citizens defending themselves, against all enemies foreign and domestic and oppressive tyrannical government. This grates socialists to no end who want government and only government defending and controlling the people.

  It is interesting to note that the gun control laws we have on the books today were largely created and whole-heartedly supported by leftist controlled Congresses and lefty Presidents like FDR and LBJ. Reagan too had his dumb moments however with the passage of the Gun Control Act of 1986 so its not just one party to blame.

  Anytime the people are willing to surrender their personal responsibility there will be those just like FDR or Obama only too willing to take it from them and along with it all of our hard fought freedom. It’s up to us to resist.