Gun Ban

Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth. - George Washington

A couple of months ago (Feb. 4th, 2008), Tom Henderson of the Lewiston Morning Tribune wrote an editorial in which he severely castigates the State of Idaho, the National Rifle Association, and of course all us crazy gun owning Idaho voters, for not subscribing to the tenets of the “Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence”. Apparently the Brady supporters score each state on a number of issues including curbing firearms trafficking, strengthening background checks, child safety, banning military-style assault rifles, and making it harder to carry guns in public places. Idaho’s pretty low on their scoreboard I gather.

First off, we can’t eliminate the non-existant “gun violence” in this country. After all, guns are not violent, they are lumps of inert steel, wood, and plastic, and they’re certainly not going to jump off the table and deliberately attack some poor innocent bystander. People are the violent part of the equation, no matter if they’re bare handed, have a gun, or the steering wheel of a car in their hands, and those violent people should be the target of our ire. Certainly we could outlaw all guns and even melt them down, but what good will that do? It certainly won’t solve the social problem of violent people harming other people! Those who want us to get rid of our guns in the name of “public safety” are the same folks who want totally open borders, which makes it much easier for the criminal element to smuggle all sorts of weapons in and I suspect peddle ‘em to various criminal gangs. If the government can’t keep the drugs out after years of a “War on Drugs”, and if Homeland Security is panicy about the possibility of a smuggled “suitcase from allah”, just how do they figure to control a very lucrative market in illegal firearms? Sure we can disarm John Q. citizen by writ of law and a lot of police activity, but what’s going to make John Dillinger obey that law and turn in his gun?

Next is “curbing firearms trafficing”. Okay, just what is “trafficing”? Are we talking about the corner sporting goods store, gun shows, or what? If they’re speaking about bulk sales, the legal sales are already under government supervision. If they mean the illegal market, well, that’s a major problem in every country in todays world, and nobody’s found a workable answer to that yet! If you want to buy a few thousand AK-47s, go to some of the poorest countries in Africa, and they’d be very happy to sell ‘em to you, and even smuggle ‘em into the US, probably at cut rate prices.

Background checks are bit of a joke I think. I’m sure background checks do stop a few people from buying a weapon at the local sporting goods store. But if I were a violent ex-fellon I’d already be aware of that problem, and I’d be buying my gun off the street, for about half the price of a legal firearm. Really, all a background check does is inform the seller that I haven’t been guilty of mass murder… yet. The part about child safety also bothers me. When I was a kid, my Dad taught me how to shoot, and he taught me about firearms safety. That was just something that Dad’s did. When I got older I taught my boys the same thing, in the same manner, and none of us have ever shot anyone by accident, nor are we mass murderers. Common sense, careful teaching, and personal responsibility takes care of that problem, yet nowadays the “Brady Bunch” seems to think that firearms safety comes from a law book.

Military style assault rifles are rather humorous as well. Fully automatic weapons are already banned by law, and have been since the 1930’s. Thus, if you see someone running around with an M-16 in his hands, and he’s not wearing a uniform, you can bet he’s already breaking the law, or it’s a “look-alike” weapon with no more than semi-automatic capabilities. Granted that a semi-automatic can be nasty in it’s own right, still, semi-automatic hunting rifles have been around for a long time, and we’re none the worse for them. If somebody wants to go hunting with a semi-automatic M-16 because “it’s cool”, well, that’s his problem.

Finally we come to the “carrying guns in public places” thing. People have been carrying weapons in public for far longer than this nation has existed. Back when it was common for most folks to be armed, the crime rate was generally pretty low and most people were downright polite despite what you see on TV. After we decided to get “civilized” and quit carrying arms, the bad guys got real brave, and now we have one of the highest crime rates in the world, as the criminals happily victimize an unarmed populance. Our recent spate of mass shootings? What happened when the Colorado Springs church shooter unexpectedly ran into a citizen who did happen to have a weapon!?

Perhaps Mr. Henderson, we in Idaho don’t have all those anti-gun laws on the books because we don’t believe we need ‘em. But don’t worry, we just might get gun control rammed down our throats anyhow. If you’ve been following the national news of late, you’re well aware that our country is facing numerous major problems. The upcoming presidential election (if it doesn’t turn into another bloodbath over “hanging chads”) will determine what direction our international relations will take over the next four years, and the balance of power in congress will determine just how far down the road to rampant socialism our leaders are willing to take us. But perhaps the single most important decision in our nation’s history will come from the US Supreme Court in the very near future.

The so called “Patriot Act” hurriedly passed in the congressional panic following 9-11 effectively stripped many of our constitutional rights from us, made a mockery of American justice, and I suspect has Lady Liberty in tears. Now the US Supreme Court is being asked to go even further and determine whether or not our Constitution is worth the paper it’s written on. The question, the “test case” as it were, is the legal interpretation of the wording in the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights. If the court determines that the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed to the individual citizen, there are a lot of current gun laws that will probably go down in flames. But if they decide that the right to bear arms is restricted to “the state” rather than to the citizens, we might as well throw our Constitution and Bill of Rights in the trash, as by legal precedent our Constitution will mean absolutely nothing to the law, and certainly nothing in the eyes of whatever government we then find ourselves shackled with. Our republic will no longer exist; the American experiment in representative democracy will have come to an end. We would be nothing more than unarmed slaves, under the thumb of an all powerful federal government somewhat reminiscent of Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.

The Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in June, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.