A Heavily Armed Citizenry Is A Virtue

[jpeyton]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrenc...certain-virtues-of-a-heavily-armed-citizenry/

It is time the critics of the Second Amendment put up and repeal it, or shut up about violating it. Their efforts to disarm and short-arm Americans violate the U.S. Constitution in Merriam Webster’s first sense of the term—to “disregard” it.

Hard cases make bad law, which is why they are reserved for the Constitution, not left to the caprice of legislatures, the sophistry and casuistry of judges or the despotic rule making of the chief executive and his bureaucracy. And make no mistake, guns pose one of the hardest cases a free people confronts in the 21st century, a test of whether that people cherishes liberty above tyranny, values individual sovereignty above dependency on the state, and whether they dare any longer to live free.

A people cannot simultaneously live free and be bound to any human master or man-made institution, especially to politicians, judges, bureaucrats and faceless government agencies. The Second Amendment along with the other nine amendments of the Bill of Rights was designed to prevent individuals’ enslavement to government, not just to guarantee people the right to hunt squirrels or sport shoot at targets, nor was it included in the Bill of Rights just to guarantee individuals the right to defend themselves against robbers, rapers and lunatics, or to make sure the states could raise a militia quick, on the cheap to defend against a foreign invader or domestic unrest.

The Second Amendment was designed to ensure that individuals retained the right and means to defend themselves against any illegitimate attempt to do them harm, be it an attempt by a private outlaw or government agents violating their trust under the color of law. The Second Amendment was meant to guarantee individuals the right to protect themselves against government as much as against private bad guys and gangs.

That is why the gun grabbers’ assault on firearms is not only, not even primarily an attack merely on the means of self-defense but more fundamentally, the gun grabbers are engaged in a blatant attack on the very legitimacy of self-defense itself. It’s not really about the guns; it is about the government’s ability to demand submission of the people. Gun control is part and parcel of the ongoing collectivist effort to eviscerate individual sovereignty and replace it with dependence upon and allegiance to the state.

Americans provisionally delegated a limited amount of power over themselves to government, retaining their individual sovereignty in every respect and reserving to themselves the power not delegated to government, most importantly the right and power to abolish or replace any government that becomes destructive of the ends for which it was created. The Bill of Rights, especially the Second and Ninth Amendments, can only be properly understood and rightly interpreted in this context.

Politicians who insist on despoiling the Constitution just a little bit for some greater good (gun control for “collective security”) are like a blackguard who lies to an innocent that she can yield to his advances, retain her virtue and risk getting only just a little bit pregnant—a seducer’s lie. The people either have the right to own and bear arms, or they don’t, and to the extent legislators, judges and bureaucrats disparage that right, they are violating the U.S. Constitution as it was originally conceived, and as it is currently amended. To those who would pretend the Second Amendment doesn’t exist or insist it doesn’t mean what it says, there is only one legitimate response: “If you don’t like the Second Amendment, you may try to repeal it but short of that you may not disparage and usurp it, even a little bit, as long as it remains a part of the Constitution, no exceptions, no conniving revisions, no fabricated judicial balancing acts.”

Gun control advocates attempt to avoid the real issue of gun rights—why the Founders felt so strongly about gun rights that they singled them out for special protection in the Bill of Rights—by demanding that individual rights be balanced against a counterfeit collective right to “security” from things that go bump in the night. But, the Bill of Rights was not a Bill of Entitlements that people had a right to demand from government; it was a Bill of Protections against the government itself. The Founders understood that the right to own and bear laws is as fundamental and as essential to maintaining liberty as are the rights of free speech, a free press, freedom of religion and the other protections against government encroachments on liberty delineated in the Bill of Rights.

That is why the most egregious of the fallacious arguments used to justify gun control are designed to short-arm the citizenry (e.g., banning so-called “assault rifles”) by restricting the application of the Second Amendment to apply only to arms that do not pose a threat to the government’s self-proclaimed monopoly on the use of force. To that end, the gun grabbers first must bamboozle people into believing the Second Amendment does not really protect an individual’s right to own and bear firearms.

They do that by insisting on a tortured construction of the Second Amendment that converts individual rights into states rights. The short-arm artists assert that the Second Amendment’s reference to the necessity of a “well-regulated militia” proves the amendment is all about state’s rights, not individuals rights; it was written into the Bill of Rights simply to guarantee that state governments could assemble a fighting force quick, on the cheap to defend against foreign invasion and domestic disturbance. Consequently, Second-Amendment revisionists would have us believe the Second Amendment does little more than guarantee the right of states to maintain militias; and, since the state militias were replaced by the National Guard in the early twentieth century, the Second Amendment has virtually no contemporary significance. Gun controllers would, in effect, do to the Second Amendment what earlier collectivizers and centralizers did to the Tenth Amendment, namely render it a dead letter.

The truth is, the Founders understood a “well regulated” militia to mean a militia “functioning/operating properly,” not a militia “controlled or managed by the government.” This is clearly evidenced by Alexander Hamilton’s discussion of militias in Federalist #29 and by one of the Oxford Dictionary’s archaic definitions of “regulate;” “(b) Of troops: Properly disciplined.”

The Founders intended that a well-regulated militia was to be the first, not the last line of defense against a foreign invader or social unrest. But, they also intended militias to be the last, not the first line of defense against tyrannical government. In other words, the Second Amendment was meant to be the constitutional protection for a person’s musket behind the door, later the shotgun behind the door and today the M4 behind the door—a constitutional guarantee of the right of individuals to defend themselves against any and all miscreants, private or government, seeking to do them harm.

The unfettered right to own and bear arms consecrates individual sovereignty and ordains the right of self-defense. The Second Amendment symbolizes and proclaims individuals’ right to defend themselves personally against any and all threatened deprivations of life, liberty or property, including attempted deprivations by the government. The symbolism of a heavily armed citizenry says loudly and unequivocally to the government, “Don’t Tread On Me.”

Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence said, “When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

Both Jefferson and James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, also knew that their government would never fear a people without guns, and they understood as well that the greatest threat to liberty was not foreign invasion or domestic unrest but rather a standing army and a militarized police force without fear of the people and capable of inflicting tyranny upon the people.

That is what prompted Madison to contrast the new national government he had helped create to the kingdoms of Europe, which he characterized as “afraid to trust the people with arms.” Madison assured his fellow Americans that under the new Constitution as amended by the Bill of Rights, they need never fear their government because of “the advantage of being armed.”

But, Noah Webster said it most succinctly and most eloquently:

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.”

That is why the Founders looked to local militias as much to provide a check—in modern parlance, a “deterrent”—against government tyranny as against an invading foreign power. Guns are individuals’ own personal nuclear deterrent against their own government gone rogue. Therefore, a heavily armed citizenry is the ultimate deterrent against tyranny.

A heavily armed citizenry is not about armed revolt; it is about defending oneself against armed government oppression. A heavily armed citizenry is not about overthrowing the government; it is about preventing the government from overthrowing liberty. A people stripped of their right of self defense is defenseless against their own government.

A spot-on teardown of the 2A and its true purpose.

And I fully agree; gun grabbers either need to call for a 2A repeal (good luck with that) or sit down.

 

[Moonbeam]

We have the right to bear nuclear weapons as surely as we do guns. Our guns won't save us from a government that has nuclear weapons. A people who fear government, and who wouldn't fear a government with nuclear weapons, has to have nuclear weapons to counter the threat. The morons who advocate the right to bear guns and not nuclear weapons are stupid, like demanding the right to bear water pistols when the government has machine guns. Only when each free person on earth can destroy it at any time will any of us be safe. Only assured mutual destruction can make any of us safe.

 

[Jaskalas]

We have the right to bear nuclear weapons as surely as we do guns. Our guns won't save us from a government that has nuclear weapons.
...

I thought that's what you had Iran and other rogue nations for. You seem to trust everyone with a nuke, why not a gun?

 

[amyklai]

You seem to trust everyone with a nuke, why not a gun?

Oh, he absolutely trusts people with guns, he just wants to make sure that the well regulated militia actually has enough firepower to guarantee our freedom.

Personally, I don't think we need private nuclear weapons, that would be much too cumbersome, imagine how much training you'd need to service your personal hydrogen bomb along with its precious carrier system. It would be much more practical to give everybody a little trigger for the US' nuclear arsenal, just like the president. To reduce costs, it could also be dirstributed as a little iOS app with a cute name like iNuke, iDefend, iFreedom, iNukeForFreedom, whatever.

The great thing about my idea is, there would be next to no additional costs (apart from a few bucks for the iOS app and wiring up the iNukeForFreedom-server to the US's nuclear arsenal) and everybody would be able to defend their freedoms with overwhelming force and very little hassle. Just start the app, push the button and that's it. That would basically guarantee MAD for everyone, world wide, which would make crime and even simple impoliteness disappear from this earth because everybody would have to consider the nuclear response to their actions. One bad word and you can see the ICBMs rise. A nuclear guarantee for freedom and politeness.

 

[TallBill]

Nuclear weapons are not in common use.

 

[Olikan]

so...you guys need weapons to fight the government

.....seriously?

 

[dmcowen674]

so...you guys need weapons to fight the government

.....seriously?

Answer the question.

Is Liberty under fire not?

 

[Olikan]

Answer the question.

Is Liberty under fire not?

if you say, "Obama is a really bad president" will you be arrested?

if yes, then your freedom is a real problem
if not, well... you are just a paranoid person

 

[Muse]

We have the right to bear nuclear weapons as surely as we do guns. Our guns won't save us from a government that has nuclear weapons. A people who fear government, and who wouldn't fear a government with nuclear weapons, has to have nuclear weapons to counter the threat. The morons who advocate the right to bear guns and not nuclear weapons are stupid, like demanding the right to bear water pistols when the government has machine guns. Only when each free person on earth can destroy it at any time will any of us be safe. Only assured mutual destruction can make any of us safe.

Sarcasm in the extreme. What serenity is to be achieved when I know that it is in my power to annihilate you, me, the entire world on a whim. Magnificent.

Uh, I read some of the OP mega-quotation. It smacks of not atypical schizoid 20th-21st century American self styled posturing, and the attitude is clearly arrogant, self righteous and demeaning. We need sanity, vision, forward thinking if we are going to work our way through all this. We've got serious worsening problems that demand our urgent attention. If we need to get the guns out of the drawers, closets and safes to get them off the streets, then that's what we have to do. IMO, that's the case.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally Posted by dmcowen674
Answer the question.

Is Liberty under fire not?

if you say, "Obama is a really bad president" will you be arrested?

if yes, then your freedom is a real problem
if not, well... you are just a paranoid person

Wow how lame.

Join date of Sept 2011 eh?

Are you 10?

 

[TheAdvocate]

We have the right to bear nuclear weapons as surely as we do guns. Our guns won't save us from a government that has nuclear weapons. A people who fear government, and who wouldn't fear a government with nuclear weapons, has to have nuclear weapons to counter the threat. The morons who advocate the right to bear guns and not nuclear weapons are stupid, like demanding the right to bear water pistols when the government has machine guns. Only when each free person on earth can destroy it at any time will any of us be safe. Only assured mutual destruction can make any of us safe.

Someone tell HumblePie this.

 

[Olikan]

Wow how lame.

Join date of Sept 2011 eh?

Are you 10?

25 :whiste:

I live in Brazil, and we actually had a dictatorship since 1988...for some reason, CIA thought it was a good idea

lame? yes, but that's exacly what happen in a dictatorship

 

[Zargon]

if you dont think the GOV fears US Gun Owners, you are mistaken IMO

they always try and use events like sandy hook to ban firearms in any capacity they can, if they werent afraid they wouldnt sit around with the bills written waiting for this shit to happen


they also snuck in a extension of FISA/warrentless wiretapping US citizens bill again while the TV was busy screaming "take all the guns now"

 

[manimal]

25 :whiste:

I live in Brazil, and we actually had a dictatorship since 1988...for some reason, CIA thought it was a good idea

lame? yes, but that's exacly what happen in a dictatorship

Bon dia! I grew up In brazil-Curitiba- and remember the inflation, crime, and terror we lived in. We had guns in the house to protect us from the police. Here in the us we have real freedoms. I'm am now with down the middle on the current gun debate.


What I am sick of is the hyperbole like this thread.

 

[Incorruptible]

Answer the question.

Is Liberty under fire not?

Liberty has been under attack for a long time, and that pos obama is leading it now

 

[actuarial]

Nuclear weapons are not in common use.

This argument is clearly circular. If a bunch of people started using nuclear weapons then suddenly they would become protected, since they would then be in common use?

Or do you just have to have enough people owning them and then suddenly they would become protected. I don't think you should need to discharge your weapon to prove it's in use as a deterrent.

If a bunch of people lay land mines as self defense do they get protection too?

And what's the cutoff date here? Certainly there will be new variations of arms that will be developed in the future that, at the time of their development, won't be in common use. Does that mean they can be banned as long as they're banned before enough people buy them? But then if criminals start using them they then become protected again?

 

[Moonbeam]

This argument is clearly circular. If a bunch of people started using nuclear weapons then suddenly they would become protected, since they would then be in common use?

Or do you just have to have enough people owning them and then suddenly they would become protected. I don't think you should need to discharge your weapon to prove it's in use as a deterrent.

If a bunch of people lay land mines as self defense do they get protection too?

And what's the cutoff date here? Certainly there will be new variations of arms that will be developed in the future that, at the time of their development, won't be in common use. Does that mean they can be banned as long as they're banned before enough people buy them? But then if criminals start using them they then become protected again?

And he should only get one musket ball per minute on any constitutionally common weapon. What kind of dim wit would argue advances like bullets and clips that on invention were not only uncommon but unknown to the general public and are now OK but not nuclear weapons. No, any sensible person can see that everybody should have nuclear weapons or none of us are free. What was unknown is now common at the modern gun store and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of nuclear weapons we built so we could never use them, well of course, except once or maybe twice.

 

[fskimospy]

Really nice false choice there: either remove all protections for arming oneself or never try to limit it in any way again.

No thanks, we will just stick with moving for common sense arms restrictions the same way we always have, the wants of that idiot writing the editorial aside.

 

[fskimospy]

And he should only get one musket ball per minute on any constitutionally common weapon. What kind of dim wit would argue advances like bullets and clips that on invention were not only uncommon but unknown to the general public and are now OK but not nuclear weapons. No, any sensible person can see that everybody should have nuclear weapons or none of us are free. What was unknown is now common at the modern gun store and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of nuclear weapons we built so we could never use them, well of course, except once or maybe twice.

No. If you want to restrict nuclear weapons ownership the only way to do it is to repeal the 2nd amendment. Why do you insist on violating the 2nd amendment?

 

[MooseNSquirrel]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lawrenc...certain-virtues-of-a-heavily-armed-citizenry/


A spot-on teardown of the 2A and its true purpose.

And I fully agree; gun grabbers either need to call for a 2A repeal (good luck with that) or sit down.

Sorry OP, that still leaves "well regulated" open to interpretation, and no reasonable interpretation would include the phrase "however the hell you want it".

Furthermore, it doesnt matter how well individuals arm themselves, the Government can still come in and kick their ass and steal their shit. This aint 1776.

I can't fathom why individuals honestly believe that individual gun ownership is the thin red line between Democracy and a dictatorship.

Pure paranoid fantasy.

 

[Moonbeam]

No. If you want to restrict nuclear weapons ownership the only way to do it is to repeal the 2nd amendment. Why do you insist on violating the 2nd amendment?

How am I insisting on violating the 2nd amendment? Either it entitles me to a musket ball or nuclear weapons. Since it doesn't limit me to a musket ball I demand my nuclear weapons. The government has them and the government scares me. Read the OP. It says that if I fear the government I am not free. Only nuclear weapons against nuclear weapons then will make me feel secure. Only an imbecile would insist on only weapons that can kill a few hundred people in a few minutes when the government can destroy life on earth in the same time. I need to be able to do that too to protect myself. Only if I can destroy the world before the next guy does that to me can I ever feel safe. It's all right there in the OP, thinking at its very best.

 

[Moonbeam]

Sorry OP, that still leaves "well regulated" open to interpretation, and no reasonable interpretation would include the phrase "however the hell you want it".

Furthermore, it doesnt matter how well individuals arm themselves, the Government can still come in and kick their ass and steal their shit. This aint 1776.

I can't fathom why individuals honestly believe that individual gun ownership is the thin red line between Democracy and a dictatorship.

Pure paranoid fantasy.

It wouldn't be the gun industry feeding the male ego for profit would it? There's nothing like a bunch of paranoia stoked idiots on which to grow wool to fleece.

 

[Rainsford]

If gun rights are about freedom, shouldn't freedom be about more than gun rights? Every time I heard someone talk in very broad general terms about how much they respect and value freedom as a reason they believe in the right to bear arms, I wonder if that person values freedom in other contexts. Because in general, years of paying attention to politics suggest that isn't necessarily the case.

It's very easy to go on and on about freedom (as that article certainly did, get over yourself already, jeez) when it's something you personally like. It's lot harder to live up to your boasting about how much you love freedom when freedom as a principle is the only reason to support something. How many 2nd amendment advocates are such staunch supporters of the 1st, for example? And it's easy to talk about how much you hate government oppression when you dislike the President, but how much overlap do you think existed between 2nd amendment folks and those suggesting various news organizations and Democrats should be tried for treason for daring to disagree with President Bush when he was in charge?

The idea of a well armed citizenry as a way of guaranteeing freedom can certainly be argued. But, IMHO, many of the people making the argument don't have what I would call a tremendous amount of credibility. Depending on the government tyranny involved (say, going after Muslims and "socialists"), I have a hard time imagining the NRA crowd being on the front lines fighting against it.

Maybe this is unfair of me, and maybe I'm wrong about it (and I'm certain there are many exceptions), but my general impression is that the people making the pro-gun arguments are not really the people I'd trust to work against a truly oppressive government if that oppression involved something other than gun rights. And there is nothing wrong with valuing gun rights, but I feel like people should at least be honest about it when that's the primary thing they care about.

 

[monovillage]

If you ever took your liberal Democrat partisan blinders off for even a few minutes you'd probably see the answer.

 

[Charles Kozierok]

They do that by insisting on a tortured construction of the Second Amendment that converts individual rights into states rights. The short-arm artists assert that the Second Amendment’s reference to the necessity of a “well-regulated militia” proves the amendment is all about state’s rights, not individuals rights; it was written into the Bill of Rights simply to guarantee that state governments could assemble a fighting force quick, on the cheap to defend against foreign invasion and domestic disturbance. Consequently, Second-Amendment revisionists would have us believe the Second Amendment does little more than guarantee the right of states to maintain militias; and, since the state militias were replaced by the National Guard in the early twentieth century, the Second Amendment has virtually no contemporary significance. Gun controllers would, in effect, do to the Second Amendment what earlier collectivizers and centralizers did to the Tenth Amendment, namely render it a dead letter.

There are some pretty major weaknesses in this essay, but the most glaring is the author's overstatement of his case when it comes to the second guaranteeing an individual RKBA. There are valid objections to that reading, specifically because the founders did NOT mention individual rights in the amendment, and because they added a rather muddying prefatory clause.

As for the thread title -- sorry, not really seeing these great "virtues". At best, an armed citizenry is legally required, and has some advantages that are countered by arguably at least as many disadvantages.