Posted on 01/29/2005 9:00:32 PM PST by wagglebee
Our Constitution is currently under a greater threat than a teenaged boy at a Michael Jackson sleepover. Yes, this rock solid foundational document, a major cause of our country’s amazing success, is undergoing some serious thrashing by judges, bureaucrats, politicians, prosecutors and police. I don’t know about you … but I do not like the fact that the very people who should uphold our rights are stretching them thinner than Fiona Apple on a rack.
One of the basic human rights that constantly has to be defended is the right to keep and bear arms. Why did the original founders of this great American experiment toss this given, no-duh, entitlement into the Constitution? Well … it wasn’t so that we would be guaranteed that we could hunt squirrels and woodchucks without serving time, as great as that is. It was for the purpose of defending ourselves against perps when the cops are running a little late, and for the purpose of protecting ourselves against the government should the system go south.
What concerns me is how both the Federal and State governments, driven by rabid lawmakers, continue to be such a pain in the derriere with respect to the right to possess a firearm. In just a few short years, our supposed Constitution-honoring government has made it grueling to obtain, practically impossible to carry, and God help you if you actually legitimately have to use … a gun.
Listen … Pollyanna … it’s a bad bad day and the potential beginning of a serious nightmare when the government forbids you to buy, or tries to take from you, your weapon.
This is one of the major lessons history screams at us.
For those of you who missed your world history classes because you were taking transgender sensitivity training, let me highlight a few ignoble moments in the world’s gun-ridding record.
Take Germany for example. Soon after WWI, the liberal powers thought that relieving citizens of their rifles would restore peace in the streets. The general populace bought this nonsense because at that time there were no astute bloggers, Fox News, NRA or ClashRadio.com to shoot down such a stupid idea. And for a while, no doubt, I’m sure everyone felt warm and fuzzy.
The warm and fuzzy feelings, however, gave way to cold hard reality when the Austrian Jerk Emeritus goose-stepped his way into power and began to unfold his Mein Crap. This was relatively easy for Adolf to do. Why was his big lie easy to sell? One major reason was that the ones who were not buying his crack really couldn’t do squat about it … because, you see … they had allowed the government to seize their weapons just a few short years prior to The Dipstick’s ascent.
Sure, they could and did resist as much as possible, but when dealing with a tyrant, sometimes the only way to communicate your displeasure with his dementia is with the crack of gun fire. Unfortunately, the dissenters were, by and large, weaponless. The only ones allowed to own firearms were Hitler, his wizards and the ones who danced to his tortuous tune.
And for those who need more examples of how a disarmed populace stands more vulnerable than Ashlee Simpson before a Bose voice processor … let’s see … what massive slaughter of unarmed citizens should I use to hammer the point further home? How about how the Turks systematically disarmed and then slaughtered, plus or minus, one million Armenians back in the early 1900’s? Or the “disarm-oppress-and kill” campaigns executed by bad leaders upon the innocent people of Cambodia, the Soviet Union, China, Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, Indonesia, Iran, and Iraq?
How’s that?
As Judge Andrew Napolitano points out in his book, Constitutional Chaos: What Happens When the Government Breaks Its Own Laws, nowhere in the annals of world history do an unarmed people ever fare well. Never has an act of genocide in the 20th century occurred where the citizens were packing. I guarantee that if the Gestapo had been strafed with 180 grain 30/06 lead, or pounded repeatedly at close range with 00buck from 12 gauge riot gun … the numbers lost during that crazy crew’s reign of terror would have been far, far less. But the GP acquiesced in peacetime to the bad idea of giving up their guns to quell violence, obviously never imagining that their government would ever go bad. But it did. And once it did … the unarmed citizens were slaughtered by the armed government. Judge Kozinski framed it nicely: “Tyranny thrives best where the government doesn’t fear the wrath of armed people.”
My ClashPoint is this: I’m sure some reflexively irate idealist is thinking that that was then and this is now and there is no way such atrocities will ever happen again, and that John Lennon’s vision for the world will not just be imagined, but actualized.
That’s cool.
I’m ready for the lion to lay down with the lamb; however, in this waiting period between now and when Xanadu actually manifests, I’m not giving up my right to keep and bear arms while looking solely to the government to cover my back. Our framers got it right: armed people are free people. As much as I laud, appreciate, and look to our Constitution-honoring soldiers and law enforcers to serve and protect me and my house, I also know it is my right and my duty to be packed, stacked and ready to whack just in case things get loopy.
The Founding Fathers were right about everything except slavery, and it's time for us to remember the God-given rights they ensured us.
Slaves and peasants were not allowed to keep and bear arms. I wonder which the Left thinks Americans are.
Great article. Maybe you should send a copy to the Brady(bill)Bunch.
Per usual, Giles hits it out of the park.
Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776
Excellent article. I like that, pack, whack and stack. I guess he didn't really say it like that, but you get the point.
Giles consistently has some of the best stuff I've ever read.
This is so simple and so clear, why are they constantly trying to explain what it means ? It means what it says, period. No, it's not about hunting or gun collections. It is about your right to keep and bear arms, no reason needed.
Let us not forget Cuba, ruled by one of history's all time a$$holes, Fidel Castro. Armas por que?
Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, 1861
The first ten amendments to the constitution protect us from government.....not each other, but from an all powerful centralized government that could become tyrannical.
The framers knew that an armed citizenry would keep that power in check. Unfortunately, we have turned over too much control to that government for the assurance of peace and security. Think about it....when was the last time you heard an official called a "Peace Officer"? Now they are called "Law Enforcement Officers". A subtle change, but a change nevertheless. We have given up too much freedom for a false sense of security. We are much more vulnerable to tyranny with all of this "Law Enforcement".
Great article
I know, I've read all of the Federalist Papers many times, I think reading the Constitution and the Federalist Papers should be required of anyone registering to vote.
A lot of the "protective" actions the Federalist Papers suggested was basically nullified by the "equal protection" clause in the Fourteenth Amendment.
Without question you certainly know much more about the constitution than I do and I'm not attacking you. This is just an issue that makes my blood boil. In my mind the only guarantee of freedom is the people and the only way they can guarantee it is through the right to bear arms. However, I think there is a point that people can be pushed to where they just aren't going to sit around and listen to a Daniel Webster explain to them why they should smile when their freedoms have been taken away. Lincoln I think said it best, mess with the constitution and invite revolution.
Lincoln may have saved our Republic, but he massacred the Constitution.
I won't question that. But as one focused on a narrow issue, I too have found the power of taking things out of context. He was talking about slavery in his first inaugural address. I'm talking about the right to keep and bear arms. However, the argument is the same.
Britain is in BIG trouble...Not even knives soon!
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