"All men are created equal"--those immortal words encapsulate the core of America's ideal. Imperfectly realized, it is nevertheless the foundation of America's greatness. Yes it took time, and far too much of it, before blacks and Native Americans and women and Asians were fully recognized.
The Fourteenth Amendment brought home the promise of the Declaration, in theory at least, with its own immortal phrase--"equal protection of the laws." And it is here, at America's core value, that gun control strikes.
Status is the issue, not danger. The idea that certain people can have the protection of arms because of their responsibilities, wealth, influence, or fame is not only wrong--some perfectly ordinary people are stalked and endangered as much as the average hypocritical anti-gun politician, for instance--it's unAmerican. Make that anti-American.
(Please ignore the numbers and somewhat jacked punctuation. The numbers are footnotes from the original text and the weird punctuation (most of it anyway) is due to copying from the PDF. The source link is the last thing on the page.)
America’s Core Value
A monstrous principle animates gun control. Unspoken and unspeakable, it alone fits the facts. Simply put,
the people‟s servants have judged their masters and found them wanting—not in skill or knowledge, but in
basic human worth. Gun control‟s self-evident truth is that all people are not created equal.
Once you accept its premise, gun control makes sense. Special people—the Elite—are entitled to special
treatment, along with those who serve them.
Take Dick Heller, of the Heller case, for example. He carried a gun daily as a security guard for the
Supreme Court Annex. Those who imagine the purpose of gun control to be keeping guns from the unfit
will have difficulty explaining the rapid deterioration of his skills on his commute. By the time he arrived
home each evening he could not possess a functional gun—lest he shoot himself.
When we recall his servant role, however, Heller‟s limitation made sense. With no inherent right to self-defense,
his fitness to bear arms was rooted in his job. Off duty, he no longer served the Judicial Elite.
Rosie O'Donnell, a champion of gun control, said in 1999 that anyone who owned a gun should be
imprisoned.55 To those who see gun control as an effort to keep guns from civilians, it is hard to justify her
allowing a would-be “criminal”—a man applying to carry a gun—to protect her son in 2000.56
The initiated, however, see no hypocrisy. Rosie and her children are Socially Elite—perfectly entitled to
the protection of arms.57
Bloomberg's confusion about carrying guns also makes sense. His armed detail protects the Political Elite;
the retired police officer he was talking about had no higher purpose than self-defense. Why would he, with
so meager an excuse, carry a gun? After all, “guns kill people.”
Katrina momentarily peeled back the veil on Financial Elitism. In the horrific circumstances following the
storm, police deserted their posts. Some were filmed apparently looting in uniform.58 The government took
decisive action:
At the orders of New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, the New Orleans Police, the National
Guard, the Oklahoma National Guard, and U.S. Marshals have begun breaking into
homes at gunpoint, confiscating their lawfully-owned firearms, and evicting the residents.
“No one is allowed to be armed. We're going to take all the guns,” says P. Edwin
Compass III, the superintendent of police.59
Mr. Compass, the police superintendent, said that after a week of near anarchy in the city,
no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns, or other firearms
of any kind. “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,” he said. 60
Under color of law, officials took personal property at gunpoint—a clear violation of the Fourth
Amendment. Louisiana‟s Constitution received similar contempt:
Louisiana statutory law does allow some restrictions on firearms during extraordinary
conditions. One statute says that after the Governor proclaims a state of emergency (as
Governor Blanco has done), “the chief law enforcement officer of the political
subdivision affected by the proclamation may...promulgate orders...regulating and
controlling the possession, storage, display, sale, transport and use of firearms, other
dangerous weapons and ammunition.” But the statute does not, and could not, supersede
the Louisiana Constitution, which declares that “The right of each citizen to keep and
bear arms shall not be abridged, but this provision shall not prevent the passage of laws to
prohibit the carrying of weapons concealed on the person.”
The power of “regulating and controlling” is not the same as the power of “prohibiting
and controlling.” The emergency statute actually draws this distinction in its language,
which refers to “prohibiting” price-gouging, sale of alcohol, and curfew violations, but
only to “regulating and controlling” firearms. Accordingly, the police superintendent's
order “prohibiting” firearms possession is beyond his lawful authority. It is an illegal
order.61
From the gun control perspective, ordinary people should be disarmed in emergencies. So Mayor Nagin—
who, “incoherent and weeping,” “fled to Baton Rouge”—courageously defied the highest legal authority.62
He was not so bold, however, as to defy his fellow Elite:
That order apparently does not apply to the hundreds of security guards
whom businesses and some wealthy individuals have hired to protect their property. The
guards, who are civilians working for private security firms like Blackwater, are openly
carrying M-16s and other assault rifles.
Mr. Compass said that he was aware of the private guards but that the police had no plans
to make them give up their weapons. 63
If you are rich and fear for you property, your employees may carry fully automatic (true) assault weapons;
your property rights will be respected. If you are “average” and you fear that roving gangs may want to
entertain themselves with your wife and children, you are out of luck. The Constitutions, federal and state,
are impotent. This is an emergency!
In response to these outrages, Congress, prodded by the “gun lobby”, passed the Vitter amendment
To prohibit the confiscation of a firearm during an emergency or major disaster if the
possession of such firearm is not prohibited under Federal or State law.64
Yet modest as it was, the amendment drew opposition from anti-gun senators Clinton, Schumer, Boxer, and
Feinstein.65
Their votes illustrate gun control‟s contempt for the Bill of Rights—all of it. After all, why worry about
leaving boot prints on the Fourth Amendment on your way to trample the Second?
New Orleans may have been an extreme case, but Financial Elitism is widespread. Recall that even the
District permits defense of one‟s business. Financial Elitism is institutionalized In New York as well:
The names of the two types of non-occupational carry licenses (”Carry Business License”
and “Limited Carry Business License”) and comments made by Lieutenant McCormack,
a licensing officer in the New York City Police Department, reflect a general
understanding amongst New York City government officials that “proper cause” refers
only to business needs.…
A general understanding that “proper cause” refers only to business need, however, may
be a result of the application's failure to state that non- business needs will be considered.
Indeed, Lieutenant McCormack could not recall one applicant in his fifteen years with
the police department whose stated need referred to the applicant being a victim of
domestic violence. He indicated that if he did receive such an applicant he would not
know how to handle the matter, but supposed that he would probably meet with a higher
authority, such as the Deputy Commissioner of Legal Matters, to discuss the situation.
Lieutenant McCormack further commented that the police department does not issue a
carry license because an applicant's life has been threatened or that he has been beaten,
because those situations “happen everyday.” Normally, if a carry license is given to a
person because of danger, the order to do so comes from a “higher source” or “other
agency.”66
Like all Americans, New Yorkers have a right to “keep and carry arms wherever they <go>.” Yet in fifteen
years, the lieutenant met no applicant who dared hope she could carry a gun to protect her life, her children,
or her physical integrity.
And no wonder. New York doesn‟t allow carry for “everyday” problems—death threats, assaults, and one
would imagine rapes, kidnappings, and torture. Danger-based justifications must come from “a higher
source” or “other agency.” Now who would “a higher source” or “other agency” pull strings for?
Gun control‟s non-equality principle strikes at America‟s core value—the political equality of all people—
returning us to primitive, pre-Enlightenment thinking. It tells the single woman who dares oppose drugs,
the father protecting his family in disaster, the old lady who lives alone—in short, the non-Elite—that they
have no right to the means of self-defense.
Technically, it doesn‟t say that they have no right to life, liberty, or physical integrity, but the difference is
academic. Faced with harsh realities, they have a civic duty to be killed, raped, kidnapped, or have their
families abused in front of them. This is preferable, in the eyes of the Elite, to having the rabble armed.
People who have such “civic duties” cannot be said to live in a free country. Remember the Second
Amendment‟s “free State”? UCLA Professor Eugene Volokh‟s research shows it was a term of art.67 “Free
State” meant “free country”—not the freedom of Vermont or Nebraska from federal encroachment.
Gun control destroys the free State from the inside, too.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
