-Caveat Lector-
** THE REAL REASON FOR GUN OWNERSHIP **
BY THE COMPANY OF FREEMEN
The State Creates Its Own Enemies
Ghoulishly capitalizing on the tragedy of a mass murder, the anti-gun
forces are surging forward with their plans for total gun
confiscation. If law-abiding private citizens were disarmed, they
claim, criminals and crazies would be unable to kill and maim.
That's an obvious lie -- criminals, by definition, disobey laws, and
madmen can kill with knives, cars or champagne bottles as easily and
as senselessly as they can with guns. The not-so- secret agenda of
the State and its apologists is clear: disarm peaceful citizens to
render them powerless. Turn law-abiding Americans into criminals
with the stroke of a legislative pen. Anyone who refuses to
surrender his or her weapons would become an Enemy Of The State,
much the same as any armed citizen is right now in the Soviet Union,
or Communist China, or Socialist Nicaragua, or Fascist El Salvador,
or Monarchist Great Britain. Gun confiscation is non-partisan -- it
is always and forever aimed at anyone disliked by the current gang
in power.
Gun Seizure Sparked 1776 Revolution
The American Revolution began in a dispute over gun control when
British Redcoats marched toward Lexington and Concord to disarm
farmers there. London claimed to be the "legitimate" government
ruling America, just as Washington or Sacramento or Albany claims to
be today. And their attempt to disarm us stems from the same power
lust that drove King George. We must, therefore, hold on to our guns
-- legally or illegally -- for the very same reason the colonists
did.
The Truth About Gun Ownership
The anti-gunners, certain that the role of government is to grant
privileges and dictate behavior, shout that citizens have no reason
to be "allowed" to own assault rifles, which have "no legitimate
sporting use". The Constitution, though, says nothing about "a
well-regulated hunting club" being necessary. We do not own handguns,
assault rifles, shotguns, and other powerful weapons because we are
hunters or plinkers or collectors. We do not even own guns because
the Constitution "allows" us to. The Constitution does not "grant"
rights. It recognizes rights already and irrevocably held forever by
the people themselves (individuals), and forbids government from
trampling on them. We have a right to keep and bear arms regardless
of whether the Second Amendment exists or not! All Article Two
guarantees is that we shouldn't have to defend that right against
"our" federal government.
We've seen that simple guarantee erode, though, haven't we?
The real reason for gun ownership is to protect the individual from
the State, whether it is an invading State from across the seas or a
domestic State grown tyrannical and oppressive. The goal of total,
repressive confiscation is clear in the subtle, shifting arguments of
the anti-gun forces. When handguns were the target, they clamored for
prohibition because handguns were not militia-type weapons protected
by the Second Amendment. Now they cry for assault rifle bans because
"mere citizens" have no business possessing "military-style" weapons!
These eager confiscators rightly point out that assault rifles,
handguns, and indeed all "weapons" have only one purpose: to kill.
Again they speak a truth, but only partially. The unasked question
is, "To kill whom? And under what circumstances?" The answer is, "To
kill any who attempt to rob, maim, rape, or kill us." Even that
answer, though, does not fully express the most important reason for
gun ownership. Only a small number of people are actually touched by
criminal violence. The State, though, touches each and every one of
us every hour of every day. People in government seek to tax our
earnings to pay for their whims, to draft our children to fight in
wars they start, to regulate and interfere with our lives out of pure
love of power and their desire to wield it. They have become as
tyrannical as any Tory redcoat, Soviet Commissar, or Nazi Gestapo.
And they are coming to steal your last line of defense against them.
Will you meekly obey?
Gun Laws Enforced at Gunpoint
When any law against guns is passed, how is it backed up? How will
the State remove banned weapons from private hands? How will agents
of the State disarm the citizenry? Why, by the use of guns, of
course! This contradiction has never bothered statists. Why are
handguns and assault rifles evil and wicked in the hands of private
citizens yet perfectly fine in the hands of employees of the State?
If this is truly "government by the people" why do we see the
servants disarming their masters by force? What do they fear from
us, if theirs is a legitimate, benevolent government? If the State
does not seek to control us, why does it want us disarmed?
The usual answer -- stripped of equivocation -- is that "mere
citizens" are like half-witted children, incapable of safely
handling "dangerous" commodities such as weapons or explosives or
medicines or information. And only when some half-witted children
pass a civil-service exam or are elected by other half-wits to work
for the wise and benevolent State do they magically become smart and
honest enough to carry weapons and decide who shall be "allowed" to
possess guns and what sort of design, shape, or weight such weapons
shall be.
Sounds pretty condescending and paternalistic, doesn't it? That's
how they view us. Sheep for the shearing at tax time, cannon fodder
during war time, and dangerous idiots the rest of the time. And they
dare ask us to obey their desires?
Government Creates Crime
What many gun owners refuse to face, usually by saying "it can't
happen in America," is that the government can and does create new
classes of criminals with the mere stroke of a pen. In 1919,
Prohibition turned millions of people overnight from sociable
drinkers to Enemies Of The State. The victimless crime of ingesting
alcohol turned neighborly, peaceful people into fair game for
imprisonment, fines, and seizure of property. Some fought back, often
with simple shotguns, against "revenooers" armed with assault rifles
(the Thompson sub-machine gun) in a modern version of the Whiskey
Revolution. The Prohibition Amendment created crime by definition.
If, tomorrow, smoking or drinking coffee or owning a book were
declared illegal, the State would suddenly point to a new "criminal
underworld" of massive proportions. In the eyes of the State they
would become "a new breed of criminal" to be weeded out of society
and thrown into prisons. So it is with any prohibition of popular
activities, including gun ownership.
Gun Prohibition Disarms the Poor
Let's face it -- police respond faster to calls from Beverly Hills
than they do to calls from Watts. And the rich can afford armed
guards, to boot! When so-called Saturday Night Specials are banned,
does it affect those who can spend hundreds on a fine pistol? No.
Does it prevent criminals from stealing whatever weapon they want or
buying it on the black market? No. The only people harmed by a
"cheap handgun" ban are the honest poor who have hardly enough money
to feed their children, let alone defend themselves from inner-city
marauders.
Any form of gun control disarms those least able to defend
themselves. And what good is a 15 day waiting period to someone who
is threatened by an armed criminal coming by tonight? When one
perceives a threat, one should be able to acquire protection
immediately.
Gun Prohibition is Racist
The Gun Control Act of 1968 was rammed down the throats of the
American public, blatantly exploiting then-current fears of gun-
toting black rioters by implying that the law would help to disarm
American Blacks, other minorities, and all dissenters at a time of
civil upheaval. To paraphrase a popular slogan, "If the government
does not trust minorities with guns, minorities cannot trust
government." Ask any Native American.
In a mirror image case 20 years later, assault rifle bans are being
ramrodded through legislatures by appealing to fears that gun-toting
white racists are on the loose. The real and only purpose of gun
control is to disarm the innocent and the peaceful, of whatever
race, creed or social status.
Gun Prohibition is Sexist
The same goes for women. Police and purported feminists urge women to
resist rape with fists, fingernails, keyrings and screams. But why
should any woman allow an assailant to get within arm's reach of her?
Why don't Women's Rights activists in or out of government reveal
the most effective way for a woman to defend herself: to buy a gun
and learn to use it? The truth is, they want women to feel weak and
perpetually threatened so that they will beg the State for
protection. A woman standing proud, armed, and fearless is the last
thing most self-proclaimed "feminists" want (since that would
undermine their perverse longing for a huge paternalistic
government!)
Governments Kill More Than Any Mass-Murderer
How can people who work for or worship the State -- statists -- point
to the murder of five children in a schoolyard or twenty people in a
restaurant and claim that as sufficient reason to disarm tens of
millions of Americans? Are they so presumptuous as to suggest that we
are capable of such violent madness? Perhaps there is a degree of
psychological projection going on here: statists feel within
themselves the urge to kill and project it onto the people they fear
the most -- us, the victims of the State. For while tens of millions
of people own guns, only a miniscule fraction ever use those guns to
aggress against others. Every State, however, has guns and even more
powerful weapons in its clutches and every State has used them, will
use them, and are using them to murder hundreds, thousands and
millions of innocent, unarmed people.
How can the insane mind of a Patrick Purdy even dream of matching
the death toll of even the most minor skirmish in the smallest of
wars or "police actions"? The murder of five innocent children is
heart-rendingly tragic, but how many thousands of innocent children
were roasted in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? How many unarmed, peaceful
young people were slaughtered in Tien An Men Square? How many women,
children and old people have been shot by the bullets of "their own"
government in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Angola, Nicaragua, El
Salvador, India, Afghanistan, Tibet, Argentina, Libya, Ireland,
Russia, South Africa, Chile, Pakistan, Zimbabwe, Iran, Yugoslavia,
and on and on and on for every State you can name, even "our" United
States? For statists to use the "mass murder" of a few people as an
excuse to disarm Americans when the State is the largest, bloodiest,
longest-lived institution of mass murder in all of history is
appallingly hypocritical. Do we owe allegiance to the apologists for
such atrocities? NEVER!
Private ownership of weaponry is the last defense against tyranny,
foreign and domestic. The thought that there might come a time when
the peaceable gun owners (even members of the patriotic NRA) must
take arms against an American Li Peng commanding the local police
and the US military is anathema to nearly everyone. The possibility,
however, must be faced. A lot of American colonists were horrified at
the thought of defending themselves against "their" king's army, too.
Civilian-Based Defense Preferred to Standing Army
Some say that the Constitution "granted" the right to keep and bear
arms to provide for a "well-regulated" militia. Since we have a
standing army, the argument goes, civilians no longer need to own
guns. Yet that amendment was written precisely because the British
used that exact argument in their attempts (1768 to 1777) to disarm
the colonists. Americans detested the standing armies of the British
government and knew that civilian-based defense was the ultimate,
perhaps the only, protection against any threat to liberty, whether
from London, Moscow or Washington D.C.
Defying Unjust Laws is Right and Proper!
When the day comes (and it will, if we don't raise our voices in
protest now) that the Imperial State commands its subjects (that's
how they view you and me, regardless of what they say) to turn in our
weapons, what will you do? Make no mistake -- if people refuse to
surrender or destroy their weapons, they will be imprisoned, fined,
perhaps even shot if they try to defend their Constitutional -- nay,
their human -- rights.
Of whom should we be more wary -- invading foreign troops whose rule
we would never sanction, or "our own" government, to which most of us
grant some legitimacy and which is right here, right now, all around
us? Perhaps paraphrasing a parent's question will help provide an
answer: If the State passed a law telling you to jump off a cliff,
would you? No fair answering that "good pure, sober, honest
politicians wouldn't let that happen". With guns, it is happening
right now.
And when that friendly cop on the beat (whom most gun owners exalt as
a good man just doing his job and who may even be a fellow NRA
member!) comes around to your house, he will come armed with "good
government" handguns and assault rifles. "Sorry pal," he'll say, "but
the law is the law."
That possibility is something many gun owners -- staunch defenders of
law and order and supporters of local police -- refuse to face. They
blank out the fact that even -- perhaps especially -- in America,
they may have to choose between owning their guns and facing the full
implications of the Declaration of Independence:
"..that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it..."
Some would rather surrender meekly to the State, giving up their last
shred of defense against tyranny, rather than face that choice. But
if they do surrender their firepower, the choice will have been made.
And it won't matter whether our new masters speak Russian, Chinese,
Japanese, English, or American Bureaucratese. They will be our
masters nonetheless.
What To Do
First of all, keep your guns! Do not turn them in just because some
law is passed ordering you to do so. That's just what they want --
sheeplike compliance. You are not a criminal. Don't let the State
declare you one or treat you like one. The colonists who turned in
their weapons to their Tory town governments soon learned the folly
of their actions. Any government that outlaws gun ownership is an
outlaw government! It is no more necessary to obey an oppressive,
tyrannical State than it is to obey any thief who demands that you
turn over your property under threat of death. We know the free
person's answer to such a demand. So does the State. That is why
statists seek to browbeat us into disarming without a fight. They
need the sanction of the victim. They cannot hope to disarm us by
force. That would tip their hand and guarantee a revolution. But by
stealth, instilled guilt, and appeals to our peaceful, law-abiding
natures will they attempt to expropriate our only defense against
their continued and increasing predations.
Resist the urge to obey the edicts of self-proclaimed rulers. Don't
walk timidly into a concentration camp filled with once- free men and
women. Decry with every fiber of your being the trampling of our
fundamental human rights!
** THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS A CIVIL RIGHT, WITHOUT WHICH
ALL OTHER CIVIL RIGHTS ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO DEFEND **
** THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS THE RIGHT TO OWN -- AND PROTECT --
YOUR BODY AND YOUR PROPERTY **
** THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS IS THE RIGHT TO RESIST TYRANNY **
** ANY WHO SEIZE GUNS ARE THIEVES OR TYRANTS **
Every law restricting free, immediate access to firearms is a direct
attack on individual freedom. The course of action is up to you.
Demand the repeal of all such laws or ignore them with impunity. But
never accept them as legitimate restraints upon your liberty. Nothing
legitimate can issue from the pen of tyrants.
(Permission is explicitly granted to reproduce this article by
Xerox(R), computer bulletin board, or any other method.)
- The Company of Freemen
distributed by
THE FORCE Box 94 Long Beach, CA 90801
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