Posted on 05/19/2009 8:20:56 PM PDT by marktwain
My oldest daughter patted my hand indulgently and said "Dad, I can assure you that nobody is going to come take your guns." We were again discussing gun rights and she cannot fathom my trepidation about the current trend in our federal government. I agree that the current legislation being considered doesn't empower the police to come confiscate our guns, but it does put in place a national permit system to oversee citizens rights to own a gun.
That is step one: make it an earned privilege to own a gun. Step two is to raise the bar so high that practically nobody is clean enough or trained enough or sane enough to actually own one. After the basic permit is in place and all guns registered, each time someone forgets to renew or the government agency adds a requirement like "successful completion of the FBI Academy firearms training protocol paid for by the permit holder" that many could not afford, the permit is yanked and the guns taken away. Eventually, the number of legal owners of firearms would be about the same as Mexico currently has, a few thousand. That's a feasible scenario.
Several people who have left comments on my columns have averred that they will not give up their guns without resistance. I fear that passing a law to fix the "gun show loophole" like the Lautenberg bill in the Senate or the Rush bill in the house will create a large, new class of criminals.
Most of the appointees by the Obama administration have an anti-gun pedigree. The majority of Americans who care about the issue believe that this administration and a compliant congress will try to clamp down on gun ownership in the face of statistics that give lie to their stated motives. I see the huge jump not only in ammunition sales but also the number of guns being bought by first time buyers as a vote against further gun control, and a belief that congress will try to do it.
Where do you come down on the issue? Do you say "The duly elected representatives of the majority of Americans have said I must reach an unattainable level of perfection to own a gun, therefore I will obey the new law of the land and turn in my guns." Or do you say "The duly elected representatives of the majority of Americans have overstepped the intentions of the founders of America and I will not obey an unconstitutional law" knowing that at that point, the Supreme Court has not ruled on the law, and you are not on the Supreme Court.
I suspect that millions of Americans will appeal to natural law, which predates the US Constitution. Our rights come from God first, and include liberty and the right to self defense. The US constitution is an attempt to codify and protect the natural rights of man. I predict that millions of law-abiding citizens will quietly decide not to follow this law if it is passed, and will join the felons and uncaught criminals who already don't obey the existing laws. This will erode respect for law overall among the most staunch supporters of the rule of law as provided by the US Constitution. If the government over-reaches with national permitting of gun-owners, (not just concealed carry which is bad enough) we will see disobedience like what occurred during Prohibition.
It took several years for the US to realize that they had created more damage to the country than they had possibly imagined like the rise in organized crime and the drop in respect for the rule of law among average Americans when they outlawed alcohol. People took it very personally when the law infringed on their personal freedom. The proponents promised that without the corroding influence of "demon rum" poverty would be erased, families would be re-united, and unemployment would go way down because now men would be fit for work and want to. It didn't happen, any more than it will happen that criminals will use fewer guns after Launtenberg than before. Even if they have to drop back to knives and clubs because the cost of an illegal gun has gone up, it is OK because the victims have been disarmed too. We would see the rate of violent crime begin to rise again in America after years of decline.
Frederic Rene Coudert Sr., was a Manhattan lawyer in the day, and he opposed prohibition stating his position strongly in an open letter in Time magazine of March 3, 1930: "The 18th Amendment does not represent a law. ... It is a piece of fanaticism. . . . Call out the Navy. . . . Put every citizen who violates the law into jail and have accommodations for 50 or 60 million. Then take the consequences of the government that does that of being swept out of existence."
We currently have roughly 120 million gun owners in America. How many would reject a law requiring them to volunteer to be vetted merely to own a gun, and submit to yearly inventory of their collection by the local police to assure the government that they hadn't added or sold any in the last 12 months? Criminalizing a big chunk of your most law-abiding citizens is a sure recipe for societal disaster.
the last sentence sums it all up very well. I believe there are one hell of a lot of gun owners who damn well mean what they say when they mention ‘cold dead fingers’...won’t go down without a fight’ etc. yes, there will be some (if it comes to that) that will meekly submit to any and all proposed new restrictive and/or confiscation type gun laws but I know that there is also large percentage of legal gun owners who mean what they say when they say “come and get em”.......
I hope he told her there were currently 20,000 laws on the books regarding guns and they have taken everything else.
The Greatest generation is a total failure and lost their own country.
Who was worse - Hitler or ????
A certain percentage will go for the ones who sent the confiscators. “Come and get ‘em” will have an interesting inversion of meaning.
Dangerous Old Men...
It would be better to be a felon than a slave. At least a felon can go down fighting.
Actually I believe that Step 1 was to make guns socially unacceptable, and that they escalated their other steps because it had mixed, but unacceptably limited (read: epic fail) results.
They’re going to continue to bang their heads against this wall because they’re obsessed control freaks. It doesn’t matter because 1. the genie is out of the bottle and 2. There are too many gun owners out there who will not allow them to succeed.
So far they have set the pace (they take - we resist). In some respects I see the tables being turned. Open carry laws drive the panty-waists crazy. I would love to see the open-carry laws expanded. I wish the advocacy groups (NRA, GOA) would take a more aggressive approach instead of the reactive ones that they do so often.
I've heard this line so many times, usually from clueless and condescending lefties.
Coming from his daughter, I'm sure it was well-intentioned, but hopelessly naive.
How can anyone trust a system this flawed to maintain the records concerning what weapon you own, when you purchased it, and then determine if you are allowed to keep it?
Should this come to pass, it will be abused, and result in the death or imprisonment of otherwise honest citizens.
All the worry about what this administration is going to attempt legislatively concerning our rights could be eliminated during one speech by the President.
His silence on this issue is his answer.
He has found a reason every single day since his election to get on the news.
He should have stopped her right there and demanded she prove her assurance and counter massive historical and political evidence to the contrary, or admit she was not only contemptuously lying, but treating her father with indefensible disrespect and owed him a sincere apology.
Sorry for the rant, but it's exactly this kind of smug stupidity and contemptuous disrepect that young liberals are trained by their schools and the media to use against reasoned arguments that they can't win, and it's revolting that it goes unaddressed within the family.
Well, what about the 2nd amendment? What about last year’s Supreme Court decision that we as individuals, and not just as members of a militia or law enforcement, have a right to own guns?
Why are there 20,000 gun laws? Do they deal with registration and licensing and such? I wish I knew more about the whole subject. But I figured as long as we are a nation of laws, the 2nd amendment and last year’s court case should settle the fundamental question that we have a right to keep and bear arms.
Good observation.Take note of who is sparkplugging anti-2nd amendment activity in your area.The cops aren’t to blame-they are caught in the middle.The planners of this infamy will not escape justice if they they try a massive gun grab.
My feeling right now is that the anti gun demons are in retreat,but always looking to pounce.
The ammo shortage is not a conspiracy by the government-people are buying anything put on the shelves in popular calibers.
Very good post
>Nicely argued, but I believe the Ayn Rand was right when she said that a coercive government does not want law abiding
>citizens. It wants criminals, so they can be controled.
Wasn’t that actually Heinlein in “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” [I think]?
You may have the right to own a gun, but the statists are going to do their best to try and make you register it. They are doing a full-court press to make owning guns and obtaining ammo a difficult task.
Sorry for the disjointed reply, but I quit caffienne today and am out of it.
LOL.
“Dad, I can assure you that nobody is going to come take your guns.”
Any time someone says something like that to me, I ask them if they’re wrong will I see them on the barricades with me.
“I wish the advocacy groups (NRA, GOA) would take a more aggressive approach...”
FReepers: Please also join your state rifle association!!
State laws are just as important as national laws.
Tahoe3002:
Life member Texas State Rifle Association
Endowment Member NRA
It is usurpation, and it will lead to war.
The NRA is suing San Francisco. The NRA is also involved with other lawsuits because of Heller.
There are only four million NRA members. There are eighty million gunowners.
“The daughter should talk to Patricia Konie.”
She should talk to people from Britain and Australia, then tell her to look up the comments of Diane Feinswine, the VPC and other groups. Then tell her to look up past efforts to ban Saturday night specials which were defined to include 1911 autos, and full size revolvers etc. Then the efforts to ban armor piercing ammo which was defined to included 90% of all ammo made.
Gun and ammo sales are a big flag that they cannot ignore.
And they know this is a line in the sand that people will start shooting over if they cross it.
There are other lines.
They will attempt to implement as much of their fascist control as possible without crossing these lines.
I agree - the media became an echo chamber repeating the "guns are bad" mantra - but the gun shops and ranges are as busy as ever. Pro-gun websites proliferated, including ones with detailed "build it yourself" info.
Add the Heller decision on top of all that and you can see why the grabbers feel that now is their only chance.
No mere leftist tilting at windmills, this time. This particular windmill can hit back, hard.
That is precisely what scares the feces out of the politicians . The knowledge that of the millions of gun owners in this nation there are a few thousand who know that resisting the cop will get you killed but killing the politician that sent him will make your effort infinately more effective.
The IRA had only a few hundred shooters in Ireland. Look how much trouble they caused.
well said B. their ‘termite’ approach will only work as long as they continue to implement it incrementally. I hope the shooting never starts but if it does I feel there are far more American gun owners who will ‘go down swinging’ then the government figures there will be.
I myself am one of those ‘dangerous old men’ from the ‘come and get ‘em’ persuasion. you said one hell of a lot in two short, concise sentences, very well said.
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