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Guns and the President
Townhall.com ^ | January 23, 2013 | Judge Andrew Napolitano

Posted on 01/24/2013 7:35:57 AM PST by Kaslin

Here is an uncomfortable pop quiz: Who has killed more children, Adam Lanza or Barack Obama? We'll hold off on the answer for a few paragraphs while we look at the state of governmental excess -- including killing -- in America. But you can probably guess the correct answer from the manner in which I have posed the question.

We all know that the sheet anchor of our liberties is the Declaration of Independence. The president himself quoted Thomas Jefferson's most famous line in his inaugural address earlier this week. He recognized that all men and women are created equal and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The president would no doubt like to modify the word "created" to read "shall be maintained," since his presidency seems dedicated to keeping us equal, not in terms of equality of rights and opportunity but of outcome. He has dedicated himself to using the coercive power of the federal government to take from those who have and give to those who don't. Under the Constitution, charity is a decision for individuals to make, not the government.

This forced egalitarianism was never the purpose of government in America. When the people in the original 13 states gave up some of their personal liberties to create their state governments so they could perform the services that governments in the West do, and when the states themselves gave up some of their liberties to create the federal government of limited powers to address the issues of nationhood, they never authorized government to impose taxes to transfer wealth to those who lack it or need it.

This may sound harsh, but there is simply no authority in the Constitution for the feds to tax Americans or to borrow money in their names to rebuild private homes in New Orleans or at the Jersey Shore. And there is no moral authority for that, either. If folks want to give money to those whose properties were damaged by natural disasters and lacked adequate insurance coverage, they are free to do so, but nowhere does government have the authority to compel us to do so.

This shows how far we have come from the Constitution the Founders gave us. They "constituted" a government of limited powers, and they did so because they wanted the government to protect our freedoms, since they understood that personal responsibility and freedom -- not government handouts -- are the soundest routes to prosperity. Hence, they limited the government because they knew the lessons of history. And those lessons informed them that often it is the government itself that is the greatest threat to personal freedom.

One hundred years ago, during the Progressive Era, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson turned the concept of limited government on its head. They argued that the Constitution could be disregarded because the federal government possesses unlimited powers to address the people's needs. Barack Obama is their ideological heir. As their heir, he is not only the head of the executive branch of the federal government, but he is also the head of one of the two dominant political parties.

That political party has dedicated itself to making certain killing legal. The Democrats have continually celebrated the abominable decision of the Supreme Court in Roe vs. Wade, issued 40 years ago this week. They have championed abortion for the past 40 years. They have assaulted the greatest and most fundamental of human rights: the right to live. In doing so, they have succeeded in causing the government to permit the killing of more than 50 million American babies in their mothers' wombs in the past 40 years -- for the sake of convenience and sexual activity without consequence, in a manner that is antiseptic and lawful. And no one hears the babies' cries of pain or anguish.

The president himself has more directly killed about 176 children in Pakistan by the use of CIA drones. These drones have been dispatched by him alone -- not pursuant to any congressional declaration of war. At least two of these murdered children were Americans. But since the cameras were kept away, since all of this takes place 10,000 miles from America, and since the survivors are legally and politically helpless, no one here hears the Pakistani children's cries of pain and anguish.

One of the reasons we have the constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms is to enable us to resist a drone sent to the path of our children by shooting it down, no matter who sent it. But you can't stop a drone with a BB gun. Hence the need for serious firepower in the hands of ordinary Americans -- to give tyrants pause and to stop tyrants when they don't pause. The president wants to use Lanza's horrific slaughter of 20 babies in a public school in Connecticut with a stolen gun as an excuse to restrict the freedoms of all law-abiding gun-owning Americans, any one of whom would have stopped Lanza in a heartbeat with a lawful gun, before the police could, had they been in that school.

Now back to our pop quiz: Who has killed more children, Lanza or Obama? Does a president with blood on his hands have any moral standing to infringe upon the natural right to self-defense of those whose hands are clean? Would you sacrifice your liberty to defend yourself and your children so that the government can kill whom it pleases?

The answers are obvious.


TOPICS: Editorial
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1 posted on 01/24/2013 7:36:01 AM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin


2 posted on 01/24/2013 7:41:27 AM PST by Iron Munro (I Miss America, don't you?)
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To: Kaslin

“They “constituted” a government of limited powers, and they did so because they wanted the government to protect our freedoms, since they understood that personal responsibility and freedom — not government handouts — are the soundest routes to prosperity.”

...Then they promptly released an entire generation of slaves into that young society and they never adopted the adventurous entrepreneurial spirit that the founders had assumed among the citizenry.


3 posted on 01/24/2013 7:52:42 AM PST by Dr. Pritchett
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To: Kaslin

The Judge is an amazing man.


4 posted on 01/24/2013 7:53:08 AM PST by b4its2late (A Liberal is a person who will give away everything he doesn't own.)
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To: Kaslin


5 posted on 01/24/2013 7:57:08 AM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Travis McGee

I’d like to “share” this. Is there a link or is it your own?


6 posted on 01/24/2013 8:00:01 AM PST by Fu-fu2
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To: Iron Munro

That’s a good one, but the tattoo should say “Dath to USA”. Maybe that’s too esoteric.


7 posted on 01/24/2013 8:05:14 AM PST by demshateGod (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.)
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To: Dr. Pritchett

Yep, in addition to releasing criminals and the insane, opening the borders to third worlders, and allowing terrorists to have their way with citizens over seas.


8 posted on 01/24/2013 8:07:56 AM PST by demshateGod (The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.)
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To: Kaslin

It seems as though part of your argument here is that we shouldn’t be using everything in our arsenal to fight the war on terror abroad. Is that what you are arguing, that the use of drones by the military should be off limits?


9 posted on 01/24/2013 8:12:04 AM PST by PoeToaster
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To: Fu-fu2

Yes, please copy and share any of them. I put a bunch of my photomemes on AR15.com.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ar15.com%2Fforums%2Ft_1_5%2F1427677_Some_RKBA_photomemes_I_have_built.html%26page%3D1%26anc%3Dbottom&ei=01sBUfjxH5GY8gT5w4Fw&usg=AFQjCNFNsuhFL9COzKD6uo0tTjej8kBWEw&sig2=QlayELJa-9_tfnHI3zGy5Q&bvm=bv.41248874,d.eWU


10 posted on 01/24/2013 8:12:48 AM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Fu-fu2

Try this link for the RKBA photomemes.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_1_5/1427677_.html&page=1&anc=38061479#i38061479


11 posted on 01/24/2013 8:16:02 AM PST by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: Travis McGee

Great! Thanks!


12 posted on 01/24/2013 8:18:43 AM PST by Fu-fu2
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To: Kaslin

Judge Bump.


13 posted on 01/24/2013 8:19:57 AM PST by moehoward
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