A short primer on the importance of our Second Amendment rights
Joe Biden’s had a lot on his plate. First, he erased America’s immigration laws by order government employees not to enforce them. Then he destroyed the economy by attacking the oil and gas that are essential for modern life. After that, he sowed some racial discord. Next, he insulted our only ally in the Middle East while sucking up to “Death to America” Iran. And that’s just the shortlist. But the people in charge haven’t forgotten one of their most important missions: To destroy the Second Amendment.
On Thursday, the New York Times bent its efforts to the task via a Gail Collins column that starts to “nag” Biden about gun control:
You may be wondering how we’re doing on gun control.
— Gail Collins (@gailcollins) February 25, 2021
Joe Biden promised to tackle it on “my first day in office,” which he didn’t. You can appreciate that he’s rather distracted. But absolutely no reason we shouldn’t start to nag.https://t.co/SaHJ2kQtLJ
That’s not cute. It’s scary.
For that reason, here’s a very short primer explaining why Americans cannot allow the federal government to seize their guns, to set up the framework for seizing their guns at some time in the future, or to otherwise limit their existing Second Amendment rights:
One: Without the Second Amendment, there is no Bill of Rights. As we’re learning, the Bill of Rights is a leash on the government and has meaning only if the government accepts that leash. If it throws off the leash and flexes its police power, the only recourse is to yield or fight -- and you can’t fight without weapons.
Incidentally, let me be clear: We have not reached the physical fighting point. Thankfully, we are still a civil society with multiple civil, legal, and non-violent means for asserting our rights. Resisting now through these lawful mechanisms will ensure continued peace in America. Still, an armed society is a society respected by its own government.
Two: There is no greater killer in the world than the government. In the last 59 years, using a variety of weapons, Americans managed to kill around 1 million of each other, with the annual average from 20151 to 2019 being roughly 16,600. Meanwhile, Americans defend themselves with guns between 500,000 and 3 million times a year.
If a million murders in 59 years seems like a lot, consider these numbers:
In 1915 alone, the Turks slaughtered 1.5 million Armenians.
In the 1920s and 1930s, the Soviets murdered around 7 million Ukrainian farmers who resisted socialism, as well as killing another 7 to 20 million people in its various purges.
In the 1960s and 1970s, with its Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution, China is estimated to have killed 23 to 50 million people.
Over 12 years, the Nazis killed 6 million Jews, 250,000 gypsies, 220,000 homosexuals, and up to 10 million Slavic people. Those deaths were just a small part of a world war that is estimated to have led to the deaths of somewhere between 70 million and 85 million people.
In Cambodia, between 1975 and 1979, Pol Pot killed 1.2 to 2.2 million people out of a population of 8 million. In America, that would have been equivalent to our government killing 66 to 85 million people.
Three: The only recourse people have against a rampaging government is arms. The Founders, who had waged a successful revolution against the most powerful military in the world fully understood this. Indeed, the spark that lit the revolution was the British attempt to disarm the colonists. That’s why governments that are planning to rampage seize their citizens’ weapons. (See e.g., the Nazis.)
Four: Gun control is insanely racist. It’s true that the most likely people to be killed by guns are young black males, almost always at the hands of other young black males. That makes it sound as if seizing guns will benefit blacks. The contrary is true: When law-abiding citizens can defend themselves, the bad guys slink away. The same happened in Israel, incidentally, when the government loosened gun control laws during the knife intifada, which stopped it immediately.
Five: Crime goes up when governments ban guns. If you doubt that, just look at England: Once it banned guns, it became a country with violent crime and murder rates consistent with South Africa’s – and that’s not something any civilized country wants to boast about. (Here’s some slightly outdated, but still generally accurate, info on that point.) Additionally, when deprived of guns, criminals will find other ways to kill. Currently, in London, you’re not allowed to carry even dinner knives. Women, especially, are more vulnerable when denied guns, because they are no match physically for men.
I promised to be brief, so I’ll stop now. Just remember that when Gail Collins starts to “nag” about gun control, the rights that keep you safe – safe to speak, assemble, and worship freely, safe from government death squads, and safe from bad people – are in the crosshairs. If you don’t speak up, you will lose the one right that makes all the other possible.
