Tyranny is coming in the form of gun control—we must fight it

Tom Skoch, editor of the Morning Journal in Ohio, writes:

Today is the day to fight for your life. Within weeks, proposed laws will be decided that would destroy your ability to protect your family from predators, including criminals, and, especially, the political wolves who can force you to live, or die, on their terms.

Tyranny, rooted in these gun control proposals, is exactly what the Second Amendment was written to prevent. Each of us has a natural human right to keep and bear arms to preserve life and liberty. History proves that surrendering arms to the state has always been a fatal mistake for populations who disarmed.

Unless you, and me, and millions of Americans voice clear, strong and constant objections to Congress, starting today, two centuries of American liberty will end under this president.

No amount of soothing lies, emotional appeals, cherry picked statistics or strident ridicule from the gun control crowd should stop you from saying, “Hell, no!” to the extreme gun control proposals now emerging in Washington, D.C., and various state capitals.

With President Obama’s second term, and the killing spree in a Connecticut elementary school arriving almost simultaneously, gun control backers including Obama, see the perfect opportunity to implement their final solution, and they are moving fast. Even terms short of gun confiscation will become steps to confiscation in days to come.

If the gun controllers get their way, law-abiding Americans who chose to hold firm to their natural rights will be made into criminals and enemies of the state.

That’s not my America. That’s not our fathers America.

This fight is personal. Fight back.

- end of initial entry -

Roger G. writes:

For a moment, forget the 2nd Amendment—in fact, the whole Bill of Rights. Apart from them, the powers that the Constitution provides to the federal government do not include authority to limit individuals’ rights to any arms—including jet fighters and H-bombs. On this basis alone, the federal government is without legal authority to prohibit such weapons to individuals.

Now take the Bill of Rights.

The 10th Amendment, by explicit statement reinforces the foregoing principle—that the federal government is not permitted to exert any power not granted to them in the Constitution.

And particularly with respect to private arms, the 2nd Amendment expands such protection from governmental intrusion beyond the federal sphere, to all state and local levels It does so because it puts no such qualification on this preexisting right; unlike the 1st Amendment, the 2nd Amendment doesn’t start off with the word “Congress.”

The Founders (and ratifiers) indeed did want private individuals to have access to all weapons that governments can get:

” … Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American … [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.” —Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

Of course such a principle might have made much more sense when the worst weapons available were muskets and line of battle sailing ships. It is very reasonable to argue that changing circumstances have made it necessary for the federal government to limit arms.

But we have failed to understand that the federal government will ultimately crush us unless it is strictly limited to its enumerated powers. To our sorrow, we have not realized that need alone—no matter how desperate—should never be sufficient reason for permitting the federal government to act where it has no constitutionally specified authority.

LA replies:

Yes. One could say that during the history of America 1.0 (1776-2012), it was a reasonable belief that it would be impracticable and wrong for Congress to be limited in its powers to only explicitly ennumerated powers. But now that America 1.0 has come to an end, largely as a result of Congress seizing unlimited powers, we understand that this was not correct. This is one of the lessons that have been learned that will have to be put into effect in America 3.0.

JMC in Detroit writes:

If we lose the fight and the federal government attempts to confiscate arms through the agency of the U.S. Marshals Service, the ATF, et al., it is very likely that some sort of skirmish will eventually break out. A Lexington, if you will. At that point we will have to band into rebel cells. Then we should begin independently (and loudly) seeking arms and assistance from the following governments: Libya, Syria, Egypt, Israel, Nicaragua, Columbia, Taiwan. I think they owe us - us being the American tax payers who have funded the military assistance provided to the previously named (some of them for decades). And if any of them happen to respond, then we’ll get real military grade select fire weapons and other serious ordnance. Let loose the dogs of war. and all that. I guess.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 07, 2013 04:21 PM | Send