Guns

I’ve been mostly avoiding political discussion of late. After 15 years of following and blogging on politics, I shuttered my political blog in March. I figured out what I believe and that I’m unlikely to see it in my lifetime, and I’ve learned that talking about it serves primarily to raise my blood pressure to no good end.

What I believe:

• government has no useful purpose and lots of harmful side effects
• taxation is extortion, a heinous crime
• the war on some drugs is a crime against humanity
• state-mandated licensing or regulation of anything is wrong
• most people are sheep and really want somebody to tell them what to do

It’s that final bullet point that makes engaging in politics mostly a waste of time. My 23-year-old son already figured it out on his own. Took me nearly 60 years.

When Ron Paul failed to get the Republican nomination for president in 2008, I deregistered to vote. It took some doing to figure out how to do that. The web is filled with instructions on how to register, but nothing about deregistering. I eventually called the county board of elections, and they told me to send them a letter asking for my name to be removed from the voter rolls. I did. I assume they did, though I didn’t confirm.

So it was a bit strange when I today started following the Medium tags: guns, gun control, gun violence, self defense, 2nd amendment. There goes my blood pressure.

I didn’t mention it explicitly above, but you should have figured out by now that I also believe that the Second Amendment’s “shall not be infringed” means exactly that. The government shall not restrict manufacture, sale, purchase, possession, carry, or defensive use of weapons. Ever. At all.

Of course, the Second Amendment isn’t necessary. It only highlights a pre-existing right to life, for any legislators or executives or judges or cops who might like to conveniently forget. It may be possible to remove the Second Amendment from the Constitution, though probably not without a bloody civil war, but you cannot remove a free person’s right to life.

I grew up in Wyoming. Guns were a part of life. My dad had lots of hunting rifles and was an expert rapid fire pistol competitor. I went to the Air Force base every week to shoot .22 rifles at little tiny targets. I was good at it. I shot a deer, and antelope, and an elk. All one-shot kills. We ate their meat. Now I eat no mammals, no fowl, and only occasional fish.

My journey through libertarian politics to anarchy supported my belief that you have a right to life, hence a right to the tools you decide are necessary to defend that life. And the best self-defense tools invented to date are guns. They are the great equalizer. They allow a ninety-pound grandma to effectively defend herself from a 250-pound thug.

L. Neil Smith is good at expressing my beliefs on guns in short, clear language:

From The Atlanta Declaration:

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon — rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, ANYTHING— any time, any place, without asking anyone’s permission.

From a mailing list:

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn’t say what ANY of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is TREASON. What else do you call an act that endangers “the security of a free state”? And if it’s treason, then it’s punishable by death.

I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

From Why Did It Have to be… Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians — even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership — hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it’s an X-ray machine. It’s a Vulcan mind-meld. It’s the ultimate test to which any politician — or political philosophy — can be put.

If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash — for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, ANYTHING— without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t your FRIEND no matter what he tells you.

If he isn’t genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody’s permission, he’s a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude — toward your ownership and use of weapons — conveys is his real attitude about YOU. And if he doesn’t trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

But Mike Vanderboegh says it most succinctly:

“Tell me,” I was once asked, “What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer.” To which I replied, “If you try to take our firearms we will kill you.”

You might think you can impose more gun control. You might think it will reduce so-called “gun violence” (I’ve never encountered a violent gun, only violent people). But America’s gun owners have backed up for years. We’re done having our right to life compromised away. Want our guns? Come and take them. Good luck with that.