Out of Control

When I follow topics such as the latest gun control issue, it makes me once again whip out my words and thrust them out to the Internet.

Whether you agree, or disagree with me is not relevant.  What is important to me is that I attempt to explain my position to pass down to my family and friends.

You see, we don’t have to all think the same way.  Being able to exercise our minds is what helps us to grow individually.  Those of you who know me already are aware of my thirst for learning as much as I can.  I enjoy a good discussion regardless of which side I fall on.

I almost began this topic stating what I feel to be obvious, but I’ve decided to start off a bit more basic because a lot of the arguments I hear against the ownership of guns seems to be flawed.

We must first travel back in time to when this country was formed.  This is when the Bill of Rights was created.

Throughout history, and even now in modern times, many governments controlled their people with power and force.  Essentially, he who has the power, makes the rules.

This country began because the government had too much power and forced too many rules and taxes on its colonies.  Anyone that spoke out against such things became an enemy and was quickly jailed or killed to stop anymore foolishness of going against the ruling body.

Is everyone in agreement with me so far?  If not, you need to do some reading on our country’s history.

After just kicking the butt of a government that had complete rule and control over them, when the founding fathers drafted our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they were determined to not give our new government that kind of power over the people again.

This is the whole reason we see things such as “We the people”, and “by the people, for the people”.

How could the founding fathers ensure that the government would not dictate to the people ever again?  They created a series of checks and balances within the government, and gave the people the right to remain armed so that the government could not become controlling over the people any longer.

They knew that if you disarmed the population, they were at the mercy of the government.

In those days people weren’t so much afraid of their neighbor, nor was it about hunting.  Self defense and hunting was a way of life for them already.  It was understood that these folks would have guns to hunt and defend their property.

Why then put the right into the Bill of Rights?  Because it was designed to allow the population to defend itself against a tyrannical government.

Let’s look at the second amendment.

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

During these times most men were considered part of the militia.  In other words, those that could were expected to take up arms against any threat against their state.

It also says that this is necessary to maintain the security of a FREE state.  The right is not so that people can hunt, or defend themselves against their neighbor.  This is talking specifically about maintaining our freedom!

Many of us accept that we cannot, and probably should not, have missiles, tanks, and that sort of thing, but we should certainly have enough proper firepower to make a good defense against soldiers trying to conquer us!

If the President decides he wants to grab even more power and suddenly become a dictator, we need the ability to make that as difficult as possible.

Stop rolling your eyes and thinking that this could never happen here.  If you allow the government to take away any ability for us to prevent this from happening how would we ever be able to stop this scenario?

It has happened throughout history.

THIS IS the sole reason for the establishment of the second amendment.  It should be the end of the discussion, but alas, it is not.

Now we’re wallowing around arguing about what type of weapons people should be allowed to carry.  So let’s look at this.  If you do not agree with the above, you might as well just stop reading now, because you won’t even be close to this second part of the article.

The point I have made previously, is that we need the right to own sufficient weapons to provide a good defense of our freedom.

Due to the population growth, protecting our freedom has also focused on our ability to defend our individual freedom from the undesirables among us.  We no longer have miles between neighbors, but we live in cities where literally thousands of thugs and hoodlums can easily attack us.

Luckily, because of the second amendment, and our legal ability to defend ourselves from the government, this also allows us the ability to defend ourselves against the criminal element.

Notice this entire article is about defense, and not hunting or target practice.

The argument that we do not need a certain type of gun for hunting is an uneducated asinine viewpoint.  It’s never been about hunting.

If we proceed along the thought process that our second amendment allows us the freedom to own a weapon for our defense, a reasonable assumption would be that we require a weapon that can provide us the best defense possible.

We all enjoyed watching Barney Fife, and his single bullet.  Why was this funny?  Because anyone knows that a gun with a single bullet would be idiotic.

In order to properly defend yourself you need the ability to fire multiple bullets.  How many?  It obviously depends on the situation.  Most of us would like the ability to be able to fire as many as practical in any given situation.

The situation dictates how much ammunition is practical.

When you’re carrying a concealed weapon, for example, you do not necessarily need to look like a crazy man with two bandoliers draped across your chest full of ammunition.  You carry a magazine in your gun and possibly one or two extra depending on your thought process and situation.

If you’re at home, you might possibly want a larger weapon that is capable of carrying a large magazine in case your defense is against numerous armed men trying to kill your family.

In this last scenario you absolutely want as much ammo as you can load at one time.

Why are people trying to limit this number?  Do they honestly believe a criminal will play within any rules they come up with and only have small magazines in their guns?  Even if they do, if there are numerous assailants with small magazines, I’d like to have a bigger one thank you.

In this case, size absolutely matters.

Everything up to this point is why weapons are allowed, and why we require them.

Everything else is irrelevant.

If people take what is legal to own, a car for example, and use it for evil deeds, the proper reaction should not be to outlaw the car, but to punish the person who used it illegally.

Now call me simple, but this seems like an extremely easy concept to grasp.

Just because bad people use a gun in the process of committing their crime, does not mean that we suddenly need to disarm law-abiding citizens any more then we should take everyone’s car away because people drive drunk.

If you can’t see the simplicity in the logic I have spelled it out for you, I’d love to hear your opinion.  If you’re thought process is to take away guns, you might as well not even waste your time responding.  This would mean you do not agree with our Constitution and should tread very carefully in this country.

Speaking of which, you'll notice the end of the second amendment says this right "shall not be infringed". This means by the constitution we shall not have to have this right removed from us.

So back off, because last time I checked EVERY military member, police office and government official has sworn an oath to protect this right! This includes the President of the United States. Actively trying to infringe upon this right is actively going against the Constitution.

It is not the Presidents place to attack the Constitution, but to defend it. As usual, he has his priorities, and the understanding of his position, all wrong.