Guns Don't Kill - People (And Gun Laws) Do!

John Stossel - Gun Laws That Kill

"Never Forget, even for an instant, that the one and only reason anybody has for taking your gun away is to make you weaker than he is, so he can do something to you that you wouldn't allow him to do if you were equipped to prevent it. This goes for burglars, muggers, and rapists, and even more so for policemen, bureaucrats, and politicians."

-- Alexander Hope 

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

-- Thomas Jefferson 

It is a paradox in life that the more violent a society is, the greater the need for people to be armed! While conventional wisdom has been to remove the means by which the violence is perpetrated, such a move simply results in the law-abiding citizen coming to be at the mercy of the criminal, who seeks no permission but now revels in the opportunity to undertake his activities without fear of resistance. The 'protective services' inevitably arrive after all the damage has occurred, fulfilling their main role, which has little to do with protection but much more with collecting evidence to support a court case. In a nonviolent society this may work out for most of us, but as celebrities as well as those occupying high office know only too well - nothing is quite as effective as a well-armed personal security detail!

In almost all of the mass killings in recent history, the victims were unarmed and so unable to resist! Remember the Norway shootings where large numbers were gunned down like 'fish in a barrel', since no one had access to a firearm which would have slowed the killer down - fearing for his own safety! Almost without exception - every major genocide in history has been perpetrated by the State - only after having completed a campaign to confiscate the peoples weapons in order to make them 'safer'!

Owning a weapon such as a gun for self-defense no more makes you a violent person than installing double locks with a burglar-alarm system makes you a coward. Both are sensible precautions - which recognize that the State security forces may very well arrive on the scene too late to save your life!

Gary North

The Tea Party Economist

Helping you to get through the economic mine field in one piece.

The Case for the Non-Revolutionary Ownership of Guns

Written by Gary North on March 9, 2012

There are two main extremes in the debate over guns. The gun control people are basically worshippers of the state. They grovel before the image of the state. They believe in the state. They see the state as redemptive: an agency of healing. This agency must be armed, they say, in order to collect the money necessary to fund the state’s messianic claims and programs.

A state that can heal must be a state that can kill. The gun control crowd worships a state that can heal. So, they call for the abolition of private gun ownership. This is consistent.

At the other extreme is the private militia crowd. They think that the ownership of weapons is basic to conducting a new American Revolution. They think that that their ownership of weapons will in some way slow down the state. Some day, the People will take up arms against the state.

I reject both positions.

Here is reality. The ownership of guns is mostly symbolic most of the time. The gun as a symbol says this: the state is not God. The state is not finally sovereign. Citizens are sovereign under God, and they possess the right to bear arms as a mark of this sovereignty.

The defenders of the messianic state go ballistic in the face of this claim. They do not accept popular sovereignty. They accept state sovereignty. They accept the fact that voters can elect masters, but they do not accept the fact that citizens have a right to exercise the mark of sovereignty: to defend themselves by force of arms. The statists want the state to possess a strict monopoly over life and death. They understand the meaning of the symbol of the gun. They want guns and badges linked judicially: no badge–no gun.

The weekend militia people are dangerous. Why? Because they have a romantic view of bloodshed. They think that the modern state can be successfully resisted by force of individual arms. This leads to a suicide mentality. The suicide mentality is the heart of the matter, not gun ownership.

The correct goal is to wait for the federal government to go bankrupt before it bankrupts us. It will go bankrupt. It is not God. It cannot afford to implement its programs of healing.

In the political vacuum that will appear in the aftermath of that national bankruptcy, armed citizens with economic assets and economic and political skills will be in a position to pick up the pieces. Local armed citizens will become the back-up of the local police, which local citizens will elect.

The main idea behind gun ownership is to maintain the right of every law-abiding resident to defend his life and property when the state cannot do it. We live in a time when the local agencies of law enforcement cannot secure the peace. This leaves citizens the task of defending their lawful zones of jurisdiction: in their cars, in their homes, and in their places of business.

The lone gunner who takes a stand against the authorities will wind up like David Koresh and his followers. It is better to live to fight politically. Suicide missions benefit the state.

As for armed students in public schools, there is a solution. Close the public schools. No one hears of bullied students who go on a shooting spree in private schools.

We should not worship the federal government. We should plan a peaceful revolution to overthrow the federal government. We should work toward the day when local governments replace 90% of the federal government.