Preface:
I have obtained reprint permission
for the Internet for Jeffrey
Snyder's "A Nation of Cowards".
It may be reproduced freely, including
forwarding copies to politicians,
provided that it is not distributed
for profit and subscription information
is included.
I especially encourage you to copy
and pass on this strong statement
about firearms ownership to friends,
colleagues, undecideds, and other
firearms rights supporters. Your
grassroots pamphleteering can counter
the propaganda blitz now going on
by introducing some reason to the
debate. This essay is one of our
best weapons.
To get this file: ftp portal.com,
get /pub/chan/cowards.txt
Jeff Chan chan@shell.portal.com
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"A Nation of Cowards"
was published in the Fall, '93 issue of The Public
Interest, a quarterly journal of
opinion published by National Affairs, Inc.
Single copies of The Public Interest
are available for $6. Annual
subscription rate is $21 ($24 US,
for Canadian and foreign subscriptions).
Single copies of this or other issues,
and subscriptions, can be obtained
from:
The Public Interest
1112 16th St., NW, Suite 530
Washington, DC 20036
(C) 1993 by The Public Interest.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
A NATION OF COWARDS
Jeffrey R. Snyder
OUR SOCIETY has reached a pinnacle
of self-expression and respect for
individuality rare or unmatched
in history. Our entire popular culture --
from fashion magazines to the cinema
-- positively screams the matchless
worth of the individual, and glories
in eccentricity, nonconformity,
independent judgment, and self-determination.
This enthusiasm is reflected
in the prevalent notion that helping
someone entails increasing that
person's "self-esteem";
that if a person properly values himself, he will
naturally be a happy, productive,
and, in some inexplicable fashion,
responsible member of society.
And yet, while people are encouraged
to revel in their individuality and
incalculable self-worth, the media
and the law enforcement establishment
continually advise us that, when
confronted with the threat of lethal
violence, we should not resist,
but simply give the attacker what he wants.
If the crime under consideration
is rape, there is some notable waffling on
this point, and the discussion quickly
moves to how the woman can change her
behavior to minimize the risk of
rape, and the various ridiculous,
non-lethal weapons she may acceptably
carry, such as whistles, keys, mace
or, that weapon which really sends
shivers down a rapist's spine, the
portable cellular phone.
Now how can this be? How can a person
who values himself so highly calmly
accept the indignity of a criminal
assault? How can one who believes that
the essence of his dignity lies
in his self-determination passively accept
the forcible deprivation of that
self-determination? How can he, quietly,
with great dignity and poise, simply
hand over the goods?
The assumption, of course, is that
there is no inconsistency. The advice not
to resist a criminal assault and
simply hand over the goods is founded on
the notion that one's life is of
incalculable value, and that no amount of
property is worth it. Put aside,
for a moment, the outrageousness of the
suggestion that a criminal who proffers
lethal violence should be treated as
if he has instituted a new social
contract: "I will not hurt or kill you if
you give me what I want." For
years, feminists have labored to educate
people that rape is not about sex,
but about domination, degradation, and
control. Evidently, someone needs
to inform the law enforcement
establishment and the media that
kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, and
assault are not about property.
Crime is not only a complete disavowal
of the social contract, but also a
commandeering of the victim's person
and liberty. If the individual's
dignity lies in the fact that he
is a moral agent engaging in actions of his
own will, in free exchange with
others, then crime always violates the
victim's dignity. It is, in fact,
an act of enslavement. Your wallet, your
purse, or your car may not be worth
your life, but your dignity is; and if
it is not worth fighting for, it
can hardly be said to exist.
The Gift of Life
Although difficult for modern man
to fathom, it was once widely believed
that life was a gift from God, that
to not defend that life when offered
violence was to hold God's gift
in contempt, to be a coward and to breach
one's duty to one's community. A
sermon given in Philadelphia in 1747
unequivocally equated the failure
to defend oneself with suicide:
He that suffers his life to be taken
from him by one that hath no
authority for that purpose, when
he might preserve it by defense,
incurs the Guilt of self murder
since God hath enjoined him to seek
the continuance of his life, and
Nature itself teaches every creature
to defend itself.
"Cowardice" and "self-respect"
have largely disappeared from public
discourse. In their place we are
offered "self-esteem" as the bellwether of
success and a proxy for dignity.
"Self-respect" implies that one recognizes
standards, and judges oneself worthy
by the degree to which one lives up to
them. "Self-esteem" simply
means that one feels good about oneself.
"Dignity" used to refer
to the self-mastery and fortitude with which a
person conducted himself in the
face of life's vicissitudes and the boorish
behavior of others. Now, judging
by campus speech codes, dignity requires
that we never encounter a discouraging
word and that others be coerced into
acting respectfully, evidently on
the assumption that we are powerless to
prevent our degradation if exposed
to the demeaning behavior of others.
These are signposts proclaiming
the insubstantiality of our character, the
hollowness of our souls.
It is impossible to address the
problem of rampant crime without talking
about the moral responsibility of
the intended victim. Crime is rampant
because the law-abiding, each of
us, condone it, excuse it, permit it,
submit to it. We permit and encourage
it because we do not fight back,
immediately, then and there, where
it happens. Crime is not rampant because
we do not have enough prisons, because
judges and prosecutors are too soft,
because the police are hamstrung
with absurd technicalities. The defect is
there, in our character. We are
a nation of cowards and shirkers.
Do You Feel Lucky?
In 1991, when then-Attorney General
Richard Thornburgh released the FBI's
annual crime statistics, he noted
that it is now more likely that a person
will be the victim of a violent
crime than that he will be in an auto
accident. Despite this, most people
readily believe that the existence of
the police relieves them of the
responsibility to take full measures to
protect themselves. The police,
however, are not personal bodyguards.
Rather, they act as a general deterrent
to crime, both by their presence and
by apprehending criminals after
the fact. As numerous courts have held, they
have no legal obligation to protect
anyone in particular. You cannot sue
them for failing to prevent you
from being the victim of a crime.
Insofar as the police deter by their
presence, they are very, very good.
Criminals take great pains not to
commit a crime in front of them.
Unfortunately, the corollary is
that you can pretty much bet your life (and
you are) that they won't be there
at the moment you actually need them.
Should you ever be the victim of
an assault, a robbery, or a rape, you will
find it very difficult to call the
police while the act is in progress, even
if you are carrying a portable cellular
phone. Nevertheless, you might be
interested to know how long it takes
them to show up. Department of Justice
statistics for 1991 show that, for
all crimes of violence, only 28 percent
of calls are responded to within
five minutes. The idea that protection is a
service people can call to have
delivered and expect to receive in a timely
fashion is often mocked by gun owners,
who love to recite the challenge,
"Call for a cop, call for an
ambulance, and call for a pizza. See who shows
up first."
Many people deal with the problem
of crime by convincing themselves that
they live, work, and travel only
in special "crime-free" zones. Invariably,
they react with shock and hurt surprise
when they discover that criminals do
not play by the rules and do not
respect these imaginary boundaries. If,
however, you understand that crime
can occur anywhere at anytime, and if you
understand that you can be maimed
or mortally wounded in mere seconds, you
may wish to consider whether you
are willing to place the responsibility for
safeguarding your life in the hands
of others.
Power And Responsibility
Is your life worth protecting? If
so, whose responsibility is it to protect
it? If you believe that it is the
police's, not only are you wrong -- since
the courts universally rule that
they have no legal obligation to do so --
but you face some difficult moral
quandaries. How can you rightfully ask
another human being to risk his
life to protect yours, when you will assume
no responsibility yourself? Because
that is his job and we pay him to do it?
Because your life is of incalculable
value, but his is only worth the
$30,000 salary we pay him? If you
believe it reprehensible to possess the
means and will to use lethal force
to repel a criminal assault, how can you
call upon another to do so for you?
Do you believe that you are forbidden
to protect yourself because the police
are better qualified to protect
you, because they know what they are doing
but you're a rank amateur? Put aside
that this is equivalent to believing
that only concert pianists may play
the piano and only professional athletes
may play sports. What exactly are
these special qualities possessed only by
the police and beyond the rest of
us mere mortals?
One who values his life and takes
seriously his responsibilities to his
family and community will possess
and cultivate the means of fighting back,
and will retaliate when threatened
with death or grievous injury to himself
or a loved one. He will never be
content to rely solely on others for his
safety, or to think he has done
all that is possible by being aware of his
surroundings and taking measures
of avoidance. Let's not mince words: He
will be armed, will be trained in
the use of his weapon, and will defend
himself when faced with lethal violence.
Fortunately, there is a weapon for
preserving life and liberty that can be
wielded effectively by almost anyone
-- the handgun. Small and light enough
to be carried habitually, lethal,
but unlike the knife or sword, not
demanding great skill or strength,
it truly is the "great equalizer."
Requiring only hand-eye coordination
and a modicum of ability to remain cool
under pressure, it can be used effectively
by the old and the weak against
the young and the strong, by the
one against the many.
The handgun is the only weapon that
would give a lone female jogger a chance
of prevailing against a gang of
thugs intent on rape, a teacher a chance of
protecting children at recess from
a madman intent on massacring them, a
family of tourists waiting at a
mid-town subway station the means to protect
themselves from a gang of teens
armed with razors and knives.
But since we live in a society that
by and large outlaws the carrying of
arms, we are brought into the fray
of the Great American Gun War. Gun
control is one of the most prominent
battlegrounds in our current culture
wars. Yet it is unique in the half-heartedness
with which our conservative
leaders and pundits -- our "conservative
elite" -- do battle, and have
conceded the moral high ground to
liberal gun control proponents. It is not
a topic often written about, or
written about with any great fervor, by
William F. Buckley or Patrick Buchanan.
As drug czar, William Bennett
advised President Bush to ban "assault
weapons." George Will is on record as
recommending the repeal of the Second
Amendment, and Jack Kemp is on record
as favoring a ban on the possession
of semiautomatic "assault weapons." The
battle for gun rights is one fought
predominantly by the common man. The
beliefs of both our liberal and
conservative elites are in fact abetting the
criminal rampage through our society.
Selling Crime Prevention
By any rational measure, nearly
all gun control proposals are hokum. The
Brady Bill, for example, would not
have prevented John Hinckley from
obtaining a gun to shoot President
Reagan; Hinckley purchased his weapon
five months before the attack, and
his medical records could not have served
as a basis to deny his purchase
of a gun, since medical records are not
public documents filed with the
police. Similarly, California's waiting
period and background check did
not stop Patrick Purdy from purchasing the
"assault rifle" and handguns
he used to massacre children during recess in a
Stockton schoolyard; the felony
conviction that would have provided the
basis for stopping the sales did
not exist, because Mr. Purdy's previous
weapons violations were plea-bargained
down from felonies to misdemeanors.
In the mid-sixties there was a public
service advertising campaign targeted
at car owners about the prevention
of car theft. The purpose of the ad was
to urge car owners not to leave
their keys in their cars. The message was,
"Don't help a good boy go bad."
The implication was that, by leaving his
keys in his car, the normal, law-abiding
car owner was contributing to the
delinquency of minors who, if they
just weren't tempted beyond their limits,
would be "good." Now,
in those days people still had a fair sense of just
who was responsible for whose behavior.
The ad succeeded in enraging a
goodly portion of the populace,
and was soon dropped.
Nearly all of the gun control measures
offered by Handgun Control, Inc.
(HCI) and its ilk embody the same
philosophy. They are founded on the belief
that America's law-abiding gun owners
are the source of the problem. With
their unholy desire for firearms,
they are creating a society awash in a sea
of guns, thereby helping good boys
go bad, and helping bad boys be badder.
This laying of moral blame for violent
crime at the feet of the law-abiding,
and the implicit absolution of violent
criminals for their misdeeds,
naturally infuriates honest gun
owners.
The files of HCI and other gun control
organizations are filled with
proposals to limit the availability
of semiautomatic and other firearms to
law-abiding citizens, and barren
of proposals for apprehending and punishing
violent criminals. It is ludicrous
to expect that the proposals of HCI, or
any gun control laws, will significantly
curb crime. According to Department
of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) statistics,
fully 90 percent of violent crimes
are committed without a handgun, and 93
percent of the guns obtained by
violent criminals are not obtained through
the lawful purchase and sale transactions
that are the object of most gun
control legislation. Furthermore,
the number of violent criminals is minute
in comparison to the number of firearms
in America -- estimated by the ATF
at about 200 million, approximately
one-third of which are handguns. With so
abundant a supply, there will always
be enough guns available for those who
wish to use them for nefarious ends,
no matter how complete the legal
prohibitions against them, or how
draconian the punishment for their
acquisition or use. No, the gun
control proposals of HCI and other
organizations are not seriously
intended as crime control. Something else is
at work here.
The Tyranny of the Elite
Gun control is a moral crusade against
a benighted, barbaric citizenry. This
is demonstrated not only by the
ineffectualness of gun control in preventing
crime, and by the fact that it focuses
on restricting the behavior of the
law-abiding rather than apprehending
and punishing the guilty, but also by
the execration that gun control
proponents heap on gun owners and their evil
instrumentality, the NRA. Gun owners
are routinely portrayed as uneducated,
paranoid rednecks fascinated by
and prone to violence, i.e., exactly the
type of person who opposes the liberal
agenda and whose moral and social
"re-education" is the
object of liberal social policies. Typical of such
bigotry is New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's
famous characterization of gun-owners
as "hunters who drink beer,
don't vote, and lie to their wives about where
they were all weekend." Similar
vituperation is rained upon the NRA,
characterized by Sen. Edward Kennedy
as the "pusher's best friend,"
lampooned in political cartoons
as standing for the right of children to
carry firearms to school and, in
general, portrayed as standing for an
individual's God-given right to
blow people away at will.
The stereotype is, of course, false.
As criminologist and constitutional
lawyer Don B. Kates, Jr. and former
HCI contributor Dr. Patricia Harris have
pointed out, "[s]tudies consistently
show that, on the average, gun owners
are better educated and have more
prestigious jobs than non-owners.... Later
studies show that gun owners are
less likely than non-owners to approve of
police brutality, violence against
dissenters, etc."
Conservatives must understand that
the antipathy many liberals have for gun
owners arises in good measure from
their statist utopianism. This habit of
mind has nowhere been better explored
than in The Republic. There, Plato
argues that the perfectly just society
is one in which an unarmed people
exhibit virtue by minding their
own business in the performance of their
assigned functions, while the government
of philosopher-kings, above the law
and protected by armed guardians
unquestioning in their loyalty to the
state, engineers, implements, and
fine-tunes the creation of that society,
aided and abetted by myths that
both hide and justify their totalitarian
manipulation.
The Unarmed Life
When columnist Carl Rowan preaches
gun control and uses a gun to defend his
home, when Maryland Gov. William
Donald Schaefer seeks legislation year
after year to ban semiautomatic
"assault weapons" whose only purpose, we are
told, is to kill people, while he
is at the same time escorted by state
police armed with large-capacity
9mm semiautomatic pistols, it is not simple
hypocrisy. It is the workings of
that habit of mind possessed by all
superior beings who have taken upon
themselves the terrible burden of
civilizing the masses and who understand,
like our Congress, that laws are
for other people.
The liberal elite know that they
are philosopher-kings. They know that the
people simply cannot be trusted;
that they are incapable of just and fair
self-government; that left to their
own devices, their society will be
racist, sexist, homophobic, and
inequitable -- and the liberal elite know
how to fix things. They are going
to help us live the good and just life,
even if they have to lie to us and
force us to do it. And they detest those
who stand in their way.
The private ownership of firearms
is a rebuke to this utopian zeal. To own
firearms is to affirm that freedom
and liberty are not gifts from the state.
It is to reserve final judgment
about whether the state is encroaching on
freedom and liberty, to stand ready
to defend that freedom with more than
mere words, and to stand outside
the state's totalitarian reach.
The Florida Experience
The elitist distrust of the people
underlying the gun control movement is
illustrated beautifully in HCI's
campaign against a new concealed-carry law
in Florida. Prior to 1987, the Florida
law permitting the issuance of
concealed-carry permits was administered
at the county level. The law was
vague, and, as a result, was subject
to conflicting interpretation and
political manipulation. Permits
were issued principally to security
personnel and the privileged few
with political connections. Permits were
valid only within the county of
issuance.
In 1987, however, Florida enacted
a uniform concealed-carry law which
mandates that county authorities
issue a permit to anyone who satisfies
certain objective criteria. The
law requires that a permit be issued to any
applicant who is a resident, at
least twenty-one years of age, has no
criminal record, no record of alcohol
or drug abuse, no history of mental
illness, and provides evidence of
having satisfactorily completed a firearms
safety course offered by the NRA
or other competent instructor. The
applicant must provide a set of
fingerprints, after which the authorities
make a background check. The permit
must be issued or denied within ninety
days, is valid throughout the state,
and must be renewed every three years,
which provides authorities a regular
means of reevaluating whether the
permit holder still qualifies.
Passage of this legislation was
vehemently opposed by HCI and the media. The
law, they said, would lead to citizens
shooting each other over everyday
disputes involving fender benders,
impolite behavior, and other slights to
their dignity. Terms like "Florida,
the Gunshine State" and "Dodge City
East" were coined to suggest
that the state, and those seeking passage of
the law, were encouraging individuals
to act as judge, jury, and executioner
in a "Death Wish" society.
No HCI campaign more clearly demonstrates
the elitist beliefs underlying the
campaign to eradicate gun ownership.
Given the qualifications required of
permit holders, HCI and the media
can only believe that common, law-abiding
citizens are seething cauldrons
of homicidal rage, ready to kill to avenge
any slight to their dignity, eager
to seek out and summarily execute the
lawless. Only lack of immediate
access to a gun restrains them and prevents
the blood from flowing in the streets.
They are so mentally and morally
deficient that they would mistake
a permit to carry a weapon in self-defense
as a state-sanctioned license to
kill at will.
Did the dire predictions come true?
Despite the fact that Miami and Dade
County have severe problems with
the drug trade, the homicide rate fell in
Florida following enactment of this
law, as it did in Oregon following
enactment of similar legislation
there. There are, in addition, several
documented cases of new permit holders
successfully using their weapons to
defend themselves. Information from
the Florida Department of State shows
that, from the beginning of the
program in 1987 through June 1993, 160,823
permits have been issued, and only
530, or about 0.33 percent of the
applicants, have been denied a permit
for failure to satisfy the criteria,
indicating that the law is benefitting
those whom it was intended to benefit
-- the law-abiding. Only 16 permits,
less than 1/100th of 1 percent, have
been revoked due to the post-issuance
commission of a crime involving a
firearm.
The Florida legislation has been
used as a model for legislation adopted by
Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Mississippi.
There are, in addition, seven other
states (Maine, North and South Dakota,
Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and,
with the exception of cities with
a population in excess of 1 million,
Pennsylvania) which provide that
concealed-carry permits must be issued to
law-abiding citizens who satisfy
various objective criteria. Finally, no
permit is required at all in Vermont.
Altogether, then, there are thirteen
states in which law-abiding citizens
who wish to carry arms to defend
themselves may do so. While no one
appears to have compiled the statistics
from all of these jurisdictions,
there is certainly an ample data base for
those seeking the truth about the
trustworthiness of law-abiding citizens
who carry firearms.
Other evidence also suggests that
armed citizens are very responsible in
using guns to defend themselves.
Florida State University criminologist Gary
Kleck, using surveys and other data,
has determined that armed citizens
defend their lives or property with
firearms against criminals approximately
1 million times a year. In 98 percent
of these instances, the citizen merely
brandishes the weapon or fires a
warning shot. Only in 2 percent of the
cases do citizens actually shoot
their assailants. In defending themselves
with their firearms, armed citizens
kill 2,000 to 3,000 criminals each year,
three times the number killed by
the police. A nationwide study by Kates,
the constitutional lawyer and criminologist,
found that only 2 percent of
civilian shootings involved an innocent
person mistakenly identified as a
criminal. The "error rate"
for the police, however, was 11 percent, over
five times as high.
It is simply not possible to square
the numbers above and the experience of
Florida with the notions that honest,
law-abiding gun owners are borderline
psychopaths itching for an excuse
to shoot someone, vigilantes eager to seek
out and summarily execute the lawless,
or incompetent fools incapable of
determining when it is proper to
use lethal force in defense of their lives.
Nor upon reflection should these
results seem surprising. Rape, robbery, and
attempted murder are not typically
actions rife with ambiguity or subtlety,
requiring special powers of observation
and great book-learning to discern.
When a man pulls a knife on a woman
and says, "You're coming with me," her
judgment that a crime is being committed
is not likely to be in error. There
is little chance that she is going
to shoot the wrong person. It is the
police, because they are rarely
at the scene of the crime when it occurs,
who are more likely to find themselves
in circumstances where guilt and
innocence are not so clear-cut,
and in which the probability for mistakes is
higher.
Arms and Liberty
Classical republican philosophy
has long recognized the critical
relationship between personal liberty
and the possession of arms by a people
ready and willing to use them. Political
theorists as dissimilar as Niccolo
Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More, James
Harrington, Algernon Sidney, John Locke,
and Jean-Jacques Rousseau all shared
the view that the possession of arms is
vital for resisting tyranny, and
that to be disarmed by one's government is
tantamount to being enslaved by
it. The possession of arms by the people is
the ultimate warrant that government
governs only with the consent of the
governed. As Kates has shown, the
Second Amendment is as much a product of
this political philosophy as it
is of the American experience in the
Revolutionary War. Yet our conservative
elite has abandoned this aspect of
republican theory. Although our
conservative pundits recognize and embrace
gun owners as allies in other arenas,
their battle for gun rights is
desultory. The problem here is not
a statist utopianism, although goodness
knows that liberals are not alone
in the confidence they have in the state's
ability to solve society's problems.
Rather, the problem seems to lie in
certain cultural traits shared by
our conservative and liberal elites.
One such trait is an abounding faith
in the power of the word. The failure
of our conservative elite to defend
the Second Amendment stems in great
measure from an overestimation of
the power of the rights set forth in the
First Amendment, and a general undervaluation
of action. Implicit in calls
for the repeal of the Second Amendment
is the assumption that our First
Amendment rights are sufficient
to preserve our liberty. The belief is that
liberty can be preserved as long
as men freely speak their minds; that there
is no tyranny or abuse that can
survive being exposed in the press; and that
the truth need only be disclosed
for the culprits to be shamed. The people
will act, and the truth shall set
us, and keep us, free.
History is not kind to this belief,
tending rather to support the view of
Hobbes, Machiavelli, and other republican
theorists that only people willing
and able to defend themselves can
preserve their liberties. While it may be
tempting and comforting to believe
that the existence of mass electronic
communication has forever altered
the balance of power between the state and
its subjects, the belief has certainly
not been tested by time, and what
little history there is in the age
of mass communication is not especially
encouraging. The camera, radio,
and press are mere tools and, like guns, can
be used for good or ill. Hitler,
after all, was a masterful orator, used
radio to very good effect, and is
well known to have pioneered and exploited
the propaganda opportunities afforded
by film. And then, of course, there
were the Brownshirts, who knew very
well how to quell dissent among
intellectuals.
Polite Society
In addition to being enamored of
the power of words, our conservative elite
shares with liberals the notion
that an armed society is just not civilized
or progressive, that massive gun
ownership is a blot on our civilization.
This association of personal disarmament
with civilized behavior is one of
the great unexamined beliefs of
our time.
Should you read English literature
from the sixteenth through nineteenth
centuries, you will discover numerous
references to the fact that a
gentleman, especially when out at
night or traveling, armed himself with a
sword or a pistol against the chance
of encountering a highwayman or other
such predator. This does not appear
to have shocked the ladies accompanying
him. True, for the most part there
were no police in those days, but we have
already addressed the notion that
the presence of the police absolves people
of the responsibility to look after
their safety, and in any event the
existence of the police cannot be
said to have reduced crime to negligible
levels.
It is by no means obvious why it
is "civilized" to permit oneself to fall
easy prey to criminal violence,
and to permit criminals to continue
unobstructed in their evil ways.
While it may be that a society in which
crime is so rare that no one ever
needs to carry a weapon is "civilized," a
society that stigmatizes the carrying
of weapons by the law-abiding --
because it distrusts its citizens
more than it fears rapists, robbers, and
murderers -- certainly cannot claim
this distinction. Perhaps the notion
that defending oneself with lethal
force is not "civilized" arises from the
view that violence is always wrong,
or the view that each human being is of
such intrinsic worth that it is
wrong to kill anyone under any
circumstances. The necessary implication
of these propositions, however, is
that life is not worth defending.
Far from being "civilized," the beliefs
that counterviolence and killing
are always wrong are an invitation to the
spread of barbarism. Such beliefs
announce loudly and clearly that those who
do not respect the lives and property
of others will rule over those who do.
In truth, one who believes it wrong
to arm himself against criminal violence
shows contempt of God's gift of
life (or, in modern parlance, does not
properly value himself), does not
live up to his responsibilities to his
family and community, and proclaims
himself mentally and morally deficient,
because he does not trust himself
to behave responsibly. In truth, a state
that deprives its law-abiding citizens
of the means to effectively defend
themselves is not civilized but
barbarous, becoming an accomplice of
murderers, rapists, and thugs and
revealing its totalitarian nature by its
tacit admission that the disorganized,
random havoc created by criminals is
far less a threat than are men and
women who believe themselves free and
independent, and act accordingly.
While gun control proponents and
other advocates of a kinder, gentler
society incessantly decry our "armed
society," in truth we do not live in an
armed society. We live in a society
in which violent criminals and agents of
the state habitually carry weapons,
and in which many law-abiding citizens
own firearms but do not go about
armed. Department of Justice statistics
indicate that 87 percent of all
violent crimes occur outside the home.
Essentially, although tens of millions
own firearms, we are an unarmed
society.
Take Back the Night
Clearly the police and the courts
are not providing a significant brake on
criminal activity. While liberals
call for more poverty, education, and drug
treatment programs, conservatives
take a more direct tack. George Will
advocates a massive increase in
the number of police and a shift toward
"community-based policing."
Meanwhile, the NRA and many conservative leaders
call for laws that would require
violent criminals serve at least 85 percent
of their sentences and would place
repeat offenders permanently behind bars.
Our society suffers greatly from
the beliefs that only official action is
legitimate and that the state is
the source of our earthly salvation. Both
liberal and conservative prescriptions
for violent crime suffer from the
"not in my job description"
school of thought regarding the responsibilities
of the law-abiding citizen, and
from an overestimation of the ability of the
state to provide society's moral
moorings. As long as law-abiding citizens
assume no personal responsibility
for combatting crime, liberal and
conservative programs will fail
to contain it.
Judging by the numerous articles
about concealed-carry in gun magazines, the
growing number of products advertised
for such purpose, and the increase in
the number of concealed-carry applications
in states with mandatory-issuance
laws, more and more people, including
growing numbers of women, are
carrying
firearms for self-defense. Since there are still many states
in which
the issuance
of permits is discretionary and in which law enforcement officials
routinely deny applications, many
people have been put to the hard choice
between protecting their lives or
respecting the law. Some of these people
have learned the hard way, by being
the victim of a crime, or by seeing a
friend or loved one raped, robbed,
or murdered, that violent crime can
happen to anyone, anywhere at anytime,
and that crime is not about sex or
property but life, liberty, and
dignity.
The laws proscribing concealed-carry
of firearms by honest, law-abiding
citizens breed nothing but disrespect
for the law. As the Founding Fathers
knew well, a government that does
not trust its honest, law-abiding,
taxpaying citizens with the means
of self-defense is not itself worthy of
trust. Laws disarming honest citizens
proclaim that the government is the
master, not the servant, of the
people. A federal law along the lines of the
Florida statute -- overriding all
contradictory state and local laws and
acknowledging that the carrying
of firearms by law-abiding citizens is a
privilege and immunity of citizenship
-- is needed to correct the outrageous
conduct of state and local officials
operating under discretionary licensing
systems.
What we certainly do not need is
more gun control. Those who call for the
repeal of the Second Amendment so
that we can really begin controlling
firearms betray a serious misunderstanding
of the Bill of Rights. The Bill
of Rights does not grant rights
to the people, such that its repeal would
legitimately confer upon government
the powers otherwise proscribed. The
Bill of Rights is the list of the
fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed
in man by his Creator, that define
what it means to be a free and
independent people, the rights which
must exist to ensure that government
governs only with the consent of
the people.
At one time this was even understood
by the Supreme Court. In United States
v. Cruikshank (1876), the first
case in which the Court had an opportunity
to interpret the Second Amendment,
it stated that the right confirmed by the
Second Amendment "is not a
right granted by the constitution. Neither is it
in any manner dependent upon that
instrument for its existence." The repeal
of the Second Amendment would no
more render the outlawing of firearms
legitimate than the repeal of the
due process clause of the Fifth Amendment
would authorize the government to
imprison and kill people at will. A
government that abrogates any of
the Bill of Rights, with or without
majoritarian approval, forever acts
illegitimately, becomes tyrannical, and
loses the moral right to govern.
This is the uncompromising understanding
reflected in the warning that
America's gun owners will not go
gently into that good, utopian night: "You
can have my gun when you pry it
from my cold, dead hands." While liberals
take this statement as evidence
of the retrograde, violent nature of gun
owners, we gun owners hope that
liberals hold equally strong sentiments
about their printing presses, word
processors, and television cameras. The
republic depends upon fervent devotion
to all our fundamental rights.
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