REASONABLE POSITIONS GUN OWNERS TAKE AS THEY GIVE UP OUR RIGHTS
by
Stuart Hutchings and Larry Kahhan
"We have met the enemy and he is us!"....Pogo.
Many gun owners must feel intellectually inferior to the anti-gun
crowd. Intimidated by Ivy-league jargon and connections to the
Eastern Establishment, or star-struck and flattered by association
with celebrity politicians or their hand picked law enforcement
"experts," the average gun owner, hunter, or gun store owner will
directly violate his gut instinct not to compromise on a fundamental
rights issue and accept, in fact offer, a "reasonable compromise" of
his rights. This fear of being accused of being "crazy," or
"lunatic," or "unreasonable," or "uncompromising" by a Liberal media
who can make the label stick is apparently so frightening to some gun
owners that the will not only come to a bargaining table--where we
should not be to begin with--but they will buy their seat at the
table with an immediate concession. It is at this instant that
the erosion of rights begins. No longer do we wonder if our rights
will be violated; it is simply a matter of how badly will we be hurt
this time.
What are some of these seemingly benign, harmless concessions offered
up so that gun owners will not be labeled, ostracized, and shunned as
radicals? We will give some examples and demonstrate how each results
in the gun owner shooting himself in the foot.
First, there is always someone who will say that an honest, law
abiding citizen shouldn't mind waiting for a gun or submitting to a
background check. This shows both a tremendous naivete about how
power can be abused and a failure to have mastered an understanding
of the Constitution and how it came about. Our Bill of Rights was
created to protect the innocent, law abiding citizen from
governmental abuse. Just because we only hear about it when it seems
to protect criminals, that doesn't mean that it is not functioning in
the manner it was intended. To give up any or all of this protection
and claim "innocence" as a defense against potential tyranny is not
only stupid but a betrayal of the work and sacrifice of those who
gave us that protection and the good faith of the innocent yet to
come. We simply do not have the right to bargain it away; to do so
for social reasons would simply be a failure of moral fitness.
Tyranny occurs when criminals take control of governments and
bureaucracies; when have you ever heard of a criminal respecting
innocence? To institute the bureaucracy and machinery to have a
waiting period and or a background check is to hand over to the
government all they need to instantly deny all and any attempts to
exercise the God given right to keep and bear arms; exactly what the
Constitution forbids the government from doing. No matter if the
waiting period is 30 days or 30 seconds, the machinery is in place.
No matter if the background check is through the FBI or simply
looking you up in the phone book, you are being asked to prove your
innocence. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "A right delayed is a
right denied." We agree. If you truly have a right, no one has the
authority to deny you or to delay you. Regarding the so-called
instant background checks and instant waiting periods, just because
its fast doesn't make it constitutional.
From a practical standpoint, waiting periods can cost as many lives
as they might save. For every crime there is both a victim and a
perpetrator. If a person is threatened, he should not have to wait
to acquire a means of defense. If he or she is a gun owner and his
or her guns are stolen, he or she should be able to immediately
replace them so the criminal who stole the guns in the first place
will not be able to assume that he can come back later to find an
unarmed victim. If a firearm is used in self-defense and is taken
by the police as evidence pending resolution, it should be possible
to instantly replace the weapon so that the individual who was saved
by his gun in the first place does not fall victim to friends and
associates of the original perpetrator who know that he has been
disarmed. If not having a waiting period can save just one life,
let's not have waiting periods. Why should we concede the
background/waiting period issue just to avoid being branded
"radical?" If they mean to take our rights away, let the fight begin
here!
Another weak point in the epistemology of the gun owner is the
concept of mandatory sentencing of people convicted of using a gun in
a crime. Again, in an attempt to appear reasonable, a gun owner will
say, "Don't take the guns away from honest, law abiding citizens but
if someone uses a gun in a crime, make it an automatic mandatory
additional 5 or 10 years." This is a dumb position. First, it
prejudices the judicial system against guns and, thus, gun owners. A
crime is a crime. Should someone really get an extra 5 years for
shooting someone to death while someone who tortures someone else to
death with, say, a chain saw, gets out five years sooner? How about
an extra sentence for using a semi-automatic pistol rather than a
double-action revolver? If you think that is stupid, you should know
that it is supported and backed by President Bush. In fact, he
favors it so strongly that he promises that if Congress will pass his
"Crime Control" Bill of which this is a part, he will sign the Brady
Bill and the "assault weapon" ban for them. Likewise, if you use a
gun in self defense and a less than enlightened jury finds you guilty
of something and the judge decides that it is a stupid verdict and
wants to suspend the sentence(s), do you want him not to have the
option of suspending the mandatory firearms provisions? To prejudice
the system this way is to de facto criminalize gun ownership and
legitimate uses. Will you grant the anti-gun faction this issue just
so they can't say that you are "unreasonable?"
Some gun owners will take the position, in an attempt to appear
reasonable, that no one needs a high capacity magazine, or no one
needs an "assault" rifle. When HCI attacks any gun, they are
attacking all guns. If you grant them their position on any one
class of guns, they will take what you give and attack another class.
After all, it was Handgun Control Inc. who launched the attack on
"assault" rifles. Ignoring, for the moment, the fact that the
Constitution recognizes and protects your right to have military
weapons, the point here is that the anti-gunners will first take what
they can get then try to get more.
"I don't believe in waiting periods, but a plan like they have in
Virginia, well, I wouldn't mind that." Sadder words were never
spoken. What right thinking citizens would ever have invented the so-
called Virginia Instant Background Check if they weren't grasping for
a compromise after feeling the social heat from HCI and Sarah Brady.
To quote Senator Joe Biden, from The Congressional Record, January
10, 1991, page S121, "As the Supreme Court Has written, 'The fact
that a given procedure is efficient, convenient, and useful in
facilitating the functions of the Government will not save it if it
is contrary to the Constitution. Convenience and efficiency are not
the primary objectives--or the hallmark--of a democratic
government.'" Just because it's fast doesn't mean its
constitutional. The Virginia Plan, its many technical problems
aside, constitutes prior restraint and an infringement of our Second
Amendment Rights. Yet, many so-called pro-gun people cling to it not
because it's a good idea, but to save them from a worse plan like the
Brady Bill. Would they throw their support behind the Brady Bill if
the people who are pushing the Brady Bill were instead asking us at
the point of their guns to turn in ours? Probably. This shows that
the anti-gunners have the initiative and we are losing. We will
continue to lose until we have either lost it all or started
believing in ourselves and our cause. NO Compromise, EVER. No
Deals. No "reasonable meeting of minds between reasonable people."
When they ask for a seven day waiting period, we should respond by
introducing legislation for NATIONAL PREEMPTION. When they ask for a
ban on a particular class of weapons, we ask for FEDERAL CARRY
PERMITS, issued without having to show cause, as an "important first
step" towards restoring our already badly infringed 2nd Amendment
rights.
Perhaps, in the kinder, gentler New World Order, it has been decided
that there is no place for a unique nation with the unique quality of
universal gun ownership. Maybe our entire bill of rights is an
embarrassment to other nations and their trans-national
superstructures. Perhaps in order to be brought in line with the New
Order we must be somehow equalized so that envious peoples throughout
the world striving for freedom won't be able to point to us and say,
"Americans are armed, why can't we be?" The fury and desperation with
which our Second Amendment Right is being attacked indicates a higher
agenda than simple "public good." It is no longer enough to be "for
guns." The enemy is too subtle and seductive in its arguments for
that. We must each be intellectually able to engage and destroy
every single spin they can put on the issue. But more importantly,
like the original framers of the Constitution, we must have the faith
in our cause and ourselves to risk being labeled by the media,
shunned, or socially ostracized while overwhelming forces seem
mustered against us.
Stuart Hutchings is the 9th District Director of the Georgia Sport
Shooting Association. Larry Kahhan is the Research Director of
Citizens for Safe Government, Inc., an Atlanta based Civil Rights
organization.