Firearms Friday: Let Us Defend Ourselves!

 

The moment when 9/11 happened I was a completely different person than I am today. It is safe to say that in those never ending minutes, we were all changed at least a little bit. As events have progressed over the years, I have changed more and more. While I can’t say that day had a direct impact on all the changes in my life, it did change the world as we know it and how we see it. Those are the things that have really had an impact on my life.

For many naïve years, I held the belief that the government has the objective of helping people and also has our best interests in mind. As we all know (or should know), that is definitely not the case as the primary drivers of the government, in its current incarnation, are the pursuit of more power and control with the objective of helping itself above all others. Essentially, when I was younger I was not willing be self-reliant and accept responsibility for my circumstances. Those who knew me back then can attest that fact.

To rely on yourself is to truly be free and this is what flies in the face of those who committed those heinous acts on that day. They allowed themselves to be sheep and carry out the murderous plot of a radical terrorist group. Those cowards deemed all those who did not ascribe to their beliefs to be unworthy of life. They didn’t value life nor the freedom which we all enjoy… the freedom to be ourselves rather than ascribing to the viewpoints of a particular terrorist organization. They relied on that organization to tell them what to do, how to think, and how to live their lives. They were sheep.

Over time, this particular point has resonated throughout my life. While I have my views (personal, religious, political, etc.) I am not reliant upon the determinations of a particular party or person. Sometimes I agree with people while other times I have a completely different stance on a subject. At the same time, others have the same right to have their own views. For the most part, this is a mutually agreeable position. However, there are some who would like nothing more than to strip me of my right to defend myself, of being self-reliant, and of being responsible for my own actions and not guilty because of the actions of others.

Stripping us of our right to defend ourselves, of our freedom to arm ourselves, is exactly what those hell bent on our destruction have wanted to see for years. The media war is constant citing emotional responses and false facts to support their claims. After all, if we could save a single life… However, our focus, especially on this day, should be to embrace the freedoms so feared by others dead set against us and focus our energy on saving lives without infringing upon our rights. Maybe we should devote the time, energy, and money to education and convincing others to drive more carefully. After all, there is no deadlier inanimate object than the car.

Firearms Friday: Here We Go Again

Another tragedy, another barbarous act, another opportunity for politicians to further their agenda. As has been the case many times over in recent years, in the wake of a murderous rampage by a deranged individual, the President took advantage of the situation and promoted his gun control agenda. And it was not a side note buried in a mountain of words, it was front and center, prominently on display… opinion inserted into the limited facts known by officials at the time.

“I’ve had to make statements like this too many times. Communities like this have had to endure tragedies like this too many times. We don’t have all the facts, but we do know that, once again, innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun. But let’s be clear: At some point, we as a country will have to reckon with the fact that this type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn’t happen in other places with this kind of frequency. And it is in our power to do something about it.”

While heinous events such as the one in Charleston are leveraged for the sake of naïve political ideology, the facts at the end of the day are quite simple. This was a mass killing by a disturbed individual who, given his previous indictment, was illegally in the possession of a firearm. While there are various theories as to how he obtained it, if he was aided in acquiring that weapon in any way, those individuals should be held responsible for their actions in assisting in the perpetration of the crime.

Criminals will always find a way to carry out their evil acts. No amount of regulation or control will ever stop this from happening. As President Reagan wrote in 1983 (after the attempted assassination by Hinkley two years prior), “It’s a nasty truth, but those who seek to inflict harm are not fazed by gun controllers. I happen to know this from personal experience.” If you believe otherwise you are delusional in your utopian thoughts.

Of course, this is coming from a former President who was also an NRA member. Furthermore, he was known to have carried a revolver on at least several instances while in office as was recently noted by Brad Meltzer and previously reported by Ron Kessler in his book “In the President`s Secret Service”, However, lets look more closely at the beliefs held by those who appose the Second Amendment. While this article is nearly 40 years old now, it still holds true today. Here is an excerpt from an article published by then Governor Reagan in the September 1975 issue of Guns & Ammo:

“There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism--government.”

The issues in this country are not in the rights that have been granted to the citizenry, the problems are in the individuals. This includes those who refuse to accept others as equals, those who don’t respect that sanctity of human life, and those who fail to fear the overindulgence of power. These issue are not the burden of law abiding citizens who believe in self-sufficiency and personal responsibility. This is not a time to strip people of their rights (especially while there are attempts to expand the rights of others). One person committed this act (potentially with the assistance of others) and that person / those people are the ones who should burn for this!

The Naïveté Of The Transition

Every time this happens I can’t help but think, well isn’t that cute! Governor Corbett did the same thing when he won the election in 2010 and not Tom Wolf (in sheep’s clothing) is doing the same thing during his transition. In summary, as was reported in The Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday, he “announced an ethics policy for transition-team advisers that includes an absolute gift ban, and said he would curb the practice of giving no-bid contracts to private law firms when he takes office.”

Even though this thought process and temporary stance is more prevalent the further left the politician is on the political spectrum, this isn’t a naïve mentality solely associated with one party over the other. Whether they truly believe this or not it all comes down to what the public wants to hear and, more specifically, what their base wants to hear. It is a moment during the political process when they believe in their invincibility allowing their political IQ to take a significant, albeit momentary, dip. I guess you could say that each politician has their Thomas More moment and this statement is just that for many political figures.

This seemingly simple act is indicative of the kind of grandiose politics that is to be expected in the current system and it is the reason why things are so polarized. Too many people now view politicians as a means to escape their current reality rather than changing their own station in life. Those politicians see this and know that the kind of statements and stances that need to be taken have to reflect a means of false hope. And that is all this really is as there is no way that this stance will hold and is probably why the letter released by the campaign specifies that that the ‘gift ban’ applies to the transition team with no mention of the staff that he will have in place once he takes office.

Whether we like it or not, politics is a game of give and take. Gifts and privileges are part of that game both of which are completely legal if they are declared. This give and take is the means to accomplish the political goals. What this distills down to is that every politician, no matter the words they speak or letters they release to the press, plays this game. So those who claim to not take these gifts are the ones that refuse to maintain any level of actual transparency. But they tell the electorate what they want to hear so the façade hold up.