Unsafe streets are more unsafe almost entirely due to restrictions on the freedoms of the citizen to act. All gun control interferes with is the average, reasonable person (an earlier meaning of the term TARP) and escalates crisis to the gain of the State. But some states do not want to preside over crises when they can serve over prosperity — prosperity meaning some of the greatest of wealth — freedom. Everyone prospers in liberty better than under any other system.
With recent crimes of violence in the news, I have receive letters for my position which is the repeal of all gun laws. I answer every one of these. The idea is not to do without laws, but to erase all of the adversity gun control has caused and to start over. I am reasonably certain that America would write a few gun laws, but only a handful, having now lived with the disaster that is the political punishment of freedom. I am equally certain that with the repeal of gun laws, crime will fade and the need for costly bureaucracies will also fade. In other words, smaller government.
Punishing freedom is what gun control is about here as much as it is abroad. Limiting one’s latitude to act in time of emergency aggravates adverse social conditions which then cultivates an attitude of need or remedy. The safeguard of freedom is undermined in mandates such as gun control and the crisis grows. But not all public servants agree with this sort of governance. When it comes to gun control, forty-eight states do a rather interesting thing, a useful thing: they affirm their constituents’ right to carry a loaded sidearm. They don’t fight it or mandate against it.
They have not regetted this. Do these people like guns? No, not likely. And who cares? Liking guns is meaningless. What people do like is propriety and integrity. In affirming the concept of the armed citizen throughout their state, these legislators do not believe in the gun, they believe in the citizen. One letter I received suggested how more regulation will mean less violence, and therefore no need for defensive guns to be carried. They stated that only police should have guns. I responded that the armed citizen can do things the police cannot do. One of those is the habit of being present at the scene of the crime. Think of Citizen CPR and how a concentration of CPR-trained bystander citizens almost anywhere can make the difference before EMS can even be notified, much less arrive. Improving the numbers of such persons is the key to survival. EMS strives for a life-saving response time but some emergencies – such as choking – cannot wait. Someone present needs to act. And this will always be the case. Someone present who can act with the legal latitude to act will likely make the difference. In each case, two hands can save a life.
Every adversity America is facing at this very hour is an expression of contempt for the people. Gun control was always an early sign of it. The health of the second amendment is the primary indicator of the overall health of the nation. You can forecast how officials will treat America by the way it treats gun owners. Those forty-eight states I mentioned respect their citizens by respecting their latitude in how they travel armed and safer when in the absence of police. National parks or highways would be good examples.
Remember that an armed citizen carries a loaded sidearm because a policeman is too heavy. Where the armed citizen is, so the law is also. These are your greatest allies of law enforcement, and this irks the statists, this friendship alliance. What it really signifies is that the State is so very unneeded in many things, and the success of honest gun ownership impeaches a great deal of statist assertions and ‘mandates’. This is not done violently, as you can plainly see, but rather obviously, we think.
Gun control is not a matter of hating guns, it is a matter of hating our own personal independence from our own public servants. Forty-eight states agree. Gun rights is not a matter of loving guns, it is a matter of believing in the citizen as supreme. When the servants believe this way, it is they who should be elected and re-elected.
In a country where the citizen is the Sovereign, legislative latitude for the armed citizen is a matter of integrity and of respecting the Sovereign. It is unmistakable. It is not a surrender to the ‘gun lobby’, it is a respect for the people they serve, gun lobby or no.
The very best expression of integrity would be, of course, no gun laws anymore, period. It may be very interesting and healthful to see how so many other issues seem to take care of themselves when crime diminishes. Jobs maybe?
And that, we shall see in 2012. Candidates, call your office.
John Longenecker is author of The CPR Corollary, a monograph showing the identity of public interest and moral purpose values between an armed citizenry and a CPR-trained citizenry.
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