Earlier today, the New Jersey Assembly passed 22 laws limiting its citizens’ Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. In the post-Newtown rush to civilian disarmament, the Garden State follows New York’s lead. And Colorado. Connecticut will soon pass similar legislation. California and other Democrat-controlled states are set to “tighten” their already unconstitutional firearms regulations. Meanwhile, Southern and Western states are moving in the opposite direction. Utah is set to join Vermont, Alaska, Arizona and Wyoming as a “Constitutional carry” state (no permit required to carry a firearm). We’re seeing the creation of two Americas: slave states and free states . . .
I don’t use the word “slave” lightly. In no way do I wish to I demean, discount or exploit the horrors experienced by African-Americans during slavery, or anyone else who’s suffered human bondage. My father was a slave; he spent four years in a Nazi labor camp.
I realize that it’s hard to equate a citizen deprived of his right to keep and bear arms with a human deprived of all of their human rights. But not impossible. Nor inaccurate.
Obviously, disarmed civilians living in New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, etc. are not bought and sold like property. But under the wider definition of the word ‘slave’—“one that is completely subservient to a dominating influence”—they qualify.
Simply put, citizens without the ability to resist government diktats through force of arms are no longer in charge of their own destiny, whether they know it or not.
Preposterous! Residents of anti-gun states have rights! They have a vote! They can defend their rights in court! They can vote fascist politicians and petty bureaucrats out of power! Gun or no gun, America’s legal and political system protects its citizens from tyranny.
Right until it doesn’t.
You don’t have to be much of a student of U.S. history to find examples where the government disarmed inhabitants before trampling on their legal and human rights.
Uncle Sam forced the Long Walk of the Navajo in 1864 (the year after the Emancipation Proclamation). Slavery was legal in the U.S. until 1868. In 1941, the feds set-up Japanese American internment camps. Segregation lasted into the ’60’s.
Anyone who dismisses examples of government oppression by saying “that was then this is now” or “guns wouldn’t have made a difference” fails to understand a) tyranny depends upon disarmament and b) it’s not a question of “if” the government will use force against its citizens but how much force they use and when.
All laws are backed-up by force. Obey the law or you will be arrested. The threat of violence may not be visible; like concealed carry, police presence is a powerful prophylactic. But it’s there; the government is always using force to impose its will.
I mean our will, right? We The People give government the power to use force to protect laws that have been democratically defined and limited by state and federal constitutions. In theory. In practice, see above.
There’s no getting around it: a citizen without a gun is a slave, or at least well on his way to becoming one. When push comes to shove, as it has throughout human history, he is literally defenseless against his own government.
By contrast, a citizen with a gun is a free man. He has an effective tool with which he can defend his life and liberty—even if he dies in that attempt. He answers to himself and his God (should he have one) rather than dictates of tyrants.
And so those of us who understand the distinction between a free man and a slave watch with despair and determination as state and federal governments run roughshod over Americans’ right to keep and bear arms. And we wonder: what will happen to the free men marooned in America’s slave states?