Thailand’s military junta is confiscating weapons from the populace. [Click here for an autoplay video report.] It’s what dictators do. Otherwise, the public might remove the dictator by force of arms. Our founding fathers crafted the Second Amendment to prevent our constitutional republic from becoming a dictatorship. So far, so good. Then again, African-Americans, native Americans and the ancestors of interned Japanese Americans might have a bone to pick in that regard. But hey, they were disarmed before they were persecuted. So why would anyone argue that Americans should be disarmed? I found something about the Japanese-American internment that offers insight into the gun control mindset . . .
It would have been an unmitigated tragedy if the Japanese had resisted internment. At that time in our nation’s history, in the shadow of Pearl Harbor, it’s hard to imagine the death and destruction that could have resulted from resistance. In many ways, an armed rebellion would have served to confirm in the minds of the architects of internment the need for their policy. To put it simply, if the Japanese had resisted, they would have been slaughtered.
What is the lesson to be drawn from that conclusion? It’s not that the Japanese were not within their rights to take up arms against the state. They might very well have had the high moral ground given the circumstances. Rather, it’s that in a country of several hundred million, an armed populace is a defense against a tyrannical minority, not a committed majority. If a passionate majority wants something, it will happen, come hell or high water. No constitution, no politician, no political safeguard will stop them.
Does that defeat the historical argument for the right to bear arms? I actually think it strengthens it. One might be inclined to fear an armed citizenry, ever on the lookout for perceived tyranny, ever ready to strike against the government. Sounds like chaos and anarchy to me. But the reality of the situation is that an armed revolution truly is the last defense against tyranny, and it will only be invoked in an extreme circumstance.
The internment of the Japanese was a shameful moment, and one in which the rights of American citizens were wrongfully taken away. But it is political checks and Constitutional order that must be employed to stop that sort of government overreach.
This excerpt from happierwarriordotme.wordpress.com demonstrates the ambivalence many liberals and Democrats (yes, I said it) feel towards the Second Amendment. They like it in theory, pay lip service to it when pressed, but reject it in practice.
Japanese Americans had a natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. They lost it. If they hadn’t, exercising it would have been a BIG mistake. So . . . how important is it, really? People shooting at government troops coming to put them in prison camps? Sounds like chaos and anarchy to them.
So gun control advocates figure a little infringement on the right to keep and bear arms isn’t such a bad thing. We’re not grabbing guns! We’re imposing “reasonable regulations.” Laws that don’t affect the core right (which isn’t that important). Only they do, of course. “Common sense” gun control has effectively disarmed citizens of Hawaii and New Jersey. How many Hawaiians or New Jersey residents can bear arms? How many Californians? New York City residents?
The Second Amendment’s “shall not be infringed” language left no wiggle room for any gun control legislation. I reckon our founding fathers would be appalled by politicians who pronounce “I support the Second Amendment, but….” Thailand’s military leaders? They’d understand perfectly.