Guest Contributor: Eric Buss, Writer for Pissed Off Conservative
“Hell yes we are going to take your AR-15, your AK-47.”
Everyone is grabbing the pull quote of Beto’s inflammatory statement from the third Democratic Presidential debate (Thursday 09.12.19). Few are providing the emotional build up for which this line became the crescendo. Here is the wider context.
It tore me up to imagine what that mother was going through, to consider how I might have reacted. In my outrage, I might even feel compelled to call for the government to get rid of the instruments used in taking my daughter’s life. I might lend my voice to the larger lobby of citizens who have been demanding gun confiscation for years.
As one who has not experienced that nightmarish scenario playing out before me, I can still understand the desperate plea for action. However, I have another story of equal force.
During the march to a train station on a journey toward one of several Concentration Camps, the weary and emaciated Jews escorted by the infamous Nazi Einsatzgruppen (Jew Hunters) made their way along the road. One woman was carrying her young daughter when a German escort approached the two in a friendly enough manner to almost seem engaging. After a very brief dialog, he pulled out a lollipop and offered it to the little girl. With excitement, the little girl opened her mouth to receive it. It was at this point that the German exchanged the lollipop with his sidearm and abruptly shot the child in the mouth, killing her instantly.
Whether the victim is a girl in Odessa or little girl in occupied territory, the malice with which they were murdered is no different, no less reprehensible, and no less brutal. What are the differences? The shooter in Texas (and many other mass shooters) was an individual. Whether the result of a chemical imbalance, misplaced rage or desperation, the individual took a firearm and began shooting at random people or targets of opportunity. The actions of the Nazi (all Nazis, in fact) was condoned, sanctioned and encouraged by government policy.
I cannot emphasize the contrast enough. The amount of carnage that one individual can inflict on those in his immediate vicinity pales in comparison to the multitudes on which it is inflicted by agents operating at the behest of an unchecked state.
The Cost of Tyranny (The following are estimates):
- Nazi Germany (National Socialist): 10,000,000 deaths
- Soviet Union (Communist): ~ 30,000,000 deaths
- Red China (Communist): 60,000,000 deaths
- Khmer Rouge (Communist): 2,500,000 deaths
- North Korea (Communist): 1,500,000 deaths
The Cost of Liberty – United States (Constitutional Republic):
- Mass shootings: 2600 deaths
- Law enforcement: ~ 50,000 (for lack of reliable data this is an average over the last 50 years)
- Overall gun related deaths since 1960 (including: gang violence, criminal actions, suicides, law enforcement, accidents): 1,500,000
If the measure of success is the least amount of deaths, the path of liberty seems to be the most beneficial for all involved.
Beto and the other nine on that debate stage would like to nakedly confess their desire to confiscate our guns, regulate them out of our hands or approach the subject of nullifying our constitutional protections. There has never been a more appropriate period to keep them.
These people vying for the presidency, are blatantly expressing the intent to defy our Second Amendment rights. They are giving advance notice that they will violate their oath of office. To make matters worse, whoever wins among them will move on to oppose Donald Trump in the general election. What is worse about that? He is advocating his own form of gun control and confiscation policies in the latest darling of Republican compromise: red flag laws.
You might be thinking that red flag laws are better than a nationwide ban and confiscation order (read here: Surrender Your Arms). What is the difference between the two? One means everybody has to give up their guns. The other means only YOU do. Which do you prefer?
“Stand your ground. Don’t fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war let it begin here.”
Captain John Parker (Lexington Green – April, 19 1775)
Our Bill Of Rights are a barrier, a mechanism of restraint and a list of protections as old as the Republic, and government’s purpose is the defense of those rights. They are not a series of recommendations. They are not a list of topics up for debate. They do not serve us only as a matter of convenience. It is not negotiable when it becomes inconvenient. Its whole purpose is to be an inconvenience to the government, to hinder their expansion of power and authority and to bind government in process so that popular sentiment never crushes the individual under a boot of tyranny.
The fact that both parties are so eager to modify the interpretation of our rights only serves to remind us that their intentions are to exchange our liberty for their own. They utilize public sentiment to shift the dialog from what they can do within the constitutional confines of their office or branch to how much they can take from us. As is always the case regardless of the party in control, the first solution always seems to be an effort to loosen the people’s grip on their rights. Why is this always the go-to?
When the government operates from the premise that the Bill of Rights can be used as a tool at their disposal rather than a chain of bondage, tyranny is at the door (refer to the list above to find out what will follow). The next time the legislative branch takes up a bill that has the purpose (in part or whole) to reduce an Amendment’s effectiveness, that will be construed as a violation of the public trust and a crime against the American people. The next time ANY president proposes an Executive Order to do the same, that will be also be considered a violation of public trust and a crime against the American people.
To those on that stage, to all senators and congressional representatives and to the current president of the United States . . .
The Bill of Rights is a line in the sand and there are many of us who will hold the line. This is a line that, once crossed, revokes a good many things in America, namely, your right to govern. If you choose to violate your oaths of office to provide solutions, then you have created a greater one that you cannot solve. The Constitution is a contract between the people and the government. Breaching it can be construed as its nullification (which goes both ways).
You want our rights? Come and take them. Just remember, you are outnumbered.
Eric Buss is an avid reader and studies history, military, philosophy and politics.
He considers himself a Christian Conservatarian
