No constitutionally-enumerated right has faced as much attack as the 2nd Amendment, period. From the early slave and race-based laws which were the foundation of gun control in the US to today’s attacks using liability, there has been an effort for hundreds of years to systematically disarm the People of this great nation.
One of the most popular vectors for attack on the right to keep and bear arms in the United States in recent years is through liability. Gun manufacture, sale, ownership and use is set aside in particular, taken off the pedestal of bedrock freedoms that define our system of self-governance, and treated as taboo, suspect, and criminal behavior. Drunk driving incidents? It’s the driver’s fault – not the car nor the alcohol. BMW and Bacardi aren’t hauled in front of a judge and jury. Arson? The criminal is charged and neither BIC nor BP is taken to court. Stabbings and bludgeoning? Ginsu and Louisville Slugger are safe from litigation.
Yet the manufacturers of modern arms – guns – keep getting sued. We contend this is political lawfare purposely designed to bring about an authoritarian state that completely infringes on the right to keep and bear arms. Some measures were taken to ensure gun manufacturers could stay in business – such as the Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. This is not 100% protection, however. Some suits are still allowed and legal fees rack up that must get passed onto the consumers – those exercising their rights. One such recent lawsuit is from another country – Mexico! The Mexican government has been allowed to sue gun manufacturers in the US to the tune of many billions – an effort to largely bankrupt them. What did the gun manufacturers do to deserve it? They did what gun manufacturers tend to do – manufacture a product that’s not only lawful but that’s supposed to be afforded special protection under the law by virtue of it being a spelled-out, black-and-white right of such importance that it has it’s own entry in the Constitution stating it “shall not be infringed.”
The attacks on the 2nd Amendment are especially fierce after each and every terror-style shooting where multiple innocent victims are killed for maximum personal/political gain. Indeed, attacks on the right and duty to keep and bear arms have been the most effective in other countries when a tragedy occurs and is used politically. Numerous countries have brainwashed their citizens into believing the right to arms can be strictly curtailed or even eliminated completely following a mass shooting. Statistically-insignificant “black swan” types of events have been used to garner some public opinion to be in support of surrendering the most basic of all rights and duties – self-defense and self-preservation.
One is infinitely more likely to be killed by tyrants and other common criminals – probably by a 5-figure factor like 20,000 times more likely. We might liberally estimate that around 10,000 people were killed in such heinous and senseless acts like mass shootings in the last 125 years, though this may be on the very high side. In that same time period, we could go the opposite direction and conservatively estimate that around 200,000,000 people were killed in planned and purposeful genocide. This 200 Million is on the low side, is increasing each day, and represents “civilians” or citizens not involved in direct war/conflict.
The simple fact is armed populations do not face mass genocide by the usual, popular means: engineered starvation, labor/death camps, chemical agents, and conventional weapons such as bombs and bullets. Recent and ongoing genocide has happened all over the globe on almost every inhabited continent except North America. Primarily the US and Canada, but also Mexico to some extent, has prevented this type of common devastation that has claimed so many innocent families all over and continues to do so today. This has been because the people are armed – the people are the government.
With the shooting at the school in Georgia, we now see arms being treated differently in even a new way: attempting to hold parents accountable for criminal offense for the crime committed by their child. If a child kills someone with a baseball bat, a hammer, gasoline, a car, or a myriad of other ways we do not see criminal charges against the parent(s). We see Colin Gray, the father of the alleged shooter, charged with murder and cruelty to children for what his son did. We do not believe that had the attacker used a sword, a car, chemicals, fire, etc that the parent would be charged. Earlier this year the Crumbleys, the parents of a Michigan school shooter, were convicted of manslaughter in court and each sentenced to at least 10 years in prison.
If the American public gives in to being disarmed and does not fight, it and future generations will face a lot more death and mayhem than these cowardly attackers could ever dream of pulling off. The body counts from street crime, home invasion, and the cost to society’s rule of law and order will be unimaginable in comparison. Mass shootings are the exception among murders. The rule is criminals who stand to gain financially commit the vast majority of murders. Passion such as domestic/relationship between a man and a woman make up a portion worth mentioning, but genocide by government, murder by government, and murder by other criminal thugs ranks the highest by far. Mass shootings amount for virtually nothing, a miniscule fraction of 1%.
America should stand firmly on principle – all people have a duty and a right to self-defense, self-determination, and self-governance. This right manifests itself as the right to keep (own) and bear (carry) battle arms (scary assault weapons) and smaller arms for self-defense and collective defense. The duty is the necessity of use in self-defense in order to deter criminals and keep criminality at bay and to own, carry, and use responsibly, safely, and judiciously.
While mass shootings make up less than 1% of killings, the fact is that the more strongly we embrace the duty and right to bear arms the closer to 0 those mass shooting casualties become.
