After the Storm

     Whenever there is a mass shooting a storm of hysteria
powered by a few noisy people sweeps over the nation.  The
shrieking voices obscure rational thought and reason.

     Legislators in Illinois introduced a bill to confiscate
semiautomatic firearms and other guns.  They claim that such
arms are not hunting weapons.  Please note that per FBI
statistics more are murdered in the US with hammers and clubs
than with rifles.

     Semiautomatic guns are hunting weapons.  I began
hunting with a semiautomatic rifle while in high school.  Most
of my friends used semiautomatics for hunting and target
practice.  I still use them.

     The even bigger error is that the right to bear arms is
about hunting.  The right to bear arms is about self defense. 
Still, the right to bear arms isn't primarily about defense against
common criminals, though such defense is important.

     Hubert Humphrey was a Democrat senator, vice president
under Lyndon Johnson, and 1968 Democrat presidential nominee. 
Humphrey stated the case for bearing arms, "The right of
citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary
government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now
appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to
be always possible."

     I am not aware that anyone ever accused Hubert
Humphrey of being some kind of right wing kook.  Humphrey
made the statement half a century ago.  Then the threat to
liberty, security and prosperity by an ever expanding, dominating
government was but a shadow of what it is today.

     Those familiar with the history of governments are well
aware that governments, left unchecked, ever expand their power
until they become totally despotic.  The only real limit on
government power and tyranny is the will and ability of citizens
to resist tyranny.

     For so long as rulers fear resistance to despotism, those
rulers will tread with care.  Remove the fear barrier and there is
no stopping them.  It is beyond the space available to even touch
upon why voting won't stop the wannabe tyrants.  As long as
citizens are armed and dangerous to tyrants, the citizens are
unlikely to need to use their arms.  It is only after the arms are
gone that the need arises.

     Consider some recent well known exploitive tyrannical
governments: Soviet Union, China, Nazi Germany, North Korea,
East Germany, and Cuba.  All of these governments made sure
the citizens were unarmed.  China is now lecturing the USA on
the need to disarm its citizens.

     Sometimes arms are misused.  This does nothing to make
weapons special.  What isn't misused?  Some murders drown
their victims.  Five thousand or so people drown in the US every
year.  Should we ban water?  Fires kill.  Some of those fires are
deliberately started.  Will we be better off if we ban fire and live
in the cold?

     The death toll from autos and alcohol, either alone or in
combination with each other, is well known.  Lawfully used
prescription drugs kill tens of thousands every year.  Many die
from food poisoning.  Should we ban autos, alcohol, and food? 
Some may remember that the attempted ban of alcohol only
created more problems than it solved.

     We should seek to minimize the misuse of weapons.  We
will never be totally successful.  Creating a world where only
criminals own weapons won't make us safer.  In that world it
will be only a matter of time until everyone, except the masters,
are reduced to servitude.  There is a reason why the ruling class
is bent on disarming us.

     "The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the
security of all."  "The great enemy of the truth is very often not
the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth,
persistent, persuasive and unrealistic." --  John F. Kennedy

     "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India,
history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of
arms, as the blackest." -- Mahatma Gandhi

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2013
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284