Opinion by Alan J. Chwick & Joanne D. Eisen
USA – -(Ammoland.com)- The problem with freedom is that it requires constant guarding. If we practice Freedom with abandon and freely choose pleasant comfortable activities other than guarding freedom, it can easily be taken away from us as we watch.
If we lower our guard and trust people who swear to protect our Constitution, who also like to be in charge, we are being very foolish and our children will not know freedom in the future. If we cannot or will not govern ourselves, someone else will be very happy to do it for us.
That’s what’s happening here in America, right before our eyes. Our country is filled with would-be tyrants who are filled with hate for us and our country because we are making it tough for them to rule. We may be able to keep them in check, but they have wormed their way into the fabric of our government, courts, and education systems. There is no room for compromise with them, as the word ‘compromise’ is a dirty word to tyrants.
If we lose this battle, the new sovereign will teach us all about obedience. The sovereign will not care about us or our families. We will become guilty of disloyalty at the discretion of the sovereign, and we will be their enemy to be casually removed from their society.
We are giving away our First Amendment too easily because of fear of their retaliation, and so our Second Amendment is more important than ever before. Whatever fear citizens have of civilian possession of weapons, of accidents, or of maniacs, it’s time to chuck those fears out. An excellent new article by Dave Kopel, about to be published (you can get a sneak peek here), shows that all the warnings about the danger of weapons in the home pale before the concept of weapons held by governments.
Kopel shows that governments have immense power to kill civilians, so if we give up our weapons we give government agents a cost-free invitation to act as they please. Most gun laws prepare the way for disarmament, and we sadly, mostly obey them.
Do we love our Freedom enough to do everything we must to keep it? Perhaps we should re-phrase the question. “Do we fear losing Freedom enough to do everything we must to keep it?”
Canada Is A Perfect Example.
What just happened in Canada? What we observed was an unexpected, hopefully temporary, shift from freedom to tyranny. Time will tell.
In Canada, as elsewhere, the disagreement among healers as to whether the COVID 19 shot is effective and/or potentially dangerous, caused citizens to distrust the government mandates. These suspicions were further raised because many Governments, liberal Media, and Big Tech all colluded to silence the concerned medical scientists, amid rumors of medical corruption and mismanagement.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave a shocking interview in which he told his truth. Everyone who opposed his vax mandates were racists, extremists, and science-denying misogynists. They “are taking up space, and here we have to make a choice, as a leader, as a country.” Should Canada “tolerate these people?”
That sounds just a bit threatening, doesn’t it? It sounds full of hate, just like U.S. Democrats sound when they talk about their Republican rivals. Why do today’s U.S. Socialists threaten to kill and harm their rivals? Why do they speak as if their political opponents have short memories, and why do they act as if their victims are down for the count, never to rise up again?
As the months passed in Canada with continued vax mandate threats, concerned Canadian truckers protested the mandates by quitting work and parking their trucks in Ottawa. The stronger the truckers’ resistance, the more resolved PM Justin Trudeau became to win the dispute. Using Canada’s 1988 Emergencies Act, Trudeau went after the truckers with the heavy hand of government.
What was so dangerous about the dissent of the truckers? Steven McGuire, Director of the Matthew J. Ryan Center at Villanova University, commented that Trudeau is “acting as if they’re an existential threat to the country”.
Should Americans be concerned with Trudeau’s vicious response to the Canadian Truckers, as according to a poll from Trafalgar Group, 65% of likely U.S. Democrat voters approved of Trudeau’s actions? Our own homegrown socialist Democrats, who have repeatedly demonstrated that they have no respect for the lives of American citizens, agree with Trudeau.
Where does all this hate come from? Professor Philip Zimbardo is famous for an experiment in which he used college students to play incarcerated criminals and their guards for 2 weeks. He asked “What would happen when you place good people in an evil place?” The experiment went shockingly wrong and was ended at 6 days because the ‘guards’ had reverted to sadism, and the ‘prisoners’ had become depressed. See The Stanford Prison Experiment film trailer.
Enough About Tyrants. What About The Guns?
We are watching the reality of human behavior play out in Canada, whose government, just like ours, does not feel comfortable with civilian gun ownership. Yes, Canadians still own (some) guns and they still have not tipped completely over into tyranny.
There are two major areas of concern for Americans. The first step towards civilian disarmament is to know where the guns are. Our government has Form 4473, and they previously attempted to create lists of gun owners, and they still are. In fact, a most recent attempt is Baden’s collection of 55 million gun owner records. Lists are an easy way to confiscation.
Dave Kopel, in Guns Kill People, and Tyrants with Gun Monopolies Kill the Most, explains that “gun control programs create central registration lists, which facilitate gun confiscation by tyrants and genocidaires.”
A further example of lists is Canada’s system of gun owner licensing and firearms registration, which intensified in the 1990s because of fear of violent crime, puts the Canadian government way ahead of ours By November of 2003, Professor Gary Mauser would comment that as far as reducing violent crime was concerned “The Canadian experiment with firearm regulation is moving to farce.”
He was right. Gun regulation and lists of gun owners don’t control crime, but they do control legal gun owners.
What Of Self-Defense?
The most crucial aspect of civilian gun ownership is the right to self-defense. If your weapon had no other use but target shooting, it might at some point kill or maim a person. Every neighbor around you would correctly vote to take it from you. But guns save lives too, and that changes everything.
Is the concept of self-defense present and active here in America? Anyone who views the tapes of Kyle Rittenhouse defending himself could make the easy decision that his life was in danger when he used his weapon to kill, just as his jury found. The fact that Kyle was mistreated, jailed, and tried for murder teaches us that, depending on the jurisdiction and the political view of the prosecutors, many Americans in government do not want citizens to keep that Right.
They want to frighten it right out of our behavior pattern. And they are nasty about it.
On this issue, Canada is way ahead of America. They are on the cusp of losing self-defense. Canadians must keep their guns unloaded and locked away safely. So safely that the guns are not available for self-defense.
The case of Peter Khill, who loaded his shotgun after he was awakened at 3 AM on February 4, 2016, told the jury he fired in self-defense when he killed Jon Styres, a 29-year-old indigenous person, shows us where Canada is going, and where America is trying to go. Khill was found not guilty in June 2018. Oops, let us re-phrase that. A white man with a gun killed a POC in self-defense and is going free. Khill loaded his weapon before he knew he was in danger! So the Crown appealed the jury’s self-defense decision and the Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously overturned it, ordering a new trial. Supreme Court of Canada will hear an appeal in the case of Peter Khill.
We do not know how this will end; only time will tell.
And This Is Important Because?
Dave Kopel reminds us that tyrants can appear without much notice, even in Canada, or even in America. He asks, “Is there some sort of permanent immunity from domestic dictatorship in highly developed nations…?”
Can tyranny happen here? Can hate happen here? Are our gun-owning neighbors more dangerous than our weapons-owning government?
Kopel shows us, “Tyrants with gun monopolies kill the most.” The key take-away point of Kopel’s forthcoming article is that when he compares the murders of rogue governments to the total number of gun deaths from accidents and from criminal gangs and individuals during the Twentieth Century there is a little known conclusion.
When it comes to civilian deaths, Governments are the main culprits many times over. And an armed populace is a strong deterrent.
Kopel explains, “The very strong deterrent effect of armed victims is demonstrated by the consistent behavior of tyrants waiting to start mass murder until the victims have been disarmed.”
Looking at the big picture, civilians with guns are safer than those who are unarmed. This point must be discussed before Media fear-mongers and elected leaders call for stronger laws after the next school massacre, because they give only part of the story. Children who live in homes with guns are statistically way safer than children whose parents are not armed.
Here in the U.S., there is a strong pro-Second Amendment attitude, especially of late, that can be seen in the resurgence of Constitutional Carry. It is a safe behavior that carries a warning. Compare that with the dangerous fury of angry, disturbed people who literally will stop at nothing to win and to keep their power.
Kopel’s reasoning slashes away the fears anyone might retain about the evils of civilian gun ownership. It eliminates the possibilities of dangerousness of civilian-owned weapons. It dissolves all reasons to give up guns because all that does is make government more powerful.
Yes, governments, including many critters in America, prefer unarmed folks. Though SUBJECTS would be a better word than FOLKS.
About The Authors
Alan J Chwick has been involved with firearms much of his life and is the Retired Managing Coach of the Freeport NY Junior Marksmanship Club. He has escaped New York State to South Carolina and is an SC FFL (Everything22andMore.com). AJChwick@iNCNF.org | TWITTER: @iNCNF
Joanne D Eisen, DDS (Ret.) practiced dentistry on Long Island, NY. She has collaborated and written on firearm politics for the past 40+ years. She, too, escaped New York State, but to Virginia. JoanneDEisen@cs.com