Dear Reader,
It's important to keep in mind everything conceivably wrong or criminal about firearms is already illegal. So, when new laws are proposed, they typically only impact the innocent.
It's precisely why we, the people, object so strenuously to new laws: They affect us and don't impact crime and violence. Because new proposals omit the criminal problem, new rules raise the real specter of actual conspiracy within some halls of government to wrest control and disarm the public. Many in government furiously deny this, but it's supported by evidence and countless public statements.
I'm a Utopian Pacifist. I support no weapons of any kind on the surface of the Earth in an era of enduring peace, prosperity and abundance.
It turns out this is impossible (utopian) while the four horsemen of human havoc exist — angry, hungry, stupid and wicked. So, I support disarming everybody, bad guys first. Until then, I find it hard to justify disarming any innocent, sane person.
If we could wave a wand and make guns disappear, the brutal communist Chinese dictatorship would make new ones. And the Italians (Beretta), Brazilians (Taurus), Russians (AK-47), Austrians (GLOCK) — all the armed nations would be in business making the Iron River. That includes basement tinkerers.
Wands are fiction, but you can envision a gun-free world — just go back to pre-gun times. What you get is Genghis Kahn with rampaging hordes, Julius Caesar and Roman Legion crucifixions, Vlad the Impaler, universal serfdom and endless millions horribly murdered. A gun-filled world is actually more civilized, with safer neighborhoods — even though evil criminals and state actors rampage constantly. Guns help us control them.
Will More Laws Help?
The seemingly innocent question, "How many gun laws are there?" is not innocent; it's a loaded gun aimed point blank at your rights. It's a biased question of the type, "Are you still beating your wife?" used to gain unfair leverage in the rights-denial wars. It implies there is a "correct" or "best" number of gun laws and asks, also implicitly, are there enough gun laws yet, don't we need more? Answering leads to a no-win debate on how many laws dance on a pinhead. The deception implodes if you think about it — you would never ask how many traffic laws we have because it's irrelevant to regulating traffic. The real question, "How many criminals are there?" is never asked.
About the numbers, pro-rights and anti-rights advocates have their statistics generated by credentialed experts, and they don't match. Neither side believes the other's numbers and can fault them in many ways, often validly. Avoid stats debates — you'll just chase smoke.
Here's the key to smoking that argument — your rights should never be subject to cost-benefit analysis or anything similar. In this life-or-death struggle for human rights, rights Americans have always had and cherished, the Second Amendment argument is better set on the grounds that are moral, legal, logical, philosophical, historical, humanitarian, ethical, judicial, religious and your unalienable right to survive, than on fungible numbers manipulated to support agendas.
That Said …
Everything criminal about guns is already illegal, usually more than once, at federal and state levels. The top of that list is murder — not, as mess media constantly bleats — shooting. Shooting is a sport. Murder is a crime. When the media uses these terms as if they're equivalent, you are being gaslighted. Watch for it.
There are more laws than you can know or remember, and they're growing rapidly, with little effect on crime. You see this, it's no secret, but that's deliberately obscured.
There are countless legal traps for the unwary, even for the wary. Turning good people into criminals using controversial statutes benefits the we-control-you team.
Rational people can at least agree on starting points, for in a just society: Unprovoked physical assaults on people or property are punishable crimes; personally defending against unprovoked physical assaults immediately is legal; stealing a person's property is a punishable crime; with the exception of lawful police and fire-department intervention, homeowners can legally control who enters their private homes or is present on their private land; certain things are simply wrong including murder, theft, slavery, rape, child abuse and unprovoked violence among many others and you have an inherent natural right to resist those crimes and abuses.
You should also agree: Government is only legitimate if it governs with the consent of the people; once it starts governing on its own whims, it loses legitimacy and trends toward tyranny; knowingly proposing infringements should be aggravated infringement, a felony and under our system, states have delegated powers federal agents do not. Traditionally, these have included police power, zoning, education, medical practice, law enforcement and more. The Founders wanted us armed in case these boundaries were lost or feds usurped those powers — which they have.
Americans recognize government has exceeded its legitimately delegated authority repeatedly at the federal and state levels. When government exceeds its delegated authority, its actions are illegal and immoral and those officials are corrupt. We know what to do about corrupt individuals. It's time to do so.
Award-winning author, writer, consultant and musician Alan Korwin has written 14 books, 10 of them on gun law, and has advocated for gun rights for more than three decades. Now writing his 15th book, Why Science May Be Wrong, see his work or reach him at GunLaws.com.