BACKThe Second Amendment - 7 Varieties of Gun Control Advocates
by Gus Cotey, Jr.
The right of decent private citizens to personally possess, transport,
and responsibly use arms without government interference is the ultimate
freedom and the main pillar supporting all other liberties. Few cultures
have allowed their general population access to weapons, the tools of power,
to the same degree as the United States. Instead, most societies have restricted
the keeping and bearing of arms to a select few power brokers and their agents,
often resulting in oppression on a grand scale. Despite a massive amount
of historical evidence to the contrary, there is a substantial body of Americans,
many occupying positions of influence, who contend that the abrogation of
the Second Amendment is the quickest path to domestic tranquility.
Since this is as absurd as advocating blood-letting as a cure for
anemia, it would seem advisable to question the motives and mentalities of
the gun control advocates themselves.
In my observation, weapon prohibitionists can be broken down into
seven major categories. Even though their motives may vary they all pose
a mortal threat to liberty.
ELITISTS
Many of those in favor of oppressive firearms legislation are are
best classed as elitists. Elitists frequently identify with a peer group
based on wealth, power, rank, social status, occupation, education, ethnic
group, etc. and perceive themselves and their peers as inherently superior
to and more responsible than the "common people", thus more deserving of
certain rights. Since elitists practically consider those outside their class
or caste as members of another species, that most anti-elitist list of laws,
the Bill of Rights is viewed by them as anathema. Naturally, the Second Amendment
is their first target as it serves as the supporting structure for other
nine Amendments.
AUTHORITARIANS
Another type of individual who favors the restriction of private
gun ownership is the authoritarian. Authoritarian personalities are characterized
by their belief in unquestioning obedience to an authority figure or group
and a disdain for individual freedom of action, expression, and judgement.
Those with authoritarian personalities function well in symbiosis with elitists
occupying positions of power. Because authoritarians repress their desires
for autonomy they harbor a deep resentment toward free and independent thinkers.
Of course authoritarians do not want firearms in the hands of the general
population as this constitutes a major obstacle to fulfilling their pathological
and obsessive desire to control people.
CRIMINALS
It goes without saying that career criminals would like to see the
public disarmed for obvious reasons. A well-armed population makes crimes
such as assault, robbery, and burglary hazardous for the perpetrator and
this is bad for "business." Also, it would seem that even non-violentor "white
collar" criminals live in constant fear of retribution from the public that
they financially bleed and would therefore prefer that the public be disarmed.
Evidence supporting this hypothesis can be gathered by studying the Second
Amendment voting records of those legislators who have been convicted of
willful misconduct.
THE FEARFUL
Cowards by definition are easily or excessively frightened by things
and situations that are recognized as dangerous, difficult, or painful. It
therefore stands to reason that the mere thought of guns and the circumstances
in which they are employed causes them abnormal amounts of stress. Rather
than admit their weakness to themselves or others, some fearful types jump
on the anti-gun bandwagon and purport moral superiority to those "barbaric"enough
to employ lethal force against armed assailants by claiming various humanitarian
and pragmatic motives for allowing evil to remain unchecked. In reality,
many of these individuals harbor an envy induced resentment toward anyone
with the means, skill, and will to successfully stand up to criminal
aggression.
The desire to assert oneself exists in nearly everyone, wimps included,
so cowards seek out tame enemies against whom they can ply their pitiful
brand of machismo. Instead of the sociopaths who commit acts of wanton aggression
with guns, guns themselves and responsible gun owners are the main targets
of their attacks. After all, real criminals are dangerous, so cowards prefer
doing battle with inanimate objects that do not have a will of their own
and decent law-abiding people whose high level of integrity and self discipline
prevent them from physically lashing out against mere verbal assailants,
however obnoxious they may be.
IDEOLOGICAL CHAMELIONS
Ideological chameleons follow the simple social strategy of avoiding
controversy and confrontation by espousing the beliefs of the people in their
immediate vicinity or advocating the philosophy of those who scream the loudest
in a debate. Quite a few supposedly pro Second Amendment public officials
have shown themselves to be ideological chameleons when they supported
restrictions on the private possession of military style semiautomatic rifles
following recent atrocities in which such firearms were employed. Like their
reptilian namesake, people who merely blend in with the ambient philosophical
foliage seem to have little insight into the moral and social ramifications
of their actions. Political and/or economic gain along with avoidance of
confrontation are their only goals.
SECURITY MONOPOLISTS
Security monopolists are those members and representatives of public
and private security providing concerns who want the means of self protection
out of private hands so that they can command high fees for protecting the
citizenry against the rising tide of crime. These profiteers stand to lose
a great deal of capital if citizens can efficiently defend themselves. To
the security monopolist, each criminal who enters and exits the revolving
door of justice is a renewable source of revenue providing jobs for police,
social workers, victim counsellors, judges, prison employees, security guards,
burglar alarm installers, locksmiths, and others employed by the security
monopolies or their satellite organizations. No wonder it is so common for
an honest citizen to be more ruthlessly hounded by the authorities when he
shoots a criminal in self defense than a criminal who shoots honest
citizens.
THE DISFUNCTIONAL UNWORLDLY
Just as a limb will weaken and atrophy if not used, so will aspects
of the mind fail to develop if nothing in one's environment exists to challenge
them. People who have led excessively sheltered lives tend to have a difficult
time understanding certain cause and effect relationships and an even harder
time appreciating just how cruel the world can be. These dysfunctionally
unworldly types are truly perplexed at the very notion of firearms ownership
with regard to defense. To them, tyranny and crime are things that happen
in other places far removed from their "civilized" universe. Also, they do
not understand the value of private property and why some people would fight
for theirs since they never had to work hard to acquire what they possess.
While those suffering from dysfunctional unworldliness are most often people
who have been born into considerable wealth, this condition is also common
in members of the clergy, academicians, practioners of the arts, and others
who have spent much of their lives cloistered in a safe and pampering
environment. While many of these people may be quite talented and intelligent
in some ways, their extreme naivete' makes them easy prey for the tyrants
who use them for the financial support and favorable advertisement of their
regimes. Needless to say, the anti-gun movement is well represented and financed
by the dysfunctionally unworldly.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and it behooves all vigilant
lovers of liberty to know and be able to recognize the various types of arms
prohibitionists and understand their differing but equally dangerous motives.
Acquiring knowledge of one's foes is the first step toward defeating them.
We must never forget that a threat to private firearms ownership is a threat
to all freedoms.
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It was once widely believed that life was a gift from God, that to
not defend that life when offered violence was to hold God's gift in contempt,
to be a coward and to breach one's duty to one's community. A sermon given
in Philadelphia in 1747 unequivocally equated the failure to defend oneself
with suicide:
He that suffers his life to be taken from him by one that hath no
authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by defense, incurs
the Guilt of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek the continuance
of his life, and Nature itself teaches every creature to defend
itself.
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