Constitutional Thoughts...

I'll give credit where credit is due. Piers Morgan on CNN has been 100% consistent in his recent rants concerning guns and violence. 100% of everything I've heard come out of his mouth on these subjects have been misrepresentations, ideological drivel, and outright lies. Insofar as consistency is better than hypocrisy, Piers at least has that going for him. Likewise for almost all the other talking heads. (I had to stop watching MSNBC altogether because the garbage they spew on these issues is simply insane. CNN isn't far behind.)

On the other hand there are people with an almost dual-personality level of hypocrisy. These are the people who say things like, “I strongly support the Second Amendment”, and in their next breath say, “no one should have assault weapons”. I hear politicians say these things all the time, and apparently there are a large number of people in the US that don't understand how schizophrenic such statements are.

If the Constitution says “you cannot do X”, and you go ahead and do X, if you swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution, then you have violated your oath. Such a violation is commonly referred to as treason. Can we agree on this? It seems to me that this concept is completely straightforward and obvious. I have heard a lot of rationalizations as to why this analysis doesn't apply, but to be quite honest, all of these arguments are very weak.

If you promise your grandmother that you won't eat the pie before dinner, and then you eat the pie before dinner, did you break your promise? What I'm talking about is really this simple.

There was a time when people used to redefine the words in the Second Amendment in an attempt to be able to say they support the Constitution and at the same time support various gun-control measures. “Right”, “People”, “Infringe”, and “Militia” have all been given strange, highly-contorted definitions by these people to justify their extremely hypocritical positions. Fortunately it seems that most people have come to see through these attempts at language manipulation, as these arguments have lost favor. Now the gun-control crowd simply ignores the Constitution entirely when it's convenient for them to do so.

In order to clear up some misconceptions, let me list a few points that every single person who actually supports the Constitution, including the Second Amendment, agrees with. If you are an anti-gunner, please take a deep breath. The statements below are simply true by definition.

All of the following are (or were) unconstitutional and should be immediately repealed:

• The National Firearms act of 1934
• The Gun Control Act of 1968
• The Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986
• The 1989 Semi-Automatic Rifle Import Ban
• The 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Ban (which ironically didn't affect any assault weapons at all).

• Also, any politician who voted for any of these has committed treason against their oath to support and defend the Constitution. Likewise for any law-enforcement officials who enforce these unconstitutional laws.

OK – if you are an anti-gunner and your head didn't just explode, let me explain. There are a few provisions in some of these laws that I support. There are also additional laws that I would support to identify mentally ill people who could legitimately be considered “prohibited possessors”. The issue of whether a law is a good idea (in the abstract) is a completely separate issue to whether it is constitutional.

There is a long tradition in Western Civilization of something called the “Presumption of Innocence”. I am all in favor of greatly restricting the rights of people who have proven to be some sort of threat, either by committing violent crime or because they are mentally unstable. However, to say that the rights of people who have never shown the slightest indication that they are a danger should be restricted is simply not reasonable, and is directly in opposition to the principle of the presumption of innocence. Indeed, these people often show that they would be great defenders of society.

You see, in contrast to the “stupid gun nut” image that the media likes to portray, I have studied crime statistics and the sociological variables that affect them. I have also studied the historical context of the US constitution, the political rationale for a population being armed in modern times, and the moral issues surrounding the use of deadly force. Most importantly, I am not swayed by emotional arguments and am not affected by the insults of people who are ignorant on these subjects. I would be willing to listen to and consider any rational argument made on gun-control. Unfortunately, I have yet to encounter one.

The anti-gun left keeps whining about “everything needs to be on the table” when it comes to addressing violent crime, but their actual focus has always been on restricting the rights of people who have never given any indication that they are a danger. Not only is this approach unconstitutional, it is immoral and offensive. If the anti-gunners will actually put “everything on the table”, and actually respect the rights of moral people (that are codified in, but not granted by, the Constitution), then they would find a lot more gun people willing to have an honest, respectful conversation about how to reduce violent crime.

As for people who pretend to support the Second Amendment and at the same time support restricting the rights of good people – know that those of us who actually study these topics and are highly knowledgeable consider you to be liars and/or morons.