Why Can't Our Politicians Just Repeal the Second Amendment Already?
The murder of 88-year-old Delbert "Shorty" Belton devastated Spokane, Washing this week. Unlike the recent murder of Christopher Lane which drew immediate fire from gun control advocates and is also a senseless tragedy, celebrities and politicians seem to have left blame for the murder of Delbert Belton on the two men who murdered him.
Guns were blamed by many for the deaths of the 20 children at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December of last year. Liberal media and political figures were so successful at casting blame on guns and the National Rifle Association that few Americans can remember the name of the man who committed the worst mass murder of children in American history.
The trend is pretty clear: murders that involve guns are blamed on guns or the NRA. Murders that don't involve guns are blamed on murderers. Politicians blame guns for political gain; they leverage tragedy and agony to further a personal political agenda that, under normal conditions, most Americans would immediately reject without a second thought.
The purpose of deflecting blame from criminals
Exactly one week after the Sandy Hook massacre Diane Feinstein delivered a speech in which she accuses the NRA of attempting to distract from the "availability of military-style assault weapons". At no point does she blame the man who murdered 20 children the week before or even mention his name. If Feinstein's constituents are allowed to be angry at a culpable individual then this tragedy could not be exploited to further her decades-old political agenda.
Diane Feinstein does make one seemingly salient point about shooting deaths: "the only thing consistent in all of them are the guns". While this seems like a valid point on its face and makes a good talking point for blaming guns, it is completely wrong and deliberately manipulative.
It may seem like cars are the only thing consistent in automobile traffic deaths, but nobody accuses the cars because bad drivers cause traffic deaths. Nobody is foolish enough to claim that the only thing consistent in forest fires is the trees. The only consistent thing with smokers who are burned alive in their sleep isn't beds--or even cigarettes--it's careless people. In the same way, the only thing consistent in gun-related murders is bad people.
Why is the NRA so hell-bent on protecting the Second Amendment?
The reason that the second amendment is so important can be explained in a single word: history. When the founding fathers drafted the Bill of Rights history was fresh in their minds because, for them, it was present day.
Americans had just thrown off the yoke of an oppressive tyrannical government. In an effort to ensure that the new government would not one day become the same evil that they had just defeated, the Second Amendment was added to the constitution in 1791.
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
This amendment does not grant the right to bear arms, but recognizes it as a transcendent, pre-existing right; it is a clear prohibition against infringing that right. The right of free people own guns is not a right granted by the government, but the government is obliged to defend that right.
Yeah, but that was over 200 years ago and England is no longer a threat, right?
America is a country that has been heavily armed and prepared to fight invaders for centuries. Many cite the fact that America has not been invaded for centuries as justification for the infringement, or even repeal, of the Second Amendment. The same logic could be used to insist on the removal of a roof from a warehouse in which inventory has never been damaged by rain. Still, England certainly deserves some attention for their relationship with the NRA.
England hasn't invaded the United States in centuries, but they have been invaded. Between World War I and World War II the British, through crippling gun legislation, disarmed themselves. This left them primed to lose the second World War and did nothing to reduce crime rates. To help defend against invasion during World War II, NRA members sent thousands of their personal firearms to Britain.
Decades later the British are disarming themselves again. Politicians in Great Britain and Australia have passed a ban criminalizing the possession of handguns. With that narrow end of the wedge in place they are moving on to take other guns and liberties.
Yeah, but why not a gun registry so we know who has guns?
Crimes cannot be solved by a gun registry. The knowledge that 10,000 guns capable of firing the bullet that was used to commit a crime are owned by nearby residents does nothing to aid a detective who is trying to solve that crime. Because a registry cannot be used to solve crimes it cannot act as a deterrent.
Nobody has posited a useful purpose for a gun registry except as a way to disarm citizens when it is convenient. The politicians in Great Britain may have good intentions there, but the true purpose for a gun registry is absolutely sinister.
On November 11th, 1938 Adolf Hitler's Nazi party changed Germany's gun control laws to allow only the newly defined "citizens" to own guns (Jews had been declared non-citizens in 1935). The timing of this new law was no coincidence; it was passed just two days after Kristallnacht.
The Nazi gun registry law was used to ensure that Jews surrendered their guns and further prevented them from manufacturing guns. The gun registry was the framework for policies to prevent resistance to the Holocaust.
Yeah, but that was over 70 years ago. We don't need vigilance now, right?
Syria has enacted strict gun control laws that prevent civilians from owning military-style weapons, whether automatic or single-shot. In addition to a strict registration policy backed by a 15-year prison term for non-compliance, private sales are banned and licensed firearm dealers are required to keep a record of every ammunition purchase.
The people of Syria are now attempting to overthrow their corrupt government. Many Americans think that a corrupt government would simply step down in a civilized country with very few civilian-owned guns (fewer than 4 per 100 civilians), but this is not the case. The tyrannical Syrian regime is crushing the unarmed resistance--most recently with poisonous gas.
Yeah, but what about Japan?
Japan is often put forward as a model for the successful implementation of gun control laws. Like Syria, the registration of firearms is backed by a 15-year prison term for non-compliance, private sales are prohibited and licensed firearm dealers are required to keep records of all sales. Military-style semi-automatic guns are prohibited in Japan and total civilian gun ownership is approximately 6 guns per 1,000 civilians. Gun-related crime is very low in Japan when compared to America and many are quick to credit Japan's gun control laws.
Gun control laws are not the reason for low rates of gun-related crimes in Japan. All crime is low in Japan because Japan has real deterrents for crime. In Japan, 75.9% of robberies are solved by authorities compared with 26% in the United States. Homicide cases are solved 95.9% of the time in Japan compared with 68.3% of homicide cases in the United States. Additionally, conviction rates in Japan are 98% and punishment is severe.
The Japanese are very involved in their neighborhoods. Strong neighborhood associations contribute to the low crime rate by instilling in residents a strong sense of mutual obligation to the other people who live there. People watch out for one another in organizations much like American "neighborhood watch" programs.
In most neighborhoods friendly police officers are stationed in "Koban" (police box), usually 24-hours per day. The officers are responsible for circulating throughout the neighborhood, usually on foot or on bicycle. The daily police interaction with local residents, as opposed to unapproachable police in patrol cars, is a powerful deterrent to crime in Japan.
In summary, Japan does not have fewer crimes because the citizens have fewer guns. The Japanese have fewer guns because Japan has fewer crimes.
How can Switzerland be so safe with machine guns everywhere?
Like America, the heavily-armed population in Switzerland acts as a powerful deterrent to invaders. Switzerland was not invaded during the first or second World Wars. The Nazis drew up detailed invasion plans called Operation Tannenbaum, but never acted due to the guarantee of failure.
Only in Switzerland was the entire populace armed and prepared to wage a relentless guerrilla war against the Nazis. When the war began in 1939, Switzerland mobilized 435,000 citizen soldiers out of a population of 4.2 million--a well regulated militia.
In Switzerland, nearly half of all households have military-style weapons including machine guns. Switzerland enjoys one of the lowest homicide rates in the world with only 0.7 murders per 100,000 people compared with 4.8 per 100,000 in the United States where very few homes have military-style weapons.
This data flies in the face of Diane Feinstein's claim that easy access to military-style weapons is the cause for massacres. Nowhere in the world is access to assault rifles easier than in Switzerland and they have never had a school shooting massacre.
Yeah, but what about Sandy Hook parents?
A biased media, eager to leverage the agony of the Sandy Hook parents, made it very easy for supporters of the Second Amendment to be ignored. For months it seemed like the only thing on the news was the parents of Sandy Hook Elementary children calling for unconstitutional knee-jerk legislation that, admittedly, would not have prevented the massacre.
The voice of reason was there; it just wasn't represented very well by the media. It is represented here. Bill Stevens, a true patriot and the father of a Sandy Hook Elementary student, appeared before Congress and, with a clear voice, powerful courage and salient points, presented his case for preserving the Second Amendment for all the world to see.
How can we protect our children?
The NRA has proposed that arming school faculty members would prevent the next Sandy Hook and Diane Feinstein agrees while admitting that one-third of public schools in the United States already have armed security. This security is most likely to protect students and faculty from dangerous students, but it would be an effective deterrent against massacres.
Another solution would be to copy the parenting techniques of countries--or American communities--where people do not shoot children. Not only parents, but neighbors in Japan and Switzerland get involved in the raising of children and they work hard to ensure that children grow up to be mature members of a society. Those children are taught the value of life and are not left alone to commit murder when they are bored.
Infringing on the Second Amendment is not the solution. The eternal words of George Santayana leave us with the sense of why failing to prevent the next Holocaust would be a far greater tragedy than the deaths of 20 schoolchildren and helps us to understand why our politicians can never repeal the Second Amendment.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
