Gun Control:

Is it Right for America? 

Introduction

    Gun control is a hot political topic, which starts a great many debates. In these debates, a popular argument for advocates of gun control is that guns cause violence. This argument is interestingly ignorant since a gun is an inanimate object. Though there are a great many arguments both for and against gun control, all of the logical ones seem to be against it. While gun control has many proponents, there are many reasons why it is so strongly opposed by much of the American public. Gun control affects many lives both in countries where it is strong and in countries where the laws are weak. The people that are pushing to disarm America claim that they are not defying the Founding Fathers, but that is a deception. Not only are they defying the Founding Fathers, but they are going against the law as well when they claim that guns cause crime.

Places Gun Control Has Been Used

    Gun control is the first step a dictatorship takes in the oppression of its people. One item that the control advocates do not generally tell the public is that gun control has a tendency to lead to genocide. While this is not always the case, it is more often the rule than the exception.

    Humans, as a rule, have trouble learning from history, or do they? Tyrants rarely forget to issue laws controlling ownership of weapons before declaring absolute power. The reason for this is that they know an armed people are likely to oppose them, while an unarmed citizenry cannot. Chris Stark, director of the Gun Owner’s Alliance, writes that genocide is always preceded by gun control.

    One might, for example, take Turkey, whose government, in 1911, established gun control. Armenians numbering some 1.5 million were exterminated between 1915 and 1917 (1).

    Germany, another fitting example, established gun control in 1928. It is common knowledge that 6 million Jews were killed in the period between 1939 and 1945. Many people, however, do not realize that another 7 million Poles, Slavs, homosexuals, mentally ill, gypsies, and other "undesirables" were exterminated during this time period as well (1).

    The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics gained control in 1929. From that year through 1953, upwards of 20 million people were executed by the government (1).

    China established control in 1935. During the four-year period starting in 1948, 20 million political dissidents were removed (1).

    Approximately one million people were executed between 1975 and 1977 in Cambodia. This, of course, came after the laws prohibiting firearm ownership in 1956 (1).

    1964 Guatemalan gun control lead to the death of 100,000 Mayan Indians at the hands of the government between 1964 and 1981 (1).

    300,000 people lost their lives to the Ugandan government between 1971 and 1979 after gun control laws were put into effect in 1970 (1).

    56 million victims over the past century cannot possibly be wrong. Gun control does not always lead to genocide, but genocide is always preceded by gun control. Firearms are the best defensive weapons of current time and, as such, should not be prohibited from individual ownership by law-abiding citizens.

Places With Few Gun Laws

    The largest anti-gun lobby in the United States today is Handgun Control Incorporated. One of their arguments for gun control is that guns cause crime. Chris Stark has responded to this many times over using both Israel and Switzerland as counterexamples.

    Israel’s military is a militia, and as such, all of its members are armed. These people keep their firearms in their homes and raise their children around those same weapons. Amazingly enough, however, they have no school shootings, few terrorist attacks, and near zero violent crime. People will not get this information through Handgun Control Inc. because the Israelis credit their high per capita ownership of firearms with the reduction of their crime rate (1).

    The Swiss military is made up strictly of the country’s male citizens and is not a standing army like that of the United States. The Swiss military is, in fact, the definition of a well-regulated militia. The Swiss militia members are required to keep their service rifles at home and are issued ammunition, which must be accounted for, but they are not required to account for any other ammunition. Children are raised around firearms, and citizens can by anything form anti-tank missiles to howitzers through the government. Switzerland, the only country with a higher per capita ownership of firearms than Israel, is the only country whose crime rate is lower than that of Israel (1).

What Handgun Control Inc. Really Wants

    In order to be successful in removing the rights of law-abiding citizens, Handgun Control has been very deceitful. They have spent their time claiming that they are only trying to make society "safer for the children." The July, 1994 issue of Guns and Ammo magazine shows a memo from HCI which outlines their five year plan as well as commenting on their fifteen year plan.

    The five year plan includes banning "all machine guns, destructive devices, short shotguns/rifles, assault weapons, ‘Saturday Night Specials,’ and non-sporting ammunition (26)." There are two large flaws with this plan. The first, of course, is the Second Amendment (more on that later), while the other is the fact that most of these items have already been done via the National Firearms Act of 1934. Another flaw, though one not quite so large as the previous two, is that there is no such thing as a Saturday Night Special. Such an item is a media invention used to describe small, inexpensively made firearms that were never thought poorly of until well after HCI and the liberal media began mis-reporting their use. Even the poor have the right to defend themselves and should not be prevented from doing so just because they cannot afford an expensive gun.

    Handgun Control is also pushing for the ban of all "semi-automatic assault weapons (26)." Only one non-legal flaw exists for this particular issue, but it is immeasurably large. The term "assault weapon" began in the military and is used to describe any weapon capable of fully-automatic fire. "Fully-automatic fire" then, is defined as follows: once the trigger is depressed, the weapon fires until the trigger is released or the weapon is empty. A semi-automatic, however, fires one round when the trigger is pulled, cycles the action, and waits for the trigger to be pulled again. Given these two definitions, any person with the slightest shred of intelligence can see that a "semi-automatic assault weapon" does not exist. The true problem, then, is that it is technically impossible to ban something that does not exist.

    Still yet another target of Handgun Control is "making unlawful the assembly of more than four armed individuals who are not peace officers or military (27)." They are not only attacking the Second Amendment, but they are also attacking the right to peaceable assembly – not everyone with a gun has the intent to be violent – a right protected by the First Amendment.

    The anti-gun lobby’s fifteen year plan includes "control of dangerous literature (27)" another violation of the First Amendment as well as the most disturbing of all "the total elimination of arms from society (27)." The latter of those two is not only a total violation of the Second Amendment, but is also in direct contrast to the claim that HCI is not attempting to "take away all your guns."

The Intent of the Founding Fathers

    For those who are unaware as to the meaning of "Founding Fathers," these are the people who fought for the freedom of the United States and wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. HCI defies their wishes with every gun law they push. Some claim that when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they had no intention of individuals keeping arms. Others say that the Founding Fathers could never have known what weapons would become, or that weapons would differ from hunting rifles. Both of these theories, however, are completely inaccurate.

    The Federalist Papers were a series of essays written by pro-Constitution activists promoting the ratification of the proposed Constitution as well as the Bill of Rights. In the Federalist Number 29, Alexander Hamilton wrote:

[I]f circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow citizens (2).

    Hamilton realized that it is the duty of the citizens to defend their rights from the government. He also states, and quite blazingly at that, that a standing army cannot defeat a determined group of armed citizens.

    Hamilton was not the only one to support firearms ownership. Thomas Jefferson, a well known Founding Father and third President of the United States, was strongly opinionated on individual firearms ownership. In the Commonplace Book, he wrote:

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make it worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armband man.

    Jefferson saw the obvious defensive uses of the firearm as outweighing the criminal uses of such items, and he honestly believed that everyone should be entitled to those same defensive uses.

    George Washington, first President of the United States, also believed firearms were necessary in society to maintain order. In a letter to a friend, he wrote:

The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.

    These three Founding Fathers were but a few of the ones that wrote in support of the ownership of firearms.

What the Law Says

    The main set of laws violated by gun control in American society have always been the Bill of Rights, which are part of the United States Constitution.

    Ironically enough, the first amendment to be tainted by gun control is the First Amendment. That particular amendment protects¹ freedom of religion – not directly violated by any gun control laws – freedom of the press – violated by "control of dangerous literature" – and freedom to peaceable assembly – "making unlawful the assembly of more than four armed individuals who are not police officers or military."

    The First is not the only Amendment to be scathed by gun control. In fact, the most obvious Amendment to be disregarded through the disarmament of law-abiding citizens is the Second Amendment. That particular Amendment states, "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."

    To make this somewhat less difficult for everyone involved, the Second Amendment should most likely be explained for the general public. "A well-regulated militia," then, is not a disarmed citizenry. As stated earlier, a well-regulated militia is essentially what the Swiss have. It is a citizenry properly trained in the use of the military weapons of the time.

    "[B]eing necessary to the security of a free state" means that in order for the country to maintain its liberty, the rest of the Amendment is essential.

    The rest of the article says "…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." A right is something that every law-abiding citizen is entitled to. To infringe upon something is to violate it.

    Assuming the government is serious about banning firearms ownership, they have but one option. That option is to confiscate all firearms held by private citizens. It is highly unlikely that the courts will be willing to issue enough warrants to allow for the seizure of every firearm owned by every gun owner in America. That brings it down to one of two option: 1) not confiscating all – or possibly any – firearms, in which case, what is the point to banning them, or 2) illegal search and seizure – a violation of the Fourth Amendment. It should be firmly noted that not every American is willing to cough up his or her guns just because the government says to, and that is precisely why confiscation is the only option.

    That, however, brings up an interesting question. "Does the government have to power to ‘say to’?" The short answer to this question is a very authoritative "NO." There is, nevertheless, a long answer, which involves the Tenth Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the People.

    In other words, if the Constitution does not say the federal government can do it, and it does not say that the States cannot do it, the decision is up to the States or the People.

    Another venue for deciding the law and its application is the Supreme Court. It has, on five occasions, ruled that firearms ownership applies only to the militia (Dolan 48).

    An interesting inquiry rises from that particular statement, though. What, pray tell, is the militia? Is it the whole citizenry, or is it the National Guard? The answer to this can be found in Title 10 of the United States Code. Title 10 addresses the armed forces, including, but not limited to the militia.

    United States Code, title 10, Section 311, Paragraph A defines the militia as every "able-bodied" male citizen of the United States between the ages of seventeen and forty-five as well as all female citizens who have joined the National Guard.

    The question still remains as to whether the militia is the National Guard or not. Handgun Control Incorporated would have everyone to believe this to be the gospel, and, while it is not entirely inaccurate, it is not the whole truth either.

    United States Code, Title 10, Section 311, Paragraph B divides the militia into two parts. Subparagraph 1 notes the organized militia as consisting of the National Guard and the Naval Militia. Subparagraph 2 explains that the unorganized militia is made up of the "members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia," or, everyone between seventeen and forty-five who is not a member of the National Guard. This makes sense when one considers the fact that the federal government can take control of the National Guard at any time.

    The question of how there came to be over twenty thousand gun laws on the books in America poses itself once this data has been processed. That question, however, seems irrelevant when considering whether or not the American public even has to obey the laws, which are seemingly unconstitutional.

    Jeff Cooper, a writer for Guns and Ammo magazine, did some research on this subject and found an answer to that question in Section 177 of the Second Edition of the Sixteenth Jurisprudence.

The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having formed in the nature of law, is, in reality, now law, but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose, since unconstitutionality dates from enactment and not merely from the date of decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law in legal contemplation is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted (105)."

    That being the law concerning the unconstitutionality of Congressionally passed statues, and gun "laws" being such statutes could lead a person to believe that every gun law on the books is, indeed, not actually law. For those who would argue that gun laws are not unconstitutional, what does the Second Amendment say? But does the Second Amendment pertain only to the militia? Perhaps, but the militia includes the majority of the general public anyway, and that is according to American law.

    It has now been determined that the federal government cannot technically prohibit gun ownership, but what about the various states? Can they ban private ownership of firearms? That, of course, depends on which state one is talking about.

    The law concerning ownership of firearms in Oklahoma can be found in Section II-26 of that state’s constitution. It essentially says that the only power the state has in regard to firearms is the ability to regulate "the carrying of weapons," which actually suggests knives as well as guns. Most states have laws similar to those in Oklahoma, and thus, they have no more right to regulate this issue than does the federal government.

Conclusion

    Gun control has never proven to work like its advocates claim. History shows that it has a tendency to lead to genocide. Having very lax gun laws such as the Swiss and the Israelis, who only ban criminals from owning guns, has been very beneficial in reducing their crime rates.

    The men that created America have been on record time and again explaining why the law-abiding need to be armed at all costs.

    What about American law? With over twenty thousand gun laws on the books, how can there be any doubt that gun control is wrong? Other than the U.S. Constitution, various state laws, United States Code, and the 16^th Jurisprudence, no such doubt can possibly exist.

    So, is gun control right for America? Research shows the best answer to be "No," but the decision is up to you.