More Proof We Need the Second Amendment

Nutjobs, Islamist terrorists, robbers and home invaders, gangbangers, Mexican drug cartels, disappointed lovers… What do they all have in common? They are all committing crimes, shooting up the place and killing people. With GUNS!

The liberal, knee-jerk response to the growing threat of daily catastrophic violence directed at innocent and law-abiding citizens is getting rid of these instruments of destruction. If no one – except, of course, the government – has a gun, then nobody gets shot, they say.

Oh, people will still get stabbed, beheaded, run down in the streets, blown up with garden fertilizer, gassed in the subway and beaten to death with baseball bats and assorted blunt instruments. But nobody will get shot, except maybe by the Department of Homeland Security, the new National Police Force. Who voted for that, by the way?

At first blush, the logic appears sound. But the major premise – “If no one has a gun…” – fails because it cannot be demonstrated to be true. The nutjobs, Islamist terrorists, robbers and home invaders, gangbangers and Mexican drug cartels – who are about 99 percent of the problem – have had absolutely no trouble arming themselves so far, despite the best efforts of a variety of government agencies.

The nutjobs steal guns from their mothers, or dot all the regulatory i’s and cross all the administrative t’s and buy them on the open market because the regulations are not very effective at identifying them as nutjobs. Islamist terrorists get theirs smuggled in from Iran, North Korea, China, Russia and the other usual suspects. Gangbangers have theirs flown in on Delta, while Mexican drug cartels acquire theirs from the DEA.

The government has a long way to go here. While the liberal premise is false, the true argument is, “If you outlaw guns, then the only people who will have them will be outlaws… and the government.”

Despite any good intentions, the cops are basically helpless to protect us from those who might want to kill us. It’s a shame, but these days the most effective way to stop violent outlaws – the ones who can actually be deterred – is when the intended victims outgun them.

In the case of the nutjobs, Islamic terrorists and Mexican drug runners – the ones who cannot be deterred – the only way to reduce their body count is to ensure they get counted early.

There are all kinds of popular theories about reducing gun violence in our country, including spending a gazillion dollars psychoanalyzing and monitoring all the nutjobs, stopping the media from sensationalizing mass murderers, militarizing local police (think Barney Fife with a missile launcher), and nuking ISIS, Iran and Mexico, not necessarily in that order.

But none of the popular theories include efforts to arm the populace. These theories have varying prospects for success, but the most popular one – preventing the populace from arming itself and arming itself effectively – has a prospect for success of exactly ZERO.

What kind of government could come close to guaranteeing that no bad guy could ever get his hands on a gun? That’s obvious, isn’t it? Even Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were not 100 percent effective at accomplishing this. When the government becomes the only agency of physical force, the question becomes one of separating the good guys from the bad guys. And who, exactly, gets to do the separating?

The Founding Fathers anticipated this, which is why we have the Second Amendment. Remember, the government outfits that shot the Branch Davidians to pieces and burned the survivors alive in Waco, Texas are the same ones who supplied guns to the Mexican drug lords.

 

Think we don’t need the Second Amendment?