About Guns, Freedom, and "RNL's" Take on the Second Amendment

Publisher James Preston Allen comments that “the shock of the moment seems to incapacitate our rationale and confront us with our own national hypocrisy.” Yet he finishes his editorial with “We are all responsible for [the Sandy Hook Elementary] tragedy.” Irrational hypocrisy, indeed. How am I responsible for this crime, or the teachers and parents who watched little children perish, or the police who rushed to the site? If Connecticut’s “concealed carry” laws had not been frustrated by “gun free zone” exceptions, those children would have survived.

“Community Voice” Ari LeVaux repeats “F--- the NRA”, then labels it a “bullying organization”. He then argues that only one in five hunters joins that group. The Second Amendment was never about going hunting or shooting away criminals. The Second Amendment protects the individual citizen from the government. The Supreme Court confirmed this interpretation in District of Columbia v. Heller and United States v. Verdugo-Irquidez. In “Project Censored”, Random Lengths News reported that “the Obama administration’s continuation of the previous administration’s assault on civil liberties” remains in full force. So, the Framers’ concerns about Big Government as Big Bully were not as paranoid as today’s “anti-NRA” and “pro gun-control” advocates would claim. On another note, as I have written before, President Obama merely seamlessly advanced President George W. Bush policies. Obama gets praised, W. gets derided. Anyone seeing a double-standard?

Despite the “left-wing” ideological rage which slanders the NRA as a demented institution bent on supporting guns over people,  this institution helped advance civil rights. During Reconstruction, freed African-Americans supported the NRA in order to arm themselves against domestic, government-sponsored terrorism: the KKK. Despite emotional populism and cultural misinformation, Second Amendment advocates deserve recognition for standing up for gun rights. NRA President Wayne LaPierre is right: “The only way stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”

Of course, if the opinions of “right wing ideologues” or “bitter people who clutch their guns and their Bibles” do not appeal to the media or political elites, then the numerous studies by academics, journalists, and think tanks from across the political spectrum may sway the undecided. From Kleck and Gertz’ comprehensive study “Armed Resistance and Gun Control” (1995), to the comprehensive review by the National Academy of Sciences, to the Cato Institute, research suggests time and again that gun control does not control guns, but prevents the “good guys” from stopping “the bad guys.”

For the record, I do not own a gun and I do hunt, but I do not like a government which takes away the rights of others, nor concur with commentators who blame “society” for the crimes of the few.