See additional comments on Tea Party Nation.
With all of the attention concerning gun control legislation, now is a good time to consider some of the following points:
1. What good is an AR-15 if you are not willing to use it to defend the second amendment as your duty requires?
If you are willing to turn in your AR-15 (or any other firearm that may be outlawed) to comply with the law, I have to ask why did you buy it initially? You obviously have no intention of defending the Constitution, the country or our founding principles. I suggest that you sell it now to someone who has Sacred honor since the following applies to you:
“If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”
— Samuel Adams
2. Why would you register your AR-15 (or any other firearm that may become regulated) to comply with the law?
Assuming that gun control legislation passes and AR-15’s must be registered, why would you comply with an unConstitutional law?
3. What will you do if law enforcement comes to seize an illegal firearm from you?
After you stop pounding your chest and say “I’ll never give up my firearms”, apply some critical thinking skills. Preparing for this situation will allow you to hide or cache your supposedly “illegal” weapons beforehand. Is a firefight and possibly your life worth the confiscation of your firearms? In some situations, it is better to lose a battle and win the war. Living to fight tyranny another day is not cowardly or dishonorable.
4. What will you do to defend yourself against tyranny?
This is the crux of the matter and it is not only applicable to gun control legislation: it is a definition of all law. I recommend everyone read Bastiat’s “The Law” in its entirety but here is a good start:
What Is Law?
What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.
Each of us has a natural right — from God — to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties? If every person has the right to defend even by force — his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right — its reason for existing, its lawfulness — is based on individual right. And the common force that protects this collective right cannot logically have any other purpose or any other mission than that for which it acts as a substitute. Thus, since an individual cannot lawfully use force against the person, liberty, or property of another individual, then the common force — for the same reason — cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups.
Such a perversion of force would be, in both cases, contrary to our premise. Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? Since no individual acting separately can lawfully use force to destroy the rights of others, does it not logically follow that the same principle also applies to the common force that is nothing more than the organized combination of the individual forces?
If this is true, then nothing can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense. It is the substitution of a common force for individual forces. And this common force is to do only what the individual forces have a natural and lawful right to do: to protect persons, liberties, and properties; to maintain the right of each, and to cause justice to reign over us all.
If you understand what the law really is, you have the right (and duty) to fight for your defense, Liberty and property as a natural right from God. Conversely, let’s look at what the government is trying to do. Existing and new firearm legislation is meant to minimize your ability to defend yourself from the government. Once you are defenseless, history has shown that Liberty is replaced by oppression (at a minimum) and personal property is confiscated. After all the indeterminate “fair share” means the confiscation of the fruits of your labor without qualification.
Our government in Washington passes legislation that does not protect us from criminals but makes us criminals. It is illegal to buy an incandescent light bulb according to federal law but Congress (which originated this law) refuses to fund its enforcement. This allows us to buy incandescent bulbs even though they are not legal. Is this a test to see how the people will react to frivolous laws? Toilets must be the proper size, illegal health care legislation is upheld as a tax and the Senate instead of the House now originates bills for raising Revenue which violates the Constitution:
Article I, Section. 7.
All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.
At some point, we must understand that our federal government is no longer a representative republic operating under the rule of law. The rule of man now reigns supreme in Washington and men of good conscience must decide their fate: Liberty or Tyranny. Gun control legislation may be the line in the stone which forces us to confront reality. Give up or register my AR-15? This really means give up my Liberty and probably my life.
So what is more important: the 2nd amendment or Sacred honor? Both are important but in the case of gun control legislation, there is no difference between them.
David DeGerolamo
Some more from my hero.
“Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.”
“See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”
“When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”
David the above is all correct and right on. I hope people start waking-up and do what is right for the sake of our nation.
Patriot
If your American chief (President) be a man of ambition and abilities, how easy is it for him to render himself absolute! The army is in his hands, and if he be a man of address, it will be attached to him, and it will be the subject of long meditation with him to seize the first auspicious moment to accomplish his design, and, sir, will the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens? I would rather infinitely -- and I am sure most of this Convention are of the same opinion -- have a king, lords, and commons, than a government so replete with such insupportable evils. If we make a king we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them; but the president, in the field, at the head of his army, can prescribe the terms on which he shall reign master, so far that it will puzzle any American ever to get his neck from under the galling yoke.
I can not with patience think of this idea. If ever he violate the laws, one of two things will happen: he will come at the head of the army to carry everything before him, or he will give bail, or do what Mr. Chief Justice will order him. If he be guilty, will not the recollection of his crimes teach him to make one bold push for the American throne? Will not the immense difference between being master of everything an being ignominiously tried and punished powerfully excite him to make this bold push? But, sir, where is the existing force to punish him? Can he not, at the head of his army, beat down every opposition? Away with your president! We shall have a king: the army will salute him monarch; your militia will leave you, and assist in making him king, and fight against you: and what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and your rights? Will not absolute despotism ensue?
-- Patrick Henry, “Shall Liberty or Empire be Sought?” speech, given before the Virginia House of Commons, June 5, 1788