An Armed and Active Citizenry

The poet and writer T.S. Elliot once penned the words, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?  Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”  We now live in a world of instantaneous gratification and ease.  The answer to any question is virtually at our fingertips and yet it sometimes seems that we have lost intelligence in the unyielding bombardment of knowledge.  Forums and blogs debate the divine authenticity of the United States Constitution and cast sacrilegious jokes at its heavenly inspired authors.  Faith in God itself has been mocked and ridiculed and the fundamentals that America was founded on have been attacked in the name of progress.  Regardless of the naysayers and self-pronounced intellectuals, the United States Constitution has stood the test of time and the nation it has cemented has been upheld by the Almighty.  The document does not limit individuals, but governments; nor does it give rights to individuals, but reaffirms the rights given of God to man.  The United States Constitution was shaped by men inspired of God to safeguard essential and basic human rights.  For that reason the authority granted by the people and given to their government is provided in the Constitution.  Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution is explicit about the powers granted to Congress and Section 8 is the only section granting such powers.  Every other mention of Congress in the United States Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, deals with the administration of Congress and delineates their restrictions and limitations.  The authority gifted to Congress covers taxes, credit, commerce, currency, copyrights, patents, court systems, piracy on the high seas, mail services, armies, navies, war declarations, and even the location of Washington D.C.  However, there is not a single mention of firearm control and this omission was not accidental.  Why then, are there more than 20,000 gun control laws on the books today?  Why are law-abiding Americans faced each year with approximately 10,000 additional proposed restrictions? 

Statistics on crime and violence are often falsely lauded as an excuse to confiscate firearms from law-abiding citizens.  If gun control really worked, the sponsors of such legislation should be able to show impressive corresponding reductions in crime rates, but they cannot.  The two cities in the United States with the most stringent gun control laws, New York and Washington, D.C., are prime examples that firearm restrictions are not decreasing crime or violence.  While gun control laws were being enforced over the past two-and-a-half decades, violence and crime in America has steadily skyrocketed.  Our governing body has failed to see the proper correlation between gun control and crime rates and as a result has played an undeniable role in the increase of violence in America. 

In the government’s attempts to convince Americans they will be safer with more gun control, they are virtually advocating the disarming of a nation without a thought given as to who will take responsibility for the increases in crime and governmental oppression when private citizens no longer have the ability or means to protect themselves.  Keeping Americans armed with weapons sufficient to discourage government tyranny was a condition the Founding Fathers intended to remain intact.  Samuel Adams said, “To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”  No authority was given to the U.S. Congress to ever tamper with the people’s right to bear arms. 

It seems that most government officials no longer respect common citizens trying to live within their constitutional guarantees.  Society has become so police-state oriented, statute regulated, and civil-rights indoctrinated that travesty has to occur before anyone will stand up and correct the course.  The actions of many of our leaders would suggest that they have no faith in us as a people and do not believe we are capable of living, thinking, doing, providing, or caring for ourselves; welfare, socialized healthcare, and hundreds of other entitlements, make otherwise productive citizens totally dependent on government, which validates its existence.  Too many freedoms are being perpetually destroyed by an out-of-control government whose job it is to protect our God-given rights.  Politicians concern themselves more with spinning tragedies into reelection votes than doing what they were elected to do.  Fear of attack and personal loss often are preyed upon and knee-jerk reactions grant increased legislation limiting more of our personal rights.  Gun control has never, and will never, curb the violent behavior of criminals and impassioned offenders. 

Preservation of freedom in the United States of America has fallen on the shoulders of armed citizens for more than 235 years, and it still does!  Benefits afforded by guns in saving lives, preventing injuries, and protecting private property exceed the negative statistics on firearms by at least 25 to one.  Private Americans shoot criminals dead as many as seven times more frequently than police.  A Justice Department survey found that from a total of 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed.  However, when a potential victim was armed with a gun or knife, only 3% of the attempted rapes actually ended in rape.  The same survey showed only 12% of victims resisting assault by using a gun suffered any kind of injury at all.  Likewise, only 17% resisting robbery with a weapon were injured in the act.  The next safest recourse was passivity, or doing nothing, which resulted in 25%-27% being injured.  Abuse and manipulation by the media in distorting the truth about gun control has entrapped many Americans in a snare of illusion.  The propaganda and sensationalism as perpetrated by the media and federal government has misled many Americans into believing guns cause crime and violence.  It is by this avenue that legislation, millions of dollars in resources, honest attempts at effective law enforcement, and millions of our tax dollars have all been misdirected and wasted on feel good laws that simply do not work. 

We have witnessed legislation bill after bill and attempt after attempt on behalf of the government to cure our social problems with increased restrictions and limitations of citizens and their firearms.  If the United States Constitution was inspired of Almighty God, and it surely was, then we have been given undeniable, unalienable rights from heaven including the possession of firearms and have been entrusted to act our conscience in the defending of liberty and freedom.  We have seen ideals of the Founding Fathers ridiculed and disregarded as the acts of foolish men.  We have seen the Constitution treated as merely the thoughtful ideas of men and irrelevant to our standard of living today.  It is our duty to act, to become aware, to find the wisdom lost in knowledge, to be an armed and active citizenry.  James Madison once said, “We can safely rely on the disposition of the state legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority.”  For the sake of ourselves and our posterity we must ensure that the power of the nation lies with its citizens as has been dictated by God.  We must be active in our state and our community.  We must be dedicated to our civic duty and elect persons with integrity into political offices affecting our freedoms.  This should be our goal with regard to a President of the United States, the Governor of our state, and the Sheriff of our county.  The County Sheriff is the sworn protector of the people.  One arena where we can more fully secure our rights lies with whom we elect to be that sworn protector.  The County Sheriff swears to uphold the United States Constitution and it should be their sole determination to do simply that.  Let us remain steadfast in our duties as citizens.