August 22, 2014

Guns, guns, guns.

So, I'm a Canadian. I don't have the Constitutional right to bear arms like you in America. It's never really bothered me, because I haven't felt the need to have one. But I do understand and appreciate the notion behind the second amendment, and apparently better than many liberals in the United States.  And regardless of whether or not I wanted to have one, I would be extremely dubious about people trying to roll back a Constitutionally guaranteed right.

The right to bear arms is meant in the context of the framers as yet another check on government power. Yes, in the 1700's they needed guns to hunt. They needed guns for a well-regulated militia. But the entire framework of the Constitution surrounds the notion of checks on government abuse of power. Government cannot be for the people if it comes before the people. I like that. I've never heard it before. I think I'll tweet it. Anyway, the entire document is designed to protect liberty. An oppressive government cannot be fought with wishes, but an armed population would certainly make a government think twice about repealing freedoms.

But liberals will argue that we now have the internet, people can think for themselves (unless they march lockstep with other liberals) and can tweet out the latest government abuse of power (like say in the Ferguson situation). Right. I'm going to allow my freedom to rest on the ironclad foundation of Facebook, Youtube, Instagram and Twitter. Maybe I'm wrong but I'd rather have something a little sturdier backing up my concern about the NSA.

Even if I grant that the liberals are right about social media being a powerful tool (and in many ways it is), I still have a problem with their logic. Riots like the one in Ferguson will not stop because the lack of availability of weapons. On a large scale or a personal scale, if someone wants to do harm or rob a grocery store, not having a gun isn't going to stop them. They can just google how to fashion a weapon out of chemicals.

If guns were to disappear from the face of the earth today, someone would still be murdered by some other means tomorrow. There's chemistry, there's knives, there's clubs, and rocks and bricks and poison and a million other ways for people to hurt and kill other people. You can't ban everything.

Lumberjacks are going to need those axes and chainsaws. Those things could be weapons.

It's not rocket science. If you can't stop every violent problem by restricting guns, then maybe guns are not the root of every problem. Maybe it's part of human nature. Maybe you need to start thinking about banning our DNA. Good luck with that.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Disagreement is always welcome. Please remain civil. Vulgar or disrespectful comments towards anyone will be removed.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Share This