Friday, April 06, 2007

Guest Editorial: You Can't Repeal the Law of Unintended Consequences

FOREWORD: I first came across Mike Vanderboegh's work several years back when someone emailed me a copy of his inspiring speculative essay "The Window War." The guy is a compelling writer, one who puts out the kind of stuff you just want to keep reading.

So I was quite pleased the other day when a friend sent me Mr. Vanderboegh's latest effort, a brilliant and dead on target rebuttal to Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings Institution "scholar" and author of a subversive call to "Ditch the Second Amendment".

Mr. Vanderboegh has graciously given permission to post it here at WarOnGuns. Enjoy it--I know I sure did.
You Can't Repeal the Law of Unintended Consequences
Mike Vanderboegh


Dear Ben,

I want to say how refreshing your New Republic article of 19 March was for its intellectual honesty. After three decades of my arguing the originalist position of the 2nd Amendment with every sort of hoplophobe known to mankind, your collectivist "by any means necessary" proposal strips the self-deception and cant away from the anti-gun position. Still, even if you are successful in advancing it, your proposal will come apart in the real world when it smacks into the one law that cannot be repealed: the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Some years back, I was the designated "gun-nut goat" on a public forum panel discussing "gun violence." It was held in Birmingham, Alabama at Children's Hospital. As I was placing pro-2nd Amendment literature on the seats before the event, a child psychiatrist (so identified by the name badge on his white coat) came up to me, looked at the leaflets and said, with a smile and with what he mistook to be bravery, "You know, I think ALL guns should be banned."

I smiled back and replied, "Really? Do you own a gun?"

He was taken aback. "Well, NO," he said, with all the fear and loathing of Dracula confronted by a Crucifix with wolf's bane garlands.

"Well, how do you propose to get mine then?"

He paused, then said, "Well, we'll pass a law and you'll have to turn them in to the government."

I laughed. "Wrong, sport. Let me tell you how that would work. If you want my gun, you're going to have to kill me to get it. Not only that, but you're going to have to kill my son, my brother and all our friends. And if even ten percent of American gunowners feel the way we do, you're going to have to kill upwards of eight and a half million people, and that doesn't count all the anti-freedom pukes like you that we'll kill in righteous self-defense before we meet our Maker, and we intend to make that MORE than a one to one ratio. So you've got to ask yourself, sport: Is it worth it?"

I was still smiling, he wasn't. "Wuh, wuh, well," he stammered, "you're PARANOID."

I laughed again. "OK," I said agreeably, "let's admit that you're the expert in that field and say that you're right. Let's say I am paranoid." And here, I opened my eyes wide, began to edge forward and dropped my voice an octave so the next words came out most sinisterly. "Let's say I'm crazy."

He involuntarily backed up. I winked at him and finished, "That just complicates your problem, doesn't it?" He was so plainly frightened that I busted out laughing and ruined the effect. He was in full reverse gear when I called after him.

"Just do me one favor, sport. If you want my gun, you come get it. Don't send someone else's son or daughter in federal service. YOU come get it." I winked at him again. "And, hey, I might even give it to you after I unload it."

It turned out that he also was on the panel. He waited until I took a seat and then found a chair as far away from me as he could get.

I have found over the years that modern day so-called liberals (who bear little resemblance intellectually to their claimed classical liberal ancestors) lack the courage of their convictions. There is no principle so dear that they are willing to personally suffer for, let alone die for. Government, blessed government, is their idol. If they are aggrieved, oppressed, or merely imagine that they are oppressed, it is to government that they turn. There hasn't been a liberal willing to die for his principles since the Civil Rights movement. They are more than willing to dispatch the men and women of government to die in their place, however. But, and I think this is more dangerous to the country, they also extrapolate from their own cowardice and believe that all people (even those who disagree with them) will, in the end, do what they're told by Government.

I have no doubt, Ben, that you have been inundated with all manner of disputatious email, some likely obscene and/or incoherent with anger. The passion this issue excites is understandable, touching as it does upon the bedrock of the Founder's Republic and the future of our children's liberty. But beyond the sneering and the anger, no matter how contemptible and silly it may seem to you, these people, MY people, the people who believe in the Founder's Republic and the plain language of the Constitution, ARE willing to die for their principles. And a man who is willing to die for his country is most often willing to kill for it too.

This was the lesson of the Deacons for Defense and Justice in the 60s and 70s. The Klan (and the local and state governments controlled by them) had no problem intimidating and killing black folks who practiced "non-violence" until those non-violent protesters were protected by the guns of the Deacons. In addition, the federal government did not get actively involved in insisting that the civil rights laws be enforced until the prospect of civil war loomed as black men, veterans mostly, began to arm themselves and train under the rubric of the Deacons for Defense and Justice.

You know, government isn't guaranteed to always be on your side, Ben. Even so-called "liberals" have need of firearms. Absent firearms, and the will to use them, you're all just fodder for the next boxcars which convey you to a place with a sign that says "Arbeit Macht Frei."

But I am not angry with you. As I said, I appreciate your candor. But you must understand that the Law of Unintended Consequences cannot be repealed. And you can be tried, convicted and sentenced by it, both in real time and in the judgment of history. By once again reminding gunnies of the threat your beliefs pose to their liberties, you have no doubt motivated more than a few of them to go out and buy more guns and ammunition. Do you suppose that they are doing this in anticipation of turning them in when you're successful in repealing the 2nd Amendment? A recent history lesson is appropriate here.

From the time the so-called "Assault Weapons Ban" was first proposed until it went into effect, something like 6 million semi-automatic rifles of military type (mostly SKS's and AK-47 clones) were imported into this country and sold. With them came billions upon billions of rounds of 7.62x39mm ammunition. That was more rifles of those types than had been sold in the previous twenty years! This was in defiance of the intent of the ban. It was in full expectation that the next law was to be one of confiscation. The Law of Unintended Consequences was in full swing then, and finally even the Clintonistas recognized that these millions of rifles and billions of rounds of ammunition were not being purchased to turn in to them, but to turn ON them if they became just a little more grasping.

So, I say with all seriousness, yet happily: Be careful what you wish for, Ben. You may get it. The Law of Unintended Consequences guarantees it.

Mike Vanderboegh
PO Box 926
Pinson, AL 31526
GeorgeMason1776ATaol.com

16 comments:

E. David Quammen said...

Good piece. Well written, and touching upon the crux of the problem in a straightforward manner.

Now if we could just get ALL of the anti's to read and understand it.....

Anonymous said...

Doesn't it feel good to know we aren't the only intelligent people on the planet?

Ken said...

Supreme law of the land or no, the Constitution confers no rights; no, not one. It merely identifies them.

There might be a day dark enough that they manage to erase the words of the Second Amendment, but nothing can erase the right. If it ever does get that dark, I will not comply.

Anonymous said...

"What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army" was my favorite article a few years ago. And very influential to me.

Great to see see Mike V. communicating with WOG.


C.H.

Anonymous said...

An excellant piece David and you have done us a great service in posting it. This is why I'm putting more faith in Bloggers than the main stream media outlets.

Anonymous said...

A thought has been banging around for sometime now. Anti-freedom pukes including government have been compiling names of freedom loving firearm owners for sometime. Is it not time for freedom lovers to be privately collecting names and addresses for circulation if "righteous self defense" from the pukes is called for?
AGPILOT

Anonymous said...

Mike could have added that there are about 900,000 LEO's in the country and that 900,000 trying to take away the guns of 8 1/2 million determined gun owners wouldn't be very good odds. That is provided that the 8 1/2 million owners wouldn't get weak spined at the moment of truth. The liberal gun grabbers and corrupt bureaucrats can only run over us as long as we let them.
AGPILOT77

Anonymous said...

Responding to 'anonymous' - the smart freedom lovers do not compile lists which could be discovered and used as evidence. Instead, they note where to find the membership lists of various organizations for use when needed.

Anonymous said...

"Responding to 'anonymous' - the smart freedom lovers do not compile lists which could be discovered and used as evidence. Instead, they note where to find the membership lists of various organizations for use when needed."

Very good thought anonymous, that is worth keeping in mind. Computer analysis of searches could provide the same evidence though. There is always going to be a trail of some kind. 8.5 million to 900,000 would keep the 900,000 very busy and might get some fence sitters off the fence. Fence sitters like to go with the winning side. Big question,,,who will be the 1st believer or group of believers to sacrifice to get the ball rolling? I can think of no one who would willingly sacrifice not knowing if anyone would follow. Being a martar in vain is not a popular or pleasant thought.
AGPILOT

Dutchman6 said...

sez AGPilot: "Big question: who will be the 1st believer or group of believers to sacrifice to get the ball rolling? I can think of no one who would willingly sacrifice not knowing if anyone would follow. Being a martyr in vain is not a popular or pleasant thought."

Now I'm not responding theologically here, but I'm assuming yours is not a theological question.

Martyrs are generally chosen by two criteria: their oppressors'whims and the willingness of their selected victims to sell their lives. To the oppressors throughout recent history, whether they were collectivist thugs wearing Nazi black, Communist red or ATF raid gear at Waco, the only calculations that counted were whether their victims would resist and how dearly those victims intended to sell themselves if they did.

In the near future, should it come to that, the initial martyrs will be chosen according to those criteria and when they resist, it will come as a great shock to their attackers who would rather live to draw pensions than die for somebody else's cause. His Majesty's General Gage's lament was that he never wanted a war with the American colonists, he was merely obeying the orders of the Crown's government. Nevertheless he got one.

So too will some future petty bureaucrat like the ATF's Jim Cavanaugh, et. al. at Waco miscalculate and the bloodletting will begin. They are always shocked when someone shoots back.

It should be our duty to remind them early and often that there are many out here who intend to shoot back, thus fulfilling the Founder's idea of the armed citizenry as the guarantor of American liberty. Unlike General Gage, they should have no doubts that they are starting a war to the knife and knife to the hilt. If they do, they'll probably find a way to stay home.

Mike Vanderboegh

Anonymous said...

Just for your edification I just read a liberal essay by a professor who was telling his liberal readers "its time to arm ourselves". Give up the issue of gun control. He said, "we now know the reason for the 2nd amendment and now is the time"!

I was shocked, but encouraged. Many have purchased guns and many are practicing and taking lessons and using their local firing range. So all is not lost. It appears the "gun control" they are attempting to use is a shortage of ammo, since they know what he just said above is the case.

Good luck, see you in heaven or here free as a bird. One way or the other, this issue is definitely coming to a head.

Anonymous said...

The only problem with the attitude expressed below is that gunnies say similar things thinking that lets them off the hook in doing what is needed politically to see the situation never arises.


Do 10% of gunnies feel the way Vanderboegh does (his 8.5 million)? Only about 5% of gunnies belong to the NRA and other similar groups. The average contribution to pro-RKBA efforts is miniscule (friends at the NRA claim ILA gets less than $20 per member per year in contributions), my calculations given in several “Follow the Money” messages puts the contribution by known members of AGC, NRA, TRIPWIRE/MPFO to be on the order of a couple of buck per person per year. So, even these active gunnies are not serious in funding the efforts to politically win.


My guess is that well South of 5% (perhaps 1 in 100 of the people who are active enough to join the NRA) are committed enough politically that their intents might be considered serious. That’s .05% or 42,500 or so might actually belong to the “cold dead hands” crowd.


The principal value in articles like Vanderboegh’s is to put the 5% semi-active people to sleep and keep them from acting politically to see that we never need to find out whether 99.95% of gunnies are as much sheep as the rest of the people.

Anonymous said...

Rarely does a day go by here at David's or over at Radley Balko's Agitator, that there is not a perfect exapmle of tyranny and abuse of power. Yet no one does anything. Is that an indicator of who will push back when the time comes? Shouldn't there be a 10 to 1 retrebution for some of these heinous deeds?

Tomorrow I have jury duty. A just duty it is, but I can already hear the lame excuses of good people wanting to get off. Too many innocents have been convicted and too many wrongful & outlandish civil judgements by incompetent juries have soured the system.

We cry for justice & liberty, but I fear the time has come & gone.
AGPILOT

Anonymous said...

I so ever do hate to change the subject, but on The Law Of Unintended Consequences: where do you suppose we would be now if Reagan had left the Ruskies and the Mujahadeen alone to bleed each other in Afghanistan? Please don't let this stop discussion of the earlier thread.
AGPILOT

Anonymous said...

Dutchman 6
"Now I'm not responding theologically here, but I'm assuming yours is not a theological question."

No, I was not being theological. It was more along the lines of "Remember The Alamo" martardom.
AGPILOT

Anonymous said...

*pops in, hears dueling banjos playing in the distance, steps back in time machine and returns to civilization. "My God, Dear... I just had the most terrible dream...."*