Mike Thomas' Big 'But'

I am establishment when it comes to guns. I support Florida's concealed-weapons law and the Stand Your Ground law. I cheered when the Supreme Court overturned the gun ban in Washington, D.C. I'll be heading for the gun range this weekend.

Liberals think I'm the unholy spawn of Charlton Heston and Marion Hammer.

But this is too much. [More]

Yeah, sure, dickhead. Throw open carriers under the bus and call them exhibitionists. What a gun rights champ you are!  What an unholy spawn! 

I was going to take this prag fraud to task, but correspondent SamAdams1776 did a superb job and was much nicer about it than I'd be inclined. I'm using his screen name because he's active duty in Kuwait, so I imagine a Threeper in the ranks would give the brass a hemorrhage.

Greetings,

Read your article from my desk in Kuwait. I am deployed here and from Florida. I am involved in the 2A rights movement, but you misunderstand the motives. You also misunderstand the process. And the history. Prior to the Jack Hagler Act in 1987, open carry was the only way in Florida except for discretionary conceal carry (local police decided whether or not to grant a CCW license.) And people DID openly carry.

Before continuing, I must comment on the "Hollywood" term gunslingers-a very yellow journalistic term to use in your article and besides, in the old west, "gunslingers" were not called that at all, they were called "shootists."

The motive is not centrally one about guns. It is about liberty and individual sovereignty-our founders intended the states to be; except for some very limited--and also carefully enumerated-powers, reserved to the Federal Government and only the Federal government, sovereign entities and individuals were largely sovereigns able to exercise any non-prohibited powers (c.f. the tenth amendment) and otherwise subject to the constitutional laws of the union and the state they lived in and the statute laws as well. Even sovereign entities are subject to the law.

The primary purpose of the Bill of Rights (BOR) is to limit government. The Preamble to the BOR says so, in fact. It does so by enumerating PRE-EXISTING rights that government must not encroach upon. And one of them is the right to keep and bear arms. Numerous writings of the founders (which I will provide to you upon request) make it clear that it is first a prophylactic measure against tyranny and second as a remedy to tyranny if the prophylactic measure fails.

Exactly what do you think it means in the Declaration of Independence when Jefferson writes:

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

He was speaking not just about events then but a truism for all times really. It is an insurrectionist philosophy.

Government SHOULD fear rebellion. They SHOULD fear the people and that is not possible if the people are estranged from arms or are disarmed-thus the real purpose of gun control is not crime control, but simply control. Let me give you an example of how different things are: When I was a boy of 8 before the Gun Control Act of 1968, the year I turned 9, There were ads in the Back of Boys' Life for Marlin and Winchester Rifles we could order (and many of us did) and have delivered by US Post to our doors. We could also order DEWATs typically for $99. You'll just have to look that up as a homework assignment. But I digress.

The right enumerated in the 2A does not say you can exercise it only if you prove to some government official that you are trained or worthy in some way; it is absolute. The right to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED. Government is forbidden to regulate arms and this amendment, protecting a PRE-EXISTING right came in AFTER the commerce clause and thus easily supersedes it, and would be recognized as such if the judiciary itself were not corrupt and assisting the other two branches of government in their encroachment of powers.

If someone abuses that by using their right criminally or negligently (perhaps by lack of training) THEN there are consequences. In a FREE society people are FREE to act. The legal term for preventing someone from committing an undesirable act is known as "prior restraint," and although the term is used in publishing, it is equally applicable here. It is not tolerated with regard to the First Amendment and we can ill afford to tolerate it in regards to the Second.

To continue with motives and process: gun laws in the US did not spring up all at once. They likely will have to be undone piecemeal as well. Reestablishing open carry in Florida together with Shall Issue Conceal Carry is the next step toward Constitutional Carry. Only 3 states have that so far: Vermont, Alaska, and most recently Arizona, but a fourth also out west, will soon be joining the other three. But let me state this most emphatically: THE REQUIREMENT OF LICENSES TO EXERCISE ANY RIGHT IS OFFENSIVE. How would you like to have to obtain a license to exercise your first amendment rights or to vote? Hmm?

Also in our cross hairs is the most egregious and harmful law with regard to the ability to defend against tyranny, which is the obscene National Firearms Act of 1934 most recently amended by the Oxymoronically-named Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986. This law closed off all new full auto sales to the public, artificially increasing the values of those weapons remaining that are transferrable.

Finally, if you REALLY want to understand us, I suggest reading Unintended Consequences by John Ross. It is now quite an expensive book and available in Hardcover only. I treasure my copy bought years ago.

v/r

I don't expect this "they make us all look bad" ivory tower sterile bee queen Thomas to  learn anything from a warrior explaining reality to him. Anyone who dismisses men who "guard with jealous attention the public liberty" as "silly" is most probably an ineducable fool, who will simply be astonished into paralysis the day his illusions come crashing down on him.

Do be sure and take his poll.