Saturday Special. Gun Owners: The last line of defense against tyranny, or the first line?

March 7, 9:54 AMLA Gun Rights ExaminerJohn Longenecker

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A position taken by advocates of the private ownership of weapons includes liberty foundations and Congressmen, authors, and other purists that an armed citizenry is the population’s last line of defense against government tyranny. They believe the Founders shared that value, and mentioned often in the spirit of liberty and citizen authority. I doubt we will see an armed rebellion in the U.S., though; as a nation of self-rule, of course such a right is understood, and it is demonstrable throughout the writings of the Founders. It is part and parcel in how government derives its very authority purely from the consent of the governed, the supreme authority -- the Sovereign -- of America.

In his inaugural address, President Abraham Lincoln spoke of the right of the people to direct their government with force, if necessary, and that this would be true always. President Lincoln spoke of Tyranny we can relate to today.

In time of crisis, then, is there a safer way to maintaining crises of self-rule which can avoid the fears of so many? Yes, of course there is.

The idea of the armed citizen has always been to deter abuses of due process, and it is here that all liberty purists agree. Where they differ might be more along the lines of where and when.

Last Line Of Defense: I can understand how many gun owners believe that their being armed is the very last resort against tyranny, but the armed citizen plays a role in Liberty in this country on many different levels much beforehand.

Gun owners educate others. When one makes a decision to own a gun, it is not out of the blue, but purely consistent with a world view of being on our own and loving it. This is one of the greatest differences between the left and the right in this country, this idea of who takes better care of whom and thereby who rules. The Founders gave the gun owners of the future an assist when they declared at the nation’s inception that the citizen is supreme authority, and that it be cast in law and not subject to due process short of another amendment. In this way, anti-gun citizens have no due process power to disarm the rest of us, and neither does Congress. As I say often, there is no such thing as a sensible gun law. All gun laws are as illegal as ownership of others would be illegal, another Lincoln concept.

Another feature to understand is just what Tyranny is in 2009. Can there be Tyranny in the United States in 2009? Yes, of course. And the Government will not be the one to have the last word on what is Tyranny, the citizens will, because we are the Sovereign.

The First Line Of Defense: Avoiding confrontations is much more likely when Tyranny is recognized sooner in the life of a nation. Defining it, knowing it when you see it (or when you experience it) getting involved and staying involved in self-governance is one of the best steps citizens can always take. One example of where one recognizes Tyranny is in Gun Control based on the premise of fighting crime.

Another is how officials learn what they can get away with based on what they can get away with in gun control, regulation and confiscations.

What if most of the excuses for illegal crime-fighting programs [gun regulation, ammunition regulation etc.] were discredited by an armed citizenry? What if the armed citizenry made its worth so very obvious that no one would ever be so stupid as to think of disarming the citizens?

This was the paradigm generations ago... when people were on their own and demagogues didn’t really prevail. It would have been utterly silly. In many countries, the people are on their own or they die. Other countries face the same fate: they submit to government or they die. What’s the difference? In a free country, the people insist on being on their own, and overcome and defeat both starvation and tyranny. Where crime is used as an excuse to introduce more programs [gun control or anti-crime programs such as no-fault divorce, radical education content, erasure of U.S. History, zero-tolerance and other interferences with our national spirit] tyranny gets its foothold. Where the people are armed – and insist on being on their own – tyranny cannot get that foothold quite so easily.

The result of the armed citizen is that on many levels Americans are more independent from their servants, no matter how well-meaning they are.

I believe that the armed citizen is the ever present line of defense as the first line of defense against tyranny, the last line of defense, and everything in between. Defeat crime and worthless anti-crime programs and we’re on our way to being on our own more. Being on our own more and we’re on our way to greater independence from our servants.

Liberty.