Gun Control: Two sides of an issue?

May 3, 1:44 PMLA Gun Rights ExaminerJohn Longenecker

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The Los Angeles Times printed a piece, Gun issues cloud L.A. city attorney's race. Ludicrous. How can there even be two sides to a civil right? It's as if there were two sides to who the sovereign are in this country. Wait a minute, there is a debate as to who is the sovereign. Too many servants believe it's merely an outdated value, and are right now quarreling with constituents.

That's what gun control and hatred of Independence are all about: who's in charge in this country. Too many servants are not fighting crime, they are fighting the sovereign. There is a debate where there should be none.

Nothing could settle the question of two Attorneys vying for City Attorney better than the repeal of all gun laws first, and leave all criminal prosecution for the violent actors who actually carry out murder, rape, shootings and mayhem, and stop worrying about who has what sort of weapon. In the end, does it really matter? When the servants go gunning for guns, you'd think the iron had its own volition. It's always guns, guns, guns and never criminal, criminal, criminal. A gun is not anatomically correct that somehow it has a brain and a will of its own to impose its wishes on anyone drawing too near. You can do your alien autopsy and prove it to yourself. Take any rifle or handgun and lay it out on the table. Dismantle it. No brain. Guns don't get up off the table or out of the gun cabinet and shoot, so it's sort of silly to restrict ownership of a handgun or rifle for the very people who are, as President Carter stated last week, not interested in shooting policemen and others.

So, what's the debate?

Public safety committee chairman Jack Weiss is running for Los Angeles City Attorney. He's anti gun, but he also sounds very anti-sovereign. How can one tell the difference? His proposal on the City Council was to keep guns out of the hands of certain people, but at this time, we already have laws against possession by prohibited persons. Prohibited persons is a gun ban for felons and others that doesn't work any better than any other gun ban has, and assuming that it somehow works is deadly. A lot of good it has done elsewhere, such as school shootings and Oakland and Florida shootings.

Also running for Los Angeles City Attorney is Carmen Trutanich, more of a liberty purist.

Some of the accusations are that Trutanich's law partner represents the NRA. The debate seems to be most revealing. Banning guns where guns are already banned versus advocating a civil right for those for whom there is no ban.

Last time America even looked at murder or negligence or prohibited persons obtaining any sort of weapon no matter what you do, it didn't really matter how the actor killed the decedent. Dead is dead. Whether by poison, torture or lying in wait, or by wanton disregard, malice aforethought, or in the commission of the five enumerated felonies, dead is dead; justice will not be served by linking legitimate gun ownership of some 80-90 million adults with the presumption of the man endangering state of mind beforehand. It betrays a poor understanding of the nature of the relationship between the sovereign and the servant. It breaks the law under color of enforcing the law. It puts a wrongful burden onto the citizen that is incompatible with liberty.

The Times reports how some have the mission of battling the NRA and how "..the NRA thwarts local efforts to reduce gun violence." Let me say it again and again: nobody battles the NRA for safety reasons, the NRA battles servants for civil rights and liberty reasons. Laws don't stop thugs, especially prohibited ones. It may catch them later and charge them, but it never stops them. Please help us to understand how vexing a civil right catches or stops criminals.

What pleases me is the reality check at the end of the article, quoting UCLA law professor Adam Winkler. Professor Winkler teaches a Second Amendment Course, and he described the suite of Weiss's four anti-gun proposals as "good policies," but predicted they would not "have a huge effect on gun crime."

No kidding.

"Local gun control," Winkler said, "is primarily a symbolic way for elected officials to show that they're doing something -- anything -- to stop crime."

Thank you, Professor, for your honesty. Only, symbolic ways don't stop anything. They do vex the law-abiding, though.

Meanwhile, here is a little something Professor Alan Dershowitz said some years ago: "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a public safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the constitution they don't like."

Still, these admissions impeach all gun control, of course. It does nothing to touch the violent, but gives the impression that it will transform the sacrifice of rights into safer streets. Has it?

Gun control and the further and further sacrifice of our rights do nothing for safer streets.

A City Attorney with integrity will.

There is no two sides as to who is the sovereign in this country.
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John Longenecker is author of Safe Streets In The Nationwide Concealed Carry Of Handguns. For added insight on liberty, independence and self-rule, please visit our other Examiners listed in the SIDEBAR on the right.>