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Gun control and the Republican Party
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(Photo courtesy of Oleg Volk)
For years, supporters of the civil right of self-defense have relied on the Republican party (GOP) to protect the Second Amendment, but counting on one political party places your rights at risk every election.
In 2006, the GOP lost Congress, and in 2008 the White House. With traditionally anti-rights Democrats in control of two branches of government, it only takes a couple of Supreme Court vacancies to reverse Heller’s 5-4 decision that the Second Amendment acknowledges an individual right.
Therefore, it is up to the People to insure that our rights remain sacrosanct. To do this, we need both major parties to broadly support the right of self-defense.
The last two elections prove that the Republican Party is moribund, and for good reason. Here are two examples of issues the GOP must address in order to revitalize.
Perform as advertised
The GOP allegedly has a strong belief that government should be smaller, more accountable to the People, and fiscally responsible:
Republicans will uphold and defend our party’s core principles: Constrain the federal government to its legitimate constitutional functions. Let it empower people, while limiting its reach into their lives. Spend only what is necessary, and tax only to raise revenue for essential government functions.
When President Bush took office in 2000, the federal budget showed $236.2 billion surplus (with a Republican Congress until 2006). By 2002, the balance fell to a $157.8 billion deficit. This deficit remained for the duration of his presidency, ending in 2008 with an estimated $239.4 billion deficit. Between 2000 and 2008, the federal budget grew from $1.789 trillion to an estimated $2.902 trillion. If the budget grew only at the rate of inflation, it would have been $2.237 trillion, so that means an extra $665 billion was being spent annually when Bush left office, or about $2,000 a year for every U.S. citizen, and about $800 of that was deficit spending.
For the GOP to market itself as the party of smaller, more responsible government is a marketing myth that independent voters saw through in 2008.
Cherry-picking the Bill of Rights to promote political agenda
Under its Preserving Our Values section, the 2008 GOP platform states:
Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.
Many religions support this principle. The Catholic Church cites both religious doctrine and medical opinions to support the belief that a fertilized egg is the beginning of life. However, the Jewish religion considers life to begin at birth, and has its own set of medical experts supporting this belief. Muslims, like Catholics, believe that life begins at embryonic fertilization. Buddhism generally believes that abortion is “an act of killing,” but the BBC quotes the Dalai Lama:
If the unborn child will be retarded or if the birth will create serious problems for the parent, these are cases where there can be an exception. I think abortion should be approved or disapproved according to each circumstance.
While the GOP platform seeks to expand the Fourteenth Amendment to protect unborn children, it does not mention the First, which states:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. [Emphasis added]
The GOP purportedly supports the principles of republicanism where minorities are respected, as opposed to democracy where the majority rules. Without reconciling the abortion plank with the First Amendment’s protection of religious freedom, the GOP leaves itself vulnerable to continued allegations of being a collection of intolerant right-wing religious fundamentalists. This in turn will make fiscally conservative voters hesitant to join the party, even those who are not rabidly pro-abortion but believe that certain choices should be left to the individual, especially if a woman seeking abortion holds a certain religious belief.
Nor has promoting federal abortion laws been reconciled with the Tenth Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Many in the party have worked to define abortion as murder in order to fit it within Constitutional parameters, but conflicts with the Bill of Rights have not been reconciled.
On the other hand, a Tenth Amendment case could be made to de-federalize abortion by dismantling Roe v. Wade and separating the federal government from the abortion business. This in turn would enable states to pass their own abortion laws. If the success of marriage amendments are any indication, this would result in more abortion bans, limiting abortion more than trying to ram a federal ban down the body politic. Also, any federal law requires a bigger, more powerful federal government to enforce it, something again that the GOP claims to be against.
Bottom line: It doesn’t matter which party grows the government; the armed citizen is a threat to big government and will be eliminated via “sensible gun laws.”
The GOP needs to do some soul searching if it truly wants to win back Congress in 2010 and the White House in 2012.
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For in-depth analysis of tools to promote the right of self-defense, read Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn’t It Working?, which deconstructs the gun control agenda and motivates more people to support our civil right of self-defense.
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Atlanta: Carrying a firearm openly is not illegal in Georgia
- Austin: Violence Policy Center proves that more guns means less violent crime, murder
- Boston: The Educated Patriot: Domestic Enemies: The Reconquista
- Charlotte: Armed self-defense: Getting essential training
- Cleveland: Lying about gun control with statistics
- DC: Arming sailors on US flagged ships goes mainstream
- Denver: The new Prohibition
- Los Angeles: Gun rights on the air.
- Minneapolis: A great couple of days in the Midwest
- National: More 'gun control' won't stop drug war corruption and violence
- Seattle: Voting rights v. gun rights: Washington Post shows blind bigotry on guns
- St. Louis: NYC synagogue bomb plot: interesting choice of weapons
- Wisconsin: Gun rights advocates make progress
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self-defense ·
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