Let’s start with a story or two. Running up to the 2012 election, a very liberal woman whom I’ve known for a long time said something had to be done about all those nasty guns that kill people.
I told her that if she and her fellow Democrats don’t like the Second Amendment, they should work to have it repealed. She didn’t like that idea because “That takes too long,” she said.
Jump ahead four years and Donald Trump is elected president. During the first conversation this woman and I had after Trump’s victory, she said “I’m getting a gun because nobody’s gonna put me in a boxcar.”
That was her emotional reaction reflecting fear but, ironically, she had just hit upon the real reason for the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms. It guarantees the ability of individuals to stand up against a repressive government.
(After Joe Biden was elected in 2020, that woman returned to her call to ban AR-15s.)
Liberal Democrats aren’t the only ones who don’t understand the meaning of the right to keep and bear arms. Republican politicians don’t necessarily get it either. When talking about red flag laws, then-President Trump said he’d like to take the guns away first, then go to court. So much for his dedication to due process. Democrats feel the same way.
Even closer to home: In 2022, I asked candidates from both old parties how they felt about constitutional carry — the ability to carry firearms without a concealed carry permit so long as the owner passes a background check to own a firearm. A Republican running for the state house said, “I’m a firm believer in the Second Amendment, but you need a permit.”
A month later I asked the same of an incumbent Democrat state rep. He responded the same way.
So much for their understanding of the concept of rights. If it’s a right, you don’t need a permission slip. Some people don’t want to accept that fact.
That brings us up to the state representative candidacy of Elizabeth Moro who’s challenging incumbent Republican Craig Williams to represent the 160th Legislative District.
Moro said during a recent campaign event that she’s calling to make homemade guns and bump stocks illegal. But she also said in part: “We’re not against the Second Amendment. We are for the Second Amendment... No one’s trying to take away guns; it’s just trying to curtail the violence by creating responsible legislation.”
That might make sense to some, but only superficially, and only if they don’t look below the surface.
Let’s take her at her word, that there’s no intention on her part to deprive people of a constitutionally guaranteed right. There’s still a problem. What if the next batch of politicians do want a disarmed populace?
In the 1920s, Germany’s economy was in shambles. Communists and fascists were fighting one another, shooting each other in the streets. So, the Weimar Republic came up with a “sensible” approach. In 1928, it mandated that everyone who owned a firearm register that weapon. And so, the law-abiding gun owners registered their firearms.
But when the Nazis came to power in the 1930s under Hitler, they went to those registration records and took the guns away from anyone they didn’t like, political opponents and those whose religion was disfavored. We know how that turned out. People disallowed from owning guns were put into boxcars and sent to concentration camps.
There’s today, in New Zealand. The government there is taking firearms away from people because of a political philosophy that governments don’t like. So far, 62 people have had their firearms confiscated because the owners are part of a Sovereign Citizens movement. Those people hadn’t committed any crime, they just deny the legitimacy of the government and claim to live under common law. Governments don’t like that.
Bad things happen when people are not allowed to be armed. As R.J. Rummel wrote in “Death by Government,” an estimated 169 million people were killed by their own governments during the 20th century. He wasn’t talking about wars or punishments for capital crimes. He was writing about genocides and subjugations, about mass murders and deliberate starvations. All that against people who were not permitted to own the means of fighting back against government injustice.
How many people really believe that politicians here would stop simply by only outlawing bump stocks, homemade firearms, and large-capacity magazines? The naïve will believe that. So will the intentionally ignorant, but not those who have any knowledge of history.
There’s always some sort of mission creep. Consider the income tax. When that was established in 1913, the maximum tax rate was 7 percent, and that was only for people earning $500,000 or more per year. (I doubt anyone would be complaining about a maximum 7 percent tax rate these days.) And the withholding of taxes from paychecks was sold to the American public as a “temporary war measure” during WWII.
Some of the people calling for various degrees of “sensible gun laws” are genuinely sincere and have well-meaning intentions to curb violence. But, as is said, “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.”
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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