If I Were Dictator (Part 24)

Posted on Tue 07/19/2011 by marlin6

By Marlin6

On 02/05/2008, I authored a post “Benevolent Dictators Make Good Government”. Examples are King David – Israel – (1010 BC –970 B.C.) in ancient times and General Douglas McArthur – Japan – (1945 –1947) in modern times. I started musing about what I would do if I were absolute dictator of the United States to fast track our country back to a position of greatness and prosperity. Therefore I am submitting a series of posts to PA Pundits (many controversial) about how I would provide solutions to the major issues facing our nation.

GUNS

I would issue an order that the Second Amendment to the Constitution, as written by our nation’s founding fathers:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed

This means exactly what iy says, and that no court or political body will have a right to interpret it other than “the people” means individual citizens.

Here is what the founders had to say about guns:

James Madison, the author of the Second Amendment, praised “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost any nation.”

Thomas Jefferson – “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” “The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

Samuel Adams – The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

Alexander Hamilton – If circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights and those of their fellow citizens.

Patrick Henry – The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.

George Mason – To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.

Justice Joseph Story – Consider the right to keep and bear arms “the palladium of the liberties of the republic,” which enables the citizenry to deter tyranny.

James Madison – “The advantage of being armed, the Americans possess over the people of all other nations. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several Kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

Noah Webster – “Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every Kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power.”

Benjamin Franklin – Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Richard Henry Lee, Senator – “A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves, and include all men capable of bearing arms.”

A look at the history of gun control confirms their insight. In 1911, Turkey established gun control; 1.5 million Armenians, unable to defend themselves, were exterminated. In 1929, the Soviet Union established gun control; more than 20 million dissidents were annihilated. In 1935, China established gun control and 20 million political dissidents were slaughtered. In 1938, Germany established gun control; 13 million Jews and others were killed. In 1956, Cambodia established gun control; 1 million people exterminated. In 1964, Guatemala established gun control; 100,000 Mayan Indians were killed. In 1970, Uganda established gun control; 300,000 Christians were slaughtered.

Violent crime has increased in Australia, Canada, and Great Britain following adoption of legislation restricting firearms. Contrast this with the fact that gun ownership of U.S. citizens is at an all-time high, and “right to carry” laws have been implemented in 40 states. Violent crimes have fallen dramatically. The most flagrant exception to this trend is in Washington, D.C., the murder capital of the U.S., and New York City, where you have the most restrictive gun control laws in the country.

Here is what other prominent historic figures had to say about guns:

Winston Churchill – If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory can be sure and not too costly, you may come to a moment when you have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance to survive. There may be a worse case – you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, and it will be better to perish than live in slavery.

Mao Tse-Tung – “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

Joseph Stalin – “If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves. Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?”

Adolf Hitler – “The most foolish mistake we could make would be to allow the subject peoples to possess arms. So let’s not have any talk about native militias.”

Anonymous – “Which gun control laws helped save Jewish lives during the Holocaust?”

H. L. Mencken – The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

Yoshumi Ishakawa, Japanese Author – Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don’t have a gun, freedom of speech has no power.

John R Lott, School of Law, University of Chicago – Using cross-sectional time-series data for U.S. Counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes and it appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths. If those states that did not have right-to-carry concealed gun provisions had adopted them in 1992, approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, and over 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided yearly. Prior to the Supreme Court’s 2008 decision in District of Columbia vs. Heller, the courts had yet to definitively state what right the Second Amendment protected. The opposing theories, perhaps oversimplified, were (1) an “individual rights” approach, whereby the Amendment protected individuals’ rights to firearm ownership, possession, and transportation; and (2) a “states’ rights” approach, under which the Amendment only protected the right to keep and bear arms in connection with organized state militia units. Moreover, it was generally believed that the Amendment was only a bar to federal action, not to state or municipal restraints.

The Supreme Court has now definitively held that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that weapon for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home. Moreover, this right applies not just to the federal government, but to states and municipalities as well. In Heller, the Court held that (1) the District of Columbia’s total ban on handgun possession in the home amounted to a prohibition on an entire class of “arms” that Americans overwhelmingly chose for the lawful purpose of self-defense, and thus violated the Second Amendment; and (2) the District’s requirement that any lawful firearm in the home be disassembled or bound by a trigger lock also violated the Second Amendment, because the law made it impossible for citizens to use arms for the core lawful purpose of self-defense. The Court reasoned that the Amendment’s prefatory clause, i.e., “a well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,” announced the Amendment’s purpose, but did not limit or expand the scope of the operative clause, i.e., “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Moreover, the prefatory clause’s history comported with the Court’s interpretation, because the prefatory clause stemmed from the Anti-Federalists’ concern that the federal government would disarm the people in order to disable the citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule.

It’s everyone’s nightmare. An armed gunman intrudes in what had seemed a safe environment and suddenly you’re in a battle zone. Even churches have been attacked by criminals and terrorists in recent years. One man, Charl Van Wyk, has not only experienced such a scenario firsthand, but shot back against terrorists and defended friends and family in his church. He makes a biblical, Christian case for individuals arming themselves, and does so persuasively. “Grenades were exploding in flashes of light. Pews shattered under the blasts, sending splinters flying through the air,” he recalls of the July 25, 1993, St. James Church Massacre. “An automatic assault rifle was being fired and was fast ripping the pews – and whoever, whatever was in its trajectory – to pieces. We were being attacked!” But he was not defenseless that day. Had he been unarmed like the other congregants, the slaughter would have been much worse.” Instinctively, I knelt down behind the bench in front of me and pulled out my .38 special snub-nosed revolver, that I always carried with me,” he writes. “I would have felt undressed without it. Many people could not understand why I would carry a firearm into a church service, but I argued that this was a particularly dangerous time in South Africa.” During that Sunday evening service, the terrorists, wielding AK-47s and grenades, killed 11 and wounded 58, but one man – Charl Van Wyk – fired back, wounding one of the attackers and driving the others away.
Here is what the anti-gun people have to say about guns.

Pete Sheilds, Chairman, Handgun Control, Inc. – “We’re going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily, given the political realities, going to be very modest. So then we’ll have to start working again to strengthen the law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. Right now, though, we’d be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice. Our ultimate goal, total control of handguns in the United States, is going to take time. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of guns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition – except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors – totally illegal.”

Sarah Brady, Handgun Control, Inc. – “Our main agenda is to have all guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It does not matter if you have to distort facts or even lie.”

In the words of Dr. Peter Hammond, “Just as criminals prefer unarmed victims, tyrants prefer disarmed citizens. A government that does not trust its citizens with weapons cannot be trusted with power.” President Obama apparently understands this concept, and has been quietly making a few arrangements that will make it much more difficult and expensive to purchase firearms and ammunition. If you don’t already own a gun and plenty of ammo, Mr. Obama’s plans will likely affect you. Every year, the federal government buys massive amounts of ammunition, primarily to meet the needs of the military. For years, the government has been recouping part of its ammunition expenses by reselling the used casings for remanufacturing The Obama administration is changing the rules on re-selling used bullet casings. From now on, they cannot be sold for remanufacturing, but rather must be liquidated at scrap value.

Norway is the land of my ancestors. They have 4,400,000 people and one of the lowest per capita crime rates in the world in all categories. The answers seem to be personal responsibility and laws to severely punish criminals. At age eighteen, all able-bodied men are required to serve 2 years active duty, followed by 20 years in the reserves. At the end of the two years, each man is given a fully automatic 9 mm rifle to take home and keep for life. When the Nazis invaded Norway in World War II, the first thing they did was go door to door and confiscate all guns. They found very few, because most had been buried. Many were badly rusted, but they allowed the resistance to kill Germans. The Nazis had a 10 for 1 edict, so when a German officer was killed, they would line up 10 Norwegian men and shoot them in front of their families. Norwegians vowed never to be occupied again, so now virtually every household has an automatic rifle. They truly understand that “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

(marlindictator)