"Concept" or God-Given Right?

"It's time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense..."

These words were spoken by USAG Eric Holder during his address to the NAACP following the George Zimmerman verdict, and they vividly illustrate the mindset to which the leaders of the Danbury Baptists referred in their letter to then-President Thomas Jefferson:

"...and such had been our laws and usages, and such still     are; that religion is considered as the first object of legislation; and therefore what religious privileges we enjoy (as a minor part of the state) we enjoy as favors granted, and not as       inalienable rights; and these favors we receive at the            expense of such degrading acknowledgements as are           inconsistent with the rights of freemen. It is not to be             wondered at therefore; if those who seek after power and     gain under the pretense of government and religion should    reproach their fellow men--should reproach their order         magistrate, as a enemy of religion, law, and good order..."

In the views of such people, we have no inalienable rights; we have privileges that have been granted by a magnanimous government - privileges that are as easily taken away as given.   And as was acknowledged by the leaders of the Danbury Baptists, such a view is inconsistent with our status as FREEMEN.

Mr. Holder needs to reacquaint himself with the Bill of Rights.  Its name is exactly what it seems to be, a list of rights - HUMAN RIGHTS - granted as inalienable rights by the God who created us in His image.  The Second Amendment of the Constitution, as delineated by the Bill of Rights, provides for our defense against a government that has escaped the chains of the Constitution.

Frederic Bastiat, in his manuscript, The Law (Copyright © 2007 by the Ludwig von Mises Institute), explains it this way:

"It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws. What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together to extend, to organize a common force to provide regularly for this defense.

Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right..."

Collective rights are the corporate expression of God-given individual rights.  And as they are God-given, they reflect the very nature of God.  This is of the utmost importance, because, in reflecting the unchangeable nature of God (Malachi 3:6, "For I the Lord do not change..."), the rights themselves are also unchangeable - inalienable.  If, then, we collectively have the right to defend ourselves from our own government (as guaranteed by the Second Amendment), it follows that we have the individual right to defend ourselves from other individuals as well. 

Self-defense, then, is not a concept.  It is a God-given, inalienable right granted to us as the image bearers of God by virtue of the fact that we are created in His image.  In numerous verses throughout the scriptures, God tells us that He will defend His name and His character.  God has the right to His own defense; as image bearers, we share that right.

The right to self-defense is one of the foundational principles upon which our country was founded.  It is one of the chief differentiating factors that separates American law, with its protection of the rights of the individual, from British common law, which subjugates the rights of the individual to the rights and claims of the crown.  It is common law that delineates the so-called duty to retreat.  It is American law that upholds the right of the individual to stand his or her ground when they are where they have a legal right to be and they are committing no crime.

Concept?  No.

Inalienable, God-given RIGHT.

I support the goals outlined in this letter; I urge you to do the same.  Contact your legislators and urge THEM to oppose any legislation that would un-Constitutionally ban or limit ownership of firearms, accessories, or ammunition.

Open Letter to Members of Congress:

In coming weeks, you will face pressure from the Obama administration and others to implement a ban on semi-automatic firearms and certain ammunition feeding devices, and to pass laws requiring private gun transfers to be processed via the National Instant Check System.

Yet the “assault weapon” misnomer is a myth perpetuated by gun control advocates who seek to confuse the public about the difference between millions of semi-automatic firearms, which are functionally identical to hunting rifles, and military “assault rifles,” which are machine guns virtually unavailable to the public since implementation of the National Firearms Act of 1934.

The truth about modern rifles

The modern rifles Senator Dianne Feinstein has, by her own admission, waited decades to ban differ from others primarily by cosmetic features such as barrel shrouds, threaded barrels, flash suppressors, pistol grips and adjustable stocks – things which do not affect function. The notion being promulgated by gun control advocates that such features increase lethality by allowing guns to be “fired from the hip” is absurd: Any firearms expert will attest that rifles can only be effectively utilized from the shoulder.

Although you are being told that ammunition used by modern rifles is excessively destructive, in truth it is ballistically inferior to common .30-06 hunting ammunition and was selected by the military not for its lethality, but instead for light weight and low recoil.

And when you hear how “high capacity” magazines increase mortality in mass shootings, understand that Seung-Hui Cho carried no fewer than nineteen magazines for the Virginia Tech rampage, and that nearly all mass murderers who use guns carry multiple firearms, rendering magazine capacity moot. Like the misnomer “assault weapon,” the “high capacity” designation of more than ten rounds for magazines represents nothing more than an arbitrary limit set on devices which have been in common possession since the early Twentieth Century.

Moreover, attempts to process private gun sales through the National Instant Check System represent nothing less than a stepping stone to national gun registration; under the Clinton administration, the FBI retained NICS transaction records in violation of the Brady Act, creating a defacto national registration system.

Most outrageous, however, is Sen. Feinstein’s proposal to regulate “grandfathered” modern rifles under the National Firearms Act. Doing so would not only entail registering millions of existing firearms, but would represent unprecedented expansion of police powers through the BATFE by requiring millions of gun owners to be fingerprinted and photographed like common criminals. Because a large percentage will refuse to comply, the scheme, if implemented, will make felons of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Semi-auto ban: No impact on violence

Neither have such laws been effective. From 1994 to 2004, the previous ban on semi-automatic firearms and magazines had no impact on school shootings, which actually increased during that period. Indeed, some of the worst school shootings, including Columbine High School, took place during the ban.

Despite predictions from gun control advocates that violent crime would increase after the ban expired, it has actually dropped: According to FBI Uniform Crime Reports, between expiration of the ban in 2004 and the most recent for which data is available (2011), violent crime dropped by 17% and homicide, by 15%.

Meanwhile, weapons use in homicide has remained unchanged and, significantly, use of rifles (including those targeted for bans) declined slightly from 2.7% of homicides in 2004 to 2.5% of homicides in 2011. Clearly, rifles of any type, including those with features targeted by semi-auto bans, are rarely used in crimes.

‘Gun Free School Zones Act’ increased killings

What does appear to have impacted school shootings was implementation of the latest version of the “Gun Free School Zones Act” (GFSZA), which is associated with a dramatic increase in school murders.

Between the first significant school shooting, in 1966, and enactment of the 1996 GFSZA, media summaries reveal 8 shootings with 134 victims killed or wounded – a rate of 4.3 victims per year. Between 1996 and 2012, the review finds 62 shootings and 367 victims – a fivefold increase to 23 victims per year. Yet, during the same period, FBI Uniform Crime Reports indicate homicide nationwide dropped by 14%.

While media summaries may not be comprehensive, the GFSZA has clearly been an abject failure. 

Worse, evidence suggests it may actually create “kill zones” which attract violent predators.

Researchers John Lott and William Landes, then at Yale and the University of Chicago, respectively, studied multiple victim public shootings. Said Lott, “Gun prohibitionists concede that banning guns around schools has not quite worked as intended—but their response has been to call for more regulation of guns. Yet what might appear to be the most obvious policy may actually cost lives. When gun-control laws are passed, it is law- abiding citizens, not would-be criminals, who adhere to them.”  Examining data from 1976 to 1995, they discovered that mass homicides in states adopting concealed handgun laws declined by 84%, deaths plummeted by 90% and injuries by 82.5%. Crediting the reductions to deterrence (even suicidal maniacs avoid armed victims), Lott and Landes called their findings “dramatic,” concluding: “[T]he only policy factor to have a consistently significant influence on multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws.”

Coalition position

Members of the National Coalition to Stop the Gun Ban demand that Congress refuse to use lawful gun owners as political scapegoats and instead reduce school violence by:

•   Defeating any attempt to pass gun control including, but not limited to, banning semi-automatic firearms or magazines, or requiring private gun transfers to be registered through the National Instant Check System; and
  
•   Repealing the Gun Free School Zones Act of 1996. 
  

No ‘compromises’

Some will urge you to “compromise,” perhaps even the National Rifle Association. The many thousands of gun rights supporters represented by the Coalition, however, regard “compromise,” as our opposition defines it, to be a process in which we lose slightly fewer of our rights than under the original proposal. Consequently, any legislation which registers or bans firearms; limits magazine capacity; registers private transactions through NICS; or restricts time, place or manner of self-defense is unacceptable.

Members of Congress who support gun owners by opposing all gun control will, in turn, benefit from support by Coalition organizations. Members of Congress who support gun control by any means, procedural or substantive, will be targeted for defeat by Coalition members. They will be subject to picketing, leaflet drops at events in their districts, phone and mail campaigns, and political action committee opposition. NRA ratings and endorsements will have no impact on Coalition actions.
In coming weeks, we look forward to working with you to reduce school violence by allowing lawful citizens in schools and elsewhere to defend themselves against violent predators.

Respectfully,

The National Coalition to Stop the Gun Ban

Signatories

National Organizations:
The Firearms Coalition
Jeff Knox, Managing Director
Chris Knox, Director of Communications
Gun Owners of America
Larry D. Pratt, Executive Director
Rights Watch International
F. Paul Valone, Executive Director
Second Amendment Sisters
Marinelle Thompson, President
Lee Ann Tarducci, Director of Operations
USRKBA.org
Dave Yates, Co-founder Dave Van, Co-Founder

State-level organizations:
Arizona Citizens Defense League Dave Kopp, President

Arkansas Carry
Steve Jones, Chairman
Florida Carry, Inc.
Sean Caranna, Executive Director Richard Nascak, Executive Director
Grass Roots North Carolina F. Paul Valone, President
Gun Owners Civil Rights Alliance, Minnesota Joe Olson, President
Gun Owners of California
Sam Paredes, Executive Director
Gun Owners of Maine
Shane Belanger, Executive Director
Gun Owners of Utah
Charles Hardy, Public Policy Director
Gun Owners of Vermont
Gary Cutler, Legislative Director
Michigan Gun Owners Jeff LaFave, President

Montana Shooting Sports Association Gary Marbut, President

New Hampshire Firearms Coalition Jonathan R. Evans, Esq, President
New Jersey 2nd Amendment Society Frank Flamingo, President
Nebraska Firearms Owners Association Wesley Dickinson, President
Oregon Firearms Federation Kevin Starrett, Executive Director
Peaceable Texans for Firearms Rights Paul Velte, President
Virginia Citizens Defense League Philip Van Cleave, President
West Virginia Citizens Defense League Keith Morgan, President
Western Missouri Shooters Alliance Kevin Jamison, Press Officer
Wisconsin Carry, Inc Nik Clark, Chairman/President 

An Open Letter To Michigan Governor Rick Snyder...

Gov. Rick Snyder

Michigan State Capitol

Lansing, MI

Sir,

Today has been a trying day for many, especially the families of those killed and wounded in Newtown, CT.  Our sympathy and prayers go out to them and for them.

But make no mistake, at the end of the day there is no equivalency between SB 59 and what happened in Newtown.

What happened in Newtown is about a person who lost touch with reality, killed his mother, stole her firearms, and then took out his rage on defenseless children and school faculty.  None of the more than 20,000 laws on the books nationwide regulating firearms and their users could have prevented that.

But the deaths of so many children and teachers was preventable.

You see, until 1990, as a nation we averaged about one firearm-related school attack a year, going back fifty years or more.  But in 1990, something changed.

We passed the federal Gun Free School Zones Act (GFSZA).

I am not so naive as to believe that this is the ONLY consideration, but the GFSZA, by declaring schools to be completely gun free, had an unintended effect: it left everyone in schools defenseless against a determined attack.  Since 1990, there have been 225 firearm-related incidents at school nationally, resulting in more than 700 casualties (deaths/ injuries/hostages); 183 of those attacks have occurred since the 1999 Columbine attack.  By completely disarming faculty and staff, the GFSZA guaranteed the highest concentrations of defenseless, soft targets available to someone out for blood.

Something else has happened in those intervening years: numbers of law enforcement officers have declined, resulting in longer response times when such incidents occur.  Grand Rapids, MI, has seen serious reductions in our law enforcement numbers; we are about to lose seventeen more officers, and most of those who are retained will be re-deployed to night hours.  You can imagine what this will do to a daytime emergency response time, which now stands at 18-20 minutes per the Crime Prevention Office of the GRPD.  Detroit’s 911 response time is well in excess of twenty minutes.

How does this affect the outcome of an active shooter incident?

According to a report written by former Kalamazoo news reporter, Brendan Keefe (now in Cincinnati, OH), entitled “When Seconds Count: Stopping Active Killers,” a report based on the conclusions drawn in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting, observed, “Based on the Virginia Tech data, experts determined the first officer on scene should make entry immediately with an aggressive attack on the shooter. Every minute the officer waits for back-up, another three or more people could die.”  That’s while the officer is waiting for backup.  How many victims died while waiting for officers to respond to the 911 call in the first place?  This is the problem inherent in an approach that is based on sheltering in place and waiting for law enforcement to respond.  And that is what they discovered in Connecticut today - every minute it took for officers to respond resulted in more dead and wounded.  By the time officers arrived on scene and finally effected an entry, nearly all of the fatalities had already occurred - eighteen children dead, two others wounded who would die at the hospital, and nine adults killed, including the gunman, who killed himself.  It was said in an interview with the commander of the Newtown Police that officers responding to the scene “rescued” many children and adults.  While I do not mean to take anything away from the officers, the sad fact is that they “rescued” no one.  “Rescued” would indicate that they encountered the gunman as he carried out his attack, interposed themselves, and neutralized him.  This was not the case.  It is more accurate to say that officers escorted the survivors out of the building.  Killings that could potentially have been prevented occurred because no one inside the building was allowed to exercise their right to self defense.  As Frederic Bastiat observed in his treatise, The Law, self defense is the most basic of all rights: “Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person...” (Frederic Bastiat, The Law, first published in 1850, copyright 2007, Ludwig von Mises Institute, Alabama).

It is said that nature abhors a vacuum.  In this context, that means that the drawdown of law enforcement must be counterbalanced in some other way - and that is where SB 59 becomes so critical.

SB 59 gives responsible adults on the scene the ability to protect themselves AND those for whom they are responsible, whether those are family members, children in a school, or co-workers.  These are people who have already proven themselves, who have been background checked, taught and tested, who typically spend more hours on the range becoming familiar with their firearms than most law enforcement officers.  These are people who deal with trying situations and people on a daily basis in areas other than pistol free zones without ever drawing a firearm - or even threatening the use of one.  Why people believe that the moment one of these citizens steps into a school, all of that restraint and judiciousness will suddenly disappear continues to mystify me.  They have proven themselves.

Many of those who oppose this measure will insist that merely posting signs is an adequate deterrent.  As I have already indicated, referring to the utter failure of the GFSZA to accomplish its stated goal, this also fails the test of reason.

The same report authored by Mr. Keefe referred to yet another discovery made in the wake of the Virginia Tech shooting:

“The other statistic that emerged from a study of active killers is that they almost exclusively seek out "gun free" zones for their attacks.  In most states, concealed handguns are prohibited at schools and on college campuses even for those with permits.  Many malls and workplaces also place signs at their entrances prohibiting firearms on the premises.  Now tacticians believe the signs themselves may be an invitation to the active killers.  The psychological profile of a mass murderer indicates he is looking to inflict the most casualties as quickly as possible.

Also, the data show most active killers have no intention of surviving the event. They may select schools and shopping malls because of the large number of defenseless victims and the virtual guarantee no on the scene one is armed. As soon as they're confronted by any armed resistance, the shooters typically turn the gun on themselves.”

Simply stated, posting a property guarantees nothing.  Signs, like locks on doors, prevent nothing when the attacker is determined to inflict harm

In closing, I would like to leave you with a though expressed in 1764 by Cesare Bonesana, the Marchese Beccaria, in his manuscript entitled, Of Crimes and Punishments (Originally published in Italian in 1764, Translated from the French by Edward D. Ingraham. Second American edition.  Philadelphia (No. 175, Chesnut St.): Published by Philip H. Nicklin: A. Walker, printer, 24, Arch St., 1819.):

“A principal source of errors and injustice are false ideas of utility. For example: that legislator has false ideas of utility who considers particular more than general conveniencies, who had rather command the sentiments of mankind than excite them, and dares say to reason, `Be thou a slave'; who would sacrifice a thousand real advantages to the fear of an imaginary or trifling inconvenience; who would deprive men of the use of fire for fear of their being burnt, and of water for fear of their being drowned; and who knows of no means of preventing evil but by destroying it.

The laws of this nature are those which forbid to wear arms, disarming those only who are not disposed to commit the crime which the laws mean to prevent. Can it be supposed, that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, and the most important of the code, will respect the less considerable and arbitrary injunctions, the violation of which is so easy, and of so little comparative importance? Does not the execution of this law deprive the subject of that personal liberty, so dear to mankind and to the wise legislator? and does it not subject the innocent to all the disagreeable circumstances that should only fall on the guilty?  It certainly makes the situation of the assaulted worse, and of the assailants better, and rather encourages than prevents murder, as it requires less courage to attack unarmed than armed persons.” (bold added)

Mr. Governor, we can be proactive and restore the individual’s right to protect himself, or we can continue to wait for police to arrive on scene and count bodies later.  We may not be able to completely prevent every situation such as the one that took place in Newtown; at the very least, restoring the right to self defense gives us the ability to prevent incidents of such magnitude from happening.  

I urge you to follow through on your promise to sign this legislation; restore our right to defend ourselves - wherever we may happen to be.

Sincerely,

The Second Amendment and Business Owners....

The Bill of Rights protects certain - wait for it -  RIGHTS.  Non-negotiable, so-called inalienable rights.  Natural rights, not legislated privileges.  They are:

First Amendment – Establishment Clause, Free Exercise Clause; freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly; right to petition.

Second Amendment – Militia, Sovereign state, Right to keep and bear arms.

Third Amendment – Protection from quartering of troops in peacetime.

Fourth Amendment – Protection from unreasonable search and seizure.

Fifth Amendment – Due process, protection from double jeopardy, self-incrimination, eminent domain.

Sixth Amendment – Criminal trial by jury and rights of the accused; Confrontation Clause, speedy trial, public trial, right to counsel.

Seventh Amendment – Civil trial by jury.

Eighth Amendment – Prohibition of excessive bail and cruel and unusual punishment.

Ninth Amendment – Protection of rights not specifically delegated to Congress in the Constitution.

Tenth Amendment – Powers of States and people.

In today's political climate, however, all too many politicians and citizens have taken the attitude expressed by Capt. Barbosa in the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie:  "...the code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules.”

This attitude is nowhere as evident as when discussing the rights of business owners and the rights of those who carry firearms - employees and clients - in accordance with the provisions of the Second Amendment.

We frequently see and hear remarks like the following: "I would be upset if the government tried to tell me how to run my business..." 

The fact of the matter is that the government ALREADY tells one how to run their business - in ways that are at-odds with the Constitutional protections afforded private citizens on property that is truly private. It requires business entities to construct bathrooms a certain way. It specifies how many handicap parking spaces one must provide. It requires one to allow service animals (even in a restaurant), and prohibits one from discriminating in hiring - meaning that one can be forced in some instances to hire people with whom one might not normally associate in a truly private setting where the Constitutional right of association (First Amendment) is protected. Additionally, business entities may not discriminate against customers based on race, ethnicity, religion, etc. - people with whom a private citizen might not choose to associate in the privacy of their home.  These laws serve to protect the civil rights of employees and clients. 

In short, civil rights, which the Bill of Rights establishes (including the civil right to bear arms), have been legally elevated above the rights of business entities. 

Of all of the rights specified in the Bill of Rights, the Second Amendment exists to insure that other rights - including property rights - are secure. One must be able to defend that which belongs to one's self.  Without a means of defense, all other rights - including property rights - are vulnerable.  In other words, the right to own property exists only insofar as one is able to DEFEND that property.  This includes the right to defend that property which is most precious to every person, their own body.  As was observed by Bastiat in his work, The Law:

"Man can only derive life and enjoyment from a perpetual search and appropriation; that is, from a perpetual application of his faculties to objects, or from labor. This is the origin of property. But also he may live and enjoy, by seizing and appropriating the productions of the faculties of his fellow men. This is the origin of plunder. When does plunder cease, then? When it becomes more burdensome and more dangerous than labor.....God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and that cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?...every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property."

The right to protect one’s body does not end at the doorway of a business, whether entering as an employee or a client.

The absolute necessity of the Second Amendment is found in the terminology contained therein.

The Second Amendment states, “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.”  As used in a legal context, as is the case in the Second Amendment, the phrase "shall not" indicates that the provision is non-negotiable; absolute; mandatory. When legislators wish to convey the unconditional, mandatory nature of a law, they insert the phrases "shall" or "shall not". NO ONE has the authority to abridge the practice of the right delineated in the Second Amendment - "...shall not be abridged." This is an absolute statement. Congressional acts restricting the right guaranteed in the Second Amendment using the Commerce Clause of the Constitution (using the Constitution against itself) are in violation of protections explicitly stated in the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights [i.e. congressional authority], shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The Second Amendment right to bear arms is one of the rights "retained by the people." And there is that pesky legal phrase again: "shall not". The Bill of Rights is not a smorgasbord from which we choose which rights we will protect.   One may choose not to practice a right, but that choice not to practice rights guaranteed in the Constitution in no way infringes on or negates the practice of Constitutionally-protected rights by others.

While business owners (this author has been in that position himself) might wish to argue that their business is private property in the same way as their home, there are an overwhelming variety of laws governing business entities that say otherwise.  As has been observed previously, those laws exist to protect the civil rights - the rights preserved in the Bill of Rights - of employees and clients.  Business entities, places of public accommodation, do not enjoy the same level of Constitutional protection as that afforded to individual citizens. While that may be hard for some to swallow, even a cursory look at US business and civil rights law will bear this out.