While reading a few entries from Kevin over the past few days, I happened across an entry from 2004 where he lays out some history of arms in general and how the appearance of firearms changed everything. It was the first time in history where any individual right could be enforced by the individual himself.

More recently, Kevin also points to an episode of Bill Whittle’s “Stratosphere Lounge” where he talks about gun control and brings up the same point about history, that before guns, it was a brutal world for those who didn’t train, in pretty much all cases, all of their lives for combat. The gun, in essence, leveled the playing field.

Bill makes an excellent point that I had heard from a former coworker several years ago, but on the topic of the freedom to fly (as in actually piloting, as he had his pilot’s license). Both Bill and my former coworker made the point that we can argue until we are blue in the face about the benefits of private gun ownership, and hem and haw when our anti-liberty / pro-next-Holocaust enemies say things like “the sole purpose of a [evil gun of choice today] is to kill large numbers of people.” Why do we wimp out of the conversation and try to say, “no, no, guns have many other uses…”? Yeah, you can say, a) intent is not transferable, b) guns have many other uses, c) the intent is to stop the attack, but that unfortunately is most often not possible without killing the attacker, or d) any other myriad arguments about how, oh, no, guns really aren’t for killing.

Sigh

I want something designed to kill large numbers of people, to use as I see fit. Oh, does that sound monsterous to you? What, pray tell, makes you think that what “I see fit” isn’t going to be morally correct? The authors of our founding documents believed I could be trusted with the power of life and death in my hands. And I’m not just talking about the 2nd Amendment. Read the Federalist Papers. And this from Tenche Cox: “The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared to any possible army must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are these militia? [A]re they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American. . . . [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”

When the EBT cards don’t poop cash anymore; when the flat screen TVs don’t get fixed in Section 8 housing; and when the marauding mobs of moochers gather and start invading formerly quiet neighborhoods and throwing Molotov cocktails because they are not getting what’s due them in their 75 IQ brains, I want to be able to stop them before they burn my house down and my neighbors’ houses because I’m one of the 1% (and, no, I’m not, but you think that will matter when they see my reasonably medium sized house and nice, (if not 12 year old), car?) at the entrance to my street before they make it to my house. That would be legitimate self-defense, my friends. And the most efficient machine possible is my moral right in that, or any other situation where I would be in mortal danger.

Why do we wimp out so? Face it: what the invention of firearms did was forceably remove the monopoly of violence from the state. It didn’t not ask the state’s consent. It did not assuage the state official or the thug trained in a lifetime of violence (but I repeat myself) by saying, “oh, don’t worry, we won’t use our guns to kill you, even if you decide our proper fate is to be inserted into gas chambers or brick ovens.” It WRENCHED control of armed combat from a select few and placed into the hands of every individual with only a small amount of training. In relative terms, the firearm is easy to make, easy to learn to shoot accurately, and easy to deploy. There was no putting that genie back in the bottle. No matter what legislation was passed nor decrees issued. And before the firearm’s appearance, life was Hell on earth for anyone who did not train constantly for combat. The gun forced anyone who wanted someone else to do his bidding to reason with him.

We can engage in all the arguments we want. And, yes, many are useful to prevent the jack booted thugs who would like to disarm us from making life difficult for us by passing their new law of the day that somehow morally legitimatizes their murderous actions when we dare commit acts of freedom in defiance of those laws.

But the bottom line is that theories of rights, though interesting, do not matter here. The benefits of gun ownership do not matter either. Nor do constitutional matters and the history surrounding the construction of the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and other documents of our founding generation.

All that matters is that our answer is, “No.”

No.

Now it is for the anti-liberty / pro-next-Holocaust army to decide what that means. Take it to heart. Don’t do anything stupid. Because we mean it.

It is not a criminal threat to tell someone to stop the violence they are doing or planning or there will be violent resistance. How much blood do you want on your own hands? Because you will have to kill us, or try, because we can shoot back, in order to disarm us or even make it even the slightest bit more difficult to acquire the means of resistance to force.

No.

Think on that for a while.

In the words of Ayn Rand, “A gun is not argument.”

Stay Dangerous, My Friends.