This is something I wrote a while back as I mused on this very topic. My thoughts go to North Korea frequently, knowing we have precious family members of faith living there in critical danger every waking moment. Tyranny such as exists there is the result of defense failure, I believe men are designed to live in freedom, but that evil in the world will always oppose that.
The following was not written as a Christian piece, but a Christian combat vet wrote it.
So much more than Guns
When the Founding Fathers considered the elements of the constitution, they took a very long look at human history. What they saw was a pattern of tyranny and oppression that stretched back into the dark recesses of known civilizations, where most of their ancestors lived under the heavy hand of whatever governmental system held power. Freedom was scarce in those annals, and the Fathers were determined to design a system with the most potential to guarantee the freedom they desperately wanted for themselves and their progeny.
When the Second Amendment was crafted it was not just about the guns, but rather the recognition that governments gravitate toward tyranny. Freedom is scary to governors, and quite inconvenient. Freedom suggests that only reason can be used to persuade a man to do something, a free person has the option to either comply or refuse. Governmental officials hate that, and are irritated by those who do not just obediently fall in line.
The two ways I can get you to do something are reason and force. The Second Amendment was a way the founders saw to maintain a balance of force between the citizenry and the government, and reason was the currency. In like manner, the provisions of the bill of rights were all written in the negative, not telling the people what they must do but telling the government what it could not do. This was critical to the survival of a free society, but the constant pressure toward ordered tyranny demands an intense vigilance on the part of the governed. Given our reluctance to keep vigilance the current governmental departures from constitutional restraint should surprise no one.
The balance of reason and force underpins the Second Amendment. The founders knew the proclivity of government to descend to tyranny, but by keeping a fully armed citizenry that process might be held in check. Government would have to use reason and be accountable in order to secure citizen cooperation, or they would face a well-armed rebellion. It was not, as we were told years ago, a provision so that sportsmen could go hunting in the government regulated lands and seasons.
It seems the gun control issue comes up in full force whenever there is another mass shooting. Some clamor for either more restrictive gun laws or banning and confiscation altogether. We do not hear much demand that more citizens should move about with personal firepower as a deterrent to these crimes, for some reason conventional wisdom thinks it is better to let the shooters have their way until police are summoned to end the carnage. Anecdotal evidence disagrees, as the stories of concealed carry permit holders- citizens, have often brought a swift end to some of these murderous rampages. I maintain that those who think the removal of citizens' weapons will result in a safe and peaceful society, have not taken a long term historical perspective or considered the implications of what it would be like to live where only the government has guns. They are deluded if they think giving up their ability to defend themselves will make them safe.
But it goes deeper than that.
In such a society, the people and the government become natural enemies, and the strong will of necessity oppress the weak. Taxes will be whatever government decides, populations will endure whatever onerous regulations are placed upon them, and ultimately and only those who are productive will be granted permission to live. As for the elderly, the weak, the mentally challenged- well, there just won't be funds to provide care. Again, history has been here many times before and Obamacare isn't the first societal system with death panels. Any public resistance will be just noise in the streets, a roar without teeth to bite.
The debt accrued under this president has guaranteed a bleak future for America. There has been a massive theft that may have exceeded anything before in human history. From the poor he has stolen the potential to rise from poverty by showering them with toys and trinkets, a welfare mindset, and the idea that the rich are stealing from them. Mind-numbing nonsense.
From the middle class, the cash. Confiscatory taxes, mountains of regulations, the plundering of the value of their wealth. Trapped in payment hell, they have no where to go. In pursuit of the American dream, they are making payments on the American nightmare.
Maybe the worst is what he has stolen from the rich, the evil rich. These are the special members of a society driven to greatness, to invent and produce things that will bring to themselves wealth and prestige. Greedy? Maybe. But the nature of capitalism working in freedom has a built-in restraint, because competition limits anyone's ability to plunder. That's another issue. But what wealth minded people have lost is fiscal stability and regulatory restraint so that they can build their dreams and hire people to help make it happen. When governmental types define and demonize the ambitious calling it greed, they drive them away from the marketplace and they make other choices. Capitalism is a coward, running to wherever the freedom to grow is greatest. Some leave to work out their dreams in other countries, some abandon altogether, many "cash out" taking what they have accumulated and leaving employees to go job hunting. The desire to protect what they have overcomes the desire to create more. Business death settles in.
How do you even measure these losses? It is like a tiny bug that nestles in and fastens itself to a warm body and begins sucking the blood to live. The host knows it is there, but the effect is so minimal it just accepts the thing and learns to live with it. Then over time the parasite grows, taking ever more blood to keep itself going, and develops the attitude that it is more important than the host, and bigger, too.
Sound familiar? There are so many today who have come to love the parasite, railing in contempt at those who think the parasite should be much smaller. They cuddle the parasite, feeling the warmth of its body, not remembering that the warm blood inside the parasite came from them in the first place!
Back to the Second Amendment, it is my opinion that a governmental move to make the possession of firearms illegal will be a red line, and would result in a very serious rebellion that could completely alter the American way of life. An unarmed American population would quickly evaporate business and industry resulting in widespread joblessness and hunger on a scale never known within these borders. There is a reason the third world lives in perpetual poverty, the weak live at the whim of the strong, and the strong live at the whim of the stronger. No one risks to create business and wealth under these circumstances, because they have no way to defend it.
The Second Amendment is a hidden treasure that so far has allowed wide potential for wealth and the good life 300,000,000 people. May the citizens of the United States of America have the wisdom and clarity to recognize this, and keep it for generations to come.
