There’s No Such Thing As Sensible Gun Laws: Part 2

A Friendly Open Letter To The New 2007 Congress:

January 01, 2007

By John Longenecker

Before I get to the letter:

Many non-gun owners do not know this, but nearly all states of the union favor and support concealed carry of weapons. For decades, officials there have not regretted cooperating with constituents on the subject. Alaska and Vermont require no permit at all to carry a handgun. But nationwide, this coverage is spotty at best and could use a helpful boost from Congress on certain bills under consideration at any one time. Those bills involve nationwide concealed carry of weapons as a moral imperative and pragmatic essential.

And that’s precisely what this is all about. Officials may not allow or disallow citizens to carry weapons – the official duty of any office is to protect the rights of citizens, and not have an opposing opinion on any single right as if some latitude or discretion were allowed, and in the right-to-carry states, that respect for the entire Bill Of Rights is very much in force and certainly appreciated. The ultimate respect for the sovereign citizen on this subject would be a nationwide repeal of all gun laws.

Though the subject of gun control has been more from the Left than the Right, I appreciate how many Democrats and representatives-elect are pro-gun - not pro-hunting, but pro-gun - and therefore truly pro-liberty. In their hearts, they are pro-family this way as liberty enthusiasts are, and I welcome them. My thanks and appreciation to all members of Congress who see and support the connection between personal weapons, liberty and household. Congratulations on your wins. With such people in office, we all win.

For the non-gun owner and for officials, here are some germane reasons to revisit the subject of gun legislation for the sovereignty of the American home and community in its planning on how to meet violence as a societal plague that seems intractable. It is not intractable.

My second reason for writing this open letter to Congress is in answer to many editorial pieces including some legal opinions taking a stand against liberty, whether they fully realize it or not. In the name of anti-violence, many activists strive for unattainable Utopian goals – e.g. a violence-free city – and at the expense of liberty. Compelling and coercing fellow sovereign Americans to surrender is fundamentally wrong, certainly constitutionally wrong, and the objective utterly impossible. A friendly clarification is needed for all.

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Honorable Members Of Congress:

No matter where you stand on the political spectrum, we might agree as one nation on one thing: that one of the greatest objections and apprehensions of a free nation’s people is the official assumption of powers not granted. It is not that our United States Government is bad – it is that assumption of powers not granted happens in all governments, and ours is no different. [It even has the half-serious name of Potomac Fever – that condition of officials’ not living with the realities constituents must live with.]

Let’s take a friendly look at a few truths which I have come to believe many citizens and some officials of both parties do not remember. This would include some Governors, I hasten to add. Many representatives of both parties already know these, thankfully, and I appreciate you for it.

1. In short, the Second Amendment was written to be two things; first, as the safeguard of the sovereignty of the individual as supreme under our system, the rights enumerated by the new Constitution were to be backed by civilian force and civilian force forever. The concept of Military in any form of construction, such as the argument that Militia excludes private individuals and therefore the citizen’s immediacy in time of violence, is trumped by the doctrine of such Civilian Control. Civilian oversight is the ultimate authority under our system, and is not collective, but individual.

Individuals have rights, government does not, which further negates the collective argument. [In August, 2004, the DOJ found the right to keep and bear arms, like the entire Bill of Rights, to be individual and not collective. All rights are individual and not collective.]

The Constitution was not written for individuals, but for government. Rights were not granted by the Constitution, but are recognized by it, and the Document did not empower Government as much as set limits on government.

As such, the Second Amendment is the primary indicator of the overall health of all of our rights – the prevention of the assumption of powers not granted.

Second, the Second Amendment was written to be impervious to ordinary due process short of another amendment so that it could not be infringed by political argument or other sway to push aside the lawful resistance to looting of the nation or any other motive.

Today, violence is argued as a necessity to remove guns from society – an example of such foreseen political sway. But where the individual is and always will be the first line of defense in meeting violent crime, the truth that emerges is that freedom can protect itself. Government’s duty in protecting the nation lies elsewhere.

I encourage the new Congress to remember how gun laws have never stopped crime, and how gun laws merely criminalize more honest citizens for nothing, nearly all of whom are constituents of elected officials. I call attention to the unreasonableness of gun laws in light of how such punishments injure constituents and our communities by abuse of process within our system – the very abuse to be prevented by the language of the Second Amendment.

Ladies and Gentlemen of Congress, by definition, anti-gun groups meeting with representatives have no redeeming purpose in interfering with such values, such groups have no right to any sway against personal sovereignty and personal authority in time of violence, nor do they or anyone have legal standing to dissolve a civil right. No matter how persuasive gun control may sound and no matter what its intentions, it is against the sovereignty of the innocent citizen. As such, no majority could legally ever sway infringment into gun control because of the Second Amendment’s support in other amendments, and the language of the Document that the right is among the inalienable.

Representatives, therefore, should not hear anti-gun interest groups any more than one could give audience to a group which wants to legalize lynching or censorship.

2. Under our system – and many representatives of both parties do not know this – law enforcement has no duty to protect individuals, your constituents. Since the inception of an organized police force in the middle 1800’s and the emergence of various highly trained agencies, it has never been the mission of such agencies to protect individuals per se.

Case after case litigated on behalf of aggrieved citizens for failure to protect has been met with court findings of no constitutional right to police protection, including enforcement of restraining orders. In short, during the most critical moments of a violent act, the individual is on his own, and it is wrong to interfere in any way with one’s right to use up to lethal force to protect himself or another when facing grave danger alone.

The truth that police have no duty to protect individuals leaves a horrible and obvious void in the logic of disarmament as a means of stopping violence.

American law already addresses excessive force and other reasonable non-gun laws of behavior and not the weapon itself, but pre-emptive, anticipatory control is not reasonable, and has intruded to swing far to the extreme in before-the-fact disarmament of honest citizens and to the detriment of the nation. Such unreasonable laws in fact grow crime.

In 2005 and 2006, many states have enacted Stand Your Ground laws in official appreciation of these values – that the individual is the first line of defense, that the citizen is in more than sufficient authority, and that police have no such duty to protect them. [See Stand Your Ground laws search terms.] Those officials have essentially stated that freedom can protect itself under the sovereign authority of the individual citizen and that the individual is in fact an average reasonable person who is entitled to the full respect of that legal doctrine.

It is my surmise that gun control is tortious interference with person and property.

I respectfully call upon the new Congress to revisit gun laws and policy with a view toward recognizing the supreme authority of the individual in our system. This would mean the repeal of all gun laws – or the clear statement that the individual citizen is not the supreme authority.

[Meanwhile, Ladies and Gentlemen, please have your staff Google Internet search terms: police have no duty to protect individuals for further information.]

The subject is now in a different light: people of conscience, special interest groups and people of sworn duty may not interfere with personal weapons, personal authority and personal independence irrespective of the motive. In time of the violence which plagues our people, no one can take the citizen’s place as the first line of defense. No official can say how harmless anti-gun legislation is when it is the prerogative of the individual reasonable citizen to say.

I am very pleased to note that many representatives-elect are pro-family on this subject and view the topic as such. My praise to members of both parties for that. Thank you very much. Thank you for your service.

As a whole noble body, the incoming Congress must think of what anti-gun laws have been doing to loyal constituents, to families. Such laws interfere with the citizen’s right to act in his own defense when needed most, when he or she is – in fact – the only legal authority on scene.

The incoming Congress must have conscience. Irrespective of good intentions, it is wrong to write legislation which disarms the citizen who does not commit violence and places him or her at the mercy of those who do. With both parties possessed of conscience, I believe the time is right to straightforwardly ask this of Congress: Repeal all gun laws.

The incoming Congress must know that violent repeat felons are not usually registered voters, and that their advocates are often working against the interests of the nation herself.

The incoming Congress must understand how restrictions on the law-abiding have proven to be utter disaster for the innocent and have served only to make crime safer for the predators. And further, Congress must understand now how anti-violence groups mislead Congress in giving testimony of how police are opposed to private carrying of weapons or that police are somehow endangered by private ownership: please see ,b>the Eighteenth Annual National Survey Of Police Chiefs and Sheriffs, 2006 at www.aphf.org/survey.html

Other exhibits elsewhere discredit the anti-gun argument further.

Restrictions on personal weapons must stop. For these two reasons alone, America must soon see the repeal of all guns laws. Under our system, there is no such thing as a sensible gun law any more than there could be sensible lynching or sensible censorship.

The question is not under what authority someone may carry their own weapon – to be allowed or disallowed – the question is under what legal authority does government interfere?

Had the horrors of widespread gun ownership of so-called assault weapons and other guns come true – increased road rage, increased lover shootings, increased murders and hot-head shootings – the anti-gun lobby might weaken the case for repealing gun laws, but after decades, none of these has come true. The pro-liberty, pro-family preponderance and the preponderance of the good judgment and reasonableness of your constituents is clear. Anarchy and vigilanteism haven’t happened. And they won’t, not because of any law, but because of the values of your honest constituents.

Violent crime which obeys no law you can write remains a plague on society; violence is not fought by adhering more and more to selective, anti-crime policy including interference in regulation or confiscation, but fought instance by instance often by the only authority on scene: the citizen who may be head of a household, a son or daughter, perhaps defense of another. Whole families are affected by crime so.

The FBI has reported annually on the number of thwartings of violence by the civilian use of a gun, often without firing a shot. This means having stopped a violent crime from escalating. Compared to the annual 47,000 fatal shootings found nationwide by the FBI – mostly crime on crime – civilian thwartings of violence in the absence of police number in the millions as handed in to the FBI by law enforcement agencies.

Crime is fought by untying the hands of the victim constituents and by Congress’s official recognition of the constituent’s full legal authority and judgment when facing grave danger alone. The anti-violence community has no legal standing to dissolve an inalienable right which was meant to protect even them and all the rest of their rights.

Thank you very much for your attention, Ladies and Gentlemen of Congress, and my very best wishes for a successful and prosperous new year for us all.

Liberty.

John Longenecker

John Longenecker’s book, Transfer of Wealth: The Case For Nationwide Concealed Carry is in its Second Edition and it would make a great gift for the non-gun owner. You can purchase his book at Transfer of Wealth. You can also read other articles by John Longenecker here.

If you missed it, you can read There’s No Such Thing As Sensible Gun Laws: Part 1 here.