Over the
course of the past week I have, like many of you, run the gamut of emotions from sadness,
to frustration, to outright anger. Throughout all this I have tried, as I
always do, to remain focused on the real problem and how best to deal with it.
Sadly, there are many who do not share this approach.
I have
noted that many people, liberals, who are friends or family, have had harsh things to
say to or about me, and other gun owners. They speak as though I were the one
who murdered 27 innocent people in Newtown, CT last week. They seek to place
blame and vent their anger on someone, anyone, so that their need for
vindication of their beliefs may be sated. Frankly, I understand their anger –
I feel it, too. Anytime innocent people are victimized, as they were in
Newtown, it makes me angry. It makes me angry because it does not have to be.
There are ways to minimize the carnage in such situations, yet they are all too
often overlooked in favor of emotion-based, feel-good legislation. I say
minimize, because I know that you can never completely stop madmen from
carrying out their crimes, but you can seek to mitigate their effects.
But I would
like to walk through an analysis of the current attack and what I feel is the
best, the only, logical approach to dealing with any future such attacks.
First, who is to blame? The answer seems obvious to me, but given the slipshod
reporting being done and the agenda that our government seeks to advance, one
may be excused for being a little reticent to conclusively apply blame.
However, given what we have been told thusfar it would appear that a sick,
disturbed young man named Adam Lanza is the culprit. He took the guns,
inanimate objects, and used them to murder 27 innocent people to include 20
children and 7 disarmed adults. I use the word disarmed for a reason.
More on that later.
There are
those on the left, politically, in the media, and among the citizenry, who seem
to want to blame anyone but Adam Lanza. They blame the NRA, the GOA, our
Founding Fathers, angry white men, Republicans, the Tea Party, conservatives,
video games (but not Tarantino movies), even me, but last on the list,
if he’s included at all, is Adam Lanza. I would like to add another category to
that list, if I may be so bold – Politicians who pass laws disarming law-abiding
citizens. Were I to follow the example of my liberal friends I would have to
include them as well, as they vote for the liberal politicians who pass these
laws, but I am not going to play their game. Yes, disarm! That is what a “gun
free zone” does, it disarms the law-abiding in favor of the criminals among us.
I find that abhorrent and will do everything in my power to correct that wrong.
You see, I have focused my anger toward doing something constructive – standing
up for my rights (and yours) as an American.
What are
these rights and how did they come to be? Does the government grant us
those rights or do they come from another source? There are those, Christians
and other religions, who submit that our rights come from God. Only God can
grant those rights and no man can take them away. Others posit the idea that
these rights are inherent in our humanity. Simply by being born we have these
rights, but again, no man or government, has the right to take them
away. If you operate under the illusion that your rights come from a
government, that the government has the power to grant you those rights, then
you must accept the fact that that same government can take away those rights
whenever it desires. Is that really the way you liberals see it? Do you think
that your flawed fellow human beings, in the form of politicians/government,
have the right to take away your rights and freedoms? Are they even capable of
determining what those rights are/should be? I don’t know about you, but I
really don’t trust them with my liberty that much. Perhaps you do.
But
wherever you believe these rights come from there must be among them certain
rights that are universal, rights that we can all agree on, wouldn’t you think?
Would you agree that self-defense is among those rights? Do we or do we not
have the right to defend ourselves when attacked? It’s a simple question and
shouldn’t require a great deal of thought. What do you say, my liberal friends?
OK, if we all agree that we have a right to self-defense, then the question
becomes, “Do we have a right to possess the tools necessary to provide for that
defense? I mean lets face it, not everyone out there is a Bruce Lee. If you are
attacked by a man with a gun, would you be able to jump kick the gun out of his
hand, catch it as it comes to earth, and with one swift movement disassemble
the gun rendering it useless, before pummeling the bad guy about the head and
shoulders with your fists or fury? No? Well, why not? You seem to think that
everyone else has that ability. How else to explain your desire to see more of
us disarmed?
Tools, like
a hammer, a screwdriver, a baseball bat, can be used for good, like building a
house or hitting a homerun. However, those same tools can be used for evil
purposes as well. A hammer can be used to bludgeon someone about the head,
crushing their skull. A screwdriver can be used as a stiletto to stab someone
to death. A baseball bat can be used by a Union member to break the kneecaps of
a replacement worker. It all depends on what is in the heart of the person
wielding it. The same is true for guns of various types. You can lay a loaded
handgun or even an AR-15 on your kitchen table and you can yell at it, curse
it, beg it, plead with it, cajole it, offer it money, it matters not. That gun
will not fire until you or someone else picks it up, points it at a target, and
pulls the trigger. Whether that target is a bottle sitting on a fence rail or
another human being is entirely in the heart and mind of the person holding the
gun.
Now then,
perhaps you care not at all about our right to self-defense when it comes to
one human vs. another. If attacked you expect us all to channel Bruce Lee and
render our attacker hors de combat with our mere physical prowess. I
wish it were that simple. The fact is not everyone is as physically capable of
defending themselves as you are. Perhaps you think that the 5’4” 105 lb. Female
being dragged into an alley to be raped can simply beat up the 6’2” 230 lb. man
who is dragging her? I doubt it. But, what she can do is exert 5-7 pounds of
trigger pull on the legally purchased handgun that she has trained with and
stop that thug from raping her. Or perhaps you’re Ok with her being raped, as
long as she doesn’t shoot someone. Please, if you have a better alternative I
would love to hear it. I may have overlooked something.
But, Floyd,
you say, if you are attacked you should call the police, that’s what they are
for. Certainly the police do play a role - Yes they do, that of cleaning up and investigating
after the crime has been committed. The police were called to Sandy Hook
Elementary School and they arrived, as the news reports pointed out ad naseum, heavily
armed. Hmm, heavily armed. Imagine that, even the police see the need to be
armed to deal with violent criminals and madmen. But let’s explore your
assertion. The police are our protectors; it is their job, their responsibility
to protect us when we are attacked, right? Of course all of this assumes that
there are enough police officers to be everywhere all the time whenever they
are needed. The police arriving at Sandy Hook, with all of their guns, got
there AFTER 27 women and children were killed. Explain to me
again how calling the police is the answer. You should also know that the
police are not required to protect you as an individual. Please see the
appendage at the end of this article for court cases regarding this. So, if you
feel comfortable calling the police and waiting until they arrive, while you
are being attacked, good luck with that. I wish you all the best.
I feel I
have exhausted the self-defense angle with you. Frankly, if you haven’t gotten
it by now then it is likely you never will. But there is another aspect of the
gun issue that you are either overlooking or perhaps you, again, just don’t
care about. 235 years ago we fought a war to win our freedom from a tyrant. His
name was King George III. The nation he ruled was Great Britain and our
original 13 colonies were part of his British Empire. I won’t go into the
entire history lesson of our grievances against the throne at that time, you’ll
just have to do some homework for yourself, but I will give a brief look into
the reasons for our right to bear arms, as stated in the Second Amendment.
The
colonies, especially those firebrands in Massachusetts, had, for years, been
expressing their grievances to the King and Parliament in the hope of being
treated with the same rights and respect that all British subjects felt
they were entitled to. The King continued his assault on their rights until the
colonies would take no more. Realizing that his subjects were fomenting
rebellion, King George sent his troops, under the command of Lt. Col. Francis
Smith, into the Massachusetts countryside to the village of Concord. Their
mission was to confiscate the arms and powder there, so that they could not be
used against the Crown. Well, we all know (or should know) what happened next.
The Minutemen of Massachusetts were having none of it and the local militia
stood firm for their rights. Sound familiar? Of course you realize that this
meant that all of the firearms that would subsequently be used to fight against
the British Crown, for our freedom as a nation, were seen by the
King/government as “illegal firearms.” That’s right, those pesky colonists did
not have a right to own firearms in the King’s eyes. How dare they exert such a
right in the face of their government and ruler? Yet a great lesson was learned
over the course of that war.
When time
came to draft a new Constitution, to implement a government for a new nation,
many demanded, before ratification could take place, that a Bill of Rights be
included in that document. This lead to the first ten amendments to our
Constitution, which were written specifically to
protect our individual rights from an overzealous federal government. But hey,
don’t believe me, look it up yourself. There are myriad history books available
that cover this subject quite well and in great depth. Among those rights was
the Second Amendment, which provides us, as individuals, the right to bear
arms. The purpose of that amendment was not to allow us to go hunting for deer,
it was not to allow us the means of protecting ourselves from car-jackers, although it certainly serves that purpose, it
was to allow the citizens of these United States to fight back against any
government that would seek to usurp their rights. That’s right – fight back
against the government! Again, don’t believe me? Fine, look it up. Read the
writings of our Founding Fathers, read the Declaration of Independence, read
the Constitution, and try to deny that I am right. Oh, I know you’ll try, but I
am confident that my comprehension skills have proven quite effective over the
years of study I have done on the subject.
In wrapping
this up I would simply remind you that you have a right to self-defense, even
if you, as a liberal, choose to ignore it. That right entails allowing you to
have the tools for protection at your disposal. The Second Amendment of the
Constitution is your gun permit and states that you, as an individual, have the
right to possess a gun of your choosing. We know that the Second Amendment was
put in place to allow us to protect ourselves from a tyrannical government. We
have learned that the police, whom you think are your protectors, are in fact
under no obligation to protect you. An undeniable fact of life is that there
are evil people among us who wish to do us harm, the reasons why matter not.
The only people at the scene of a crime, while it is happening, are the
perpetrator and his/her victim(s), the police have not arrived yet. I prefer
that people not be disarmed, helpless victims, but instead are able to protect
themselves and others if the need arises. After reading this and spending some
time in further contemplation I hope that you will agree.
In the
meantime, remember that you have no monopoly on love and caring for your fellow
man. We gun owners share your anger and frustration and feel nothing but
compassion for the families who are suffering in Newtown. I do not want to see
more murders of helpless victims anymore than you do and I feel the best way to
prevent another massacre of such scope is to recognize the need to allow those
who wish to be armed to do so. Remember, I am not your enemy, I did not kill
those children, I want to stop another such atrocity as much as you do, but
lets make sure we do it the right way and not allow emotions to overpower
critical thinking. I hope you agree.
*********************************************************************
Police have no legal duty to respond and prevent crime or protect the victim. There have BEEN OVER 10 various supreme and state court cases the individual has never won. Notably, the Supreme Court STATED about the responsibility of police for the security of your family and loved ones is "You, and only you, are responsible for your security and the security of your family and loved ones. That was the essence of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in the early 1980's when they ruled that the police do not have a duty to protect you as an individual, but to protect society as a whole."
"It is well-settled fact of American law that the police have no legal duty to protect any individual citizen from crime, even if the citizen has received death threats and the police have negligently failed to provide protection."
Sources:
7/15/05 SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES No. 04-278 TOWN
OF CASTLE ROCK, COLORADO, PETITIONER v. JESSICA GONZALES, INDIVIDUALLY AND AS
NEXT BEST FRIEND OF HER DECEASED MINOR CHILDREN, REBECCA GONZALES, KATHERYN
GONZALES, AND LESLIE GONZALES
On June 27, in the case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court found that Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to individual police protection even in the presence of a restraining order. Mrs. Gonzales' husband with a track record of violence, stabbing Mrs. Gonzales to death, Mrs. Gonzales' family could not get the Supreme Court to change their unanimous decision for one's individual protection. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN FOLKS AND GOVERNMENT BODIES ARE REFUSING TO PASS THE Safety Ordinance.
On June 27, in the case of Castle Rock v. Gonzales, the Supreme Court found that Jessica Gonzales did not have a constitutional right to individual police protection even in the presence of a restraining order. Mrs. Gonzales' husband with a track record of violence, stabbing Mrs. Gonzales to death, Mrs. Gonzales' family could not get the Supreme Court to change their unanimous decision for one's individual protection. YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN FOLKS AND GOVERNMENT BODIES ARE REFUSING TO PASS THE Safety Ordinance.
(1)
Richard W. Stevens. 1999. Dial 911 and Die.
Hartford, Wisconsin: Mazel Freedom Press.
(2)
Barillari v. City of Milwaukee,
533 N.W.2d 759 (Wis. 1995).
(3) Bowers v. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616 (7th
Cir. 1982).
(4) DeShaney v. Winnebago County Department of Social
Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989).
(5) Ford v. Town of Grafton, 693 N.E.2d
1047 (Mass. App. 1998).
(6) Warren v. District
of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981).
"...a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..." -Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981)
"...a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..." -Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981)
(7) "What makes the City's position particularly
difficult to understand is that, in conformity to the dictates of the law,
Linda did not carry any weapon for self-defense. Thus by a rather bitter irony
she was required to rely for protection on the City of NY which now denies all
responsibility to her."
Riss v. New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579,293 N.Y.S.2d 897, 240 N.E.2d 806 (1958).
Riss v. New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579,293 N.Y.S.2d 897, 240 N.E.2d 806 (1958).
(8) "Law enforcement agencies and personnel have no
duty to protect individuals from the criminal acts of others; instead their
duty is to preserve the peace and arrest law breakers for the protection of the
general public."
Lynch v. N.C. Dept. of Justice, 376 S.E. 2nd 247 (N.C. App. 1989)
Lynch v. N.C. Dept. of Justice, 376 S.E. 2nd 247 (N.C. App. 1989)
New
York Times, Washington DC
Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone By LINDA GREENHOUSE Published: June 28, 2005
The ruling applies even for a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.
Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone By LINDA GREENHOUSE Published: June 28, 2005
The ruling applies even for a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.
