Avoidance

Thank God, Jean Assam directly or indirectly, stopped the violent attack at the New Life Church in Colorado Springs. The former police officer and volunteer security guard who made the suggestion to beef up security at the church without question saved the lives of perhaps fifty or more people.

Eighth in a series
By de Andréa

This is a real conundrum for the anti-gun liberal elites. Normally, a gun-waving psychopath is a poster child for their counterintuitive argument that firearms cause crime. This is related to the entire liberal philosophy that individuals are in some way not responsible for their actions but must be goaded into bad behavior by either society or some evil talisman that creates within them the desire to do harm others. What actually disturbs them is the symbolic nature of the firearm and its association with the individualism of the “wild, wild west” where there was actually less crime per capita than now, because the “good-guys” were armed.

Sigmund Freud, in his “General Introduction to Psychoanalysis wrote, “A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity.” Fear of firearms is, in most cases, not related to a fear of crime but likely is associated with disagreement over the idea of singular liberties attached to citizens, which conflicts with the centralizing nature of government.

The simplicity of rule by fiat is always hampered by the stubborn speed-bump of individual rights. The right to own a firearm, and by implication the ability to protect one’s environment without the constant need of organizational interference implies the ability to function at a basic and important level without total surrender of one’s individual rights to the socialists contract.

This unique aspect of American culture was given birth by British confiscation of colonists’ property [which through liberal legislation has now returned to this country]. This symbolic period was the romanticized Wild West, where it was said, “God did not make men equal, Colonel Colt did.”

Firearms by themselves may not have made men free or keep them so in today’s world. Nevertheless, their ownership at least demonstrates the citizens alliance with, and not the dominance by, ones own government.

As is often the case, this unique aspect of American culture is most recognized by those off our shores. British author George Orwell recognized this symbolic and important feature by noting, “That rifle on the wall of the laborer’s cottage or working class flat, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”

This bit of obvious Americana however, seems to be difficult to grasp and is totally ignored by some of our own politicians: “If I could have banned them all — (and said) ‘Mr. and Mrs. America turn in your guns’ — I would have!” declared U.S. Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-California, on the TV program “60 Minutes” on Feb. 5, 1995. Typical of the hypocritical elitists attitude of the Diane Feinstein’s of her generation, is the fact that she carries a 38 snub-nosed revolver in her purse, after all, she considers herself as one of the collective elites who has the right, we are simply the subjects with the privileges.

However, this fear of firearms and desire to eliminate them is relatively new, even for the left wing liberals.

“The right of citizens to keep and bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against a tyranny which may deceivingly appear remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible,” Democrat Hubert Humphrey, vice president and presidential candidate in 1968.

Humphrey’s remarks were significant because it was during this period that the swelling demographic of the liberal socialists’ generation and its coddled attitudes fostered by parents, and survivors of the Depression and World War II, began to make itself apparent. As is often the case with heirs to self-made fortunes, parent’s desire that their children have an easier time than they did, often not recognizing that it was just such difficulties that properly molded their future.

THE BOTTOM LINE: The liberal minded desire not to be held accountable or to be forced to take responsibility for ones actions has led to a never-ending stream of misguided theories that seek to distance people from reality. It is from this witches brew of self-indulgence and externalization of wrongdoing that modern gun control was born.

Moreover, at the root of the “law verses crime” issue is the misconception that the purpose of law is to prevent crime. As a result, we just continue making new laws hoping that we will someday hit on just the right law, and crime will just go away.

This ignorance of the purpose of law sets up a vicious cycle of more laws, more crime. It is time that we revisit the experience of our founders as they wrote the Second Amendment, which was not to make a law, but to document a right. …”the right of the people to keep and bear arms shell not be infringed.” John Lott an American economist proved in his book by the same name, that MORE GUNS LESS CRIME. The answer to crime prevention is personal responsibility, not more laws. Nevertheless, we will just continue making more laws and creating more crime, until we are all criminals…

Think about it.

de Andréa .