“We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these
are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.” –
Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson
When do Rights become Privileges? Answer: When government is allowed to require a license or a permit in order to exercise those rights!
Turning rights into government controlled privileges
however is exactly what will happen if Americans are ever required to register
their guns and gun owners are licensed as many anti-gunners call for after each
highly publicized shooting occurs—such as the recent sniper incident.
Now either you believe and accept the words in our
Declaration of Independence or you reject them. If you accept the words as I do, that our rights are
unalienable and endowed by the Creator, then no right can EVER
justifiably be licensed, i.e. approved by government, because those rights were
endowed by God, not bestowed by government.
Conversely, to reject those words, would be to reject the very foundation
of America’s freedom, nullify the concept of the word unalienable, and
turn our rights into government licensed privileges and in essence, grant
government veto power over God.
Any license granted by man can be revoked by man, but a
right endowed by God can never be revoked by any man. To do so creates something more characteristic of serfdom
than freedom—the “unalienable right” becomes the equivalent of a
driver’s license—the analogy used by the left to sell this licensing idea by
the way. “If we license cars, why
not guns?”
Last time I looked, transportation was not mentioned in the
Bill of Rights. The right to keep
and bear arms is however and as one of the primary guarantors of our Right to
Life and Liberty.
What the left ultimately wants, and openly advocates, sets
government in judgment over God and flies in the face of our constitution.
This doesn’t deter avid left-wingers in the least however.
They simply ignore it all and press on with their crusade to transform
America into a big government Utopia.
The idea of licensing a constitutional right is abhorrent
to me just as the idea of “carry permits” has always been—a government
issued permit to carry something that is a constitutionally guaranteed,
unalienable right?!? Who slipped
that “common sense” law by us? Somehow
America has seen fit to roll over on that one though and down the slippery slope
of freedoms lost we went yet another yard or more.
To illustrate the level of liberal hypocrisy here, ask a
left-winger this question…
“If you liberals think it’s OK to require a permit of
us before we buy, carry or shoot our gun under the Second, why shouldn’t we
require a permit of you before you shoot off your mouth under the First?
After all, don’t you agree that the “pen” is mightier than the
“sword”? If “the pen is
mightier than the sword”, why is it the “sword” has 20,000 laws regulating
it and the “pen” doesn’t?”
Big government advocates incrementally set the stage for
freedom erosion as they have done throughout history. After all, effective incrementalism is how we arrived at
where we are in the year 2003 from where we started out in the year 1776.
This incremental weaselism is the reason I refuse to support bargaining
with any liberal freedom thief on anything—they’re simply not to be
trusted—on anything—ever.
Their call now is for a “common sense” ballistic
fingerprinting program—which is nothing more than a backdoor method of
instituting a national gun registration program because in reality, consistently
reliable ballistic fingerprinting is nothing but a pipe dream—a snake oil
sales pitch.
The doubtful success of ballistic fingerprinting aside, why
else would government want the ability to trace a particular bullet to a
particular gun if they don’t ultimately require every gun to be registered and
therefore linked to every gun owner? It
would do them absolutely no good merely to know what gun a bullet came from if
they didn’t have a method of then knowing who owned the gun that fired the
bullet. How stupid do the advocates
of this idiocy think gun owners are? It’s
simply and clearly a government registration program—period.
The ONLY thing such licensing or registration will
ever accomplish, and which it’s actually designed to do, is provide government
with a database of every gun owner in the country so it will be that much easier
for them to find you when the “common sense” gun confiscation program is
enacted.
If there was ever any cause worthy enough to prompt
pro-constitutionalists into action, this is it. If there was ever any more revealing behavior on the part of
the anti-gunners regarding their true intentions and where this ultimately
leads, this is most definitely it. Laws
requiring licensing and registration are not just one more yard down that
slippery slope of eroded freedom—it’s more like a mile.
If we truly believe that mankind is endowed
with unalienable rights granted by our Creator and articulated by our founders,
then any attempt on the part of government to deny or control those rights must
be recognized as counter to God and His sacred will for man’s freedom.
It simply comes down to what Americans will demand or are
willing to accept. It’s up
to each of us to decide if we will reaffirm our claim to God given rights or
passively accept government issued privileges.
If the choice is for privileges, then all we need do is
nothing and the government will incrementally take control as a matter of
course.
If the choice is for rights however, then we must stand
strongly united and constantly send government the unmistakably clear message of
our founders—DONT TREAD ON ME. No registration, No license…not now, not ever!
Just the view from my saddle…