There has been so much “breaking news” on “mass shootings” in recent days that even the junior varsity rationalizers inside our perimeter are working overtime. No doubt the demagogic varsity team from the hard left are warming up their vocal cords for the coming full-court press. Watch for the usual tells like this:
It seems like a good time to re-post the following from last June when I posted such things directly to the legacy site:
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The essence of American Liberty is to assure men the secured right to every activity which does not trespass the rights of others. Regulation as to what men may not do must not be confused with regimentation of men into platoons under a government corporal. That is the whole distinction between men possessing rights which cannot be transgressed by the state, and men merely as pawns of the state. – Herbert Hoover, The Challenge to Liberty (1935), Pages 160-161
A gun nut I am not. But I will admit to being a purist when it comes to the Constitution…and, obviously, that includes the Second Amendment. As such, I acknowledge that there are no provisions in that document, the one that stipulates the inalienable rights guaranteed by an authority ranked well above our governing elites, for said elites to infringe upon the right to keep and bear arms. Words mean things…and here, as long as a citizen in good standing does not step beyond “keeping” and “bearing” and into a well-defined zone of illegality by an authorized governing body, then that right should be absolute. Keeping and bearing a legally obtained and fully functional M1 Abrams, A-10 Warthog, and/or AR-15 super-duper-mean-as-hell-looking-assault-rifle shall not be infringed…but do something constitutionally deemed illegal with such a thing and the full force of the proper authorized governing body should come down on you like a ton of bricks.
Given that as my governing mindset, it is also important to note that I similarly suffer no muddleheadedness with respect to the true nature of American Liberty. While you may not agree with my purist attitude above as applied specifically to the Second Amendment, I do hope that you can agree that there is absolutely no requirement for the assertion of any of one’s Constitutional rights to be justified by a “need” for it. All that matters is that a US citizen in good standing wants to exercise that right. If there were a Constitutional right to an abortion…anyone who wanted one could purchase one legally with no justification of need. Clearly, no one needs to justify anything beyond wanting to say something to assert their right to free speech. And, by the exact same logic, anyone wanting to keep and bear arms must also maintain that want-only threshold in order to exercise that Constitutional right.
That is why this bit of demagogic hackery being floated across brain-dead Progressive media should be repeatedly exposed (and trumpeted) as the un-American twaddle that it is:
But, of course, if you agree with me on that much, then intellectual consistency and honesty necessitate that you agree with my purist attitude as applied specifically to the Second Amendment in my opening statement above. And I do appreciate your intellectual consistency and honesty here at Ricochet. Thank you.
If you made it this far, I am pleased to leave you with some more decades-old wisdom about what we face today:
In our blind groping we have stumbled into philosophies which lead to the surrender of freedom. The proposals before our country do not necessarily lead to the European forms of Fascism, of Socialism, or of Communism, but they certainly lead definitely from the path of liberty. The danger lies in the tested human experience, that a step away from liberty itself impels a second step, a second compels a third. The appetite for power grows with every opportunity to assume it, and power over the rights of men leads not to humility but to arrogance, and arrogance incessantly demand more power. A few steps so dislocate social forces that some form of despotism becomes inevitable and Liberty dies. – Herbert Hoover, The Challenge to Liberty (1935), Pages 197-198
Mr. Hoover understood the essence of Joe, Hillary, Chuck, Nancy, and the rest very well. Unfortunately, We the People of the early 21st century seem to understand very little of the “tested human experience” and the true dangers of the artificial hyper-emotionalism enabled by the well-honed mass delusion machine that is progressive American in these 2020s.
Into the abyss…
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A PHILO PSA
Please don’t mistake my derogatory “progressive America” above to mean exclusively the Left. As I said before, history tells us there is always at least one moron like Bob Corker in the crowd. I’m keeping my eye on a true Texas moron: John Cornyn.
[End of June 2022 Re-Post]
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What amuses me more and more about these frequent less-than-organic debates on “common sense gun laws” is how both the varsity and their soft underbelly over here so naturally assume that the same laws make sense for both Cook County, IL and Twelve Sleep County, WY. It all provides a rather interesting study in who really isn’t all that true to federalism. (HINT: Most of them in are just playing the part scripted for them. Sometimes you can even catch them reciting the script instead of speaking of true beliefs…see “severe conservatism.”)
the philo t. custis institute 