The Loudest Isn't the Largest

After observing the events of the prior few weeks, I have come to two embarrassingly somber conclusions: 1) many Americans are not knowledgeable of civics as it regards the type of government we function under and 2) people are proud to display such a lack of knowledge for all to see.  America is a constitutional republic.  It is not a democracy.  Democracy is a synonym for mob rule and our founding fathers were very much aware of this principle. So much so that they defined a set of rules for the government to function within (the Constitution) and a treaty between the United States Federal Government and its citizenry called the Bill of Rights.

For as long as I have been alive, I have never seen a march specifically designed to take away a civil right.  I have seen marches pro or for civil rights but never a march for example, to take away the vote, or to take away free speech or any other basic right as outlined in the Bill of Rights.  But the recent manipulated and inorganic march against guns (which it should be called) is a first. Although they are too cowardly to state such openly, it is really a march to obviate the second amendment, since each argument and position taken expresses a semantic desire for some policy action to ‘infringe’ upon the Second amendment – an inalienable right as stated in the Bill of Rights.  Let me attempt to explain.

The general tenor is the suggestion that the second amendment is outdated, and for some 97-year-old liberal, “a relic of the 18th century.” I find this both simplistic and indication of a few lipofuscin granules on someone’s prefrontal cortex. The fact is defending against any tyranny by the government or foreign actor is a constant in the world we live in and to remove the possibility of such never occurring in the USA when we know men are both in good and evil form, would be dumb. Just as idiotic as the assertion that the second amendment is about hunting (which it is not) or that it was speaking about muskets (which it was not since muskets were the assault rifle of the day).

Appears that this self-absorbed and mindless horde of gun grabbers is too thoughtless to comprehend this let alone understand the history behind the genuine fear of government tyranny. Let me try and break it down.  The colonies once were run by the crown in England and as such, the original states were headed by appointed governors by the crown.  In Massachusetts, one of those persons was General Thomas Gage. He operated under several laws established by the British Parliament to exercise control of the colonies one of which was called the Townshend Acts. These four acts enabled the British to extract revenue in the form of taxes and tariffs and more importunately, gave them the power to suspend any form of representative assembly the colonist formed. They carried out enforcement of these functions via the British military by Writs of Assistance. These were documents that allowed for the redcoats to enter, search and seize anything from a private citizen they considered contraband. These were non-specific meaning that they did not require details for the search or where the search would be implemented (reason for the 4th amendment).

As one would reckon, the colonist did not like these actions and rebelled leading to the Boston Tea Party. After the Boston Tea Party in 1773, the British Crown and Parliament were mad as fuck at the colonies.  To show this anger, they passed the Coercive Acts in 1774 which many colonist found upsetting because it restricted town meetings (once a year) making them illegal, closed the Boston Port, made British official immune to prosecution and mandated that colonist by law would have to quarter British troops. Next the British put in place an import ban on firearms and gunpowder which was followed by actual house to house gun and gunpowder confiscation by British troops.

On one occasion, General Gage dispatched a garrison of troops to break up a meeting of citizens in Salem. There they were met by a few thousand-armed Americans young, old, male and female, for all Americans were armed and had plenty of powder to match. Given that there were only a couple thousand British troops in the colonies while Gage was governor, he realized it would be hard to enforce any of the laws aimed and controlling America, since there were many thousands of armed Americans in Massachusetts alone.

He went back to using Writs of Assistance to seize weapons and gun powder.  They could enforce these actions with the gun but failed to comprehend that the colonist considered the confiscation of their weapons through violence as an act of war. As history records, of all the things the British did, the most offensive to the colonist was seizing their guns and powder. This reached a fever on April 19, 1775, when British soldiers under the direction of Major ohn Pitcairn went to Lexington and Concord to seize the guns of the citizenry, starting the American War for Independence.

Therefore, after the Revolutionary War, the first three amendments of the Bill of rights dealt with speech, assembly, protest (1st), no infringements on gun ownership (2nd) and the quartering of troops in private homes (3rd). All of which are granted by God and not the government. Ergo, when the second amendment was written and ratified, its intent was that the civilian population would insofar as much as possible, have the same weapons as the military. Thus, it intentionally reads: “A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.” It asserts via the employment of the comma’s, that the Second Amendment was to preserve and guarantee, NOT grant, the pre-existing God given right of individuals to keep and bear arms.

True, the 2nd amendment emphasizes the need for a militia, being a member of any militia (well-regulated or not), was written in such a way to say being in a militia was not a precondition or requirement for citizens to exercise the right to keep arms. This is clarified in Federalist Number 46. James Madison wrote: “Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned despite the legions which surround it.” Thus, individual Americans have a God given legal right of self-defense against the state and/or any foreign invader via the 2nd Amendment.

Alexander Hamilton too noted this in Federalist 29 when he wrote: “That there may happen cases in which the national government may be necessitated to resort to force cannot be denied. Our own experience has corroborated the lessons taught by the examples of other nations; … If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual State. In a single State, if the persons entrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair” He later adds: “As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their PRIVATE arms.” 

Simply put, the Second Amendment is the fail safe for the citizenry against authoritarianism and political mob-rule tyranny. Now I know the first argument will be this can’t happen today and that only the police/military should have these “weapons of war.”  Maybe, or maybe not is my response.  I grew up in the 1960s and in my life time I have seen tyranny mostly abroad. What if the Vietnamese had not been armed? They surely fought against tyranny albeit from abroad.  On the other hand it can be from the inside, as was the case with the Cambodian genocide carried out by the Khmer Rouge against people who were perceived to be in opposition of the regime. After Pol Pot banned guns, he followed it with the murder of between 1.5 to 3 million people.

Guns were the reason slavery could be carried out flawlessly, they enabled the ability for Leopold of Belgium to inflict genocide on more than 10 million Africans. Then there was Sharpsville in South Africa and the attacks on the Black Panther Party in Chicago and Los Angles in 1969. History shows us that the only African nation that was not colonized by a European power was Ethiopia, which ironically was the only African nation to have guns to fight of the effort to do so by Italy (under Mussolini). The same is true as I write this, in South Africa, the government under the leadership of its new President Cyril Ramaphosa voted to confiscate white-owned land without compensation.

Still albeit historical accurate, I would be vilified if I confronted either David Hogg or Emma Gonzales with this information, which I find strange, for if I were in a classroom I would not.  These are rude children whom think they know everything about everything. I know because I am a parent with 25 years in the game and a teacher of college students with the same amount of years in the game.  I question and confront students daily because they typically repeat what they hear and do not read or engage in critical thinking. This is not by mistake, it is neurological and reinforced by contingencies of reinforcement (habit). Why can’t we ask Hogg, or question his views and correct him when his facts are inaccurate? I do it every day in class. Why can’t we ask Emma Gonzales why she wears a flag of Cuba, a communist nation, from which her family had to flee because upon take power Castro seized all arms and killed more than 100,000 Cuban citizens? Isn’t this fair game? Why not ask them why they resort to bullying and name calling when people have differing yet valid views than theirs? Why not push back when they call all against their wishes simple want to “murder children”? Is what you push collective punishment? Do you think all gun owners should be held up to the shooter of your high school as a standard? Are you comfortable asking to privacy rights should be reduced and that second amendments rights should be infringed because that is what you want but don’t want your right of wearing the book bag you want infringed? Is that fair? Do you know what an assault rifle is or when and AR-15 semi-automatic ever been used on the battle field?

I will tell you why, because it is anatomical.  In the adolescent 14-24, the prefrontal cortex is still developing. Consequently, he rational part of a teen's brain (the prefrontal cortex) isn't fully developed and won't be until approaching age 30. Thus, as opposed of critical thinking, the Limbic system, the amygdala is the part of the brain they rely on to make decisions where as adults think with the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala is associated with emotions, impulses and aggression behavior. This is clearly on display.  For example, they call it a March for Our Lives (which is eerily like the annual Pro-Life “March For Life) yet they do not consider unborn babies lives and are funded by Planned Parenthood (more than 900 black babies are aborted per day- nearly half are repeat abortions) among others while at the same time calls the National Rifle Association “child killers.” They want black people to side with them in the consideration that police and the military should be the only ones to have (long) guns while they gun us down relentlessly in the streets everyday (sure we kill each other daily also but this isn’t the point). The oke seems to write itself - rich white kids and liberal elites have tricked Black Lives Matter to embrace All Lives Mattter and the Police State (only cops should have guns). They want the age of voting to be dropped to 16 yet want the age of gun ownership increased to 21 (another inconsistency).

Last, they are bad at math and citing statistics. If they were truly concerned about saving the lives of kids, Assault rifles would be at the bottom of the list. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 2016 data shows 37,461 people were killed in 34,436 motor vehicle crashes, an average of 102 per day. According to researchers at John Hopkins and the CDC, there are 250,000 deaths per year due to medical error in the U.S., an average of 685 per day. Based on data from the National Vital Statistics System, Mortality, in 2016, there were more than 63,600 drug overdose deaths in the U.S., an average of 173 per day (a sizable number are between 15-20). Data collected by the National Center for Statistics and Analysis reveals that nearly 6,000 teen drivers ages 15-20 died from motor vehicle injuries because of distracted (cell phone use) driving, an average of 16 per day. According to the FBI, 1,604 people are killed by “knives and cutting instruments” annually, an average of 4.4 per day - 374 were killed by “rifles” in 2016, an average of 1.02 per day. But go ahead, you let your teenage child run your household and formulate fender government policy – not me.

I could continue but we all know that any military using AR-15 in battle against fully automatic MPT-76, FN SCAR-H or AK-47 (all fully automatic meaning pull thee trigger once it keeps firing) would be wiped out. What these kids are doing is using anger against law abiding gun owners, for they want all guns outlawed.  They want what Hitler did when he passed major gun control and seizure legislation. They are not progressives, they are totalitarians. They are more like the young generation in Communist China under Mao, who killed the older generation, assisted in his gun confiscation and the deaths of more than 100 million who did not agree with the politics of communism. They are a loud brood, but just because they are the loudest, doesn’t mean they are the largest and they or their handlers are too cowardly to go door to door with a gun to take any gun from a law-abiding US citizen.