Not Just A Right, But A Duty
Glenn Reynolds has an New York Times Op-Ed (free link):
This is very important, not only in preventing burglaries and rioting, but on a deeper level, gun ownership should be a human right. If genocide is an ultimate crime against humanity, gun ownership is a de facto human right as the best way to prevent genocide through resistance.
This figured prominently in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, as HEAP, the Holocaust Education and Avoidance Pod, a manual for guerrilla warfare in the event of genocide. One component is the HEAP gun, a firearm easily assembled from household parts (plus a barrel). This is to circumvent strict gun control laws typical of totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Thus it perplexes me as to why the UN is so anti-guns.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't need guns. And bacon would also fall from the sky. And last time I checked, it isn't, so I'm going to purchase a gun as soon as circumstances allow.
Likewise, in the event of disasters that leave law enforcement overwhelmed, armed citizens can play an important role in stanching crime. Armed neighborhood watches deterred looting in parts of Houston and New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.Reynolds is spot on with the reasoning on why the Second Amendment exists. If it wasn't as critical as speech, freedom of the press, religion, or due process, etc., it wouldn't have been included in the Bill of Rights. The Framers considered it that fundamental. It was a privately owned gun that fired "the shot heard 'round the world."
Precisely because an armed populace can serve as an effective backup for law enforcement, the ownership of firearms was widely mandated during Colonial times, and the second Congress passed a statute in 1792 requiring adult male citizens to own guns.
The twin purposes of self and community defense may very well lie behind the Second Amendment’s language encompassing both the importance of a well-regulated militia and the right of citizens to keep and bear arms. As the constitutional and criminal law scholar Don Kates has noted in the journal Constitutional Commentary, thinkers at the time when the Constitution was written drew no real distinction between resisting burglars, foreign invaders or domestic tyrants: All were wrongdoers that good citizens had the right, and the duty, to oppose with force.
This is very important, not only in preventing burglaries and rioting, but on a deeper level, gun ownership should be a human right. If genocide is an ultimate crime against humanity, gun ownership is a de facto human right as the best way to prevent genocide through resistance.
This figured prominently in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, as HEAP, the Holocaust Education and Avoidance Pod, a manual for guerrilla warfare in the event of genocide. One component is the HEAP gun, a firearm easily assembled from household parts (plus a barrel). This is to circumvent strict gun control laws typical of totalitarian states such as Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Thus it perplexes me as to why the UN is so anti-guns.
In a perfect world, we wouldn't need guns. And bacon would also fall from the sky. And last time I checked, it isn't, so I'm going to purchase a gun as soon as circumstances allow.
Labels: Gun Rights, HEAP, Stephenson
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