The refrain tragically repeats itself far too often. And beyond the immediate tragedy of innocent people being murdered by an evil sociopath, there lies another more hidden tragedy. That second tragedy lies in potential, but if ever realized, would represent an outcome far worse in consequence than even the mass death immediately caused.
Somewhere in America, a sick person uses a firearm to commit planned murder, until the police or another citizen ends his miserable life, or arrests him. No one can logically or morally deny the evil of the killer's motivations and actions. Plus up the actions either in scope, or numbers killed, and the mass shooting turns into an act of terrorism, and hardly anything can be worse than that.
The trade therefore isn't with regard to prosecuting the shooter, or terrorists. The law should be applied fairly and swiftly.
The trade is instead what could happen if the leftists in politics today get what they perpetually seek. These people abuse these tragic events to garner public support for repeal of our Second Amendment rights, and absent that, try to convince local and state governments to agree to efforts to at least restrict those rights. Along the way, the standard pabulum of demagoguery courses its way through the media narratives, the mass murder was somehow, someway, the fault of the National Rifle Association.
The irony is that no other single organization in history has been responsible for teaching more people the principles of safe gun ownership. The NRA has sponsored safety training for adults and children, and has done so for many generations. But, those with the agenda of taking firearms away from the American citizenry aren't interested in facts, or fairness. They have selfish motivations in mind, and don't intend to let anything stop them on their pursuit.
The idea of the Second Amendment is that the people are the protectors of our society. The idea of these leftists is that the only protector of the society should be a handful of obedient agents, who first learn to obey the orders of their political masters, and that the rest of the people will submit to the rule of the elites. If that setup sounds familiar, then good, you grasp a good knowledge of history. For that sort of corrupt setup was precisely the core of European and Asian monarchies for eons. Our very languages are replete with terms used as metaphors today, that when first uttered were instead specific instruments of state torture, used by the elites to teach the masses violent lessons on the folly of them yearning to breath free at the expense of the king! Hence the phrases, "to flay," or to "rack someone!"
Other metaphors sprang forth as descriptions used to label small groups of people who banded together to resist and ultimately overthrow some monarch. Frankly, the term "patriot" is rooted in just this. In the years leading to our American Revolution, the Patriots were the people who fostered our Declaration of Independence, and then fought the British military to win our independence. The Tories were the people who thought the Patriots were a collection of rabble rousers, who deserved to dangle from the end of a rope!
Had the British won the Revolutionary War, today we'd likely consider the word patriot to symbolize evil, much in the same way we regard a thug, and the word tory to represent good loyalty to the crown. The word Thug derived itself from the Thuggies who operated as assassins in India.
But, thankfully, history worked out the way it did, and the patriots are the noble people and the Second Amendment was very quickly enshrined as a firm right of the people to keep and bear arms. So, either these leftists, who constantly want to remove the right to bear arms, fail to understand their history, or else their motivations are far more sinister. We should bet on the second option!
Human history is filled with far more examples of social elites working to gain for themselves a monopoly on force of arms so their control is ensured, than examples of people living free from such tyranny. The formula for all despots is to quickly gather for themselves a Praetorian Guard of loyalists, who carry arms to use to keep the defenseless people in check, under the heel of the master. Right now, America has a Praetorian Guard of its own, enshrined by our Second Amendment. That guard is the people, and we are guarding our Constitution. Our military takes an oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic." You think that part about domestic enemies was put there by accident?
Our forefathers knew well the lessons of European monarchs, who assembled under their control the instruments of force, and used that monopoly of violence to subjugate the people. The concept of domestic tyrants was well understood by the same men who signed the Declaration of Independence, and then several years later ratified our Constitution. They enshrined our Second Amendment because they well knew that to protect a Constitutional Republic such as ours, then the people must never have their right to keep and bear arms infringed.
So, while effective laws to prevent sociopaths from using firearms in violent crime remains entirely necessary and virtuous, what must be resisted are calls for us to abandon our Second Amendment. The siren's call is oft repeated, that if we agree to trade just some of our precious liberties, then we can obtain a better society. This is the great lie. The Second Amendment doesn't create evil people. The Second Amendment gives us, the people, the most effective option there is to resist evil, be it a singular threat, a small group threat, or ultimately an army of evil marching on a mission of tyranny.
What crushed Jesse James was not law enforcement, but instead a large town of armed citizens in Northfield, Minnesota, who recognized the criminal gang was trying to rob their town bank, and assembled as a citizen's militia to protect themselves. These citizens surrounded the criminals and unleashed hell upon them, killing two outright, and the gang was split apart and hunted down in isolation. A few feeble robberies were carried out later by Jesse James, but the weak remnants of their once powerful gang soon collapsed entirely.
The lesson also is that the James Gang murdered residents of the town. The price for liberty often is a high price indeed. But, in comparison to living under the capricious whims of a tyrant, the price that liberty demands in its defense is far less than the terrible price of living under the daily fear of a vengeful tyranny.
So, each time we hear these same committed leftists repeat their worn out attacks on the NRA, the Second Amendment, and the concept of an armed citizenry, we should remind ourselves what their real goals are. These leftists are all about acquiring the power to usher in their utopian society, where the people are told what to do. Quite arrogantly, these leftists presume their aims are for our own good, which we would see if only we were sophisticated enough to see the truth.
Well, we do see the truth at work. Tyranny is perfectly willing to leverage tragedy for their own selfish purposes, and power lust is an age old negative trait in too many humans. The real work is to let our laws do their job to control evil, while at the same time resist the sinister calls to abandon our liberty in the process.
-- Ken Stallings
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