What is the reason why people in America do not form citizen militias and use their Second Amendment rights to arm up and patrol their own neighborhoods? It's a simple question, but with a profound and increasingly apropos answer. The reason why is because the people have chosen to hire professionals to perform that work, so that they can devote their lives to other dreams and productive efforts.
It's that simple.
The Second Amendment doesn't exist because the Founding Fathers thought hunting with muskets was a grand sport. The Second Amendment exists for precisely the reason why the exact language was written into our Constitution, "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."
Even commas mean a lot in those words. Remove the portion of the text inside the commas, and the Second Amendment would just read, "A well regulated Militia shall not be infringed." Now, read that and ponder what it means. The term "regulated" in the context of 18th century language meant "well operating," with the modern equivalent being a power regulator, a device which ensures that the power is distributed effectively to the appliance that runs from it. So, the most basic essence of the Second Amendment is that a well operating citizens militia is "necessary to the security of a free State."
The tools are of secondary, but still essential consideration, with those tools being firearms. Hence, the state shall not infringe on "the right of the people to keep and bear arms." For decades, some have tried to argue away this central meaning behind the Second Amendment. At times, their fallacious arguments gained a degree of influence. If we take the moment to probe and comprehend the reality of the ongoing riots carried out in our cities across America right now, what we learn is that these flawed arguments against the Second Amendment are dangerously deluded.
When it all breaks down, when rule of law is challenged, and the state becomes unable to effectively "secure the blessings of liberty," then it is the people who guarantee liberty by fighting tyranny in all its forms, domestic and foreign. Our Declaration of Independence profoundly lays out this core truth. Yet, Eric Garcetti, mayor of Los Angeles, the morning after protesters set sight on his home to chant slogans to "defund the police!" announced a reversal to previously published plans to expand the LA city police budget for 2021, and instead cut between $100 million to $150 million from it. What suddenly changed overnight? It wasn't the fiscal realities of protecting the city of Los Angeles, it was simply that a craven mayor got scared and ran to the first available microphone to keep the anarchist herd off his back.
But, along the path of cowardice that Garcetti, and sadly many more elected officials, all walked, was this failure: None of them comprehended what their public duties actually are. None of them comprehended why they are assigned these duties. None of them appreciated how vital those duties remain.
All the scenes of mass looting and arson across American cities, what was missing were scenes of moral Americans standing vigil outside their businesses and home with firearms. Why? Because sadly, a host of municipal ordinances would have required the police to arrest those people before they arrested the looters and arsonists.
But, consider what happens when the violent thugs outnumber the police and overwhelm them. When it all breaks down, and the people have no choice but to defend themselves, how long do we calculate that 5,000 to 10,000 violent thugs will last against 500,000 well armed Americans determined to defend their lives, property, and liberty from attack in their own community!
The obvious answer is that it would be over shortly for the thugs, and it wouldn't end well for them.
In fact, should it all break down, the best possible outcome for the thugs would be the presence of police officers, who would arrest them and keep them safe from the citizens looking to kill them. This has happened in American history, where criminals actually preferred to turn themselves over to law enforcement vice face a vigilante party of private citizens out hunting for them. They knew if the people found them first, they would be hanged from a tree, or shot down on sight. With the police, the criminals had the chance for fair trial, and known sentences upon conviction.
It seems contradicting, but the truth is the best two friends criminals have are the police and the justice system that our society has created for them. How shortsighted then is it for these same thuggish groups to openly call for defunding the police, and to replace them with some unspecified alternate security forces, operating under nebulous authority. When it comes time that we have to replace the police, then we can turn to our Second Amendment, which already provides we the people with the answer. It's been so long since that answer of citizens militias has been necessary, that too many don't understand them, because they've never had to live with them. We rely on police instead, but only for so long as the police are equipped, trained, and most critically allowed, to "secure the blessings of liberty." When the police fail, then we defend ourselves.
To defund the police, and eliminate them, or even make them essentially ineffective, would be foolish rhetoric laughed off if it were not for the stupid cabal of elected leaders openly endorsing the crazy idea. It would be nice if we elected sane people, who first think through a proposal before announcing knee jerk endorsements of it. But, we have a small, but influential, group of elected leaders without the mental discipline and moral courage to resist foolish demands, because they refuse to accept any risks to their political careers.
They don't seem terribly concerned about risking the economic futures of millions of their fellow citizens they swore oaths to protect and serve. They order police to stand down, abandon posts, and let mass lawlessness flourish. Now, they cravenly cower and bow to evil organizations who's mission statements are to radically undermine and change the United States, most recently to openly demand that we actually defund our police forces.
There is an implicit contract formed between the people and our government. We elect leaders and require them to take solemn oaths of office, all of them centering upon their mandate to protect and defend our Constitution, and bear "true faith and allegiance" to it. If they perform their duties faithfully to their oaths, then we the people agree that we won't suddenly arm ourselves to the teeth, and carry out our own brand of law enforcement. We agree to cooperate with law enforcement, including allowing ourselves to be peacefully arrested on suspicion of a crime, even when we know we are not guilty of that crime. The other side of that contract is that these civic institutions have to be "well regulated," meaning well operating.
That includes adequate funding for law enforcement to effectively perform their jobs to protect and serve the public, by enforcing the laws that we endorsed.
We have a stark choice before us now come November 2020. We have people running for office who believe in our Constitution, believe in that social contract that our government's most important role is to "secure the blessings of liberty." We have another group who are overtly saying our nation is evil and must be radically changed, and that even liberty is dangerous and must be curtailed. They say we must defund police because police are the problem. They say we must fire people from their jobs for daring to speak moral truths, as the play-by-play announcer for the Sacramento Kings was forced to resign his job after writing that "all lives matter, every single one." They turn our college campuses from hallmarks of free speech into environments of fear and silencing.
We see well known liberal social activists like Leo Terrell, concluding that he must condemn the same liberal leaders he used to support, and instead support Donald Trump, a man he spent most of his last three years disagreeing with. The greatest positive that can come from this mindless revelation of unjust and destructive policies, is that enough people finally see through the stupidity, and vote these frauds out of office in November.
If this does not happen, or worse yet we further empower those who want to destroy our institutions of civility, then we may very soon see the day when 500,000 armed citizens in one metro area do decide that the social contract has broken down, and arm up and defend their liberties by their own firearms by their own hands. There won't be any cops to arrest them, which is why they will have taken up arms. And in that unfettered informal alliance of determined citizens, things will turn against the thugs in ways they cannot comprehend.
Liberty will be defended. The only question is by what means.
-- Ken Stallings
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