Judgment And Costs

Gun control and America.

We are going to dip into the past, here - nearly a generation ago.

Over this week and part of the next I’ll be publishing some of my thinking and writing from twenty years ago. In those days I was heavily involved in Second Amendment activism, writing and speaking around the country.

Today I do the same, but in a much larger and more conflagratory arena.

It’s often instructive to revisit yours thoughts from an earlier age. A man does well to observe where his posture and presentation have remained consistent or perhaps substantially evolved.

We’ll examine that consistency and evolution.

Judgment And Costs was originally written in May of 2003.

Read on:

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The hostility of some Americans to the ideological tenets of the Second Amendment is often expressed in their political efforts to disarm the citizenry of the nation. It is a dangerous effort, and one not predictive of success.

Most people are familiar with the law of unintended consequences.

When making laws, one must not merely address the issue surrounding the law's creation - such as the banning of an object from private possession, or the redirection of wealth from one to another - one must also assess the worst possible consequences of that law.

To do otherwise is irresponsible. We have, in our nation, two clear examples of huge and permanent consequences that arose from incompetent and careless lawmaking.

The first, of course is Prohibition. Totally well-intentioned, it resulted in huge and widespread disobedience to the law; rampant violence amongst the criminal class which predictably rose to traffic in the substance; and most damaging of all: the permanent introduction of powerful, organized crime to the American scene.

The foothold gained by organized crime during Prohibition appears to be permanent. The other example is the War on Drugs. Also well-intentioned, it has resulted in a number of horrifying and shocking conditions that threaten not merely the order of society, but the existence of our nation's principles of open and accountable government as well.

What are some of these conditions?

Traffic checkpoints at which all motorists are searched by armed men with dogs and rifles. Our police officers wear masks, now, as a common - and accepted - practice. "Secret search" provisions in our legislatures, not merely sidestepping but destroying Constitutional protections.

The approach taken by the Government in the Elian Gonzalez case - smash through the door in the dead of night, engage in seizure with armed force - was only possible because the People have been accustomed to it.

Did not our entire nation expect it?

How utterly and unforgivably revolting.

Another consequence of the War on Drugs - and a parallel to the rise of organized crime - is the rise of our street gangs.

Bloods. Crips. Outlaws. Well funded by the black market created so conveniently for them. Make no mistake; gangs have moved far past the simple protection racket for drug dealers.

Want to move into a neighborhood and open a business? If it's gang-ruled, you'll do business with them, too. You won't have a choice.

They aren't going anywhere. They're here to stay.

By creating, through irresponsible and incompetent legislation, the conditions for hostile forces to seize power within the nation - our People have directly set the stage for their downfall.

I say the People, rather than the Government - for we still are yet a government of, by, and for the People.

We have then two clear examples of the creation of mini-governments within the nation, born from the ignorance and intolerance of those who would force all others to abide by their own narrow morality.

I see the current war on guns to be the most dangerous one of all.

What are the similarities?

We have a legal product which is lawfully owned by nearly a 100 million American households. Firearms are a part and parcel of our entire construct of society; the guarantee of parity with Nature and the State.

What are foreseeable results from the outlawing of firearms?

Civil disobedience on a mass scale is the first. Does anyone know a friend or neighbor who would willingly turn in their weapons?

Would this not create widespread resentment of, and disrespect for, the law? Would not a black market erupt to replace the legitimate one? Would not violence and crime attend it?

After all, there are nearly 100 million customers already.

But that's not the danger.

The danger is in the permanent effect. Prohibition gave us organized crime. The War on Drugs gave us violent and pervasive street gangs.

The outlawing of firearms would create a permanent, and enraged, underclass of rebellion.

Think we have a "militia problem" now? The liberal media may, but our Government surely does not. For all the news coverage of the Freemen in Montana, for example, there was not an overwhelming armed response to the siege by the People. A few convoys of men, easily stopped by Federal agencies long before they reached the scene.

None of the men in that convoy, of course, were already willing to open fire in active rebellion.

Not yet.

Create a rebellion in the nation, and it will not merely be permanent - it will, ultimately, challenge the State itself for supremacy.

Organized crime wants our Government stable and powerful, in order to keep their marketplace in existence. They have the advantage of force and pervasiveness, which an orderly society assists in the perpetuation of.

As such, they are not a threat to the nation. Street gangs thrive on their sudden and terrifying violence. Stability in society is not an issue; the areas of the nation they control are already beyond the social services of the State. Anarchy, to an extent, is what enables their thriving and proliferating survival.

They are not a threat to our Government, either.

But a rising of the People... a rising of militias in response to the growth of totalitarianism within the State... will have as its direct and unquestioning objective the destruction of the Government.

God help us all. For I see our Government detaching itself from the People; and like a child beginning the tapestry of a story, it imagines it has both the power and the natural ability to withstand the petty limits of reality.

I ask you to consider what our nation would endure, with a violent and rising underclass bent not on controlling trade; not on controlling neighborhoods; not on increasing wealth or power or hegemony... but on the violent overthrow of the Government.

Our People will survive anything, short of a nuclear or biological holocaust. Through sheer force of numbers and the fierceness of the American spirit that is our inheritance.

But governments are, ultimately, only an agreement between the People and the State. If the People find the agreement abrogated or trodden upon by their Government, and in a manner intolerable to the maintenance of that agreement - then we may as well place our bets now.

But it can be avoided.

Let us learn from our mistakes, and move together into the bright future which beckons us - rather than plunging the nation into a gorge of darkness and horror.

A brighter America might eventually emerge... but even the Founders would never give us a guarantee.

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Today the battle over civil disarmament and abrogation of natural rights continues unabated. While the realm of State control has refocused on speech and medical freedom, and Second Amendment rights are more fully solidified in the public sphere, I find that my views have not modified in on this topic.

The reason Men seek to disarm Men, is to enable treatment of them as cattle.

There’s really no other reason for it.

Power in all its forms inevitably leads to collision, for that is the way of things.

Take note, and take heed:

God help us all. For I see our Government detaching itself from the People; and like a child beginning the tapestry of a story, it imagines it has both the power and the natural ability to withstand the petty limits of reality.

I was correct then, and I am correct now.

Look well, o wolves!

The principles of Heaven and the natures of Men do not change.

Be alert, and be of good cheer as we struggle through the darkness of this age.

Read the Company white paper Age of Militants, and ensure you dive into our complimentary Raw Human Capital assessment.

You have little time to determine your value in the coming conflict.

Grand rising!