A_Nation_of_Cowards_by_Jeffrey_Snyder
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00:00:04.960 | presented by Pear Deck. Family fun, giveaways, and exciting Kings hockey awaits. Get your tickets now
00:00:10.480 | at lakings.com/promotions and create lasting memories with your little ones. A Nation of Cowards
00:00:16.080 | published in fall of 1993 in the Public Interest, a quarterly journal of opinion published by
00:00:22.160 | National Affairs Inc. Our society has reached a pinnacle of self-expression and respect for
00:00:28.560 | individuality rare or unmatched in history. Our entire popular culture, from fashion magazines to
00:00:35.360 | the cinema, positively screams the matchless worth of the individual and glories in eccentricity,
00:00:42.880 | non-conformity, independent judgment, and self-determination. This enthusiasm is reflected
00:00:49.280 | in the prevalent notion that helping someone entails increasing that person's self-esteem,
00:00:54.720 | that if a person properly values himself, he will naturally be a happy, productive,
00:00:59.920 | and in some inexplicable fashion, responsible member of society. And yet, while people are
00:01:07.200 | encouraged to revel in their individuality and incalculable self-worth, the media and the law
00:01:13.120 | enforcement establishment continually advises us that, when confronted with the threat of lethal
00:01:18.320 | violence, we should not resist, but simply give the attacker what he wants. If the crime under
00:01:24.000 | consideration is rape, there is some notable waffling on this point, and the discussion quickly
00:01:29.360 | moves to how the woman can change her behavior to minimize the risk of rape and the various ridiculous,
00:01:34.160 | non-lethal weapons she may acceptably carry, such as whistles, keys, mace, or that weapon that really
00:01:40.880 | sends shivers down a rapist's spine, the portable cellular phone. Now, how can this be? How can a
00:01:47.680 | person who values himself so highly calmly accept the indignity of a criminal assault? How can one
00:01:54.800 | who believes that the essence of his dignity lies in his self-determination passively accept the
00:02:00.400 | forcible deprivation of that self-determination? How can he quietly, with great dignity and poise,
00:02:09.360 | simply hand over the goods? The assumption, of course, is that there is no inconsistency.
00:02:15.840 | The advice not to resist a criminal assault and simply hand over the goods is founded on the
00:02:20.240 | notion that one's life is of incalculable value and that no amount of property is worth it.
00:02:24.880 | Put aside for a moment the outrageousness of the suggestion that a criminal who proffers
00:02:30.000 | lethal violence should be treated as if he has instituted a new social contract,
00:02:34.160 | I will not hurt or kill you if you give me what I want. For years, feminists have labored to
00:02:39.360 | educate people that rape is not about sex, but about domination, degradation, and control.
00:02:45.200 | Evidently, someone needs to inform the law enforcement establishment and the media
00:02:48.960 | that kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, and assault are not about property.
00:02:53.360 | Crime is not only a complete disavowal of the social contract, but also a commandeering of
00:02:59.760 | the victim's person and liberty. If the individual's dignity lies in the fact that he is a
00:03:05.120 | moral agent engaging in actions of his own will, in free exchange with others, then crime always
00:03:11.360 | violates the victim's dignity. It is, in fact, an act of enslavement. Your wallet, your purse,
00:03:18.160 | or your car may not be worth your life, but your dignity is, and if it is not worth fighting for,
00:03:23.680 | it cannot hardly be said to exist. The Gift of Life
00:03:27.920 | Although difficult for modern man to fathom, it was once widely believed that life was a gift
00:03:33.360 | from God, that to not defend that life when offered violence was to hold God's gift in contempt,
00:03:39.040 | to be a coward, and to breach one's duty to one's community. A sermon given in Philadelphia in 1747
00:03:45.600 | unequivocally equated the failure to defend oneself with suicide. "He that suffers his life
00:03:51.760 | to be taken from him by one that hath no authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by
00:03:56.720 | defense, incurs the guilt of self-murder, since God hath enjoined him to seek the continuance of
00:04:02.400 | his life, and nature itself teaches every creature to defend itself." Cowardice and self-respect have
00:04:10.800 | largely disappeared from public discourse. In their place we are offered self-esteem as the
00:04:16.880 | bellwether of success and a proxy for dignity. Self-respect implies that one recognizes standards
00:04:23.920 | and judges oneself worthy by the degree to which one lives up to them. Self-esteem simply means
00:04:30.160 | that one feels good about oneself. Dignity used to refer to the self-mastery and fortitude with
00:04:36.560 | which a person conducted himself in the face of life's vicissitudes and the boorish behavior of
00:04:42.480 | others. Now, judging by campus speech codes, dignity requires that we never encounter a
00:04:48.640 | discouraging word and that others be coerced into acting respectfully, evidently on the assumption
00:04:54.000 | that we are powerless to prevent our degradation if exposed to the demeaning behavior of others.
00:04:59.200 | These are signposts proclaiming the insubstantiality of our character,
00:05:04.160 | the hollowness of our souls. It is impossible to address the problem of rampant crime without
00:05:11.200 | talking about the moral responsibility of the intended victim. Crime is rampant because the
00:05:16.400 | law abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it, permit it, submit to it. We permit and encourage
00:05:24.160 | it because we do not fight back. Immediately, then and there, where it happens. Crime is not
00:05:29.520 | rampant because we do not have enough prisons, because judges and prosecutors are too soft,
00:05:34.320 | because the police are hamstrung with absurd technicalities. The defect is there in our
00:05:40.400 | character. We are a nation of cowards and shirkers. Do you feel lucky? In 1991, when then Attorney
00:05:50.560 | General Richard Thornburrow released the FBI's annual crime statistics, he noted that it is now
00:05:56.880 | more likely that a person will be the victim of a violent crime than that he will be in an auto
00:06:01.280 | accident. Despite this, most people readily believe that the existence of the police relieves them of
00:06:07.040 | the responsibility to take full measures to protect themselves. The police, however, are not
00:06:11.920 | personal bodyguards. Rather, they act as a general deterrent to crime, both by their presence and by
00:06:18.160 | apprehending criminals after the fact. As numerous courts have held, they have no legal obligation
00:06:23.680 | to protect anyone in particular. You cannot sue them for failing to prevent you from being the
00:06:28.400 | victim of a crime. Insofar as the police deter by their presence, they are very, very good.
00:06:34.720 | Criminals take great pains not to commit a crime in front of them. Unfortunately, the corollary is
00:06:41.520 | that you can pretty much bet your life—and you are—that they won't be there at the moment you
00:06:47.920 | actually need them. Should you ever be the victim of an assault, a robbery, or a rape, you will find
00:06:54.240 | it very difficult to call the police while the act is in progress, even if you are carrying a
00:06:58.960 | portable cellular phone. Nevertheless, you might be interested to know how long it takes for them
00:07:04.160 | to show up. Department of Justice statistics for 1991 show that, for all crimes of violence,
00:07:10.480 | only 28% of calls are responded to within five minutes. The idea that protection as a service
00:07:17.040 | people can call to have delivered and expect to receive in a timely fashion is often mocked by
00:07:22.480 | gun owners, who love to recite the challenge, "Call for a cop, call for an ambulance, and call
00:07:28.080 | for a pizza. See who shows up first." Many people deal with the problem of crime by convincing
00:07:34.720 | themselves that they live, work, and travel only in special "crime-free" zones. Invariably, they
00:07:40.880 | react with shock and hurt surprise when they discover that criminals do not play by the rules
00:07:46.240 | and do not respect these imaginary boundaries. If, however, you understand that crime can occur
00:07:52.480 | anywhere, at any time, and if you understand that you can be maimed or mortally wounded in mere
00:07:57.920 | seconds, you may wish to consider whether you are willing to place the responsibility for
00:08:02.000 | safeguarding your life in the hands of others. Power and Responsibility
00:08:06.960 | Is your life worth protecting? If so, whose responsibility is it to protect it?
00:08:14.240 | If you believe that it is the police's, not only are you wrong, since the courts universally rule
00:08:19.920 | that they have no legal obligation to do so, but you face some difficult moral quandaries.
00:08:26.080 | How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to protect yours when you will
00:08:33.040 | assume no responsibility yourself? Because that is his job and we pay him to do it? Because your
00:08:39.040 | life is of incalculable value but his is only worth the $30,000 salary we pay him? If you believe it
00:08:45.840 | reprehensible to possess the means and will to use lethal force to repel a criminal assault,
00:08:51.680 | how can you call upon another to do so for you? Do you believe that you are forbidden to protect
00:08:57.440 | yourself because the police are better qualified to protect you? Because they know what they are
00:09:02.080 | doing but you're a rank amateur? Put aside that this is equivalent to believing that only concert
00:09:08.400 | pianists may play the piano and only professional athletes may play sports. What exactly are these
00:09:14.400 | special qualities possessed only by the police and beyond the rest of us mere mortals?
00:09:19.280 | One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to his family and community
00:09:26.400 | will possess and cultivate the means of fighting back and will retaliate when threatened with death
00:09:31.920 | or grievous injury to himself or a loved one. He will never be content to rely solely on others
00:09:37.680 | for his safety or to think he has done all that is possible by being aware of his surroundings
00:09:42.320 | and taking measures of avoidance. Let's not mince words. He will be armed, will be trained in the
00:09:48.640 | use of his weapon, and will defend himself when faced with lethal violence. Fortunately, there is
00:09:55.200 | a weapon for preserving life and liberty that can be wielded effectively by almost anyone.
00:09:59.200 | The handgun. Small and light enough to be carried habitually, lethal but unlike the knife or sword,
00:10:06.240 | not demanding great skill or strength, it truly is the great equalizer. Requiring only
00:10:13.280 | hand-eye coordination and a modicum of ability to remain cool under pressure, it can be used
00:10:18.480 | effectively by the old and the weak, against the young and the strong, by the one against the many.
00:10:24.720 | The handgun is the only weapon that would give a lone female jogger a chance of prevailing against
00:10:29.840 | a gang of thugs intent on rape, a teacher a chance of protecting children at recess from a madman
00:10:36.080 | intent on massacring them, a family of tourists waiting at a midtown subway station the means to
00:10:42.160 | protect themselves from a gang of teens armed with razors and knives. But since we live in a society
00:10:49.360 | that by and large outlaws the carrying of arms, we are brought into the fray of the great American
00:10:54.880 | gun war. Gun control is one of the most prominent battlegrounds in our current culture wars,
00:11:01.120 | yet it is unique in the half-heartedness with which our conservative leaders and pundits,
00:11:05.520 | our conservative elite, do battle and have conceded the moral high ground to liberal
00:11:10.560 | gun control proponents. It is not a topic often written about or written about with any great
00:11:17.040 | fervor by William F. Buckley or Patrick Buchanan. As drug czar, William Bennett advised President
00:11:23.360 | Bush to ban assault weapons. George Will is on record as recommending the repeal of the Second
00:11:29.600 | Amendment, and Jack Kemp is on record as favoring a ban on the possession of semi-automatic assault
00:11:35.040 | weapons. The battle for gun rights is one fought predominantly by the common man. The beliefs of
00:11:41.680 | both our liberal and conservative elites are in fact abetting the criminal rampage through our
00:11:46.240 | society. Selling crime prevention. By any rational measure, nearly all gun control proposals are
00:11:54.160 | hokum. The Brady Bill, for example, would not have prevented John Hinckley from obtaining a
00:11:58.320 | gun to shoot President Reagan. Hinckley purchased his weapon five months before the attack,
00:12:03.200 | and his medical records could not have served as a basis to deny his purchase of a gun,
00:12:07.360 | since medical records are not public documents filed with the police.
00:12:10.560 | Similarly, California's waiting period and background check did not stop Patrick Purdy
00:12:16.320 | from purchasing the assault rifle and handguns he used to massacre children during recess in a
00:12:21.840 | Stockton schoolyard. The felony conviction that would have provided the basis for stopping the
00:12:26.320 | sales did not exist, because Mr. Purdy's previous weapons violations were plea bargained down from
00:12:31.840 | felonies to misdemeanors. In the mid-60s, there was a public service advertising campaign
00:12:37.200 | targeted at car owners about the prevention of car theft. The purpose of the ad was to
00:12:42.160 | urge car owners not to leave their keys in their cars. The message was, "Don't help a good boy go
00:12:47.920 | bad." The implication was that, by leaving his keys in his car, the normal, law-abiding car owner
00:12:54.800 | was contributing to the delinquency of minors who, if they just weren't tempted beyond their limits,
00:13:00.480 | would be good. Now, in those days, people still had a fair sense of just who was responsible for
00:13:06.800 | whose behavior. The ad succeeded in enraging a goodly portion of the populace and was soon dropped.
00:13:12.160 | Nearly all of the gun control measures offered by Handgun Control Inc. (HCI) and its ilk embody the
00:13:19.840 | same philosophy. They are founded on the belief that America's law-abiding gun owners are the
00:13:25.120 | source of the problem. With their unholy desire for firearms, they are creating a society awash
00:13:30.720 | in a sea of guns, thereby helping good boys go bad and helping bad boys be badder. This laying
00:13:37.840 | of moral blame for violent crime at the feet of the law-abiding, and the implicit absolution of
00:13:43.840 | violent criminals for their misdeeds, naturally infuriates honest gun owners. The files of HCI
00:13:51.440 | and other gun control organizations are filled with proposals to limit the availability of
00:13:55.920 | semi-automatic and other firearms to law-abiding citizens, and barren of proposals for apprehending
00:14:01.760 | and punishing violent criminals. It is ludicrous to expect that the proposals of HCI or any gun
00:14:08.720 | control laws will significantly curb crime. According to Department of Justice and Bureau
00:14:14.160 | of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) statistics, fully 90% of violent crimes are committed without
00:14:20.480 | a handgun, and 93% of the guns obtained by violent criminals are not obtained through
00:14:25.280 | the lawful purchase and sale transactions that are the object of most gun control legislation.
00:14:30.080 | Furthermore, the number of violent criminals is minute in comparison to the number of firearms
00:14:36.000 | in America, estimated by the ATF at about 200 million, approximately one-third of which are
00:14:41.520 | handguns. With so abundant a supply, there will always be enough guns available for those who
00:14:46.880 | wish to use them for nefarious ends, no matter how complete the legal prohibitions against them,
00:14:52.080 | or how draconian the punishment for their acquisition or use. No, the gun control
00:14:57.440 | proposals of HCI and other organizations are not seriously intended as crime control.
00:15:02.320 | Something else is at work here. The Tyranny of the Elite
00:15:08.960 | Gun control is a moral crusade against a benighted, barbaric citizenry. This is demonstrated not only
00:15:17.600 | by the ineffectualness of gun control in preventing crime, and by the fact that it focuses on
00:15:22.320 | restricting the behavior of the law-abiding rather than apprehending and punishing the guilty, but
00:15:27.360 | also by the execration that gun control proponents heap on gun owners and their evil instrumentality,
00:15:34.080 | the NRA. Gun owners are routinely portrayed as uneducated, paranoid rednecks fascinated by and
00:15:41.520 | prone to violence, i.e. exactly the type of person who opposes the liberal agenda and whose moral
00:15:47.520 | and social "re-education" is the object of liberal social policies. Typical of such "bigotry" is New
00:15:54.800 | York Governor Mario Cuomo's famous characterization of gun owners as "hunters who drink beer,
00:16:00.240 | don't vote, and lie to their wives about where they were all weekend." Similar vituperation is
00:16:06.960 | reigned upon the NRA, characterized by Senator Edward Kennedy as the "pusher's best friend,"
00:16:13.440 | lampooned in political cartoons as standing for the right of children to carry firearms to school,
00:16:20.320 | and in general, portrayed as standing for an individual's God-given right to blow people
00:16:25.280 | away at will. The stereotype is, of course, false. As criminologist and constitutional lawyer Don B.
00:16:33.120 | Cates Jr. and former HCI contributor Dr. Patricia Harris have pointed out, "Studies consistently
00:16:39.200 | show that, on the average, gun owners are better educated and have more prestigious jobs than
00:16:44.800 | non-owners. Later studies show that gun owners are less likely than non-owners to approve of
00:16:50.560 | police brutality, violence against dissenters, etc." Conservatives must understand that the
00:16:57.520 | antipathy many liberals have for gun owners arises in good measure from their statist utopianism.
00:17:03.360 | This habit of mind has nowhere been better explored than in the Republic. There, Plato
00:17:09.520 | argues that the perfectly just society is one in which an unarmed people exhibit virtue by minding
00:17:16.080 | their own business and the performance of their assigned functions, while the government of
00:17:20.240 | philosopher-kings, above the law and protected by armed guardians, unquestioning in their loyalty
00:17:26.000 | to the state, engineers, implements, and fine-tunes the creation of that society, aided
00:17:32.320 | and abetted by myths that both hide and justify their totalitarian manipulation.
00:17:40.160 | The Unarmed Life When columnist Carl Rowan preaches gun control and uses a gun to defend his
00:17:47.840 | home, when Maryland Governor William Donald Schaefer seeks legislation year after year to ban
00:17:53.680 | semi-automatic assault weapons whose only purpose, we are told, is to kill people, while he is at
00:17:59.840 | the same time escorted by state police armed with large-capacity 9mm semi-automatic pistols,
00:18:05.840 | it is not simple hypocrisy. It is the workings of that habit of mind possessed by all superior
00:18:12.240 | beings, who have taken upon themselves the terrible burden of "civilizing the masses,"
00:18:18.480 | and who understand, like our Congress, that laws are for other people. The liberal elite know that
00:18:24.720 | they are philosopher-kings. They know that the people simply cannot be trusted, and that they
00:18:30.880 | are incapable of just and fair self-government, that left to their own devices their society will
00:18:37.760 | be racist, sexist, homophobic, and inequitable. And the liberal elite know how to fix things.
00:18:44.720 | They are going to help us live the good and just life, even if they have to lie to us and
00:18:50.400 | force us to do it. And they detest those who stand in their way.
00:18:55.040 | The private ownership of firearms is a rebuke to this utopian zeal. To own firearms is to affirm
00:19:02.080 | that freedom and liberty are not gifts from the state. It is to reserve final judgment about
00:19:08.640 | whether the state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend that freedom
00:19:13.520 | with more than mere words, and to stand outside the state's totalitarian reach.
00:19:20.160 | The Florida Experience The elitist distrust of the people
00:19:25.280 | underlying the gun control movement is illustrated beautifully in HCI's campaign against a new
00:19:30.880 | concealed carry law in Florida. Prior to 1987, the Florida law permitting the issuance of concealed
00:19:36.880 | carry permits was administered at the county level. The law was vague, and as a result was
00:19:42.080 | subject to conflicting interpretation and political manipulation. Permits were issued
00:19:47.200 | principally to security personnel and the "privileged few" with political connections.
00:19:52.880 | Permits were valid only within the county of issuance. In 1987, however, Florida enacted a
00:19:59.120 | uniform concealed carry law, which mandates that county authorities issue a permit to anyone
00:20:04.640 | who satisfies certain objective criteria. The law requires that a permit be issued to any applicant
00:20:10.880 | who is a resident, at least 21 years of age, has no criminal record, no record of alcohol or drug
00:20:16.960 | abuse, no history of mental illness, and provides evidence of having satisfactorily completed a
00:20:22.160 | firearm safety course offered by the NRA or other competent instructor. The applicant must provide
00:20:27.920 | a set of fingerprints, after which the authorities make a background check. The permit must be issued
00:20:33.920 | or denied within 90 days, is valid throughout the state, and must be renewed every three years,
00:20:39.280 | which provides authorities a regular means of reevaluating whether the permit holder still
00:20:43.360 | qualifies. Passage of this legislation was vehemently opposed by HCI and the media. The
00:20:49.680 | law, they said, would lead to citizens shooting each other over everyday disputes involving
00:20:53.920 | fender-benders, impolite behavior, and other slights to their dignity. Terms like "Florida,
00:20:59.360 | the gun-shy state" and "Dodge City East" were coined to suggest that the state and those seeking
00:21:05.360 | passage of the law were encouraging individuals to act as judge, jury, and executioner in a
00:21:11.200 | death-wish society. No HCI campaign more clearly demonstrates the elitist beliefs underlying the
00:21:18.320 | campaign to eradicate gun ownership. Given the qualifications required of permit holders,
00:21:23.520 | HCI and the media can only believe that common, law-abiding citizens are seething cauldrons of
00:21:29.680 | homicidal rage, ready to kill to avenge any slight to their dignity, eager to seek out and
00:21:36.240 | summarily execute the lawless. Only lack of immediate access to a gun restrains them and
00:21:42.080 | prevents the blood from flowing in the streets. They are so mentally and morally deficient that
00:21:48.560 | they would mistake a permit to carry a weapon in self-defense as a state-sanctioned license to kill
00:21:54.160 | at will. Did the dire predictions come true? Despite the fact that Miami and Dade County have
00:22:02.400 | severe problems with the drug trade, the homicide rate fell in Florida following enactment of this
00:22:07.920 | law, as it did in Oregon following enactment of similar legislation there. There are, in addition,
00:22:15.280 | several documented cases of new permit holders successfully using their weapons to defend
00:22:20.160 | themselves. Information from the Florida Department of State shows that, from the beginning of the
00:22:24.800 | program in 1987 through June 1993, 160,823 permits have been issued, and only 530, or about 0.33%
00:22:35.760 | of the applicants, have been denied a permit for failure to satisfy the criteria, indicating that
00:22:40.880 | the law is benefiting those whom it was intended to benefit. The law abiding. Only 16 permits,
00:22:47.920 | less than 1/100th of 1%, have been revoked due to the post-issuance commission of a crime
00:22:55.840 | involving a firearm. The Florida legislation has been used as a model for legislation adopted by
00:23:03.920 | Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Mississippi. There are, in addition, seven other states—Maine,
00:23:09.760 | North and South Dakota, Utah, Washington, West Virginia, and, with the exception of cities with
00:23:14.000 | a population in excess of 1 million, Pennsylvania—which provide that concealed carry permits
00:23:18.720 | must be issued to law abiding citizens who satisfy various objective criteria.
00:23:23.200 | Finally, no permit is required at all in Vermont. Altogether, then, there are 13 states in which
00:23:29.680 | law abiding citizens who wish to carry arms to defend themselves may do so. While no one appears
00:23:35.440 | to have compiled the statistics from all of these jurisdictions, there is certainly an ample
00:23:40.160 | database for those seeking the truth about the trustworthiness of law abiding citizens who carry
00:23:45.280 | firearms. Other evidence also suggests that armed citizens are very responsible in using guns to
00:23:53.040 | defend themselves. Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, using surveys and other
00:23:58.320 | data, has determined that armed citizens defend their lives or property with firearms against
00:24:02.720 | criminals approximately 1 million times a year. In 98% of these instances, the citizen merely
00:24:08.640 | brandishes the weapon or fires a warning shot. Only in 2% of the cases do citizens actually
00:24:13.920 | shoot their assailants. In defending themselves with their firearms, armed citizens kill 2,000
00:24:18.800 | to 3,000 criminals each year, three times the number killed by the police. A nationwide study
00:24:24.320 | by Cates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2% of civilian
00:24:29.760 | shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The error rate for the
00:24:35.440 | police, however, was 11%, over five times as high. It is simply not possible to square the numbers
00:24:41.760 | above and the experience of Florida with the notions that honest, law abiding gun owners are
00:24:46.720 | borderline psychopaths itching for an excuse to shoot someone, vigilantes eager to seek out and
00:24:52.640 | summarily execute the lawless, or incompetent fools incapable of determining when it is proper to use
00:24:59.600 | lethal force in defense of their lives. Nor, upon reflection, should these results seem surprising.
00:25:05.280 | Rape, robbery, and attempted murder are not typically actions rife with ambiguity or subtlety,
00:25:12.640 | requiring special powers of observation and great book learning to discern. When a man pulls a knife
00:25:18.560 | on a woman and says, "You're coming with me," her judgment that a crime is being committed is not
00:25:23.440 | likely to be in error. There is little chance that she is going to shoot the wrong person.
00:25:28.240 | It is the police, because they are rarely at the scene of the crime when it occurs, who are more
00:25:34.000 | likely to find themselves in circumstances where guilt and innocence are not so clear cut,
00:25:39.040 | and in which the probability for mistakes is higher.
00:25:41.440 | Arms and Liberty
00:25:43.680 | Classical Republican philosophy has long recognized the critical relationship between
00:25:49.440 | personal liberty and the possession of arms by a people ready and willing to use them.
00:25:54.240 | Political theorists as dissimilar as Niccolo Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More, James Harrington,
00:26:01.600 | Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau all share the view that the possession
00:26:07.520 | of arms is vital for resisting tyranny, and that to be disarmed by one's government is tantamount
00:26:13.600 | to being enslaved by it. The possession of arms by the people is the ultimate warrant
00:26:19.360 | that government governs only with the consent of the governed. As Cates has shown, the Second
00:26:26.000 | Amendment is as much a product of this political philosophy as it is of the American experience in
00:26:31.120 | the Revolutionary War. Yet our conservative elite has abandoned this aspect of Republican theory.
00:26:37.440 | Although our conservative pundits recognize and embrace gun owners as allies in other arenas,
00:26:43.760 | their battle for gun rights is desultory. The problem here is not a statist utopianism,
00:26:49.760 | although goodness knows that liberals are not alone in the confidence they have in the state's
00:26:53.920 | ability to solve society's problems. Rather, the problem seems to lie in certain cultural traits
00:26:59.840 | shared by our conservative and liberal elites. One such trait is an abounding faith in the power
00:27:05.680 | of the word. The failure of our conservative elite to defend the Second Amendment stems,
00:27:10.320 | in great measure, from an overestimation of the power of the rights set forth in the First
00:27:14.800 | Amendment and a general undervaluation of action. Implicit in calls for the repeal of the Second
00:27:20.960 | Amendment is the assumption that our First Amendment rights are sufficient to preserve
00:27:24.560 | our liberty. The belief is that liberty can be preserved as long as men freely speak their minds,
00:27:30.640 | that there is no tyranny or abuse that can survive being exposed in the press,
00:27:35.520 | and that the truth need only be disclosed for the culprits to be shamed. The people will act,
00:27:40.480 | and the truth shall set us free. History is not kind to this belief,
00:27:48.000 | tending rather to support the view of Hobbes, Machiavelli, and other Republican theorists that
00:27:53.280 | only people willing and able to defend themselves can preserve their liberties. While it may be
00:27:58.720 | tempting and comforting to believe that the existence of mass electronic communication has
00:28:04.160 | forever altered the balance of power between the state and its subjects, the belief has certainly
00:28:09.520 | not been tested by time, and what little history there is in the age of mass communication is not
00:28:15.280 | especially encouraging. The camera, radio, and press are mere tools, and like guns can be used
00:28:21.280 | for good or ill. Hitler, after all, was a masterful orator, used radio to very good effect, and is
00:28:28.640 | well known to have pioneered and exploited the propaganda opportunities afforded by film. And
00:28:34.080 | then, of course, there were the brownshirts, who knew very well how to quell dissent among
00:28:38.720 | intellectuals. Polite Society In addition to being enamored of the power of words,
00:28:45.840 | our conservative elite shares with liberals the notion that an armed society is just not
00:28:50.320 | civilized or progressive, that massive gun ownership is a blot on our civilization.
00:28:55.520 | This association of personal disarmament with civilized behavior is one of the great
00:29:01.120 | unexamined beliefs of our time. Should you read English literature from the 16th through 19th
00:29:06.720 | centuries, you will discover numerous references to the fact that a gentleman, especially when out
00:29:11.920 | at night or traveling, armed himself with a sword or a pistol against the chance of encountering a
00:29:16.800 | highwayman or other such predator. This does not appear to have shocked the ladies accompanying him.
00:29:22.320 | True, for the most part, there were no police in those days, but we have already addressed
00:29:26.640 | the notion that the presence of the police absolves people of the responsibility to look
00:29:30.800 | after their safety, and in any event, the existence of the police cannot be said to
00:29:34.720 | have reduced crime to negligible levels. It is by no means obvious why it is "civilized" to permit
00:29:41.840 | oneself to fall easy prey to criminal violence and to permit criminals to continue unobstructed
00:29:47.840 | in their evil ways. While it may be that a society in which crime is so rare that no one ever needs
00:29:53.680 | to carry a weapon is "civilized," a society that stigmatizes the carrying of weapons by the law
00:29:59.920 | abiding because it distrusts its citizens more than it fears rapists, robbers, and murderers
00:30:06.960 | certainly cannot claim this distinction. Perhaps the notion that defending oneself with lethal
00:30:13.120 | force is not "civilized" arises from the view that violence is always wrong, or the view that
00:30:18.880 | each human being is of such intrinsic worth that it is wrong to kill anyone under any circumstances.
00:30:24.080 | The necessary implication of these propositions, however, is that life is not worth defending.
00:30:29.840 | Far from being "civilized," the beliefs that counter-violence and killing are always wrong
00:30:36.000 | are an invitation to the spread of barbarism. Such beliefs announce loudly and clearly that
00:30:42.240 | those who do not respect the lives and properties of others will rule over those who do. In truth,
00:30:49.120 | one who believes it wrong to arm himself against criminal violence shows contempt of God's gift
00:30:54.560 | of life, or in modern parlance, does not properly value himself, does not live up to his responsibilities
00:31:00.800 | to his family and community, and proclaims himself mentally and morally deficient because he does
00:31:07.120 | not trust himself to behave responsibly. In truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding citizens of
00:31:13.200 | the means to effectively defend themselves is not "civilized" but barbarous, becoming an
00:31:19.200 | accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs, and revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit
00:31:25.200 | admission that the disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat than
00:31:31.120 | our men and women who believe themselves free and independent and act accordingly.
00:31:35.120 | While gun control proponents and other advocates of a "kinder, gentler" society incessantly decry
00:31:41.920 | our "armed" society, in truth we do not live in an armed society. We live in a society in which
00:31:48.080 | violent criminals and agents of the state habitually carry weapons, and in which many
00:31:53.440 | law-abiding citizens own firearms but do not go about armed. Department of Justice statistics
00:31:59.920 | indicate that 87% of all violent crimes occur outside the home. Essentially, although tens
00:32:06.000 | of millions own firearms, we are an unarmed society. Take back the night. Clearly, the police
00:32:14.080 | and the courts are not providing a significant break on criminal activity. While liberals call
00:32:19.120 | for more poverty, education, and drug treatment programs, conservatives take a more direct tack.
00:32:24.800 | George Will advocates a massive increase in the number of police and a shift toward
00:32:29.680 | community-based policing. Meanwhile, the NRA and many conservative leaders call for laws that would
00:32:34.800 | require violent criminals serve at least 85% of their sentences and would place repeat offenders
00:32:40.000 | permanently behind bars. Our society suffers greatly from the beliefs that only official
00:32:46.160 | action is legitimate and that the state is the source of our earthly salvation.
00:32:51.040 | Both liberal and conservative prescriptions for violent crime suffer from the "not in my job"
00:32:57.360 | description school of thought regarding the responsibilities of the law-abiding citizen,
00:33:02.000 | and from an overestimation of the ability of the state to provide society's moral moorings.
00:33:06.400 | As long as law-abiding citizens assume no personal responsibility for combating crime,
00:33:12.560 | liberal and conservative programs will fail to contain it. Judging by the numerous articles
00:33:18.880 | about concealed carry in gun magazines, the growing number of products advertised for such purpose,
00:33:23.920 | and the increase in the number of concealed carry applications in states with mandatory
00:33:27.920 | issuance laws, more and more people, including growing numbers of women, are carrying firearms
00:33:33.600 | for self-defense. Since there are still many states in which the issuance of permits is
00:33:38.800 | discretionary, and in which law enforcement officials routinely deny applications,
00:33:43.520 | many people have been put to the hard choice between protecting their lives or respecting
00:33:48.240 | the law. Some of these people have learned the hard way, by being the victim of a crime,
00:33:53.040 | or by seeing a friend or loved one raped, robbed, or murdered, that violent crime can happen to
00:33:58.560 | anyone, anywhere, at any time, and that crime is not about sex or property, but life, liberty,
00:34:05.600 | and dignity. The laws proscribing concealed carry of firearms by honest, law-abiding citizens breed
00:34:13.280 | nothing but disrespect for the law. As the Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does
00:34:18.320 | not trust its honest, law-abiding, tax-paying citizens with the means of self-defense is not
00:34:24.240 | itself worthy of trust. Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the
00:34:31.200 | master, not the servant, of the people. A federal law along the lines of the Florida Statute,
00:34:38.400 | overriding all contradictory state and local laws and acknowledging that the carrying of
00:34:43.520 | firearms by law-abiding citizens is a privilege and immunity of citizenship, is needed to correct
00:34:49.920 | the outrageous conduct of state and local officials operating under discretionary licensing
00:34:54.880 | systems. What we certainly do not need is more gun control. Those who call for the repeal of
00:35:01.040 | the Second Amendment so that we can really begin controlling firearms betray a serious
00:35:05.680 | misunderstanding of the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people,
00:35:11.040 | such that its repeal would legitimately confer upon the government the powers otherwise proscribed.
00:35:16.880 | The Bill of Rights is the list of the fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed in man by his Creator,
00:35:24.720 | that define what it means to be a free and independent people, the rights which must exist
00:35:30.480 | to ensure that government governs only with the consent of the people. At one time, this was even
00:35:37.280 | understood by the Supreme Court. In United States v. Cruikshank, 1876, the first case in which the
00:35:43.600 | Court had an opportunity to interpret the Second Amendment, it stated that the right confirmed by
00:35:49.120 | the Second Amendment "is not a right granted by the Constitution, neither is it in any manner
00:35:56.080 | dependent upon that instrument for its existence." The repeal of the Second Amendment would no more
00:36:03.680 | render the outlawing of firearms legitimate than the repeal of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth
00:36:09.120 | Amendment would authorize the government to imprison and kill people at will. A government
00:36:14.720 | that abrogates any of the Bill of Rights, with or without majoritarian approval, forever acts
00:36:21.920 | illegitimately, becomes tyrannical, and loses the moral right to govern. This is the uncompromising
00:36:31.520 | understanding reflected in the warning that America's gun owners will not go gently into
00:36:36.240 | that good utopian night. "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead hands."
00:36:42.720 | While liberals take this statement as evidence of the retrograde, violent nature of gun owners,
00:36:50.160 | we gun owners hope that liberals hold equally strong sentiments about their printing presses,
00:36:55.680 | word processors, and television cameras. The Republic depends upon fervent devotion
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