Is “Common sense gun reform” really common sense? 

 

Gun reform seems to be constantly discussed, whether it’s politicians, the media or just any random citizen, gun control is always a hot topic. The major problem with these discussions is that a lot of people have no idea what they’re talking about when it comes to guns at all. Check out this video from Steven Crowder to see what I mean.

 

This ignorance is a major issue with any discussions about gun control as it prevents productive conversation. Let’s, however, assume that the average proposer of “Common sense gun reform” doesn’t know anything about guns. Instead of arguing from a factual gun base lets discuss the issue on a more fundamental policy basis.

 

The Second Amendment

 “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.”

This quote from the second amendment is the basis for the argument for gun rights and can be used in a multitude of ways, here are some of the arguments:

 

The human rights slippery slope

 

Whether Democrats like it or not guns are defined as a human right in the Consitution. This means, that fundamentally, you can not restrict the right of people to have them. If you can legally restrict one right, you can restrict all. The argument should never be about the proposition of gun reform, it should only ever be about repeal or protection of the second amendment.

 

So let’s defend the second amendment.

 

The threat of tyranny:

In case anyone forgot, America was once a British colony. The war of independence was only won due to the private ownership of weapons. There were privately owned ships and private militias fighting against the British, without these soldiers and private citizens America might have lost. This basic historical context is something you have to understand in order to understand why the second amendment is such a strong piece of work.  “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”, this line shows this. The writers knew that private ownership of weapons was necessary in order to protect a state from a tyrannical government.

Whenever this argument comes up an often smug lefty will be quick to question whether you think a tyrannical government is likely to come to power, they will then try to paint you as a conspiracy theorist and try paint you as insane for thinking this.  The quick answer to this is yes, a tyrannical power can easily come to power, especially if you have Democrats like Bernie Sanders in power. You see these Democrats love big government. The ‘Democratic Socialists’ like Bernie need a big government in order for their policies to succeed. So, assuming Bernie can one day miraculously win an election, he will expand the power of the executive branch to unprecedented and almost tyrannical levels. So lefties, ask yourself one question: if the president has unlimited power and controls a massive government which can basically control your day to day life, what happens when someone you disagree with comes in? Imagine Obama gave himself unlimited power, what would happen now with Trump in power? you’d probably want to riot. Now, I don’t believe this riot would be justified with someone like Trump, but the reason why people like Hitler, Stalin and Mao were able to come to power was because people didn’t fear this tyranny, it’s time to stop this stupidity and assume a tyrannical dictator would never come to power in America, it has happened and you can bet it will happen again, the second amendment is your last defence against this and so, naturally needs to be protected.

 

The basic Liberty

This argument is pretty straight forward, a government needs to stay the heck out of my personal life. Austin Petersen explained it best when he said:  “I want gay couples to be able to protect their marijuana fields with fully automatic rifles”.  This basically means that the Government should stay the hell out of my life, leave me with my guns, my rights, and I’ll protect myself. Guns are our last resort when our rights are attacked, and they should always be protected as such.

 

Guns are fundamental to our protection and sovereignty and are a fundamental way to protect all our other rights.  We in England need to take a note from the U.S and pass our own equivlent of the Second Ammendment. Common Sense Gun reform is a sound bite which means nothing, time to stop using it.