June 24, 2015

Ubud, Bali

[Editor’s note: Podcast link follows at the end of this article.]

I’m not going to make a trite comparison to Nazi Germany.

That seems to be the libertarian thing to do whenever politicians bring up gun control.

Yes, it’s true that throughout history, as long as there has been government, politicians have first sought to disarm their populations before descending into totalitarianism.

But I don’t think that’s what’s happening here.

In the wake of yet another horrible, senseless, shooting, there are once again growing calls to “do something” about all the “gun violence” in America.

This response is pretty natural. It’s cause and effect: when something creates pain, we want to stop the pain.

The logical syllogism is that if criminals are killing people with guns, then ‘we’ need to control guns.

Mr. Obama himself has been thoroughly vocal on the subject, plainly stating that “innocent people were killed in part because someone who wanted to inflict harm had no trouble getting their hands on a gun”.

Now he wants to do something about it.

And to be fair, I really doubt there’s any sinister intent; the President is just doing what he feels is necessary to protect people.

That’s the thing Presidents always say, after all. It’s always some line about how ‘protecting the American people is their #1 responsibility.’

Actually it’s not.

In fact, the word “protect” appears just one time in Article II of the Constitution (the part that deals with the President’s responsibilities).

And it has nothing to do with protecting the American people.

The word is used in reference to the oath of office that every President has taken since George Washington-- to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Funny thing about the Constitution is that it includes the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms.”

So ultimately the President’s responsibility is to the Constitution, not to succumb to a knee-jerk reaction that doesn’t actually even make sense.

Yes people are angry. And perhaps even scared. But the logic doesn’t add up.

Number one, some people are just crazy. Completely batshit crazy.

This kid who shot up a church because he hated black people was crazy.

And there’s no amount of legislation that’s can protect people from crazy. If someone is really so psycho that they want to inflict harm, they’ll find a way.

I saw the most horrendous video the other day. And I’m sorry I watched it, as it showed a beautiful 17-year-old girl getting stoned to death by hundreds of men in her tribe.

Those guys are crazy. And they murdered this girl. No guns. Just rocks.

So if we’re going to have gun control, we might as well have some stone control to go along with it.

More importantly, whenever politicians talk about gun control, they express the most bizarre logic.

They think guns in the hands of civilians are a danger to society, whereas guns in the hands of the government are protecting society.

And whenever there’s some heinous incident of police brutality, they always tell us that it’s an isolated event that does not reflect on the police community in general.

Then they make the problem worse with massive federal funding that turns police forces into paramilitary organizations, complete with urban assault vehicles.

But the same logic should be applied for the millions of people who responsibly own firearms. One crazed lunatic certainly does not reflect on everyone.

Yet when an incident like this does occur,