23 April 2013–
Wednesday
before last, the Senate didn’t garner enough votes to pass a bill that would
have expanded background checks for prospective buyers at gun shows and on the
internet. The bill would have left only private sales of weapons
unfettered by federal government intrusion. The vote was 54-46 in favor, but 60
votes were needed under an agreement to avoid a filibuster. Three of
the five Democrat senators who voted against the bill were up for reelection in
2014 in states where gun ownership rights are well-supported. No
surprise. Of the four Republicans who voted for the bill three are
liberal Republicans from states where the Second Amendment is often treated as
a quaint anachronism from a bygone era. Again, no surprise. Now,
both sides of the aisle are proposing amendments to the bill in order to create
something a majority of the solons can live with. If the bill
eventually passes the Senate, it will go to the House where it should face
similar opposition.
The
debates and political posturing surrounding the Second Amendment are not over,
not by a long shot. Violence and crime, some committed with
firearms, legitimately concern most Americans. I contend that the
reasons for most such violence are not found in the Second Amendment but in the
dissolution of marriage, family, and the resultant erosion of societal
cohesion. It saddens me to be so skeptical of those who accumulate
power; but, I fear that lawmakers who are willing to dilute the rights
expressed in the Second Amendment as a facile approach to reducing societal
violence—violence strongly correlated with the implementation of nanny-state
policies—also will find no problem quickly diluting the rights expressed in the
rest of the Bill of Rights for some other raison du jour. A
government that will gather personal information ostensibly for the misguided
purpose of determining who can own a firearm also cannot be trusted to limit
the use of that information only to issues surrounding the Second
Amendment. The Founders of our country were pragmatic
realists. They didn’t trust themselves or others with power. They
didn’t want anybody or any governmental institution to accumulate unfettered
power. They knew that power corrupts even the strongest and
intelligent among us. I contend that it corrupts many of our lawmakers
and government employees today.
I do
not want anybody in any government organization to keep information of a
personal nature about me; and, it is especially noisome to me that the
government currently maintains so much. It is amazing that
government entities know how much other property I own, how much I paid for it,
when I bought it, and what it is worth. In my case, as a retired Air
Force officer, the government also knows everything about my health for my
entire adult life, my family relationships, and my movements throughout the
world. The government has my DNA, recently required in the military,
and my fingerprints, also recently required in the military. So it
will be increasingly available through gun-purchase background checks and other
intrusive laws such as Obamacare for all ordinary civilian citizens.
Should
I fear that all this information gives my government too much power to
interfere in my life, but not enough power to protect me? Does all
this information about me on file in different government data bases make me a
better citizen? Other than following the flow of traffic at ten
miles-an-hour over the speed limit on the highways of America, I already am
law-abiding; therefore, I doubt it. Did the information that the FBI
already had on these naturalized Chechnyan youth with delusions of radical
Islam dancing in their heads prevent them from committing horrific crimes with
explosives and weapons in the streets of Boston? Nope, it didn’t. Therefore,
those who act on what is in these data bases, in the name of keeping us safe or
healthy, will only erode our liberties and give us little in return.
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