“The power under the constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can and undoubtedly will, be recalled.”
I think it’s hard for people not raised in the United States to understand how difficult it is to live up to the ideal of American citizenship. We have these God-given freedoms of speech, worship, assembly, and yes, firearm ownership, that are not granted by the government, but are expressly forbidden for the government to legislate, except for certain stated limits (libel, slander, etc.).
But with these rights come responsibilities, and what the US is suffering right now is an abdication of personal responsibility in favor of having the State take care of everything. Thus the press for gun control legislation in the wake of this mass murder. Certainly the mother, God rest her soul, showed poor responsibility by having easily accessible firearms around a mentally disturbed sociopath that she was trying to have committed.
We surround our President with guns for protection when he travels through his own citizenry. Celebrities routinely hire armed bodyguards for protection. The mayor of New York city says that Wayne LaPierre, the VP of the National Rifle Association (NRA) paints a “paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe.”
That pretty much IS most outsiders’ vision of America, isn’t it? But actually, no place IS really safe—we only have an illusion of safety because no nut case has decided to make our corner of the world his last stand.
The bottom line is that it’s not the appropriate response to a tragedy of this scope to further reduce the liberties of the law-abiding portion of the country. If we deem the President and Brittany Spears important enough to allow them to surround themselves with firearms, why not our most important treasure, our children?
JamesS of Washington, DC
This is from Tim's post "The Caro Doctrine", which you should read for full context, but the sentiment stands alone for anyone who loves their children.
