By Portland Post contributor, Scott Lee
With respect to public policy aimed at curbing gun violence, there are two options.
The first option is to make sure weapons simply don’t exist anywhere in public so that demented, mentally ill individuals have no means of ever obtaining one legally or illegally. This means not only banning the future sale, but also confiscating everything in existence. This approach must be iron-fisted, both in terms of policy and police power. Anything short of full “ban and confiscate” policies will always leave the potential that a violent criminal will obtain a deadly firearm. Furthermore, the populace is 100% reliant upon police power to both deter and respond to violent crimes. The right of self-defense is delegated to the state and the police power of the state must be absolute, striking fear in the heart of the citizenry over which it is charged with protecting, or the model falls apart. The second option is to openly and freely allow law-abiding citizenry to arm themselves with no infringement with respect to the means, location, or timing of when they are armed. This was the model instituted by the Founding Fathers of the United States. This model recognizes that violent people with the means to do violence upon others will always exist. It recognizes that the right to self-defense is not only binary, inherent to both the individual and also to a sovereign nation but that it is also a fundamental tenant of natural law. In this model, the individual right to self-defense is retained by the individual as opposed to being delegated to the state. Furthermore, the power of deterrence is shared in a decentralized manner between the individual and the state. The power to respond to crimes already committed is retained by the state, guided by the rule of law. These are the two options and there is no in-between. Countries that appear to be in between are really just a step toward the former option, as infringement will eventually lead to oppression, and oppression to totalitarianism. Places like Australia and Canada are really no different than places like China, they are just not as far along the path of option 1. The latter option leads to liberty but requires moral people that have great self-responsibility and courage. It requires people who desire to be free and who aren’t timid in the face of thugs, bullies, and lunatics. It also requires that they be steadfast in not ever relinquishing power over their lives to a state that will gladly take it. If you have any doubt about what the state will do with that power, just look back on the example set in places like Canada, China, and Australia throughout the past two years during the recent coronavirus debacle.
America is at a cross-roads. As a nation, we are no longer a moral people. Among many other things, we will kill a million babies a year in abortion mills, burn down our American cities, allow lawlessness on our border, and pretend like its ok. Yet we act surprised when an 18-year-old displays no affection for human life. Many of the precious lives lost in Texas would have been perfectly legal to slaughter just 10 years earlier if they were still in the womb. The leftist politicians who scream about children while invoking the name of God himself are lying to us. We know this because one day before and one day after they support legislation to murder babies up to and sometimes beyond the moment of birth. So where do we go? Which path do we choose? Our ability to properly steward our God-given rights in a free society is in peril. There is still a moral remnant left in the country, a large one in fact; and it is not just to subject them to the statist control required of an immoral people. History has proven that the first path leads to a totalitarian evil that will result in the loss of life that will make Texas look like a blip on the radar. We cannot let this happen. It is time to reclaim our country. Moral men and women need to stand up and reject the immoral, Godless ideologies that are diseasing the public mind and poisoning our children. We must reject efforts to infringe upon our 2nd Amendment rights, true, but at the same time, we must reject everything else that is being pushed upon us. We must never compromise truth. The lie of transgenderism, the destruction of human sexuality and marriage, the pollution of violent and debased music and film, CRT, state-sponsored lawlessness, drug use, and many others must all be rejected publicly and boldly. It is all linked. What happened in Texas is more than just a debate about gun control, it is a mirror that reflects the sum total of our nation’s decisions on the value of life itself. May God grant repentance and help us all.
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Scott Lee
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