Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a federal ban on “bump stocks,” citing that such devices to not turn a weapon into a machine gun by definition in federal law. Creepy Uncle Joe (the Washington Post’s own term for him) vowed to supposedly continue fighting to stop gun violence.
Many years ago, while teaching the last few weeks of a high school advanced placement U.S. History class, one of my students suddenly blurted out, “I got it!” We all looked at her in astonishment. And then she threw a real zinger. “The only people who can’t be trusted with guns is government!” Epiphanies like this, created in a student’s mind when seeing the evidence, is something that will last a lifetime.
One of the largest mass shootings in history occurred on 22 July 2011, when Anders Behring Breivik attacked a group of youth at a Norwegian Socialist Youth League (AUF) camp located on Utoya island. He killed 69 on the island, and another eight with a car bomb in Oslo. But there is something very interesting about this tragedy. Breivik posed as a government official… a police officer. Put another way, people on the island trusted him because they thought he was with the government. And then he killed them.
But while I cited Breivik’s attack as “the largest mass shooting” in history, this is really not true. The largest mass shootings… and mass executions… have been carried out by governments around the world. Government is necessary to protect life and property, and in no way should my statements here be read as “anti-government.” Rather, I think the following quote, often attributed to George Washington, may say it best:
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence. It is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”[1]
The entire purpose of our Constitution was to limit the power of government. And just in case people didn’t understand this, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments makes this abundantly clear. Only by twisting and loosely construing human language can anyone read these amendments to mean anything else.
If history is any marker, then the best way to protect human life and stop mass violence against innocent people is to limit the weapons, and the means to use them, in the hands of government. A few private nut jobs may kill a few dozen, perhaps even a hundred (like the Bataclan attack in France), but governments slaughter millions, all in the name of power and greed.
While the quote above may be apocryphal, the following by Thomas Jefferson, from his “Kentucky Resolutions” of 1798, is not:
“In questions of power then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.”[2]
We need to keep reminding our elected officials and “betters,”, of this essential truth, strictly constructed and understood, so as to keep them in line.
Russ Rodgers has several books published on Amazon.
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[1] While attribution to Washington may be apocryphal, as there is no reference to it in his known collected writing, the substance of the statement is still valid.
[2] Thomas Jefferson, “Kentucky Resolutions,” Resolution 8, as reproduced in Lance Banning, ed., Liberty and Order: The First Amendment Party Struggle. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2004, p. 236.