Guns, Democracy, and the Left Right Paradigm

I have spent most of this morning reading the public reaction to the man who carried an AR-15 assault rifle to a protest outside an Obama townhall in Arizona.

The "new worlders" as I'll call them, continue to promote that "this isn't the wild west."

This is one of the many comments I hear over and over and over when it comes to the gun debate. When one examines the "wild west," we learn that one of the reasons guns were open-carried was that there was a supreme sense of community, and the community had an understanding that when outsiders would harm the community those armed would be able to defend the town.

This was not merely a time of Bandits and Sheriffs, Shootouts were the exception to the rule, and when they did happen it was often not the Hollywood image you get when liberals scream "Wild west mentality"

Nevermind that historical context places Gun Control immediately, chronologically prior to Genocide. The state is the #1 cause of death, and the first and second amendment is our protection against our neighborhoods being invaded by foreign or even our own military forces.

The reason I've started calling the liberal point of view "new worlders" is that they pick and choose which historical context to place most debates. I cannot begin to account for the number of times I've gotten into debates over the use of the term "new world order."

The term is very taboo, among conservatives and liberals. Both "sides" of the debate have agendas that conflict with historical perspective and would write off the Constitutional implications of what they are proposing.

You mention the 10th Amendment and you often get cries about slavery and the Civil War. However, people fail to understand historically that the 10th amendment would have made it easier for southern abolitionists to change their government without going to war if the movement would have been allowed to grow.

When the nation is split on an issue and you place it in a historical aspect as I just have, it's important to look at what might have happened if the tables were turned and what constitutional tools would be available for the moral outcome to have prevailed no matter how the battle was framed.

If it was the Federal Government mandating slavery, Abolitionists would have used the 10th amendment to abolish it in their state, just as many states are trying to do right now with non-violent drug offenses.

The point is, that the people are more likely to change something bad at the state level due to the states being that supreme constitutional barrier between Washington DC and their community.

Most state elected officials are very approachable, with few exceptions, whereas individuals communicating with Federal Representatives often have to do so through their office aids. Not to mention that most persons' homes are closer to their state capitol than the US capitol.

That 10th Amendment was put into place for a reason, the Government that this nation had just broken from was an unaccountable seat too far away for the people to influence.

The New Worlders somehow feel that Federal Government accountability is not an issue when it comes to guaranteeing rights.

Another paradigm I like to shake using the Abolitionist position of the Civil War, is that of "Democracy"

This country is a Republic where regions are represented, not a majority number. What works for a heavy population center like Los Angeles does not work for Central Missouri Farmland.

For this we allow Missouri to make its own laws apart from the federal government and we allow gerrymandering of rural districts to encompass a larger geographical area in order to quantify the rural lifestyle to contrast big city lifestyle in their government.

So over the past century and a half, the face of our country had changed, big industry moved in, huge cities sprung up, and all of a sudden, "wild west thinking" was backwards and extreme. There is no possible way our Founding Fathers could foresee this kind of society!

Wrong! The style of society does not matter, these are rules for how and who should make these policies not which policies are "backwards."

Guidelines for governing a free people, and when we begin questioning those guidelines without questioning what possible side effects it could mean for individual liberties, we are externalizing the power over our freedom to someone we cannot control.

The reason that this "Guns at Obama events" issue is in the news, is that we as a people grew to stop exercising our rights, so we stopped being used to seeing others exercising theirs.

If you need more proof, look at Republicans and Protesters. 2 years ago, Republicans were demonizing protesters as rioters and anarchy, now look at them, they are the elderly and the families. They are also being called "Angry Mobs." They understand the need to feel comfortable in exercising their rights.

Gun owners can bring back a time when merely taking a posture of defense is not looked upon as a symbol of aggression, these are just the correct procedures for working through the growing pains. I applaud these people for not being intimidated by image and perception. I wish more people were doing it.

If you're in an open-carry state, please do. If you aren't, it's time to work on your state legislature to get laws passed like New Hampshire or Arizona.