TTAG commentator paul r made this point underneath a recent post: 

Robert,

After reading the interview with [jsonline.com columnist Eugene] Kane, I must respectfully disagree with one of your points. It is simply not true that armed self defense is “easy” without training and much practice. Buying and carrying a gun, without training, makes you dangerous in most instances and not to potential criminals; but to yourself, your loved ones and those who happen to be around you . . .

Firing a handgun effectively and accurately is difficult enough on the range under controlled circumstances. In personal defense scenarios, it is very, very difficult and you do us a disservice by suggesting that the average joe can strap on a gun and be ready to go because this is simply not the case.

Like it or not, people should be trained to carry and operate their gun.

As I told columnist Kane, everyone is entitled to their opinion about whether or not Americans should be able to keep and bear (carry) arms. Obviously, the practice is inherently dangerous for both the individual and society. These potential dangers increase dramatically if the firearms owner is untrained. And?

I could argue that negligent discharges, accidental shootings, crimes of passion and defensive gun uses gone wrong amongst Americans who legally own guns are so rare that they’re statistically insignificant. You can easily and justifiably round that stat to zero.

But I won’t. Every human life is precious. Look at the horrible tragedies caused by untrained concealed carry weapons permit holders (if you can find them). If we can save just ONE life. Yada yada yada. Let’s go back to main proposition: untrained firearms owners are potentially dangerous mo fo’s and I reckon it don’t make no never mind.

The Supreme Court ruled in Heller (and reaffirmed in McDonald) that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual right guaranteed by the United States Constitution. As such, it is up to each individual to decide whether or not to own and/or carry a firearm.

Whether or not 2A rights are good for society is beside the point. Like it or not, the damage caused by citizens exercising their constitutional right to keep and bear arms is no more relevant than the supposed damage rap music creates amongst impressionable African Americans and their communities.

If the majority of our society believes that Americans should not have the right to keep and bear arms, if they believe the country’s citizens are incapable of handling the responsibilities of firearms ownership, or that private firearms ownership is unnecessary, or that it fosters crime, or that it’s just too damn dangerous, those who hold that view are free to repeal the Second Amendment.

Done? If only . . .

These days we must enter the murky waters of “reasonable restrictions” as set forth by the United States Supreme Court in the McDonald decision.

Although, as we have held, the Second Amendment does protect individual rights, that does not mean that those rights may never be made subject to any limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions or restrictions for particular cases that are reasonable and not inconsistent with the right of Americans generally to individually keep and bear their private arms as historically understood in this country. Indeed, Emerson does not contend, and the district court did not hold, otherwise. As we have previously noted, it is clear that felons, infants and those of unsound mind may be prohibited from possessing firearms.

As TTAG pointed out at the time, this passage is so vague that A) the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence claimed Heller a victory (i.e. all restrictions are “reasonable”) and B) the ruling opened the door for decades of legal wrangling.

Meanwhile, all gun control advocates and many gun rights activists (not including Mr. Raynolds as I suggested in a previous edition of this post) argue that mandatory instruction qualifies as a “narrowly tailored” restriction. More generally, training requirement is “common sense.” Society and the individual are better off if gun owners are schooled in their weapons’ safe and legal use.

Again, that’s both true and irrelevant. What IS important: firearms training requirements create a barrier to firearms ownership. They cost time and money and stop stupid people from being able to own and/or carry a firearm. Good! you say. Why should we let less-than-entirely sensible people wield lethal force, especially when they can’t follow the four safety rules or hit the broadside of a barn?

Because I’d rather have a nation where citizens can easily obtain a firearm to defend their life and lives of their loved ones than a country where only people considered “safe enough” with a gun may do so.

After all, who decides what’s “safe enough”? The unavoidable answer: someone other than the person who wants to exercise their constitutional right to keep and bear arms. Who do YOU trust with your gun rights? Well, exactly.

And yes, armed self-defense is easy. You remove your gun from its hiding place and aim it at the person in the act of threatening your life. You either pull the trigger and shoot them or you don’t. There’s a lot of other stuff that it would be good to know (for all concerned) but that’s roughly it in terms of the information a gun owner needs to know.

Can a defensive gun use go wrong? Abso-damn-lutely. We’ve reported on DGUs where two combatants emptied their handguns at each other at bad breath distance and both missed. Do innocent bystanders die when untrained [legal] gun owners try to defend themselves with a firearm? Sometimes. Bad things happen, even in a country as fundamentally safe as America.

More to the point, law-abiding citizens use concealed firearms to save their life. (Google “armed self-defense.”) Equally incontrovertible: all law-abiding Americans have the right to keep and bear arms. Period.

Pro-gun rights people who maintain that Americans must have training to carry a concealed firearm do the gun rights movement a disservice. And endanger human life. In fact, the emphasis on firearms training hands a victory to our adversaries, who are looking for any excuse to limit civilian firearms ownership.

Training requirements keep guns out of the hands of the people who really need them—regardless of anyone else’s opinion of their ability to use a firearm effectively. And that ain’t right.

[Click here to visit to paul r’s training company: pbrtraining]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

67 COMMENTS

  2. “Trained” is the slickest slope of all. I was required by law to take eight hours of training for my CPL, including range time (50 rounds fired). I had just been medically discharged from the Infantry, where I had fired hundreds of thousands of rounds and been trained every day for years and years. To me, civilians who go to the range once a week, shoot their .22 for a half hour, dump their carry loads, and leave are so untrained as to be useless. And I, with all my experience, would be considered a rank, untrained scrub by any decent Ranger Bat. Who, in turn, would be considered untrained by the SF. You see? You can never train “enough” for a life and death violent encounter. Not if you spend your whole life doing it. I’ll warrant that those who support some training requirement support just a bit less than they do themselves. I don’t think they’d want to meet my standard.

    • A friend of mine was living in Maryland. Bought an evil MSR (actually a $3500 M1A) with an evil flash suppressor. Because of the evil flash suppressor he had to sit through a two hour re-education video mandated by the state. Sitting next to him, also enduring this bvllshit for the crime of buying a normal gun was a retired Secret Service firearms instructor.

  3. It’s a poll tax. This exceeds reasonable restriction in my mind. Even the $100 basic pistol safety course here in MA (which I believe is the only training requirement unless you live in Boston, but all these little fiefdoms here like to make their own rules) is too expensive and cumbersome.

    Training should be encouraged, not required.

    • Just to play the devil’s advocate – In order to exercise one’s Second Amendment rights, one needs to be able to afford a firearm. There is already a cost involved. So why would paying for training be any different.

      To be clear – I don’t think it should be required, but opposing it based on cost may not work. The argument will go: if you can afford the $100 for the Hi-Point .380 then you can afford $100 to get trained in how to use it.

      Personally I think small arms training and familiarization should be a part of our public education process. But that’s just me.

      • Don’t forget that time is money. Finding the training, booking the training, traveling to the training, taking the training—it’s not easy for someone on a low income and a 9 – 5 job.

        • True. But let’s assume it becomes required. I would think that it would become much easier to arrange as ranges and clubs compete for students. Here in PA you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a hunter’s safety course.Again, I don’t want to see it become required, but I’m not sure we’ve hit the right counter argument yet.Unfortunately one of the liberties we enjoy is the right to remain ignorant of our rights and the way to exercise them responsibly.

          • Can I see proof of your First Amendment training that enables you to lawfully post on the internet, please? Preferably about 100 hours worth, by an accredited school, meeting a government mandated list of required topics and a minimum passing test score?

            All on your own dime’n’time, of course….

            • That’s be kind of funny, if there weren’t those trying to make it a reality.

              Dave Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh both have plenty to say about it.

            • That is what our educational system takes care of. Schools teach history and civics.

              Personally I think they should teach kids about the safe handling of firearms too.

              The point of my devil’s advocacy is that mandatory education could be seen as a reasonable regulation given the general perception of firearms amongst the general population.

              I would hate to see that happen, but I’m not sure I have heard a good defense against it.

        • Not to mention that the buyer might have to rely on public transportation, some municipalities restrict firearms from that. So now, you get to py for 2 espensive taxi rides.

      • I completely agree that small arms training should be part of our public education system, right along with a city, county, state militia orientation.

        Additional training, beyond the basics must be at the trainee’s expense. Just like private piano lessons, basket ball camp and so on.

        Additional training must not be required by law.

      • “In order to exercise one’s Second Amendment rights, one needs to be able to afford a firearm.”

        Not necessarily. I received my first rifle as a gift.

  4. Now that I know that Paul R[eynolds] has a business I can see why he wants training requirements for gun ownership. It’s his business and he wants the government to gin up some more of it for him through regulation. I don’t think I am being harsh. If I were in his position I might be on his side. Since the establishment of the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887 all businesses have sought to use government regulations to put money in their pockets. The ICC’s first mission was to “improve” railroad” safety. In fact the big roads lobbied Congress for the creation of the ICC so it could put restriction on railroad operations that small, more profitable carriers couldn’t meet and put them out of business.

    A friend of mine teaches self-defense at the local Y. He teaches everything from street fighting, to martial arts to armed defense. He doesn’t spend much time on the mat or handling knives and guns. He talks about mostly about things you can do to buy more seconds to either get into a better defense position or bug out, i.e., tactics. Look, spending more at the range getting instruction makes you better at handling a gun but it doesn’t make you better at using a gun.

    Twenty years ago another friend told me about his first karate class. The instructor was a retire SF E-9. He said that if you were in his class to learn how to fight you were in the wrong place. If you want to learn how to fight what you do is go down to local biker bar, find the meanest looking dude around and spit in his beer. When you get out of the hospital go back the bar and repeat the process. Eventually you will either be dead or be the most badass guy around. Taking a class is no substitute for real world experience.

    Here is the minimum requirement if you want to learn how to effectively and safely handle the gun. Get a few hours of safety instruction. Go to the range twice a month and practice your marksmanship. Take whatever class you need to meet your State’s CCW requirements. If you live in a Constitutional Carry state find a course like my friend teaches — you should take a tactics class anyway– and carry as much as you can. If you follow the four commandments of gun safety — I would add a fifth for carriers: the only time you touch your weapon once it is in the holster is to use it or put it back in the safe — you won’t have and ND or shoot anybody you didn’t intend to.

    • tdiinva,

      Could you please point out exactly where I said that I want “training requirements for gun ownership”??

      Don’t spend much time on this assignment because you won’t be able to find any such comments. Indeed, I never even raised the subject in my comment to Robert so I don’t where how you or Robert jumped to this conclusion.

      • “Like it or not, people should be trained to carry and operate their gun.”

        You didn’t use the word “requirement” but I get the impression you wouldn’t squawk too loudly if such requirements were in place. Forgive me if I’m wrong about that. How about clearly stating your beliefs so we can stop making assumptions?

      • You are playing word games. If you only believe that it is a good idea to get training before you own and carry then just say so.

        My posts have been consistent on training. The right training is a good thing. Taking the wrong training is worse than no training at all. Range training prepares you for one thing and one thing only — the quick draw 5 yard attack scenario where it’s all reflex — and it doesn’t prepare you well for even that. You either have the reflexes for that or you don’t; you are cool enough to react or you’re not. An untrained person who is cool under pressure and has the reflexes to match will have a higher chance of success than someone who has taken lots of training and is slow and panics. Unfortunately none of us know which group we are in until it happens.

        • Sorry guys but I’m with Paul on this one. His comment says SHOULD be trained not HAVE TO BE trained. The two phrases mean entirely different things.

          Nowhere in his comment does he say or imply that untrained people shouldn’t be allowed to own guns. After all, that makes no sense. If you can’t one guns how can you be trained?

          His comment simply states his displeasure with Roberts repeated assertions that self defense is easy. I agree with that. Self defense us not easy. You may get luck and be a foot away from your attacker and get some lucky shots off, but thats exactly what it is, luck.

          The first time I went shooting I wasn’t even hitting paper at 20″. I knew Jack and Shit about shooting a handgun. I’ve been shooting and training for a year now and I’m still not great with a handgun. You can never ever train enough for violent confrontations. That doesn’t mean that the untrained shouldn’t have guns. That means that those who have guns should train. Should is not a concrete obligation to do something.

          I think this whole “rebuttal” was just an excuse for robert to “here himself type” if you will. Which he seems to like quite a lot.

        • I did say so quite clearly and I’m not playing “word games at all.

          For the record, and for those of you are reading challenged, I DO NOT FAVOR MANDATORY TRAINING REQUIREMENTS nor did I ever say it or imply it.

          There, clear enough for you?

          • Yes, you did imply it. And given your attitude in your previous posts, I’m thinking that you’re backtracking after tdiinva pointed out that for someone who’s job is providing weapons training, you’d stand to gain a lot from there being mandatory firearms training.What you did say was “Like it or not, people should be trained to carry and operate their gun.” Now, everyone knows that training (on everything – computers, cars, cooking, guns, etc) is always PREFERABLE, but unless you feel it should be MANDATORY, why the “like it or not”? That’s one of the main things in your statement that has so many people looking at you suspiciously.

              • So pointing out that the main issue of whether you think it should be mandatory or not hinges on your “like it or not” statement isn’t worth responding to? I merely pointed out how you come across to others and why people think that you want mandatory training. I gave you a chance to calmly and politely explain why everyone else is mistaken and that it was just a matter of wording – but again, you show more bad attitude.

                That’s a pretty dead give away as to your actual views then, as well as a great reason to discourage anyone from doing business with you. I guess you forgot that one of the keys to doing business is not going out of your way to piss off people in your customer demographic.

  5. “If society believes that Americans should not have the right to keep and bear arms, if they believe the country’s citizens are incapable of handling the responsibilities or firearms ownership or that private firearms ownership is unnecessary or fosters crime, they may repeal the Second Amendment. Until then, deal.”

    Veteran’s Day celebrates the willing, free and dutiful acceptance of being under orders for the common defense. But we do not accept that condition of service for its own sake, but only in order to protect our right to be free to do decide to do it.

    This is the problem with the country — people looking for permission — and others demanding that people seek leave, before they do — whatever.

    The rights (protected, not granted by) the Second Amendment (and every other right of a free man, for that matter) is not a dispensation of the Crown, the State, the mob or anything or anyone else. If a man is free, he has the right — if he is not free, then he does not have it.

    The only question is whether we believe in liberty, or not. On all evidence at the moment, especially illustrated by the unspoken (dare I say, unconscious ) assumption of the above statement — the answer is increasingly “not.”

    If we would be free, we had better start talking, acting and teaching like we mean it. We’ve lost one generation, at least. Two more and we’re done, because there will be no one in living memory who understands what it actually means to be free to decide what to do instead of doing what is “permitted.”

  6. I believe that training is a good thing for everyone and can only help you improve your skills, but no one should be forced to take any class against their will.

  7. Robert,

    Nowhere did I say or even suggest that training should be mandatory in order to own a gun. If I gave this impression I apologize because I do not believe in such a requirement either as legislation or as a matter of principle.

    What I did say is that armed self-defense is not as easy as un-holstering a gun, pointing it and squeezing (or not) the trigger. I’m sure many, if not all, of your regular readers agree with me. Tex, or whatever his name is, amply demonstrated this by not knowing what he was doing and shooting himself.

    If you are going to wear a gun for personal protection (which I often do when not in NJ) you owe it to yourself and family to train on how to use it. One should also train on how not to use it by elevating your situational awareness, have escape routes, not go where you shouldn’t be etc.

    Training is a good thing Robert even though I know that sounds self-serving coming from an NRA Appointed Training Counselor and Chief Range Safety Officer. Just because you own a gun does not, in and of itself, mean that you are armed just as owning a piano does not make you a musician.

    By the way, thanks for the advertising!

    Paul

    PS My last name is Raynolds not “Reynolds”

    • “Like it or not, people should be trained to carry and operate their gun.” That seemed a pretty clear statement advocating for mandatory requirements to me. I apologize for mischaracterizing your position, and will amend the text now. Also, spelling corrected. D’oh!

      • No worries, Robert. But how we get from “should be trained” to “mandatory training” is beyond me. That said, I’m not the writer!

        • should/SHo͝od/
          Verb:

          1. Used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness.
          2. Indicating a desirable or expected state.

          Words have meanings. They can be dangerous when mis-used. Maybe we need to require vocabulary lessons for anyone who wishes to exercise their first amendment rights?

          • Here is what my dictionary says;
            Should;
            CORE MEANING: modal verb indicating that something is the right thing for somebody to do
            1. expressing desirability
            2. expressing likelihood or probability

            Being trained is “the right thing to do” in my humble opinion but nowhere did I say or imply that training should be required or mandated.

            So nitpick all you want Doug but you are simply wrong here.

            • I mis-interpreted what you said and I wasn’t alone. I was merely pointing out how that happened. And I did it in my typical smart-assed fashion. Sorry about that.

              I’m not sure why I was being combative about this; I don’t even disagree with anything you’ve said. I’m certain that, had this exchange taken place in a personal setting, by now we’d be closer to being friends than adversaries, and I’d be trying to weasel myself into one of your classes.

              ***Let’s Put Our Knuckles Here For An Internet Fist Bump Signaling A Truce And Potential Friendship***

  8. A lot of good things have been said here, including Paul’s point that advocating training is not the same as advocating mandatory training.

    Not to change the subject, but have another look at the quotation from the McDonald decision.

    “Although, as we have held, the Second Amendment does protect individual rights, that does not mean that those rights may never be made subject to any limited, narrowly tailored specific exceptions or restrictions for particular cases that are reasonable and not inconsistent with the right of Americans generally to individually keep and bear their private arms as historically understood in this country. Indeed, Emerson does not contend, and the district court did not hold, otherwise. As we have previously noted, it is clear that felons, infants and those of unsound mind may be prohibited from possessing firearms.”

    It seems to me that the court’s decision is that 2nd Amendment rights may only be restricted in “particular cases”. The examples given (felons, infants) seem to indicate that these “particular cases” are concerned with *individual* circumstances. They certainly don’t appear to support state-wide bans on certain types of guns, or bans on concealed carry. Forget HR822- is this a precedent for a future ruling in favor of the old “2nd amendment is my license to carry” argument? Certainly it doesn’t seem to leave the door wide open for the Brady bunch, as RF suggests.

  9. I concur with El Jefe with this one. I think someone who does not avail themselves of the opportunity to become proficient and maintain proficiency is doing themselves a disservice, but the requirement is offensive to the idea of bearing arms being a right.

    That said, a world with “shall issue permit with training” is better than what we had, and is a good way station on our way to the way things ought to be.

    • Yes, but that “shall issue permit with training” is exactly that – for a PERMIT to carry a concealed weapon at (almost) all times. That’s a far cry from someone just purchasing a gun.

      • If something is permitted/licensed–THAT is a privilege, not a right. Driving is an example. The RIGHT to keep and bear arms is ABSOLUTE, and government is UNDER the USC FORBIDDEN from infringing on that right—and pemitting/licensing is a CLEAR infringement. This is simple, people.

  10. Great write up RF!! It’s also good that we drew a line between advocating training and requiring it. It’s important that all the gun training gurus also talk that talk. It would be easy for the antis to appeal to the pocket books of the trainers and recruit them in the effort to make training mandatory. That would be a greedy mistake on a slippery slope. As much as I believe training is absolutely necessary I would never make it mandatory for ownership.

  11. Is it wrong that I can more or less get behind, at the very least, having people prove competency, and get training if they need it, solely to reduce the chance of them hitting ME in a SHTF situation? Because if it’s wrong, then I’m not gonna be right.

    Of course, said training would backfire on me of they were actually aiming at me. A valid risk.

  12. Striving to create a safer society is the kind of thinking that ends with your country being a dystopian nightmare like the UK where they have “SAVE A LIFE BIN A KNIFE” campaigns. Their government and some of their people live in terror of sharpened pieces of metal. I’m pretty sure those have been around since early human history. Oh yes, and unfired .22 LRs lying on the street get disposed of by bomb squads.

    Anything can kill you, at any time. You could be crossing the street and get hit by a semi. You could be sitting down at a restaurant and get shot in the back of the head, walk down the street and get stabbed by a stranger with no provocation. You could get hit by lightning. You could fall into industrial machinery. You could spend all of your life living in a supervised, padded, sterile room and then the Earth gets hit by an asteroid and you’re dead. It sucks, but it happens. But hey, if we can save just one life…

    • The slippery slope of that way of thinking (like in the UK) worries me a great deal. The hypothetical life saved – is it worth more than my life and the lives of my family if my firearm defends us?

      I hate it when I read a story of a kid getting shot because he or another were mishandling a firearm. But does his death mean that I must put my kids’ lives in danger by disarming?

      I think the no sharp edges, everything wrapped in padding mentality creates kids who grow up to believe that the Authorities must keep them safe. I prefer to be a responsible freeman than a kept subject.

  13. Disclaimer – I am a firearms safety and CCW instructor.

    I have this conversation often with the owner of the training company I work with and this is one of the toughest balancing acts for any rights-conscious trainer.

    Advocating firearms training for those who want to carry for self-defense in public isn’t to “gin up business” – at least we don’t look at it like that.

    We have aggressively priced our courses without stripping away critical content or context specifically to minimize the impact or “barrier” to training.

    What’s amazing is the actual NEED for training we can identify in the gun-owning public. We ask all our students be familiar with and bring their personal firearms to class, it’s shocking to see the number of folks who have NO safety habits whatsoever pick up their guns and need the most basic instruction on how to load, operate, unload, and clear their handguns.

    …all of them self-identifying as safe, same, and Pro-2A gun owners.

    I look at it in two ways:
    1 – carrying a gun for personal protection is like training in the martial arts – with one important difference. A White Belt in taekwondo isn’t going to be “lethal” as soon as they put on their uniform where a gun owner instantly bears lethal force as well as incredible responsibility both legal and moral. Both of which (force and responsibility) require training.

    2 – it is perfectly legal for anyone without a drivers license to own and even race automobiles on private property. It’s not until you set foot on “public” property (roads) the state wants you to have a license. That license tells law enforcement that you’ve passed rudimentary testing in laws, mindset, and operation of a motor vehicle. A license in no way guarantees safety, though, as tens of thousands are killed on the road every year.

    Not everyone has the chance to work at a range full-time, work as a trainer, or spend a significant amount other shooters and “carriers.” Having done that in my life I can tell you that while have the right to keep and bear, we’ve lost our footing on teaching / mentoring an have fallen back on ego.

  14. Everything is relative. Operating a firearm is easy, compared to driving a car safely, operating heavy equipment, or for that matter, using a computer running Windows 7.

    • Hey! As an IT professional I take offense at that last remark. ;p Windows 7 is by far the easiest Windows to manage

      Which goes to prove that everything is relative.

  15. This is why I love programs like the CMP and Project Appleseed. People should want to learn about marksmanship, and they should have relatively inexpensive ways to get educated.

    • Those are both great programs and help bring people into the sport, hobby, and lifestyle of firearms ownership. They also encourage people to

      In addition, defensive pistol owners should seriously consider joining a gun club with handgun facilities as well as look at IDPA or USPSA if there are clubs in the area.

      That said, however, instruction is still key but those are all good ways to learn and practice safe handling and use among other like-minded individuals.

      Word of warning to newbies, though:
      Check the egos and everything you learned about guns from the Internet at the door 🙂

    • Never heard of Project Appleseed, but I’m not a fan of CMP. The feeling I get from them is a group claiming to want to promote shooting, yet they really seem to be promoting business for particular shooting clubs / ranges / the NRA by insisting you join one of their listed clubs (which often means having to join the NRA too) and pay all the monthly / yearly fees included to those groups just to be able to purchase a gun. Call me crazy, but shouldn’t a group promoting shooting be trying to make it EASIER and less hassle to get an old rifle and learn how to shoot?I recently was pointed there to pick up an M1 Garand for a decent price. I have no problem with the part of their requirements that requires a certificate from a trainer / LEO saying that you’re competent with a gun. I do have a huge issue with (due to what few club options are around me) being told that I have to pay $25 a year to the NRA + $200 a year to a local gun club just to order from them. That’s like Ford telling me that if I want to buy one of their cars I have to pay the National Drivers Association and a local racing club yearly dues just to purchase a car.

      • Here in PA my local club opens CMP and Junior rifle up to the public. They ask for a $10 fee to cover costs, and charge $22 for 60 rounds of .30-06 or .30 carbine. They have loaner rifles on hand for folks that don’t have their own.

      • If you are LEO or military (Active, Reserve or Guard) or a member of a Veterans orgaization you do not need to me a member of an NRA-sponsored shooting club.

        • Yes, I know, but again – that does nothing to encourage new people to take up shooting as a hobby / sport. Though I’m tempted to have a cop just buy what I want from CMP on my behalf and I simply write him a check to cover it. I really don’t like when people try to extort me.

  17. Robert is SERIOUSLY wrong about an important point. Repealing the 2nd Amendment (2A) does NOT eliminate your right to keep and bear arms, because the Bill of Rights (BOR) does not GRANT a single right; it SECURES them. It is a document that limits the government from intruding on PRE-EXISTING rights you have because you are a human being that draws breath.

    The BOR enumerates CERTAIN of these pre-existing rights, but you have them and others (see the 9A) regardless of their enumeration in the BOR.

    The rights are NON-negotiable and they ARE absolute. The preamble to the BOR (most people are not aware there IS a Preamble to the Bill of Rights, not the just the main US Constitution (USC). That preamble makes it clear that the purpose of the BOR is to LIMIT THE POWERS OF GOVERNMENT with respect to those rights. PERIOD! Repealing the 2A would simply signal government’s refusal to recognize that right and demonstrate open hostility to liberty and likely would justify that special section found withing the Declaration of Independence—that little section about the right and duty of the people to throw off governments harmful to liberty.

    Of course our founders, imperfect as they were, were stubborn, resilient and brave…well…enough of them were!

    v/r

    SamAdams1776

    • Good point. Still, if gun control advocates wanted to allow government to infringe our God given right to self-defense (via firearms) they could repeal the 2a.

      • And then they should not be surprised with the response they would correctly receive in similar fashion as was given the british crown and as elaborated in the Declaration of Independence as a duty as well as a right.

        • Quite true. While the police / military / government think that they’re all big and bad, they only exist due to the good graces of armed citizens. The number of armed citizens FAR outnumbers them and if it came down to a war of attrition, they’d lose badly.

  19. I would rather suffer the side effects of to much liberty than those of to little liberty. Freedom is not partial it is absolute.

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