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By Cody Wisniewski

Amid rambling incoherence, USA Today columnist Carli Pierson tries to blame “people like Rep. Lauren Boebert” for “the gun violence and trauma we are constantly cycling through as a nation.” It’s an embarrassment to the publication and the kind of rant I would normally ignore.

Unfortunately, Pierson also wants to drag the Founding Fathers into this—as if they would share her views on gun control and so-called “necessary changes” to our laws.

Rep. Boebert is being singled out, along with Rep. Thomas Massie, because they both recently posted Christmas photos of their families posing with an array of firearms. Some found the photos charming, while others were predictably appalled.

Pierson rages that these U.S. Representatives—along with “people like” them—“are the problem” in our nation.

Boebert and Massie can ably refute such charges. I’ll simply note there is no indication that either is anything other than a peaceable gun owner who believes in the natural right of self-defense. In that sense, they’re no different than many millions of Americans.

Americans overwhelmingly believe in the right to self-defense. Our ranks are growing, and we are in no way “the problem” with the country. If you are suddenly attacked while defenseless in a situation without police protection, you might even discover one of us to be “the solution.”

But Pierson isn’t content to insult us. She presumes to speak for the Founding Fathers, telling us what they would think about gun laws in 2021.

Every time a Republican posts a picture of themselves and their families snuggled up to the muzzle of a semiautomatic rifle immediately after a mass shooting,” writes Pierson, “I wonder what the Founding Fathers would think if they knew that this was what was to become of the Second Amendment. Surely they would find it infinitely sad, infinitely pathetic that we have not made necessary changes.

In the article, Pierson does not spell out what those “necessary changes” are. Instead, she makes a broad appeal to “common sense”—an echo of the tired talking points we have heard for decades, as anti-gun activists claim they’re “not coming for your guns” but only want “common-sense reforms.”

On Twitter, however, Pierson posted her article with the hashtag “#GunControlNow”—saying the quiet part out loud and making it all too clear what sort of “necessary changes” she has in mind. Pierson thinks our Founding Fathers—in their “infinite” sadness and pathos—would now want the kinds of changes sought by the Biden-Harris administration.

Thankfully we don’t have to engage in emotional speculation to know what our Founding Fathers thought and would tell us today about gun rights. We simply have to read their words.

In the Declaration of Independence, the Founders expressed their conviction that government exists to secure individual natural rights—such as life and liberty, both of which require self-defense. They understood we have an inherent right, not derived from government or any document, to possess and use the tools we need to protect ourselves.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution only made this natural right clearer. The Amendment’s text doesn’t pretend to grant some new privilege; instead, it acknowledges the people’s pre-existing right “to keep and bear arms,” which “shall not be infringed” by the government.

The Founding Fathers both promoted this right and exercised it personally. Washington and Jefferson are known to have carried firearms while traveling. John Adams observed that “every private person is authorized to arm himself.” Samuel Adams defended the colonists’ right to arm themselves against their British oppressors.

St. George Tucker, an important early commentator on the Constitution, wrote in 1803 that “in many parts of the United States, a man no more thinks, of going out of his house on any occasion, without his rifle or musket in hand, than [a] European fine gentleman without his sword by his side.”

Guns have always been a normal part of American life—a fact that was only made more apparent when the disgraced author Michael Bellesiles fraudulently tried to show otherwise.

As to what the Founding Fathers would think of guns around the Christmas tree, we should note that numerous colonial-era statutes required the carrying of arms in everyday life, including several that made it mandatory for men to bear arms while attending church services. So, I can’t imagine Rep. Massie’s Christmas card would trouble the Founders at all.

Carli Pierson is free to express her views—this, too, is a natural right guaranteed by the Constitution. But she should be ashamed to misrepresent the views of our Founding Fathers to promote her gun control agenda.

 

Cody J. Wisniewski (@TheWizardofLawz) is the Director of Mountain States Legal Foundation’s Center to Keep and Bear Arms. He primarily focuses on Second Amendment issues but is happy so long as he is reminding the government of its enumerated powers and constitutional restrictions.

To learn more about the Center to Keep and Bear Arms’ work and support their fight for your natural right to self-defense—from both man and tyranny—visit www.mslegal.org/2A and donate today!

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68 COMMENTS

  1. Do they really want a hypothetical list of what the founders would like and dislike about our modern age? Given their base is essentially felons, addicts, mental patients, pedos and beggars I doubt it.

    • They’d stand flabbergasted at how we’ve extended suffrage to the point that the deadbeats vote for whoever promises the most handouts. They understood the franchise as a privilege of productive citizenship, not a right.

    • Don’t forget slavers (Those illegal aliens they abuse knowing they can’t do anything, 9066, propping up a “market for blood and tears” with cheap foreign goods).

    • you left out a rather signficant class of their supporters: those wo have entered this nation in ways that are not within the law, i.e. illegal aliens. But that class overlaps signficantly with a number of the categories listed above. felons, addicts, mental patients pedos, beggars……

  2. The delusional turds don’t even pretend to understand the bill of rights! There ARE some people who shouldn’t be permitted to voice an opinion!! But then again, that would follow their thinking wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t want to count on one of us “cretins” to pull your dumb azz outta the fire if it happens!

  3. It’s interesting how the Founding Fathers are called intorno the game ad soulless slavists or ad misunderstood pacifists according to those newspeak antigun commentators.

    • “It’s interesting how the Founding Fathers are called intorno the game ad soulless slavists or ad misunderstood pacifists according to those newspeak antigun commentators.”

      Please translate this to English.

  4. I’m not sure what there is about USA Today that makes anyone still read it. Much less experience any shock, surprise, or amazement at it’s anti-gun bent.

    Their Christmas cards are fine. I would never do that simply because it goes against the grey-man grain in me. They do seem entirely politically motivated but then there isn’t anything not political anymore. The way I see it, it’s equivalent to the Gonzales Flag on the front lawn. But doing any of this after a mass or any other kind of shooting is a red herring. That means nothing as people are and have been shot on a regular basis for quite a long time. Going nuts over the sight of a gun is crazy at any time. Particularly when killers, rapists, vandals, and thieves are allowed to roam through the general population with complete impunity.

    • “But doing any of this after a mass or any other kind of shooting is a red herring.”

      It’s just an excuse to give them the moral high ground and feign outrage. Their outrage has nothing to do with school shootings. They just hate the guns. It’s all political from both sides.

      • How many of thouse ‘outraged” after the mass shootings ever got outraged about a young man who murdered his own Mother to gain access to HER lawfully owned and stored weapons? Or about the high school kid who had committed at least three felony crimes but was never charged.. in order to allow the school district to qualify for a Mn$54 “grant”(bribe?) for reducing their school children ARREST record, while NOT doing a thing to reduce crime committed by said school “children”? Or how much outrage did they deminstrate when an Air Force member attempted to murder his Wife and young child,and was court martialled and drummed out on a DD, FOUR actioins that SHOULD have beenposted on NICS but were not because of the laziness/incompetence of twodifferent Air Force desk jockeys, thus allowing that disqualified individual to “lawfully” purchase a rifle? How much oturage have these people shown about a tensty something youngish male being a convicted felon but nevertheless carrying an illegally possessed handgun and pointingit at anther young man, threatening toblow his brains out in an instant? Or how many were outraged at the well-experienced burgal at a pizza joint in Philadelphia a couple weeks back who grabbed the woman behind the counter threatening to strangle her if she did not turn over all the store’s money? (he got what he deserved, one round to the face, fired by her 14 year old son.. they were outraged that the 14 year old had access to a gun,but NOT by the strongarm robber threatning his Mum.)

        And so it goes…. WHO was outraged that a large male pssing counterfiet money at a conveinence store ingested a very lethal dose of fentanyl to prevent the cop’s finding it? (they did find it, after he died from the overdose, but the cop fared not so well…)

        • What has been purposely overlooked is the George Floyd would have had no interaction with any police officer at all if he were not engaged in any illegal activity already. It did not escalate because he was black. It escalated because of his flippant attitude towards law and being on drugs made things much worse. George Floyd brought it on himself.

  5. Good one! So now we’re supposed to listen to the Founders? Listen to the same people the Left has been trying to demonize for years? They don’t really think we should listen to the Founders. This is nothing more than a lazy argument of, “Ha! You can’t disagree with me now because you like the Founders!” Then they go on to loosely interpret the original meaning so it conveniently supports their narrative.

    Where have I seen this before? Oh yeah, they do it all of time with the Bible and Jesus. Our resident commie even employs this tactic. He’s an admitted atheist, yet he thinks quoting supporting passages from the Bible means we can’t argue with him.

    And lookey what we have here. She does the same thing! Hilarious!
    Opinion: Jesus was a socialist. Why White Evangelicals should vote for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren
    https://carlipierson.medium.com/opinion-jesus-was-a-socialist-ebd7dd04d394

  6. The real gun problem lies with Democrat politicians and their out-of-control urban plantations. That and the fact that the majority of the mass shooting preps over the last decade were liberal Democrats who were ‘making a statement’. If one knows the history of the Democrat party since the beginning a pattern forms. President Andrew “Trail of Tears” Jackson’s pillaging native American treaty lands to slavery in Democrat states (it’s alive and well even today) to Woodrow Wilson’s thugs smashing printing presses of those not favoring war to FDR’s internment of Americans of Japanese descent, his Blue Eagle thuggery and his vote buying schemes one would easily understand there is a consistency to these forms of abuse that lie at the core of the Democrat party.

  7. Thank you for the link so I could research Michael Bellesiles: Arming America.
    This fraudulent book was written 20+ years ago and the writers methodology still holds true: If your argument is weak then just fabricate or cherrypick the “facts” you need.(or just totally shut down the argument).
    The difference today being that today those in academia who are simpatico to the authors agenda would bury their heads in the sand concerning the fraud.
    The truth doesn’t matter. Only forwarding the agenda.

    • Looks like Dud Brains rants are becoming so bizarre everything he posts gets deleted. Have you applied at Myanmar for a position in the Military Junta???

      • Tell us, dacian, why are you so afraid of guns? I would feel sorry for you, but you try to pawn yourself off as an “expert” on firearms. Problem is you can’t even tell us the firing sequence of a cartridge. Maybe you should apply for a job with your mentor, Georgie Soros?

      • “so bizarre everything he posts gets deleted”

        Dream on, weirdo. My comment was moderated simply for quoting some of Carli Pierson’s previous work. See below.

  9. Recreation? Pews are fun.
    Collecting? Yup.
    Tinkering or customizing. Certainly.
    Self defense? Better to have and not need, etc., like insurance, fire extinguishers, and airbags.
    Defense of one’s community or country? That’s kinda why it’s in the Bill of Rights. But, I’m only a tenured history instructor, what do I know?

  10. /snide

    Of course the Founding Fathers would think like me. We have so much in common!!!

    They lived under tyranny and over-threw it. I lived under Trump, and we got rid of him.
    They lived in a mostly agricultural society, I live in a big city but go to the organic farmers market every weekend.
    They wrote the Constitution on parchment, I type 84 words-per-minute using a colonial font.
    They rode horses, I drive a restored Pinto rigged to run on used vegetable oil.
    They did NOT believe in free speech; if they did, they would not have tarred and feathered the Kings representatives. I also believe people should be punished for improper speech.
    They were not very good at personal hygiene (have you seen the photos of Washington’s troops at Valley Forge?); I don’t bathe too often, either.
    The colonists made their own clothes; I sew on my own buttons when they pop.
    They heated their homes with wood fires; I have a faux wood fire log with a far-infra-red lamp in back of it.
    They killed their own food; I steam broccoli and asparagus (OK, so we do not have that in common).
    The Founding Fathers argued and fought with each other; I don’t get along with anyone. Not even my friends like me.

    In summary, I can easily assume the Founding Fathers would think like me. We have so much in common!!!

    /snide

  12. Well, the author is right about one thing- the Founding Fathers would have no patience for today’s politicians on either side of the aisle.

  13. The 2nd Amendment is not about “self defense” to say it is shows the author to be mealy mouthed and weak. The sole purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to give the people the ability to resist government tyranny of the sort we have had imposed upon us since the regime of Lincoln the Terrible.

  14. Free speech isn’t the problem. People like Carli Pierson are the problem. Remind Ms. Fatuous that even the First Amendment isn’t unlimited and that there will be a reckoning.

  15. Here we go again Right Wing bullshit trying to glorify the Founders of Capitalvania who were no different than todays, greedy, power mad and thoroughly corrupt politicians.

    The Second Amendment was the greatest hoax and most slickly worded document the Founders ever wrote. They knew they could not come right out and restrict severely gun ownership so they constructed a very vaguely worded document that gave them the power through legislation and the courts to restrict gun ownership while giving the proletariat (hillbillies) the illusion they had firearms rights.

    In reality 2A was written for the States to cajole them into joining the Federal Government by agreeing to let them have their own private militias to murder slaves if they revolted. The founders were worried and well aware of the then current slave unrest and later full blown slave revolt in Haiti as the super white rich of Haiti had already begun to flee for America bringing their slaves with them.

    In reality there were anti-gun laws on the books in many cities large and small before the Revolution and none were rescinded after the Revolution, in fact they became more numerous right up to the present days.

    State Militias of the time often kept guns locked up in arsenals and there were some cases of them even taking guns from people who did not tow the party lines.

    The corrupt power made leaders of the time in colonial America were no different than the corrupt power mad politicians of today and the corrupt courts often voted to appease popular sentiment in complete violation of the Constitution. Witness the Dred Scott Decision which legalized slavery or the Plessy v Ferguson case which legalized segregation (something the Far Right racist Republicans still support). And the Supreme Court sat on its ass, a least for awhile, when Roosevelt imprisoned 120,000 Japanese American Citizens during WWII mostly for political points he needed for the next election. The Far Right loved him for the atrocity.

      • Remember folks, ‘jwm’ is a boomer and dullard who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘fascist’. Engage as much as you wish in order to clown and mock him.

        • Oh look, everybody. Geoff’s pet troll wants to stand up for his butt buddy dacian the nazi.

          Ain’t that adorable.

        • Nah, jwm, I think the nameless troll is simply one of dacian the stupid’s sock puppets – although he IS slightly more literate than dacian the stupid.

    • And I forgot to mention what hypocrites the Founders really were. Both Washington and Jefferson owned slaves yet Jefferson ranted against slavery which was an institution that made him rich. Washington supported the institution of slavery.”

      Jefferson raped his slave women and raped a 14 year old girl and made her his sex slave who bore him many children. DNA evidence of his black decedents finally put egg on the faces of the Far Right Fanatics who for decades denied Jefferson ever committed such crimes.

      The British denied George Washington a Generalship after the completion of the French and Indian war because of his poor performance in it which resulted in a lot of people being killed. The British polite excuse for the denial was that he did not have formal British Military Training but yet the British very quickly gave Benedict Arnold a Generalship with very high pay because they were terrified of him and his Generalship in the Revolutionary war.

      If it had not been for French intervention, money and lots of it, and up to date siege cannon, a professional French Military and the French Navy the U.S. would have lost the Revolutionary War and Washington would have been hung by his dirty balls and the U.S. would have ended up with a truly democratic, parliamentary government far less corrupt than what we have today.

      If one wants to be patriotic piss on Washington’s grave and the other corrupt Founders as they did the American people no favors when they established the most corrupt government on the planet. It is finally in its death throws as the Jan. 6th insurrection came close to finally ending it.

      What is ahead is a repeat of the fall of the Roman Empire which also spent too much money and bankrupted themselves on wars of rape, pillage and conquest and put most of its people on welfare (bread and circus) when the rich bought up their farmland and ran it with slave labor. Sound familiar???? History repeats itself once again.

    • quote there were anti-gun laws on the books in many cities large and small before the Revolution and none were rescinded after the Revolution,
      Knucklehaed!! After the War for Independence, eferything was a clean sweep a blank slate. NONE of the city laws you talk about COULD be “rescinded’ as they all were done away with in the “reset”. And no, no cities had such laws anyway. Cite one, with points and authorities.

      • quote————–Knucklehaed!! After the War for Independence, eferything was a clean sweep a blank slate.————-quote

        The only knucklehead is you who only watch propaganda far right news outlets.

        Totally wrong and totally ignorant. This year MSNBC did a special on the NRA and gun laws from before and after the Revolution and it was astonishing how many draconian gun laws there were before and after the Revolution none of which were ever rescinded disproving the ignorant Right Wing belief that the corrupt power mad Founders were pro gun. They like politicians today wanted absolute power over their subjects proving what a farce 2A always was.

        • Good God almighty Dacian.
          If America sucks so bad why are you here?
          All you do is brag about other countries but live in the one you hate. That’s kinda fcked up.
          What is it, you dont have the money to move or what?

        • Being aware of other countries and how they have often solved the same problems we have but done a much better job is the difference between an educated man and a right wing ignorant hill jack, ignorant of how the rest of the world operates.

        • I might add Possum that only the coward runs away to another country. We progressives are on a roll now, so why leave when we are winning.

        • possum. dacian the nazi is a wash out in life. Most countries require some level of education and job skills to allow you to move there permanent.

          He has neither. If he moves he gives up his welfare. And maybe his sister wife don’t want to leave her trailer to move to North Korea.

        • Progressives winning.- – –
          “Here comes the new boss
          Same as the old boss.”
          As long as there are countries there will be kings.
          All the kings of this earth, past present and future desire power. Power cannot be attained without some form of subjugation.
          Humans will never be free.

    • dacian, here you go again. Trying to attack the Founding Fathers because they don’t agree with your position on the Second Amendment. How do you know if Jefferson “raped” one of his slaves? Where you there?
      The fact is my Leftist adversary is that the United States exists today, I am sure much to your chagrin. I am grateful that the French decided to side with us again Great Britain. Could it be that you were one of those Hessian soldiers that Washington’s Army captured on Jan 26? Absolutely humiliated you. Anything that MSNBC says abut the NRA has to be a perverted twisted lie. But then you just love that kind of propaganda.

      • Was it rape? Oh my goodness a 14 year old.
        Well back then 14 years old wasnt that young.
        As a matter of fact my grandmother was sold/traded off by a french fur trapper(so much for the French)at age 14.

        • I just noticed that this was a 14 year old. I would consider that rape as well, though like possum said, 14 wasn’t the same back then. People often got married as teenagers just a few generations back. I still think it’s very wrong with the age disparity. That takes nothing away from the founding of this country and the Constitution. They stand on their own, just like movies with actors that are terrible people in real life.

          I’m old enough to remember Democrats saying that it doesn’t matter that Bill Clinton is immoral, as long as he’s a good President. Then we have the modern day push for legalized pedophilia. Where’s that coming from? You guys are against that, right? This entire pedo argument isn’t just one of your means to an end arguments is it?

  16. Carli Pierson and deranged liberals like her can caterwaul all they want. They won’t be able to enact their fantasies without civil disturbances that will make the Antifa/BLM summer riots look tame.

    Insofar as the Founding Father hating posters go…f’ em.

  17. I wasn’t expecting to read St. George Tucker quoted in this, that was a pleasant surprise. Hopefully more people discover him

  18. 1st, second or any other.
    Change it to how they think it aught to be.
    Karens without a clue.

    It’s what they do.

  19. *Previous comment STILL awaiting moderation.

    I’d really like to know how I triggered it. Let me try again. The author doesn’t give a hoot what the Founders believed. This is nothing but a means to an end. She doesn’t know how to debate the issue, so she’s using the old, “This person(s) you like agrees with me, not you, so you have to agree with me.”

    She used a similar tactic to argue that Christians should vote for Bernie and Warren because, you know, that’s who JC would’ve voted for!

    https://carlipierson.medium.com/opinion-jesus-was-a-socialist-ebd7dd04d394

      • That’s good night as in exasperation, moron. I’ll try to use less ambiguous idioms in the future since the literary challenged among us don’t understand how to use context in order to grasp the meaning of the simplest of conversations.

    • to Dud Brain our forum storm trooper.

      You were given a favor because you did not make a fool of yourself as you usually do. Immigrate to Myanmar where they have a Military Junta, you would be in your glory there.

    • Same lazy tactic used by the same author. I’m keeping the commentary to a minimum and leaving off the link so I can get past the robo moderation. Draw your own conclusions. It’s pretty obvious.

      Opinion: Jesus was a [S_list]. Why White Evangelicals should vote for Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren

      I discovered the trigger. You can’t say JC was a [Bernie bro]. I know you can use the word on it’s own because I’ve used it before.

  22. In order to REPEAL an amendment, we must first ratify a NEW amendment that repeals a prior amendment. This is primarily achieved via two-thirds of the US Senators (67 of 100 Senators), two-thirds of US Congressmen (290 of 435 Congressmen), and three-fourths of ALL of the states (38 of 50 state legislature).

    Best of luck with that pierson.

  23. I think if the Founding Fathers could see the close to 200 million innocent men, women and children murdered by their governments around the world, they would have put in an Amendment requiring the latest small arms in every American home…….that 200 million number would have changed the way they set up the Bill of Rights…

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