“There’s no difference between the government telling us you can’t own guns or you must own guns.” – Nucla, Colorado trustee Bill Long in Colorado Town That Requires a Gun in Every Home Fights for its Life [at nbcnews.com]

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51 COMMENTS

  1. Hey, if the government can now require me to buy health insurance under the threat of financial penalties (now called taxes by the Supreme Court), then the government can require you to buy whatever it wants to tell you to buy.

    • So cancel your healthcare insurance. Don’t forget to cancel your auto insurance too. Or accept these mandates as ways to protect your physical and financial health. Your call.

      • “Or accept these mandates as ways to protect your physical and financial health. “……………from the government.

        There, i fixed it for yu

      • That’s not the point Paul, and you know it. It’s about the government forcing you into buying something.

        • I don’t think they should be allowed to, but let’s talk about this for a second.

          Presently local/federal government can tell businesses that they need to purchase and maintain fire extinguishers, and boat owners that they need to purchase and maintain flotation devices.

          Failure to do so does not exempt them from being served by the fire department or USCG, however.

        • Ideally, I agree. However given the current status of our situation, the government has been requiring us to buy all kinds of unnecessary services and objects at the whim of politicians passing laws. The bottom line in my opinion, is objects within the home are not the government’s business or anyone elses.

        • There is a city in Georgia, Kennesaw, that has a similar requirement. No one has ever been charged for violating the statute, so it’s a wee bit different than laws that go the other way. I believe when the law was first passed the police would give you one of the old revolvers they no longer carried so you could be in compliance.

      • Insurances is legalized and government sanctioned extortion. Things would not cost as much if there wasn’t the insurance cash cow to pay for them, and if the courts hadn’t gone insane with monetary awards in law suits.

      • Sounding like every tyrant and dictator. Good job. Freedom is almost never fully taken away. It’s incrememtal. Mandated auto insuance screws the market and is anti-freedom.

      • These mandates have nothing to do with protecting ones financial or physical health. The insurances themselves certainly do have that effect, but a law requiring them does not. If you get into a wreck and your seatbelt saved your life, that is not the same as a seatbelt law having saved your life. The law mandating the carrying of insurance only provides a penalty for taking a risk. With health insurance this is a risk that is an individuals to take or not take, with auto insurance it is a bit murkier because the mandated level of insurance only covers damage done to others.

        But the point stands, the mandates do not protect anyone from anything, they merely coerce behavior.

      • I know correlation != causation, but the only times I’ve ever had any significant car wrecks, I had insurance. I’ve always tried to avoid car insurance, because I don’t normally cause car crashes. (When I was in High School in ’65-’66, they taught “Defensive Drving.” Also had a deal where if you got 30 hrs. classroom and 6 hrs behind-the wheel training, you could get your license a year earlier.) I got seriously bit in the ass by that mandatory insurance crapola once – some guy rear-ended me while I was yielding at a yield sign – the police report even said that it was his fault – but some angry woman judge decided to make an example of me and I did county time for the heinous crime of failure to pay corruption vigorishbuy mandatory insurance. And I was the injured party! The only one who should have mandatory insurance is the one who’s at fault. But the ambulance-chaser I hired at arraignment court essentially threw me under the bus, so I have a bad taste in my mouth about attorneys too.

        Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said, “First, we kill all the lawyers…”?

        PS: Insurance is really the most bizarre form of gambling – the only way to win is to lose.

    • So you’d rather be a drain on society and have the rest of us pay for your emergency room visits when you get sick?

      • Another false dichotomy. Do you people REALLY have a playbook with this stuff in it that you just parrot?

        Having insurance and being a drain on society in the event of medical catastrophe are not the only two options. There are quite a few others. For example:

        (1) Without insurance and the abuses to the medical system it allows, medical costs should be lower, and thus more affordable.

        (2) Some folks can afford the medical bills no matter what they are. Why should they be mandated to purchase a product they don’t want or need?

        Such folks become no drain on society (quite the opposite, generally), so what’s your problem with them paying their own way?

        (3) Some folks would choose to not carry insurance and refuse medical care they cannot afford. That is their choice to make, not the King’s (oops, I mean the benevolent federal legislature or executive).

        Such folks become no drain on society, so what’s your problem with them?

        (4) Some folks would choose to not carry insurance, accept the medical care and go heavily into debt, the work very, very hard to pay that debt.

        Still no drain on society.

        (5) Private charities raise money to provide care for people that need it and cannot afford it every day of the year. Good care, no drain on society (ie, it is willful donations, not stolen by aristocracy).

        So, it seems to me that the only people that are, in fact, the drains on society are those with fundamentally socialist beliefs…that others should pay for their life.

      • @ fakeJesus:I don’t know if you are a drain on society, but you are definitely a drain on these comment threads.

      • Believe me, Hey Soos, as a single male I never required anybody else, government or otherwise, to cover my pre-natal pregnancy care, or pediatric dental care for children I didn’t have–and I would be embarrassed to ask anyone else to cover my contraceptives for me. If you are a male and want to buy insurance to cover pregnancy care, go ahead. But don’t tell me I have to be that stupid too.

  3. The government doesn’t have the right, so in that sense, he is correct. However our right to have guns is part of The Bill of Rights, the purpose of which is to keep government in check (no tyranny), and in that sense he is wrong. If the government is able to disarm us, it has removed a safeguard meant to remind the government that all power belongs to the people unless we choose to share it with the government.

    • I am tired of cliches. The notion that “guns keep the government in check” is false. The 2nd amendment is not the fourth branch of government. The government can crush you if it has the will. Have guns prevented the debacle we have made of the Middle East ? Will guns prevent amnesty bequeathing on felons the same rights we enjoy such as the RTKBA and the right to vote? Have guns prevented the bankrupting of the nation? Have guns prevented 55,000,000 abortions since 1973? Have guns prevented the welfare state and exportation of our industrial base? Your argument belongs in fantasyland. Tyranny does not begin in the government. It begins in the hearts and minds of the people. The government merely reflects who we are as a nation.

      • You’re 100% correct. It’s nonsense. The idea of me — even far better trained than your typical infantryman — stopping the government with my semi-auto AR and a couple of handguns is ridiculous. Quite frankly, anyone who thinks that the RKBA is to (or does) keep the government in check and who doesn’t also believe we should — every last one of us — be able to own machine guns, grenades, tanks, rocket launchers, or whatever other toys only the military has, is an idiot or a liar.

        And to be absolutely clear: if anything, the RKBA should probably apply less to handguns than to rocket launchers. Anyone who has read US v. Miller ought to be crystal clear on that.

        • Every time I have to repeat this. guerilla tactics is where it’s at just ask Afghanis or Bosnians. Shoot’n’scoot and of course theft of equipment.

          Going head to head will get you killed, sure. Shooting them in the back (don’t get greedy, no more than 3 shots) and relocating won’t get you killed… As fast.

        • I agree to an extent with your point concerning US vs Miller, however as Lolinksi has pointed out, you wouldn’t fight on their terms per se, as seen in Vietnam, Warsaw ghetto, Afghnaistan, etc. Furthermore, if systematic killing and subjugation of citizens comes at a greater cost to the government due to any degree of resistance, then it makes such decisions less efficient while also creating further opportunities for resistance. There is a stark difference between government taking people one at a time and deeming them “enemies of the state” and executing them versus actual resistance that can’t completely be contained in a state building’s execution chamber. The latter allows for messaging, for even a futile act of resistance can and will be noticed by others vs a discrete execution, This allows for some people to view this and possibly sympathize; whether they be a citizen, a government soldier or even a rival nation that may help the guerillas…i.e. France helping the US in the revolution. The key you must remember is that if the military were to obliterate the populace (which they of course can) then the tyrant would be the proud ruler of a pile of rubble and exhausted of many resources while increasingly vulnerable to rival nations. This is why the Nazis or Stalin’s communists, weren’t initially trying to go wage open conventional warfare on their citizens, but rather to single out particular citizens and try to have them segregated to places out of sight and mind to be executed. For resistance, even if a small seemingly futile wrench were put in such plans, can potentially have a ripple effect…

        • Thomas Jefferson said (in my words) that if the meaning of The Bill of Rights is questioned, we should think of the frame of mind at the time it was written. I write only in that spirit. If civilian gun ownership isn’t a threat, why does the government oppose it? If the thought that I might have a few Glocks makes politicians apoplectic, I feel I’ve done my part. Thanks all for the great replies.

      • Um, I hate disagreeing with people who are very passionate about my favorite subject. Anyhow, here it goes. The American Revolution was not won because we out gunned the British military. In fact, we lost most battles. See, the 2nd amendment is not about 1 person being armed. It is about the citizenry being powerful enough as a whole to stand up to tyranny. But, just like the Revolution, it takes a critical mass of government intrusions and failures of peaceful protests before people will resort to physical violence to stop an over-reaching government….and for good reason. How many years did it take from the Stamp Act to the signing of the Declaration of Independence? I know it was over a decade. Yes, we are on the path to a revolution, but we are still a long way from it. My hope is the elections this year and 2016 will take us off this path, but if not, I am glad that I am equipped enough to be in an army of citizens that could be over a 100 million people strong. How can our military, even as strong as it is, standup to an army even a tenth that size regardless of its access to advanced weaponry. They can’t. And if the citizenry revolts, how much of our military would come to our side? I would bet that most of our military would support the citizenry and fight for us.

        • Well said. Let’s start a write in movement for Judge Judy for President! I’d vote for her before any of these professional politicians.

      • All of your examples are not tyranny. Guns do keep any government in check, which is why the U.S. has survived for so long. The Soviet government lasted less than a century, most dictatorships and true tyrannies last a fraction of that time.

        • The Soviet government did not fall from internal revolt but by the failure of its socialist economy, and a recognition that a capitalist system was the only road to survival. The revolts in its satellites such as Czechoslovakia and Poland were peaceful. The only violence was associated with the attempted coup by the military elite and the KGB against Gorbachev.

      • Governments are overthrown by armed citizens all the time. How well are the governments of Iraq, Syria, Afgahanistan and Libya faring against their citizens right now? Those armed populations have endured and ejected our own government’s intrusions in their countries.

        “Crush” us? Please. Tge U.S. government doesn’t even crush our avowed enemies overseas.

      • Ah yes of course you are correct because… Oh wait I actually can’t agree with your nonsensical statement. Yes 2a was from the beginning a way to keep government tyranny at bay. Was the fact that most the populous had firearms more of a deterrent early on? Of course and yes today it is less powerful. Don’t think for one second that greedy men haven’t thought twice about new actions to control the masses because he knew that the masses could always rise up. Rise up with the second best form of protection against tyranny might I add. The first is knowledge and sadly I think you need to focus on the first to get the second.

      • The purpose of having an armed citizenry is to keep the government too afraid of us to become tryannical. If it didn’t work, the government wouldn’t need to increase it’s power so slowly and wouldn’t be so desperate to disarm us. The purpose of the 2nd amendment is to provide a very clear legal premise on which to deny the government authority to disarm us. In that sense the 2nd amendment has certainly worked as a check against the government, however it is not enough by itself. All other ‘checks’ are nothing more than legal frameworks that deny power to government, either in part or in whole. Opposing branches of government that have been delegated complimentary powers are the ‘balances.’

  4. Actually, there’s a huge difference. While it’s not in the spirit of freedom and liberty to require anyone to own anything, one scenario involves a disarmed populace with a potentially tyrannical government and rampant crime, whereas the other involves a responsibly armed populace that can take care of itself if need be.

    To be fair, the guy isn’t anti-gun at all, he just doesn’t like government overreach. Which is all well and good.

    • Exactly his point, if you read the article. He, and pretty much everyone else in this tiny little town (pop. 720) owns guns, and the law was passed as more of an advertisement to people who would seek to rob and burgle, just as was the law in Georgia. It is not intended to be enforced. The Brady Campaign called this guy to offer support in a lawsuit to strike down the law, but he says that when they found out that he was a gun owner, he hasn’t heard back from them. He believes in the right to keep and bear arms, he just doesn’t believe that the government should be telling him he has to.

  5. I agree that it’s similar. While I would prefer a world in which everyone chooses to be a responsible gun owner, the whole point of the the second ammendment and all the others is to prevent government overreach, not encourage it. We cannot force responsible gun ownership any more than we can force polite behavior, morals, or voting. Doing so corrupts the purpose of the Constitution. People cannot be forced to be free.

  6. This does go both ways. The problem is simply that one group of people is physically attempting to impose their will upon others – the physical part being the purchase or ownership of a firearm, of course. While there may well be all manner of exemptions and such, the basic problem remains. Alas, it’s human nature for us to tell each other what to do or not to do. In the end it merely proves the wisdom of the Founding Fathers when they affirmed that the right to keep and bear arms was naturally ordained and not merely orders couched in a few fancy words on a piece of paper.

    Tom

  8. Unenforceable suggestion. Only lolinski gets it. And once again those BLM folks backed down pretty quickly from a “militia” force in Nevada. The gubmint has to have will to f##k you. A lot of part time soldiers don’t…

    • Get what? I am a bit… gone… due to being sick and sleepy.

      That the suggestion is unenforcable?

      • Nah…that 300 million guns would be mighty hard for part time soldiers to overcome in a guerilla war. From the Swamp Fox to Quantrills raiders to Afghanistan a dirty war wins. Yeah and it’s an unenforceable suggestion too.

  9. Freedom and the exercise of rights is about choice. Tyranny is about denying the freedom to make choices in the exercise of rights. Similarly, “Government Overreach” is about denying the freedom to make choices in the exercise of rights.
    From reading the cited news article, it looks to me like Nucla,CO’s law requiring every head of household to own a gun was more of a statement than anything else. They allowed for “conscientious objectors”, those too poor to buy a gun and some other exceptions, and did not engage in active enforcement.
    Bill Long merely is pointing-out that there is no substantive difference in any situation where Government denies the freedom to make choices in the exercise of rights, and his point is valid.
    Of all the freedoms we frequently enumerate, we seldom specify the freedom to choose. Rather, it is left as an implied freedom, but it is really one of the key freedoms, and without it tyranny is facilitated.

  11. If, as I hear constantly on this site, we are all members of a citizens militia then the gov. can make firearms ownership mandatory.

    Or would you prefer that the gov. stores our weapons in an arsenal until such time as we the militia need them issued?

    • I disagree with mandating weapons, just like it is our right to own guns other people have the right to not own guns.

      At the very least it is immoral to force someone to be a part of something they don’t want to.

      • In keeping with the militia traditions and laws in this country when each citizen turns 18 if they are capable of safe handling of a firearm they should be issued whatever rifle is current for the regular forces along with a supply of ammo. When their militia service is deemed over they should turn the weapon back in.

        Whether or not the citizen owns or uses any other weapons other than the issue one is that citizens choice. Either we are the militia or we’re not.

  12. Government has the legal authority and means to require every home to have a gun, as long as there are exceptions for people whose moral or religious principles would be violated. The First Amendment requires nothing less.

    However, just because the G can require every home to have a gun does not mean that the government should do so. For example, I don’t doubt that some citizens would be financially unable to meet the requirement. There are also other practical reasons for not having such a law.

  13. When I bought a house one of the major reasons I picked Kennesaw was because they required folks to own guns. Crime in this area is much lower, though I did have a very old laptop (hard drive encrypted) and a watermelon that were stolen out of the back seat of my car overnight a couple of years ago.

  14. Requirement for male citizens arming themselves dates back in US for centuries. In England/UK for many centuries.

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