The San Francisco Gun Ban . . Again.
With November's elections drawing near -- and with this issue becoming more widespread around the country, I've elected to re-print an edited version of my March, 2005 article.
Originally Printed Monday, March 21, 2005:
The 2005 San Francisco Gun Ban: Pushing Away The People's Greatest Ally.
AMERICA, the great melting pot, continues to melt and meld its contents into an ideal. Today, after a few centuries, we are still individually and collectively a work in progress. What has empowered us to survive world wars and to grow, civil wars and to grow, and other strife and to grow has been this melting pot that few other nations can boast over the span of only a few hundred years. Many societies are closed, some are ruled ruthlessly, others and self-ruled, but only America can say that she is growing because we pull together, we love one another, and we protect one another against all adversity. Through valor, through truth and mettle, through force sometimes, we find our way. At other times, that love summons of us the strength to leaving someone alone.
The City of San Francisco is about to put to a vote this fall the banning of guns as a means of reducing violent crime. San Francisco is reacting to an announced 28% increase in murders in her city.
Banning guns could seem a rational response at first, but for the known results of contemporary similar reactions in the so-called gun-free zones around the globe: Washington D.C., the United Kingdom, Australia, the Philippines, South Africa, to name a few.
There are more countries around the world struggling with oppression where the people are powerless to resist than there are free countries of self-government.
Where no one has escaped such a fate following disarming citizens, why would a major American city want to disarm its citizens, too?
Disarming citizens does not always put constituents at the mercy of government –Liberty nuts such as myself don’t loathe government but official misconduct – disarming citizens always puts constituents at the mercy of criminals where government is unable to act to protect its greatest asset, the sovereign citizen, as in D.C. This becomes a transfer of wealth some find hard to imagine as self-governance slips away.
[Author’s note: Police have no mandate to protect individuals, as it is not practical nor even possible. Courts have consistently ruled that law enforcement has no duty to protect individuals.]
San Francisco is about to do the same; by resisting the gun lobby litigation and other vociferous, rightful protests, the city by the bay rejects the helpfulness of its greatest ally -- fellow Americans who protect themselves with firearms, fellow Americans who can foresee San Francisco’s fate. Fellow Americans who think that trip is unnecessary.
Liberty enthusiasts understand that the second amendment is the barometer of the health of all other civil rights, and for a city which places so much emphasis on civil rights, San Francisco’s Supervisors are most willing, it seems, to surrender the very power and authority constituents possess to treat the problem they have encountered. Without that power and authority, they will never face down those who have less rightful authority, but more power: the criminal element.
The Supervisors confuse the increased murder rate with violence, an incorrect comparison, since resistance to menace (perhaps resulting in some violence) is moral. Liberty enthusiasts support self-defense of our fellow Americans there as much as we do for ourselves and for every American, irrespective of race, creed, color, national origin or sexual orientation.
The looming law as it is contemplated should not be to disarm the honest, but to arm them, perhaps with the consistent result of much less violence overall. This is the case in the right to carry states.
[I would also hasten to point out to our fellow Americans that though there are about 47,000 shootings annually, the FBI and other authorities report more than two million thwartings annually with the use of a gun, often without firing a shot. Injury from crime is not from resistance, but from surprise and a lack of resistance.]
The misunderstanding that a gun-free zone will slow the murder rate is in refusing to meet menace with force because it may mean violence. Not all resistance is bad; some force is most necessary to stop mayhem or life-or-death emergencies.
Because – whatever the law is – criminals don’t obey the law. They use surrender and powerlessness and they view – and use – the law-abiding’s observance of law as a subtle weapon against society. They know only the law of the jungle, and when crime increases due to ringing that dinner bell for violent appetites of the aggressors, the problem will have morphed into an entirely different monster, blocking the road back to civility.
The U.K. is now suffering immensely for its ill-advised 1997 confiscation of personal weapons – violent crime is on the increase there as in other worldwide gun-free zones – and Lords is now hearing advocacy for the restoring of their own version of right to carry. Even D.C. is re-considering it.
The road back to civility is harder, and the lesson of one inevitable truth more painful than necessary.
Presently, more than two-thirds of the states of the union permit concealed carry or open carry of handguns where governance is measured by respectful responsiveness and trust of the individual, not suspicion. But where it is needed most – California and New York – it is frustrated the most. There are movements to de-criminalize response to violence, all in appreciation of the nation’s most valuable asset, the sovereign individual.
The respect liberty enthusiasts have for fellow Americans includes San Francisco. We would not like to see that majestic, historical, world-renowned city’s people – or any people – fall beyond hope in surrender when it should respond in purposeful, lawful resistance to violent crime.
Sometimes, to learn the truths of life, one must be left alone to experience them first-hand. The 2005 vote will tell whether San Francisco will learn it or already knows it and will say so publicly.
Which category do San Franciscans really want to be part of? Will the Supervisors respect their constituents or impose their own values in spite of constituent pleading, showing of evidence and rightful authority?
Or will the People vote for a gun ban?
Should the People elect self-defense over surrender, they may summon us. We would be privileged to join the ranks of rights groups coming to their aid – because it’s not about guns, it’s about governance.
And because we’re not gun nuts – we’re Liberty nuts. And we’ll help where we can. Right to carry states of the union just don’t seem to have high crime rates. There, officials respect the sovereign as sovereign with a lot less suspicion, and they see the criminal as criminal. We merely ask San Francisco: Think of what you’re trying to accomplish.
For, San Francisco’s greatest ally is not the media, nor the gay rights movement, nor even its own City Hall, it seems: in time of violent crime’s robbery of the people’s quiet enjoyment, its fiscal assets and safety of its sovereigns, any populace’s greatest ally is the one that – irrespective of what officials say or think – joins the People in asserting their sovereignty, Liberty.
And that means Liberty for all.
________________________
John Longenecker is author of The Battle We Fight -- available worldwide at online booksellers and brick and mortar stores.
Originally Printed Monday, March 21, 2005:
The 2005 San Francisco Gun Ban: Pushing Away The People's Greatest Ally.
AMERICA, the great melting pot, continues to melt and meld its contents into an ideal. Today, after a few centuries, we are still individually and collectively a work in progress. What has empowered us to survive world wars and to grow, civil wars and to grow, and other strife and to grow has been this melting pot that few other nations can boast over the span of only a few hundred years. Many societies are closed, some are ruled ruthlessly, others and self-ruled, but only America can say that she is growing because we pull together, we love one another, and we protect one another against all adversity. Through valor, through truth and mettle, through force sometimes, we find our way. At other times, that love summons of us the strength to leaving someone alone.
The City of San Francisco is about to put to a vote this fall the banning of guns as a means of reducing violent crime. San Francisco is reacting to an announced 28% increase in murders in her city.
Banning guns could seem a rational response at first, but for the known results of contemporary similar reactions in the so-called gun-free zones around the globe: Washington D.C., the United Kingdom, Australia, the Philippines, South Africa, to name a few.
There are more countries around the world struggling with oppression where the people are powerless to resist than there are free countries of self-government.
Where no one has escaped such a fate following disarming citizens, why would a major American city want to disarm its citizens, too?
Disarming citizens does not always put constituents at the mercy of government –Liberty nuts such as myself don’t loathe government but official misconduct – disarming citizens always puts constituents at the mercy of criminals where government is unable to act to protect its greatest asset, the sovereign citizen, as in D.C. This becomes a transfer of wealth some find hard to imagine as self-governance slips away.
[Author’s note: Police have no mandate to protect individuals, as it is not practical nor even possible. Courts have consistently ruled that law enforcement has no duty to protect individuals.]
San Francisco is about to do the same; by resisting the gun lobby litigation and other vociferous, rightful protests, the city by the bay rejects the helpfulness of its greatest ally -- fellow Americans who protect themselves with firearms, fellow Americans who can foresee San Francisco’s fate. Fellow Americans who think that trip is unnecessary.
Liberty enthusiasts understand that the second amendment is the barometer of the health of all other civil rights, and for a city which places so much emphasis on civil rights, San Francisco’s Supervisors are most willing, it seems, to surrender the very power and authority constituents possess to treat the problem they have encountered. Without that power and authority, they will never face down those who have less rightful authority, but more power: the criminal element.
The Supervisors confuse the increased murder rate with violence, an incorrect comparison, since resistance to menace (perhaps resulting in some violence) is moral. Liberty enthusiasts support self-defense of our fellow Americans there as much as we do for ourselves and for every American, irrespective of race, creed, color, national origin or sexual orientation.
The looming law as it is contemplated should not be to disarm the honest, but to arm them, perhaps with the consistent result of much less violence overall. This is the case in the right to carry states.
[I would also hasten to point out to our fellow Americans that though there are about 47,000 shootings annually, the FBI and other authorities report more than two million thwartings annually with the use of a gun, often without firing a shot. Injury from crime is not from resistance, but from surprise and a lack of resistance.]
The misunderstanding that a gun-free zone will slow the murder rate is in refusing to meet menace with force because it may mean violence. Not all resistance is bad; some force is most necessary to stop mayhem or life-or-death emergencies.
Because – whatever the law is – criminals don’t obey the law. They use surrender and powerlessness and they view – and use – the law-abiding’s observance of law as a subtle weapon against society. They know only the law of the jungle, and when crime increases due to ringing that dinner bell for violent appetites of the aggressors, the problem will have morphed into an entirely different monster, blocking the road back to civility.
The U.K. is now suffering immensely for its ill-advised 1997 confiscation of personal weapons – violent crime is on the increase there as in other worldwide gun-free zones – and Lords is now hearing advocacy for the restoring of their own version of right to carry. Even D.C. is re-considering it.
The road back to civility is harder, and the lesson of one inevitable truth more painful than necessary.
Presently, more than two-thirds of the states of the union permit concealed carry or open carry of handguns where governance is measured by respectful responsiveness and trust of the individual, not suspicion. But where it is needed most – California and New York – it is frustrated the most. There are movements to de-criminalize response to violence, all in appreciation of the nation’s most valuable asset, the sovereign individual.
The respect liberty enthusiasts have for fellow Americans includes San Francisco. We would not like to see that majestic, historical, world-renowned city’s people – or any people – fall beyond hope in surrender when it should respond in purposeful, lawful resistance to violent crime.
Sometimes, to learn the truths of life, one must be left alone to experience them first-hand. The 2005 vote will tell whether San Francisco will learn it or already knows it and will say so publicly.
Which category do San Franciscans really want to be part of? Will the Supervisors respect their constituents or impose their own values in spite of constituent pleading, showing of evidence and rightful authority?
Or will the People vote for a gun ban?
Should the People elect self-defense over surrender, they may summon us. We would be privileged to join the ranks of rights groups coming to their aid – because it’s not about guns, it’s about governance.
And because we’re not gun nuts – we’re Liberty nuts. And we’ll help where we can. Right to carry states of the union just don’t seem to have high crime rates. There, officials respect the sovereign as sovereign with a lot less suspicion, and they see the criminal as criminal. We merely ask San Francisco: Think of what you’re trying to accomplish.
For, San Francisco’s greatest ally is not the media, nor the gay rights movement, nor even its own City Hall, it seems: in time of violent crime’s robbery of the people’s quiet enjoyment, its fiscal assets and safety of its sovereigns, any populace’s greatest ally is the one that – irrespective of what officials say or think – joins the People in asserting their sovereignty, Liberty.
And that means Liberty for all.
________________________
John Longenecker is author of The Battle We Fight -- available worldwide at online booksellers and brick and mortar stores.
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