Two Yale Law School students put together a pretty laughable argument for restricting the 2A rights of law-abiding citizens in a recent article published by The Atlantic, titled, “A Constitutional Case for Gun Control: History and textual analysis aren’t the only factors that matter. Our lives do, too.”
You can read the whole article but the gist is that the Supreme Court should consider a “constitutional narrative” when deciding what limitations, if any, should be placed on one’s right to keep and bear arms. By “constitutional narrative” what they really mean to say is stories from the likes of David Hogg and other activists from the anti-gun advocacy group, March for Our Lives.
Now, I’m not opposed to that per se, provided the judges also get to hear the countervailing narratives from the hundreds of thousands of citizens who defend themselves with firearms each year. Their stories matter, too. After all, they are the majority.
Yes, good guys use guns more often to defend themselves than bad guys use guns to perpetrate crime and violence. This should be common knowledge but sadly it’s not. Conservative estimates indicate that the former happens 3-5x more than the latter, which means for every David Hogg there are three to five Stephen Willefords.
Pew Research looked into this in 2017 and found that one-in-six gun owners used a firearm to defend themselves, their families or their possessions. Considering there’re tens of millions of gun owners in this country, that’s not a trivial sum.
Yet, the Yalies who wrote that Atlantic article don’t acknowledge these facts or statistics. Instead, they see gun control — specifically, universal background checks, a ban on “assault weapons” and a law prohibiting adults under 21 from purchasing firearms — as “preemptive self-defense” for the citizen.
“An individual right to gun ownership offers one path, deputizing all people to defend themselves with a firearm at their side. Gun regulation offers another such path to self-defense, one vastly more efficacious and preferred by the American public. It represents a mode of preemptive self-defense, whereby the state is tasked by its citizens with limiting access to deadly force,” they write.
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Like communism, gun control works in theory. But how does it play out in the real world?
Let’s pretend for a moment that a 20-year-old college student is sitting alone at home doing school work. It’s late at night. She can’t afford to live in the best part of town, so she compromised and moved to a different, not-so-great part of town. She wanted to purchase a firearm for self-defense but, alas, she’s not 21. No worries, though. The state will protect her. It has recently passed the aforementioned gun-control legislation and she can rest assured that Big Brother has sufficiently “limited access to deadly force.”
Except for that it hasn’t, really. The serial rapist who has been casing her home for the past week doesn’t really care what the law says. The law prohibiting rape didn’t stop him from savaging his first two victims, the law banning dope didn’t stop him from shooting up a few hours ago, and the new law requiring universal background checks did nothing to stop him from buying a pistol on the black market. Despite all the state’s efforts, he is still armed and dangerous.
When she sees him prowling about the front lawn, she dials 9-1-1. Police promise to be on the scene within minutes. The dispatcher instructs her to stay on the phone and to describe his movements as they unfold. She does, until he breaks through the front window and she can no longer report. He is inside the residence, bearing down on her. And she has to fight for her life with whatever she has on hand.
Unarmed and physically outmatched, how does she survive? Where is the state in this equation? Police are on their way but they’re not there yet. What happens next???
In real life, when the rubber meets the road, self-defense is not a task for the state, it’s an obligation for the individual. Heck, the whole freakin’ concept is built around oneself, hence self-defense. How did these Ivy Leaguers miss that?
What this comes down to is one is ultimately responsible for one’s own safety. Consequently, in a free society, 2A rights should be maximized, not restricted. Because as much as gun-control advocates would have one believe that the government’s quest to disarm good guys will make bad guys harmless, that’s just not the case.
The 2A clearly states that “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.” What could possibly be more clear than that? Based upon these words, how has the government acquired the lawful authority to do otherwise, everything else notwithstanding?
This from the “educated elite ” in our society ?
” Education is a weapon , whose effect depends on whom holds
it in his hands , and at whom it is aimed . ”
– Ioseb Jughashvili ( Stalin )
Why do so many think that violence begins and ends with guns. I am a male but am less than 5′ 5″ tall and on the dark side of 60 years old. I am not now and never have been any kind of badass. Even if all the guns, knives, and clubs were removed from the thugs of the world I am not prepared to slug it out with them. Even if I were “man enough” to take on one or more younger, stronger and more aggressive assailants and prevail I would still have to take a serious beating. Is that the utopia the gun control crowd has in mind?
Do you know what else is preemptive self defense? CARRYING A GUN! It deters crime significantly more than gun free zones and gun control. And it actually gives one the physical ability to self defense…to actually control a situation where ones life is in danger, instead of relying on the efficiency, training, nerve, and determination of another person (meaning a law enforcement officer), who is also 1-60 minutes away. The fact that these two idiots are willing to trust their lives in the hands of another person, tells me everything I need to know about them. Where as gun free zones and gun control rely on the good will and compliance of criminals to not commit crimes and obey the law…which, by definition, they do not. This is the most RETARDED argument for self defense to date.
We are not the ones who are a danger to you liberals. It is the thug gang bangers, trailer park meth tweekers, and the mentally unstable. YOUR self defense has no relation to my gun ownership! Your method of self defense cannot deprive me of my method of self defense just because of the tool used. The fact is, I am going to use my gun lawfully and responsibly. Therefore it has no bearing whatsoever with your self defense.
Most ignorant s#@t I’ve ever heard in my life. This is what hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of ivey league college gets you these days.
“Liberal” and “self defense” is an oxymoron. This has nothing to do with self defense. It has everythimg to do with gun control. Liberals do not practice self defense. They are lemmimgs who do what they are told by both government and criminals without question. They would rather give up all personal liberties for a false sense of security. Their idea of “self defense” is letting criminals commit their violent acts whether it be robbing them, leaving their homes while they are burglarized, and giving the criminals what they want. They then turn around and defend those same people, citing the reason theyre criminals is because “racism, orange man bad, blue man bad, NRA bad, conservative bad” and that it is our fault.
To prove my point look at Chicago and every other town, city, county or state with gun control. People cannot defend themselves, criminals run rampant with no regard for laws, and the monthly (sometimes weekly) shootings surpass most gun friendly states yearly shooting averages. Yet they still blame us for the problems they caused.
Their taking any guns by using guns will deplete the ranks of the taxpayers through imprisonment and murder. When taxpayers are reduced enough the government will become insolvent and fail. Then the criminals with guns will prey on them. Then they’ll wish for honest people with guns.
“Gun regulation…preferred by the American public.”
Another lie. The American public they’re referring to is either ignorant or too stupid to recognize gun regulation as a fallacy.
I had a similar experience to the example of the 20-year old student given in this article. Worse yet, I had already been on the phone with a sheriff for over a minute. I saw three guys quickly run out of a car when I was upstairs describing suspicious people and a luxury car with paper plates to a sheriff. The one that had thick green gloves was headed towards one my side gates and eventually the backyard. I wasn’t stupid enough to sit and wait for a sheriff to eventually arrive. I told the sheriff on the phone I was grabbing my shotgun and going downstairs to protect my partially disabled mother (who happened to be rabidly anti gun!) and home. I was never scared for my life but rather that of my mother’s and if and when I was going to have to shoot to stop a threat. The first sheriff finally arrived 14-15 minutes later. Apparently living in a Leave-It-to-Beaver neighborhood (as per one website that evaluates neighborhoods) with elderly and young kids walking around here and the park across the street didn’t do anything to deter four big teens and one adult with prior criminal records; and all from a ghetto miles away from our quiet suburb. That experience further reinforced the fact that life is too precious to be compliant to unConstitutional laws/regulations. Had I gone out that peaceful mid morning day to do some shopping or to go the gym, I might have returned to witness a tragedy in my home.
So Mr Yale student, just because you don’t care for your life or others, why do you presume to to speak for me? I like my life and want to live into old age, so I prefer to defend myself as I see fit!!!
Gun grabbers do not care a bit about your safety and security. Defenseless “subjects” are sacrificed at the altar of tyranny. Meanwhile, mastermind elites will have jackbooted protection.
“March for Our Lives” ripped off the name from “March for Life.”
The 2A antis probably have little concern for the later movement.
Maybe these students should go to Yale LOCK School, as they seem to be wasting their time in a futile attempt to study law.
Leftists are still trying to “interpret” the Constitution to meet their wants. The Constitution is not intended to be interpreted; only laws are to be interpreted to resolve that they meet the canon of the Constitution. The Second Amendment is worded clearly and is protected by the Bill of Rights; rights protected by the Declaration of Independence.
Using that argument, the state better ban knives, ropes, crowbars, fists, and thousands of other things that can be used to kill me….
Their brainwashing has been a success.
This says it all: Thomas Paine, writing to religious pacifists in 1775:
“The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; the weak would become a prey to the strong.”
May every one of those snowflakes endure the consequences they prescribe for the rest of us. To hell w/ their snowflake learning. They need real life experience, the little porkers.
Pre-emptive self defense? These 2 unproductive and incapable are okay with citizens being defenseless when some dirt bag is committing a violent crime against the unarmed and helpless.
Gun control legislation helps criminals and leaves peaceful citizens defenseless to be victims.