Gun Control Once Again an Issue

After mourning death, as so many American's have done this week, after seeing the sorrow of Virginia Tech as a campus, the families of the victims and marred survivors, don't you find it a little shocking that some media outlets would use this for a subtle attack against the right of a free society to arm itself against tyranny?

One of the reasons that we have the free society that we have is that the government cannot exercise any form of undo control over us, without armed rebellion against it. Once you clearly understand how that works and grates against fascist power mongers in positions of leadership, it becomes clear to you that it isn't cultural paranoia at all, to claim this second Amendment right is being slowly whittled away at, by the very people who so want to usurp your right to defend yourself.

During a time when the focus ought to be on working through the grief brought on by a maniacal and mentally ill person, against innocent students in a college, the focus shifted to the gun seller- to the laws, to ownership.

Subtle hardly applies when the question is, "Why was he able to get a gun?" That's a question, which those who seek laws to prevent such, want to scream out, but the actual question ought to be, "hey, you legal enforcers of morality- you had the dad gum law, why didn't it work?" The answer to that is many factors were involved in the horrible incident that didn't have a thing to do with the gun purchase.

This gun wasn't pried out of Charlton Heston's "cold dead hands," it was bought in a shop where the owner had no idea nor information as to why it shouldn't be sold. In a lead article in the April 21 issue of the NY Times, these facts are presented, and the reporter interviews several persons, including some political leaders, who believe that this was preventable by law. These leaders, however, subtly imply that they do feel that such is preventable by stronger enforcements, stronger laws.

The problem with trying to legislate morality is that it doesn't and hasn't ever worked, as soon as a law is written; someone constructs a reason and way to break it. It is that simple - to maintain otherwise is to ignore the apparent in life. Beyond this is the scope of subtle usurpation of the people when it comes to freedoms. Those who relegate legal matters want to convince those who only perceive matters in the here and now that the future will be better through more laws.

The unfortunate truth is that freedom has a price of vigilance, on the part of the citizens, and on the part of the government. On the part of the citizens, their vigilance must be to the common sense observance of decent and law abiding actions. There are elements of our society that want to practice lifestyles that aren't conducive to growth of the heart and soul- drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and practically any abuse that interacts against the non-abusers as when a drunken person kills an otherwise innocent driver. Such has always been the call to vigilance, the person with the cell phone driving behind the drunk who fails to make that all important call to the local police? The person who hears of a plot to take life, but doesn't think it important, vigilance, means being away and acting on that awareness.

On the part of government, vigilance means adhering to the principle of the oft-misquoted Thomas Jefferson [http://www.geocities.com/peterroberts.geo/Relig-Politics/TJefferson.html] "government which governs least governs best." Mr. Jefferson may not have said it, but would you agree that we ought to?