The Right Firearms and the Right to Self Defense
Go to the Introduction
Go to Part 2 The Common Good and the Dignity of the Human Being
Go to Part 3 The Militia. An Antiquated Term?
Part 4 -The Problem with Governments
We must be honest. Governments do go bad. In fact, our nation was born from this sad fact. We shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking this can’t happen in the U.S.
The founders of our Republic were sending a message to future generations when they penned our nation’s founding documents.
This message is the clearest. I fear it has been clearly forgotten. For clarity’s sake, I will be clear here:
The history of man is MORE a story of governments gone bad than those that have not.
Eventually, genocide can even be justified. When governments slaughter their own, the people are always disarmed first. Moreover, it’s always done with the greatest and noblest of intentions, the “Common Good.” Who and how does one stop a government from turning on its own people?
Again, the answer is…us.
That’s the “who.” The “how” is the stickier part.
The founding fathers had this in mind when they framed the constitution. This sentiment is echoed in this passage from the Declaration of Independence:
“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
These were well studied men. They knew their history. For thousands of years, millions of people were killed by brutal emperors, kings, and governments to uphold their power. They were experiencing it in their time, witnessing it firsthand.
Over 200 years since, there have been countless acts of genocide committed by governments against their own people. (not to mention two world wars in the last century where invading nations slaughtered civilians.) Hundreds of millions of people have been murdered wholesale by their government, upholding the common good.
In 1965, we hear made clear again, it is the right of the human person to defend their rights when a government becomes abusive. From one of the Apostolic Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council, Gaudium et Spes (Joy and Hope:)
“But where citizens are oppressed by a public authority overstepping its competence, they should not protest against those things which are objectively required for the common good; but it is legitimate for them to defend their own rights and the rights of their fellow citizens against the abuse of this authority, while keeping within those limits drawn by the natural law and the Gospels.” Gaudium et Spes 74
Yes, it’s true. People have the right to “throw off” governments when they go bad. They have the right to defend their rights against abuse by authority. This is because our basic human dignity comes first. We have the right to live and defend that right if necessary, especially against a government gone bad.
I once remember some nameless politician complaining that the 2nd amendment was ONLY about the public holding a gun the head of the government, or words to that effect. I don’t care for that kind of rhetoric.
Nevertheless, there remains a thread of truth in it, and for good cause. This is but one reason, among others, the 2nd amendment was included by the nation’s founders.
One must ask, why would anyone in power be worried about an armed citizenry? Could it be that they could prevent a corrupt government from doing its will?
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely – Lord John Dalberg-Acton.”
Of course, we also have a deep obligation to use peaceful means of protest, to rend our will from the government through the process of grievances.
An honest and just government upholds the rights of its people. That’s the way it’s supposed to work. And, it takes work to keep things honest, to keep governments honest. We the people must do that work. Under extreme circumstances we must have the tools to do that work heaven forbid.
Without the right to private firearm ownership, there is nothing to prevent any government from imposing its will on its people with impunity. History is full of instances where the imposition of governmental power is always harsh, brutal, and deadly.
We have the right to be free from that. We have a duty to ourselves and others to put down such oppression. This is what is true; this is what is just; this is what is right.
We can’t do it without the right to self defense, the right tools…
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