Armed people are free... a social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work.

Today the Supreme Court hears a challenge to DC's gun control laws, which amount to a total ban on gun ownership by law abiding citizens. The crux of the matter is whether the Second Amendment grants an individual right to "keep and bear arms." If it does, DC's laws certainly violate that right by preventing the vast majority of people from owning guns. If it does not grant an individual right the DC ban is ok, because people will have no right to own guns (even in their own homes, even for self defense).

I don't know about you, but I'm sure hoping that the Supreme Court considers this case seriously and acknowledges that the Second Amendment grants an individual right. I know it's not politically correct to own guns these days, but the Supreme Court shouldn't be influenced by that. The job of the Justices is to find what the Constitution really means, and to suggest that the Second Amendment doesn't grant an individual right (when it's placed second in a list of individual rights, in a document that is expressly concerned with individual rights) is ridiculous.

I'm not going to get into whether guns or good or bad, or whether disarming the populace and leaving criminals and police as the only people with guns is a wise move. Those questions are for different posts. The really important question, which must be addressed no matter what your personal beliefs about guns are, is whether the Supreme Court should take away a right that was expressly granted by the Bill of Rights.

If the Court somehow finds that the Second Amendment does not grant an individual right, what's to stop them from finding that the First Amendment doesn't either? Or the Fourth, or the Fifth? If the Court starts down that road, I'm afraid to think where it will lead- and you should be too. Don't be fooled into thinking that the Second Amendment is different: it's not. If the Court is swayed this year by the vocal minority of people who believe law-abiding citizens shoudn't have guns, there's no reason why the Supreme Court of 50 years from now will not also be swayed by a vocal minority who believes due process is no longer necessary.

This decision is going to make waves, no matter what it is. Let's just hope it's a move towards reclaiming one of our forgotten rights, not towards more government tyranny.

The title of today's post is a quote by L. Neil Smith (from The Probability Broach).

P.S. Did you know that the American Revolution was brought on by the British confiscation of Massachusetts colonists's arms?

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.

Michael Bloomberg, the multi-billionaire mayor of New York City, has a history of imposing his values on everyone he can reach. Recently, he banned trans fats in all NYC restaurants; he did this because he is a healthy eater, and he thinks everyone else should be as well. He expanded the ban on smoking to include even small restaurants and bars, as well as office buildings, because he doesn't like smoking. He claims to believe in global warming, and wants more government regulation, of course, to prevent it (If the New York Times doesn't publish the studies that show what little global warming there is isn't caused by man, do they exist?). The list goes on, and on; it's all a part of his "quality of life" plan for NYC and everywhere else. Nevermind the people he has to step on (and put out of business) and the majority opinions he has to disregard to get where he's going- he knows what's best for us, dammit.

The worst of his pet projects, however, stems from his hatred of the Second Amendment. He just can't stand to see law-abiding citizens owning guns. To that end, he's sued numerous gun dealers up and down the Eastern seaboard (most of these suits are baseless, but it's easy to continue a lawsuit till one of you is bankrupt if you're a billionaire and he's not), tried to get Congress to force the ATF to give police departments access to gun data, and formed a coalition of mayors against guns (at least four of whom have since dropped out, citing discomfort with the group's tactics), among other things.

He claims that his actions are to fight crime, but he has no response to the many studies and data that show that gun control laws do nothing to keep guns out of the hands of criminals- all they do is keep law-abiding citizens from being able to protect themselves. Nor does he have a rational answer for why Great Britain, for example, has experienced sky-rocketing crime statistics, or why the number of illegal guns on the street has tripled (at least) since their handgun ban. Unsurprisingly, he can not tell us why similar problems would not arise in America if he got his way. Apparently he can't be bothered with such minutiae.

But the big picture really isn't about this busybody, annoying as he is. He may be the posterchild for the big government nanny- "I know what's best for you, don't argue with me"- but at least his sphere of influence is fairly small. I can move away (which I plan to) and you never have to move here (and you shouldn't). But if a Democrat gets elected this year, they're going to bring policies like this to the whole country. Have you noticed how Obama and Clinton talk about "change" all the time? The main criticism each has of the other is the other won't "change" things enough. Question: what sort of change are they talking about? They never say. I have some ideas, and you probably do as well, but isn't it odd that their supporters just seem excited by the prospect (or maybe just the word, who knows) and aren't at all curious what it means? There really needs to be some test you have to take before you can vote.

The title of today's post is a quote by Jacob Hornberger.