Ron Paul no fan of NRA gun plan
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas / T.J. Kirkpatrick / Getty Images
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, who's retiring from the House next week, took on the National Rifle Association's goal of having every U.S. school protected by armed police or guards, arguing that government involvement in trying to reduce violence is misguided.
"While I certainly agree that more guns equals less crime and that private gun ownership prevents many shootings, I don't agree that conservatives and libertarians should view government legislation, especially at the federal level, as the solution to violence," the libertarian-leaning Paul wrote on his website today.
"Real change can happen only when we commit ourselves to rebuilding civil society in America, meaning a society based on family, religion, civic and social institutions, and peaceful cooperation through markets," he continued. "We cannot reverse decades of moral and intellectual decline by snapping our fingers and passing laws."
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Paul is the first Republican to publicly speak out against the NRA's proposal, which was announced Friday at a news conference in Washington, D.C.
However, Paul's opposition to the idea doesn't mean that he's joined the side of the pro-gun control crowd either.
"Predictably, the political left responded to the tragedy with emotional calls for increased gun control. This is understandable, but misguided," Paul wrote.
"Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens' lives," he continued.
"Government role is to protect liberty, not to pursue unobtainable safety," wrote Paul.
The Obama administration has yet to release its own policy proposal in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., shooting, which left 26 students and faculty at Sandy Hook Elementary School dead, but last week, President Obama announced the creation of a task force aimed at providing actionable ideas to prevent or reduce gun violence in America.
Vice President Joe Biden, a key author of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, is heading the task force, and cabinet members and outside groups will be called on for ideas and contributions. Mr. Obama insisted that he wants ready-to-act concrete recommendations on the "complex issue" in January.
Many believe that in the wake of the tragedy, the political will to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, which expired in 2004, will increase. The president long has supported such a ban, but exerted little effort to get it passed during his first term. According to White House spokesman Jay Carney, Mr. Obama also would support closing a "gun show loophole" allowing people to buy arms from private dealers without background checks, and would be interested in legislation limiting high-capacity ammunition magazines.
Meantime, NRA President David Keene told CBS's "Face the Nation" Sunday, that his organization will continue to oppose a ban on assault weapons used for "perfectly legitimate purposes." Noting that the previous assault weapons ban "was allowed to expire," Keene argued that "The FBI, the Justice Department, and others who studied it said it made no difference."
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If they were mentally capable of considering the changes in America since the first one, they would realize that the outcome of such a confrontation in modern times will not only have the same result, but it will be much more lopsided, and much faster, cheaper, and easier to end.
Poor sad baggers, thinking they can do anything with their AR-5s and their AK-47s against their hated government, which, of course, controls the latest in high-tech weaponry, unmanned bomber drones, Stealth bombers, high-powered lasers, tanks, depleted uranium ordinance, white phosphorus, cluster bombs, and even tactical nuclear weapons.
They also, in their dreams of returning to times antebellum, neglect to consider they would now face an equally armed civilian non-"white" populace, far different from the unarmed "savages" they stole from Africa 400 years ago.
Paul, and baggers like him try to couch their agenda in false appeals to "patriotism", (actually sedition wrapped in the 13-star flag) but any logical analysis of the situation shows them to have no real grounds on which to base their argument, other than the above mentioned, but coded motivations.
You accuse Mr. Paul of being a racist and then go on to show your own racial bais.
I could sit here debunking each and ever line of this but of no use, you would continue to attack with disinformation. So I'll just end with a quote from Ron Paul himself.
"Libertarianism is the enemy of all racism, because racism is a collectivist idea that you put people in categories. You say, well blacks belong here, and whites here, and women here and we don't see people in forms..or gays. You don't have rights because your gays, or women or minorities, you have rights because you're an individual. So we see people strictly as individuals. We get these individuals in a natural way. So it's exactly opposite of all collectivism and it's absolutely anti-racism because we don't see it in those terms."
Maybe you even can understand and agree with that statement and comprehend the visionary words and intent. Or perhaps you will forever insist on regurgitating the tired old collectivist claptrap diversionary diatribes that pay homage to your brainwashers.
Men of honest intellect seek the truth above all else. It's nice to know that in this age of open information exchange among people that your vain and inaccurate views are easily exposed.
Liberty is a far higher calling of mankind's existence than the unavoidably sour repressions coming from more and more government interventions in our daily lives.
Google and read "The Law" by Frederick Bastiat and perhaps then you too can become an advocate for liberty and individual responsibility. Best of luck!
How did it begin, this tie between the concept of liberty and guns? With the American Revolution pushing tyranny from our shores and a constitutional amendment written to keep tyranny out of our government.
The argument that we cannot retrieve all the guns and therefore should not try to reduce their numbers ("The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun") seems counter to the logic that we should increase the number of guns (giving them to teachers, firefighters, etc.).
I am not on one side or the other in this debate. I have owned guns. I do not own any guns now. That is my choice. I do not have the right to push that view onto others.
My faith dictates I do not kill, so even if I were in a situation that there was a bad guy hurting others, I might hesitate to kill (Matthew 24). I say hesitate because I really don't know what I would do if my children (my own family or the students I teach) were in danger. But I don't fantasize about doing so. I feel strongly that killing is wrong, period.
I once had a homeowner threaten to shoot me (he was frightened, shaking, pointing a large pistol in my face, convinced I was a burglar and not just the milkman). That man should not have a gun. I almost died that day over the idea he thought I was stealing from him.
I wonder if the fantasy of defending home and family by killing bad guys is so very different from bad guys fantasizing about killing.
What is troubling with this debate is the polarization of views (just as the political debates over the last few years). It used to be people could disagree without name calling. Even if one disliked the president, he was treated with respect (I think that began to change with Nixon).
Can we not seek a balance? Perhaps the NRA can truly listen to the concerns. Is making it difficult to use a machine designed to kill efficiently truly an erosion of our rights? Can we really call gun owners a militia anymore? Perhaps we can look at the motivation behind creating the 2nd Amendment and see if that still makes sense.
Perhaps we can also agree that this is a democracy (or a democratic republic or whatever) and agree that Red or Blue, the people have voted and they desire the government handle certain things (health care, etc.) and stay out of certain things (marijuana), and that some things are too close to call (abortion) and should be left up to states.
Government should provide infrastructure for commerce (roads, the internet, telephones, funded schools, a military, etc.). Some of those priorities are out of whack (we are NOT FUNDING SCHOOLS PROPERLY).
Perhaps we can learn to be kind to each other, listen to each other, seek to find what we can live with and what we can live without.
So... below will be comments that attack my view through name calling and sarcasm. That is fine. I work with middle schoolers and I get that. But... I hope there are some reasonable views out there and an honest DIALOGUE can happen.
We mist be prepared to give up some of our rights to help preserve a civil and safer society. WE MUST HAVE THE WILL to want to do that in spite of limiting our freedom to a small extent.
I look at other very civilized societies in which guns are much more restricted. Crime is significantly reduced in these places as statistics will validate. Yes we have some 300M guns out there in America and it is difficult to see how these aren't going to the source of more senseless killings buit we must make a start on curbing more from getting out there. The longer we off making that decision the more people will be killed and the worst the situation becomes. Our society must be prepared to give up some of these liberties.
Sure people kill people but the easy access of guns makes it that much easier to kill many innocent folks with a single blow. Sure other methods are available but it requires much more effort and acts as a deterrent.
You NRA nutsacks are going to wake up one morning to find your assault weapons and clips to be illegal, and unsellable.
If Wyatt Earp could tame the West with 6 in the gun, then you can defend your castle and kill your venison with the same number.
OUTLAW REMOVABLE MAGAZINES NOW!
A foreign enemy? We have the mightiest military on Earth.
A domestic enemy? Well, with 6 shots, I can defend my home and after certainly no more than 10 minutes, I can depend on the arrival of my local police force.
So, who are you proposing that would be a threat?