By Jay D. Homnick on 7.27.06 @ 12:05AM
No ceasefires on the security front.
In a social setting, I was jesting that perhaps democratic
constitutions in Arab countries should have a First Amendment
without a Second Amendment, prospects for well-regulated militias
in that environment being rather slim. "Oh, no," a clever woman
retorted. "That's what the Arab women are fighting for, the right
to bare arms." Sure enough, now, a whimsical, serendipitous fate
has brought the issue of gun ownership rights for citizens before
the U.S. House of Representatives just as Hezbollah guys are doing
spring cleaning on the rockets that were cluttering up the rec
room.
Our duly elected reps "represented" boldly yesterday when they
passed by a wide margin a measure preventing law enforcement
officials from confiscating legally owned weapons during a period
of emergency. The roots of this law are in the post-Hurricane
Katrina hullabaloo in New Orleans last year. At that time, in an
effort to maintain order -- or, better said, to reimpose it -- the
embattled chief of police, Eddie Compass, ordered all firearms to
be confiscated. Naturally, the onus fell mostly on legal owners,
their title being duly recorded.
Hooligans howled and goons sported guns as the streets and
stores were looted. Stranded homeowners huddled over the
waterlogged remains of their earthly estate, with police as
protectors hardly to be found, but it was deemed by the powers that
were -- yes, the same geniuses who had made all the brilliant
decisions leading up to that condition -- that safety could best be
guaranteed by stripping those people of their "equalizers." Such
was the wisdom that obtained.
Nor is the mindset that policy reveals a terribly unusual one in
the precincts of liberal government. The notion has long been that
guns constitute a locus of danger. The mere presence of them is a
potential for destructive activity. The mere having of them is a
potential for destructive behavior. If one is engaged in an effort
to cool a volatile atmosphere, the removal of the implements of
conflict is seen as a calming maneuver. We are meant to think of
Bruce Dern in The 'Burbs, a wild-eyed Vietnam vet (named,
yep, Rumsfield) who thinks that a submachine gun is the preferred
solution to all of life's annoyances. "Give us the gun, Bruce, and
get a grip on yourself."
The fallacy here is twofold. The first, and smaller, error is
that the initiatives to clear the area of guns tend to mainly
locate those that are legal, that "exist" in the eyes of the law.
But the greater error is the inability to accept that component of
the Founders' insight; namely, that guns in the hands of solid
citizens actually make a society safer. By vesting that degree of
trust in our citizenry, by essentially enrolling them in a
full-time informal militia devoted to the security of our nation,
we actually breed a higher level of responsibility -- both
individual and communal.
The greatness of the United States of America, eleven score
years and a decade into this glorious experiment, is that we have
succeeded in fostering a quality man-in-the-street who can be
trusted with a deadly weapon. He picks it up like a soldier,
committed to reserve it for purposes of enhancing social order. He
or she is a militia person, an auxiliary cop, a volunteer in the
sheriff's posse, a builder not a destroyer. The gun protects the
good guys and threatens only the bad guys.
The Congress of the United States, in asserting this truth by
preventing the post-Katrina outrage from being repeated, has also
afforded us an incidental insight into the more pressing events of
the moment. It is underscoring the courage of our Executive branch
in refusing to sign on to a construct that obligates Israel to
"cease fire" in the direction of the Hezbollah marauders in
Lebanon.
Think about it: in the long run, only Israel can be held to an
agreement, by virtue of its being a sovereign entity. The same
principle applies. Don't shut down the legal guns, because you only
strengthen the illegal ones. Israel is a trustworthy citizen of the
world, firing only when fired on, keeping the peace with its
weaponry rather than fomenting instability and hostility.
It's fascinating to realize that the same liberal recipe that
makes a local hash of things makes a nice international goulash as
well. Good thing that we have the right boys and girls doing K.P.
duty in both the White House and the Congress. The popular joke
features a negotiation between Osama bin Laden and George Bush,
where Osama storms out and says, "That's it, I'm going back to
Afghanistan." To which Bush replies: "What Afghanistan?" Let's hope
that we will soon be saying "What Hezbollah?"
topics:
Environment, Constitution, Law, Israel
