Want My Gun? Come and Take it

Matthew Holmes

The one thing liberals and conservatives have been able to agree on with regard to the Katrina disaster is that the government stinks.

The Mayor of New Orleans stinks, Governor Blanco stinks, and the federal government's response was also quite unpleasant to our olfactory senses.

But the crazy thing about government is that no matter how badly they destroy everything they touch, the solution is always the same: more government, more regulation, and more restrictions on individual liberty.

For example, apparently liberals running things in Louisiana believe that in times of crisis and wanton lawlessness—when looters and armed gangs threaten the safety of innocent people, and the police response has proven to be ineffective in preventing rapes, thefts, and murders—that the solution is to take guns away from people who haven't broken the law. (Cue the Twilight Zone music.)

In their infinite wisdom, liberal leaders (an oxymoron, I know) in the Big Easy have begun confiscating firearms from law-abiding citizens, which suggests, among other things, that all the copies of the U.S. Constitution must have been among the items lost in the rising floodwaters.

Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III was quoted as saying, "only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons." There are some guys the Superintendent may have heard of by the names of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Franklin, who beg to differ.

As a side note, I wonder if Mr. Compass's idea includes the "law enforcement officers" that looted Louisiana stores, or the members of the New Orleans Police Department currently taking advantage of free vacations in Las Vegas instead of doing their jobs at home. I also wonder why Sean Penn wasn't arrested and his gun confiscated, but that's a question for another day.

Obviously, the NRA and other gun rights groups are up in arms (don't you love puns?) over the trampling of Bill of Right Number 2.

"I want to know under just what authority New Orleans officials are confiscating lawfully-owned firearms from law-abiding citizens," said Chairman Alan Gottlieb from Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA).

"Where does it say that the state and federal Constitution can be nullified, even briefly, simply because of a hurricane? In every other natural disaster this country has ever faced, people retain their civil rights, including the right of self-defense, but New Orleans and Louisiana state officials have added the sin of arrogance to incompetence and negligence for which they must be held accountable when this is over."

It's interesting that in the course of a normal gun control debate, gun rights advocates rarely if ever use the possibility of a Hurricane Katrina-like disaster to further their argument that people have the right to possess firearms for their protection. It's not that they haven't thought about the possibility. Most pro-gun folks think it's enough of an argument to simply read the Second Amendment to the Constitution (conservatives are so funny that way). On the flip-side, angry liberals everywhere are still trying to figure out what the Constitution has to do with anything, anyway?

Situations like the Katrina aftermath are tailor-made commercials for the NRA and gun rights supporters. As Wayne LaPierre said, "What we've seen in Louisiana—the breakdown of law and order in the aftermath of disaster—is exactly the kind of situation where the Second Amendment was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves. When law enforcement isn't available, Americans turn to the one right that protects all the others—the right to keep and bear arms. This attempt to repeal the Second Amendment should be condemned."

NRA spokesman Chris Cox added, "Authorities are using that statute to do what the looters and criminals could not: disarm the law-abiding citizens of New Orleans trying to protect their homes and families. The NRA will not stand idly by while guns are confiscated from law-abiding people who're trying to defend themselves."

In reality, scenarios like Katrina are simply another example of why the Second Amendment is written in the broad, plainspoken ("the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed") way that it is.

The Framers knew that a multitude of scenarios could evolve that would warrant gun possession (and the occasional use) by law-abiding people to protect themselves. Never the types for narcissism or nuance, our Founding Fathers said, "Hey, why don't we just let people who don't break the law keep and bear arms whenever they see fit?"

It seemed like a simple enough idea, but then again, the Framers couldn't have foreseen the rise of peacenik, metrosexual liberals to positions of power in the Democratic Party (a pestilence that is becoming yet another reason to begin sleeping with your weapons).

They couldn't have possibly known that people like John Kerry—who votes for legislation before he votes against it—would come along, or that we'd one day have a president that would engage in a debate over the meaning of the word "is."

But, our forefathers did know it was possible for the government to lose it's collective mind...thus, the Second Amendment was created to protect the people from any kind of government sponsored insanity that we might face. Louisiana gun owners are getting a first hand look at "Government Gone Wild."

So, a little warning to all the limp-wristed liberal Nancy-boys out there: You better hope they make Kevlar vests in pastels and other metrosexual colors, because if you think you can just start waltzing into people's homes to confiscate their weapons, you're likely to end up needing one.

Matthew Holmes is a North Carolina based columnist. His articles have been featured in The North Carolina Conservative, The Rant, ChronWatch.Com, World Net Daily.Com, News Max.Com, Opinion Editorials.Com, and other media outlets. He can be reached at blade729@msn.com or on the web at Wildfire Politics http://www.wildfirepolitics.com