Expand your view beyond the gun control issue and you may realize defending Constitutional rights is bigger than gun control. Government is the greatest example of giving them an inch and then taking a mile or the (hang on to your hats, deniers) slippery slope. Budge on one thing and they push harder on all things.
For example: Americans budged on cigarettes and food for "public health." Now public health is used to try regulating foods across the board. A farmer can't sell milk directly from his farm without being raided, what you fry foods with is regulated, sugar is being taxed, and even some have tried to limit the amount of certain types of drinks you can order at one time.
Or security: The Patriot Act and the NDAA severely violated the 4th and 6th amendments and now every airline passenger is treated like a criminal. That expanded into NSA spying on everyone. And if you question it, its security and you are just too ignorant to realize the threat of terrorism. If you ask to be enlightened they can't because its classified. This has expanded locally to warrantless searches and seizures, speed and red light cameras, and drone use at home. It has even expended into foreign policy, where the president can order bombings in countries we aren't at war with, and even of US citizens abroad. It's security.
And the biggest move is happening right now.
Senator Diane Feinstein, in the name of security, wants to limit the 1st Amendment to only apply to the people she defines as a journalist. The 1st Amendment! This is considered the most sacrisanct of the Bill of Rights. It is what allows us to challenge government misdeeds without repercussion. It is how we are able to not live in fear. And she wants to make it so bloggers who speak ill of her can be made a criminal. This entire section of GTPlanet would have to be removed to protect Jordan from liability in the event someone made a character attack or linked to leaked information that doesn't come from an approved source.
Now, the purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to allow us to protect ourselves against an overreaching government or enemies from abroad. In a world where
DEA agents raid homes and assault innocent elderly women without a warrant or
police reload twice to shoot an unarmed man 41 times, you have to understand why some refuse to budge on the one right that allows us to defend ourselves. Every tiny fraction of an inch we have allowed in the past has become a complete trampling of our rights.
Perhaps, to someone on the outside looking in, it seems an odd place to make a stand. I agree. I was yelling for a stand to be taken a decade ago. But some people are slow to realize the innate abuse that powers government.
That said, perhaps there is a balance, but the latest attempts at gun control were going beyond what the authors claimed it was, even removing medical privacy for potential gun buyers. They were asking for an inch but already grabbing a mile. And in the end it would have not affected this case. If anyone recalls, Joe Biden, head of the gun violence committee said
all you need is a shotgun.
People aren't throwing up placards, they are drawing lines in the sand. Just because the men sometimes sent out by groups and/or portrayed by a biased media are poor spoken or even total idiots does not mean that those who agree with them are the same. Larry Pratt formed his group because they are so extreme they think the NRA doesn't do enough. He doesn't represent even a fraction of gun owners or gun rights activists. But he does make a good extreme, crazy guy to use when you want to make the people you disagree with look insane.
