President Trump Should Say "No" to Federal Gun Legislation

I sent this message to the president. I was surprised to hear conservatives on Fox arguing for federal gun legislation that infringes the right to bear arms, which is unconstitutional.  Such legislation impedes citizens' abilities to form local defense units in the face of federal tyranny.

Dear President Trump:

I appreciate your response to the tragic shootings in El Paso and Dayton. Your response was appropriate, and a call for legislation may have been politically advisable.  Nevertheless, I urge you to back off from any federal legislation regarding guns.

The Constitution is clear on this issue: The right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Such rights are necessary to defend ourselves from federal tyrants, whose emergence we are witnessing in the Democratic Party.

Moreover, if you look at the statistics, more people are killed in two or three plane crashes than have been killed in mass shootings over the last 30 years.  Passing legislation after a horrific event is equivalent to selling in a stock market crash.

Only about 600-700 people have been killed in mass shootings over the past 30 years, but 35,000 a year are killed in car crashes. Death due to plane crash is more common than death due to mass killings. Yet, airline travel is federally regulated. Hence, federal regulation has been a complete failure, resulting in greater, not lesser, death rates.

The calls for legislation have been defined, as too much is, by left-wing ideology that calls for a centralized solution to all issues regardless of the long-term performance of  centralized solutions.

The death rate due to centralized control of guns needs to include the mass murders in Nazi German and communist Russia, where guns were illegal and where elite, centralized parties controlled by the equivalents of the Soroses, Rockefellers, and Clintons murdered at will.  It is not surprising that the party of elites, the Democrats, favors centralized gun control, just as such parties always have.

The psychological distortion process known as salience is that explosive events tend to be considered to be more prevalent than unobtrusive events. Hence, many people believe that it is more dangerous to fly in an airplane than to drive.  Likewise, the sensation America's dumbed-down media creates around the tragic mass shootings are directly intended to encourage legislation that favors their bosses, the Democrats.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert

America Needs a Militia

This interview  of Edwin Vieira is instructive.  His discussion is based on his book The Sword and Sovereignty: The Constitutional Principles of “the Militia of the Several States.”  Vieira holds four degrees from Harvard, including a Ph.D. and law degree, and as an attorney he has argued landmark labor cases.  I have had a couple of small interactions with him.  As well, Mark Mix, the head of the National Right to Work Committee, has spoken to my classes, and Vieira has worked directly with him.

Some of Viera's points are:

-All competent Americans belong to the Constitutional militia. The chief exceptions involve physical and mental incapacity. The males-only limitation, which was prevalent in the 18th century, no longer applies, so all able-bodied and psychologically fit Americans are members of the militia. That is true legally because the state-based militia codes are  still in effect.

-John Trenchard, in the 1690s, made the case that a standing army is incompatible with liberty. Whoever holds the sword, the ultimate force in society,  exercises sovereignty.  Since the US is a self-governing republic, the people need to hold the sword.  Delegating this authority to the federal government is equivalent to delegating sovereignty to an elite special interest or tyrant.

-Current approaches to homeland security are incompatible with freedom, self-governance, and the Second Amendment.  A true Constitutional militia is the basis for true homeland security.  The Second Amendment says that a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of the a state. In other words, only when the people hold military power can the state be secure and free.

- The average person is the object of control of the current homeland security institutions; he is not a participant in them. Hence, America has adopted police state tactics: surveillance, propaganda, lies, indefinite detention, and ultimately assassinations committed by the executive branch without judicial review.  These practices are unconstitutional and incompatible with freedom.

-The current homeland security system directly contradicts the vision of the founding fathers.

-The National Guard is Constitutional, but it is not a militia.  A militia conforms to the historical patterns of militias that existed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Vieira says that there are 17 principles associated with a well-regulated militia.   These  include universal service and all militia members' owning their own firearms.

-The militia, although it still exists on paper, withered in importance because of the Dick Act, also called the Militia Act of 1903 (32 Stat. 775),  and The Efficiency in Militia Act of 1903.”  The Act separated organized and unorganized militias. This distinction is unconstitutional.

-Vieira argues that the pro-freedom and pro-Second Amendment  movements have erred in emphasizing the individual right to bear arms, which Vieira says is certainly part of the Second Amendment, but only a small part.  The main purpose of the Second Amendment is to insist that well-regulated militias are necessary to the defense of a free state; in diminishing the importance of the militia itself, the debate has centered on individual rights rather than a full understanding of the founding fathers' vision of freedom.

-Vieira argues for a renewal of legitimate militias that are similar to the current Swiss militia system. To adhere to the Constitution, the states would need to establish universal militia service requirements and training, and the current federal control of homeland security would need to end.  The people should be trained to protect homeland security, which is not a federal function.

Vieira's view is radical, more radical than any left-oriented aim of further centralizing the state and putting more police power in state hands. Institution of universal militia service might lessen the obsession with higher education, which could be in part replaced by militia training requirements for 17-year-olds.

King Barack Murders Children, Moves to Take Away Your Right to Defend Yourself from His Majesty

King Barack sheds a tear for the children murdered in Connecticut, but he sheds no tears for the 168 children he and his colleague George Bush have murdered in Pakistan (h/t Mike Marnell).  In Vietnam Lyndon Baynes Johnson and the United States government murdered several hundred thousand Vietnamese children.  Now,  cheered on by America's backward media, Washington's serial killers aim to ruthlessly capitalize on a tragedy to  illegally prevent you from defending yourself from them.

 From The Telegraph:


In an extensive analysis of open-source documents, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that 2,292 people had been killed by US missiles, including as many as 775 civilians.

The strikes, which began under President George W Bush but have since accelerated during the presidency of Barack Obama, are hated in Pakistan, where families live in fear of the bright specks that appear to hover in the sky overhead.

In just a single attack on a madrassah in 2006 up to 69 children lost their lives.

Chris Woods, who led the research, said the detailed database of deaths would send shockwaves through Pakistan, where political and military leaders repeatedly denounce the strikes in public, while privately allowing the US to continue.

"This is a military campaign run by a secret service which raised problems of accountability, transparency and you have a situation where neither the Pakistanis nor Americans are clear about any agreements in place and where the reporting is difficult," he said.

Physicians, Guns and Lawyers

I just received this e-mail from  Robroy4355: A)  The number of physicians in the  U.S.  is 700,000. (B)  Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.   (C)  Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171 Statistics courtesy of  U.S.  Dept. of Health  and  Human Services. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Now think about this: Guns (A)  The number of gun owners in the  U.S. is 80,000,000. (Yes, that's 80 million) (B)  The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500. (C)  The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188 Statistics courtesy of FBI >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> So,  statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Remember, 'Guns don't kill people, doctors do.' >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> FACT:  NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT Almost everyone has at least one doctor. This means you are over 9,000 times more likely to be killed by a doctor as by a gun owner!!! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors before this gets completely out of hand!!!!! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Out of concern for the public at large, We withheld the statistics on lawyers for fear the shock would cause people to panic and seek medical attention!

My Letter to Congressman Maurice Hinchey Re HR 45

Dear Congressman Hinchey:

I oppose gun control and in particular HR 45, Representative Bobby Rush's (D-IL)Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009, the text of which is located at http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h45/text.

As you likely know, the Federalist Papers #29, written by Alexander Hamilton, describes the nature of what the Founding Fathers saw as a militia. Hamilton leaves little doubt that the reason for the Second Amendment is protection against incursion against liberty by the state.

Given current developments in Washington, there is little reason to believe that the US government is legitimate or trustworthy. Rather, it is tyrannical. I have written to you previously advocating a 75% reduction in the federal budget, but you obviously have failed to respond in practice.

I would like to know your position on HR 45. I have indicated my e-mail and regular mailing address above.

Sincerely,

Mitchell Langbert

The '49rs Didn't Need Gun Control

Among my favorite westerns are the ones about the gold miners in California, the '49ers. There was no law in California in 1848-50 and the small number of US army there found a large percentage deserting to pan for gold. The strike came at a propitious time. The Irish potato famine, the Taiping Rebellion and the European Revolutions in Sicily, France and the rest of Europe all occurred then. Moreover, the Mexican War had just ended and more than a few rowdy young veteran types headed for California. "from a population of about 107,000 near the end of 1849, California grew to more than 260,000 within three years."

There are a number of interesting issues about the emergence of property rights in this lawless bonanza land of ambition, greed and dreams. The absence of property rights and law would seem to have been likely to have encouraged conflict, as would the nature of the miners. Moreover, the number of men was far greater than the number of women, likely adding to the potential for explosive violence.

In their History of the American Economy Gary M. Walton and Hugh Rockoff quote John Umbeck's California Gold Rush: A Study of Emerging Property Rights :

"During 1848,...nearly 10,000 people rushed to mine gold on property to which no one had exclusive rights. Furthermore, although every miner carried a gun, little violence was reported. In July, when Governor Mason visited the mines, he reported that the miners were respecting Sutter's property rights and that 'crime of any kind was very infrequent, and that no thefts or robberies had been committed in the gold district...and it was a matter of surprise, that so peaceful and quiet a state of things should continue to exist."

I guess they didn't need gun control!

NRA Says No to Obama

Texas Darlin posts this video from the National Rifle Association:



Links are available here

Alexander Hamilton on the Second Amendment

Hamilton's Federalist No. 29 is about the issue of regulating militias. On the one hand, it was necessary to form a "well regulated" militia in order to reduce the need for a standing army. Thus, an armed population was necessary in order to form a militia. As well, Hamilton argued that a select corps of militia ought to be formed, and that in order to eliminate the threat that the militia might pose to freedom, it was necessary for the public to be able to stop any attempt of the government to suppress freedom and therefore important that the public at large should hold firearms. This argument is clear in the Federalist 29. Those who argue just one half of the equation, that the arms were necessary to form the militia and deny that they were necessary to defend against the potential for a government assault on freedom are simply uninformed about the history of Federalism and the liberal spirit in which the United States was founded. Arguably the public can and ought to, in the view of the founders, confront attempts to suppress the ownership of firearms. A Supreme Court that adjudicates in favor of the suppression of the right to bear arms has completely lost touch with the Constitution and is no longer a constitutional body.

Hamilton writes in Federalist 29:

"The attention of the government ought particularly to be directed to the formation of a select corps of moderate size, upon such principles as will really fit it for service in case of need. By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist."

Those historians and political scientists who argue against American exceptionalism would do well to consider that few other major polities have respected the individual sufficiently to consider private ownership of firearms a bulwark against tyranny. In nations like Russia, France, Germany and Italy, guns are routinely regulated. Backward-thinking mercantilists who have cheered Hitler and Stalin, now advocate for a botched interpretation of the Second Amendment that would enhance their own power and the power of government that represents economic elites to suppress freedom.