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I'm going to delete the first half of this piece, because it's obsessed with trivial matters.
Read on:
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If you follow gun rights and gun safety issues at all, you’ve undoubtedly seen this viral meme in your social media stream:
(...)
The second part of the argument, that large scale gun ownership doesn’t cause a high crime rate is more complicated. Certainly nobody is saying that guns fire bullets all by themselves. What most people who seek restrictions on gun ownership believe is that having easy access to firearms makes it too easy for flawed humans to make lethal choices in situations that do not have to be lethal. (I have to hand it to the author. This cleverly phrased statement deceptively sidesteps the issues at hand with an obfuscation. This statement is meaningless.
"It's too easy for flawed humans..." "Flawed humans" is a emotionally manipulative statement that does not advance the logic. One could pick any topic at random and insert "flawed humans" as justification. "We need dietary controls because of our flawed humanity." "I favor internet censorship because we are flawed humans." Try it. It works for any topic you are arguing for.
"...make lethal choices in situations that do not have to be lethal." Ok, so you're bent on murder. You're making a choice to be lethal. Does it matter what weapon you choose to inflict your desires? Does it matter if you kill with a cinderblock as opposed to a pistol?
These kinds of statements, typical for leftists, are emotional fluff for lazy intellects.)
To the gun control advocate, the “freedom” to own guns (Note the scare quotes.)
for fun and profit doesn’t outweigh the freedom to not be shot. (False binary equation. Leftists love to do this. They pit two ideas together and suggest they are mutually exclusive and/or are the only two available choices. But they're not. Possessing the freedom to own guns does not come to bear on the freedom not to be shot.
Notice also that there are no scare quotes on "the freedom not to be shot." Implicit in this is the the freedom to own guns is only supposed and not real, while the freedom not to be shot is true and unquestioned.)
To the gun proliferation advocate, (What strange terminology.)
the more guns the more freedom. (The author is putting words into the mouths of her adversaries. I challenge her to name any prominent gun advocate that has said such a thing. I googled "more guns more freedom" and found nothing.)
That argument will not be resolved by anything Switzerland does or doesn’t do. (An illusory argument that only the Left is having.)
What is interesting about the Switzerland comparison is something entirely different. As we’ve seen, Switzerland’s rate of gun ownership is tied very directly to its militia. And one cannot help but think of our own 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which states:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Why would the founders put that militia stuff in there like that if they were simply creating a fundamental right to bear arms? (First, the founders did not create a right to bear arms, or any other right. Second, the amendment is not about what people are permitted to do, it's about what government is forbidden to do. Third, the clause referring to a militia is known as a premise. It's like saying, "Since we have this, then this other thing follows.")
Switzerland’s militia is a good illustration of why they did that. (No, it's not.)
The gun owners in Switzerland aren’t armed in order to repel a home invasion by criminals. They are armed to repel a foreign invasion. Granted, that is now something of a symbolic gesture considering modern armaments, but it’s fundamental to the way the Swiss think about their guns. And it is very different than the way we think about this.
This article by the BBC magazine discusses the gun culture in Switzerland and it features a quote which sums up the Swiss attitude:
“The gun is not given to me to protect me or my family. I have been given this gun by my country to serve my country – and for me it is an honour to take care of it. I think it is a good thing for the state to give this responsibility to people.” (Which has nothing to do with the second amendment. Perhaps in Switzerland this person was given a gun by government, but that is not the case in America.)
Contrast that with the common American attitude:
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
You can see that the Swiss militia inculcates the idea of gun ownership as a responsibility to protect the nation while to the American gun proliferation advocates, the reason for the 2nd Amendment is to protect the citizens from the government. (Which is indisputably true.)
Those happy Swiss ladies on their bicycles aren’t likely to be rushing off to a right wing Militia rally against Swiss government tyranny. There is no right wing militia in Switzerland. And that, of course, is the whole point of the “well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of the state” portion of the 2nd Amendment. The founders undoubtedly assumed that the nation would have a militia instead of a standing army. ("Undoubtedly?" Um, yeah. Article one, section 8: "...To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years; To provide and maintain a Navy..." Here we have two constitutionally enumerated powers of government. In case the author is unaware, a navy is a standing military force.
In addition, Article 2, section 2 tells us that "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States..." If a militia is called into service, clearly there is no such thing as a standing militia.)
But more importantly they assumed that citizens of the democracy would not find it necessary to take up arms against the state they were creating because they would consider themselves to be the state. (Um... yeah. No, just the opposite. The founders were very clearly concerned about oppressive government, having just undertaken to throw off the yoke of Britain. The Declaration tells us, "That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..." Does that sound to you that the founders "would not find it necessary to take up arms against the government they were creating?"
It is also a persistent falsehood of the Left that we are the state. We are The People, who "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..." There is the government, and there is the governed. Government is an entity created by The People, and The People have chosen to delegate certain powers to it via the Constitution.
The People are superior to government. As quoted above, The People can change or abolish the government. The People exist beyond the government they create.)
There are many, many ways in which the Swiss gun culture and the American gun culture are different and probably dozens of reasons why gun violence is so much higher here than there. But this difference in the way we see guns and the relationship of the citizen to the government is stark. And it has something to do with the fact that we ignore that first part of the 2nd Amendment and fetishize the second. (Which as we have seen is a misdirection. The second amendment applies to government, not The People.)
By the way, that famous quote about the right to bear arms being there to protect ourselves from tyranny, which is attributed to Thomas Jefferson, is apocryphal. (As if there were only Jefferson's single quote to deal with. Unfortunately for the author, there are dozens of quotes from the founders that refute her attempt at dissembling.)
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