Ready, Aim, Not So Fast

Yesterday, by a 58-39 vote, the U.S. Senate rejected SA 1618, a bill designed "To amend chapter 44 of title 18, United States Code, to allow citizens who have concealed carry permits from the State in which they reside to carry concealed firearms in another State that grants concealed carry permits, if the individual complies with the laws of the State.". This vote sparked the latest round of gun control debate.

Before I get into this specific bill, let me clarify my position on gun control and the Second Amendment to the Constitution. I fully and completely support, and will defend to the end, the right of eligible citizens of this nation to keep and bear arms. Eligible citizens, to me, are citizens first. Not legal foreign nationals, and certainly not illegal immigrants. If you will not take the time to become a citizen of this nation, you forfeit the right to keep and bear arms. Citizenship resolved, I believe you must not have been convicted of a felony, ever. Convicted felons are not allowed to vote in this country, they should not be allowed to keep and bear arms. These are guidelines that I believe should be consistent in all 50 states. After that, I believe each state should be able to determine additional guidelines for gun permits, including requiring training classes prior to obtaining a license, and renewal tests annually to renew licensing. We require drivers to do this, why not require it for firearm owners?

Opponents of this type of position argue that bad people will get guns illegally, regardless of how tough requirements are to legally acquire one. This is true, and it is why I believe illegal possession of a firearm should be a felony and require mandatory jail time, lengths to be determined by each state. No community service, no buying your way around it, no suspended sentence, but jail time. Rule of law, folks. Know the law, obey the law, or pay the price.

Now, my support of the right of eligible citizens to keep and bear arms is not all encompassing. I do believe there should be a limit to what any private citizen needs in their private armory. I understand that this part of by belief is a bit ideological in nature, and, as such, not normal regarding my political positions. But a private citizen simply does not need to buy a rocket launcher. So where is the line drawn on what does and does not constitute a firearm eligible citizens have the right to keep and bear? This is a great debate topic.

The Constitution is a living document, which is why the option to amend it exists. To understand the times we lived in when this document was created, I offer this from Wikipedia;

"In the first couple decades following the adoption of the Second Amendment public opposition to a standing army persisted, a widely held opinion among the minority Anti-Federalists and to a lesser extent among the majority Federalists. This opinion also extended to opposition to a professional armed police force, with the responsibility to carry out local ordinances falling to sheriffs in counties and constables and night watchmen in cities and towns. These officials sometimes received pay and more often served as a civic duty without remuneration. In these early decades with rare exceptions these full time law enforcement officers were not armed with firearms, but rather were armed only with clubs. In large emergencies a call up was issued for the posse comitatus, militia companies, or vigilantes to assume law enforcement duties and these groups were much more likely to be armed with firearms."

The right to keep and bear arms was essential to our core freedoms, even to our very existence. To rise up against our military today, even if it was vital to the existence of our nation, would be pointless and hopeless, even if you possessed a rocket launcher, an ak47 and a duffle bag full of clips. Tanks, Jets, helicopters, drones, and an arsenal of weapons would be on the other side of your position. Renegade survivor movies like "Red Dawn" and the more current "Defiance" paint a picture of a scenario that just could not happen in this country if we were faced with either of those circumstances. It would be like using a fan to fend off a tornado.

Before you start cursing me as a gun control, left wing freak who seeks to abolish our constitutional rights, remember that I started this by saying I would defend the right to keep and bear arms until the end. This is where I like to think that I have blended my ideological stance on limits with logical positions supporting my belief. This blending of the two is something I believe is sorely lacking in the opposition in most of my debates regarding politics and government.

Now that I have laid out my position on that as clearly as I can, let's move on to SA 1618. My brothers in the "Conservative" movement argue that "Liberals", or "Statists", as people like Mark Levin call them, favor Federal rule over the right of individual States, contrary to the founding of our nation. This is a tyrannical approach to them, creating a government that has more authority than was Constitutionally allocated. I completely agree that individual states should have the right to govern according to their population and their need, provided that governance falls in the framework established by the Constitution and the established Federal guidelines. If I drive through California, I am expected to abide by California law, regardless of the fact that I am actually licensed in Arizona. That is fundamentally the freedom of the states to do that. How then, can the same people who throw the stones of Federal oppression attempt to pass a law that supersedes state autonomy on gun permit laws? They do so because they can use it as another stone to throw at the current Administration, demonstrating how they want to take your rights away.

My family and I recently took a trip to Northern California to visit family. If I were a firearm owner, one who believes my very safety is dependent on my constant possession of said firearm, I would have contacted the California agency controlling gun permits, learned what my rights AND MY OBLIGATIONS were, and made sure that I met those obligations. Then I would have loaded my clips and drove off to the wild, wild west, peaceful in knowing that if I were approached by hostiles, I was legally armed and ready to defend my liberties.

I do believe, as I do with most of these situations, that there is a middle ground. If you are licensed in a state like New York, where the requirements are very strict, and you are traveling to South Carolina, where they are not so strict, you should be able to obtain a waiver for that trip. If you are traveling the other way, a South Carolina resident going to New York, you should be allowed to meet the New York requirements and obtain the same level of waiver. This allows the individual states to set their own requirements for their own residents, but allows visitors to come to their state with the peace of mind that comes with carrying a glock.

Forgive my jests at the expense of those who carry firearms. I kid because I care, right? The important thing is not if I choose to walk around strapped like Dirty Harry, but that I think those who wish to can do so without all of this controversy. But I guess that is another debate entirely............