2nd Amendment, Simplified

Let me start with something that will grab your attention.

Guns are not for killing criminals. Guns are for killing cops.

Now let's back up a bit so that doesn't sound too radical. We'll start with, of all people. Mao Tse Tsung-a man who really knew how to shake the pillars of heaven. He said, rather astutely, I think, that all political power comes from the barrel of a gun. That's a Spider Jerusalem truth bomb right there. That is the reality. That's motherfucking realpolitik, as we whackjob pundits like to say. A government that cannot appeal to your better half, always has the option to impose it's will by force. A government that cannot do so, has no real power. Ergo, a government in control of all personal weaponry-one who controls it's dispensation, licensing, sale, possession, regulation and use-has, for practical purposes, all the power in it's borders at it's disposal.

We cannot afford to let the police have all the power. History has shown us that doing so is a terrible idea. Why? Because the police are not always your friends. Sometimes the police succeed at protecting citizens from criminals, especially if we give them unlimited authority to do so. But in no situation throughout history has a disarmed population ever been able to protect itself from the police.

That is why the fury exists over so called "assault weapons"-semi automatic rifles in intermediate calibers that is. Police and soldiers all wear body armor and the only thing they have a real reason to be afraid of now is...you guessed it, mother fucking semi automatic rifles in intermediate calibers. Its what they carry, except for the military who get a select fire model. So reduce a population to manual action rifles, shotguns and hanguns, and a sharp divide between the power of the citizens and the police in the arena of personal arms. (Crew served and combined arms they already have a monopoly on, and don't get me started on that.) The deeper that divide is, the more power is consolidated in the government, and the less is diffused among the citizens.

There is another saying, ironically one rooted firmly in trash fantasy. It is from the Gor novels. "Every man a general in the circle of his sword." Personal weaponry, from pikes to firearms to motherfucking buck rogers lasers, empower the individual. No matter what else happens, he has the potential power of life and death over anyone within range of his weapon. That is also fact. So fundamentally, it is granting control to the tiniest of minorities-the individual. That is why personal armament is the very benchmark of personal freedom-because there is a limit to how much you can be fucked with, if you possess the very power of inflicting harm on those who would fuck with you. That includes thugs, rapists, terrorists and the goddamn police, who with a monopoly on weaponry can fuck you to death without stopping while you can't say shit.

I don't mean for this to devolve into a thinly veiled death threat to any police or military people. God knows that I don't think the time for that is here. But I know this-the man that wants to disarm me, whether a random crazy hobo in the parking lot to the highest authority in the land, only wants to do so because he is going to do something to me that I could prevent by using a weapon. Whatever that agenda is that requires me to be helpless, it cannot be good.

So sit back. Crank up your tunes, it's the wild wild west. Grab your glock and your forty and your bullet proof vest. As long as you've got a weapon that can effectively kill cops, you are something like a free man. But every time they propose something, look hard at their motivation. The temptation to make the police's job easier is a strong one, as it is a hard and sometimes terrible road that they walk. But I know my history, and I know that if the police become the enemy, at least I can take a few with me.