I have obtained reprint permission for the Internet for Jeffrey
Snyder's "A Nation of Cowards".  It may be reproduced freely,
including forwarding copies to politicians, provided that it is not
distributed for profit and subscription information is included.

I especially encourage you to copy and pass on this strong statement
about firearms ownership to friends, colleagues, undecideds, and
other firearms rights supporters.  Your grassroots pamphleteering
can counter the propaganda blitz now going on by introducing some

reason to the debate.  This essay is one of our best weapons.

********************************************************************
The version below is converted from the original Mac PageMaker file
I got from The Public Interest.  There were some minor punctuation
errors, a few typos, and a factual error in the previously posted
version.  Please REPLACE earlier versions with this one.

In my mind this new one should be considered official and final.
********************************************************************

To get this file: ftp ftp.shell.portal.com, get
/pub/chan/comment/cowards.txt

Jeff Chan
[c--n] at [shell.portal.com]
=====
"A Nation of Cowards" was published in the Fall, '93 issue of The
Public Interest, a quarterly journal of opinion published by National
Affairs, Inc.

Single copies of The Public Interest are available for $6.  Annual
subscription rate is $21 ($24 US, for Canadian and foreign
subscriptions).  Single copies of this or other issues, and
subscriptions, can be obtained from:

     The Public Interest
     1112 16th St., NW, Suite 530
     Washington, DC  20036

(C) 1993 by _The Public Interest_.
=====




                        A nation of cowards



                         Jeffrey R. Snyder





                               OUR SOCIETY has reached a pinnacle of

self-expression and respect for individuality rare or unmatched in

history.  Our entire popular culture -- from fashion magazines to the

cinema -- positively screams the matchless worth of the individual,

and glories in eccentricity, nonconformity, independent judgment, and

self-determination.  This enthusiasm is reflected in the prevalent

notion that helping someone entails increasing that person's

"self-esteem"; that if a person properly values himself, he will

naturally be a happy, productive, and, in some inexplicable fashion,

responsible member of society.

   And yet, while people are encouraged to revel in their individuality

and incalculable self-worth, the media and the law enforcement

establishment continually advise us that, when confronted with the

threat of lethal violence, we should not resist, but simply give the

attacker what he wants.  If the crime under consideration is rape,

there is some notable waffling on this point, and the discussion

quickly moves to how the woman can change her behavior to minimize the

risk of rape, and the various ridiculous, non-lethal weapons she may

acceptably carry, such as whistles, keys, mace or, that weapon which

really sends shivers down a rapist's spine, the portable cellular

phone.

   Now how can this be?  How can a person who values himself so highly

calmly accept the indignity of a criminal assault?  How can one who

believes that the essence of his dignity lies in his self-determination

passively accept the forcible deprivation of that self-determination?

How can he, quietly, with great dignity and poise, simply hand over the

goods?

   The assumption, of course, is that there is no inconsistency.  The

advice not to resist a criminal assault and simply hand over the goods

is founded on the notion that one's life is of incalculable value, and

that no amount of property is worth it.  Put aside, for a moment, the

outrageousness of the suggestion that a criminal who proffers lethal

violence should be treated as if he has instituted a new social

contract: "I will not hurt or kill you if you give me what I want."

For years, feminists have labored to educate people that rape is not

about sex, but about domination, degradation, and control.  Evidently,

someone needs to inform the law enforcement establishment and the media

that kidnapping, robbery, carjacking, and assault are not about

property.

   Crime is not only a complete disavowal of the social contract, but

also a commandeering of the victim's person and liberty.  If the

individual's dignity lies in the fact that he is a moral agent engaging

in actions of his own will, in free exchange with others, then crime

always violates the victim's dignity.  It is, in fact, an act of

enslavement.  Your wallet, your purse, or your car may not be worth

your life, but your dignity is; and if it is not worth fighting for, it

can hardly be said to exist.



                         The gift of life



   Although difficult for modern man to fathom, it was once widely

believed that life was a gift from God, that to not defend that life

when offered violence was to hold God's gift in contempt, to be a

coward and to breach one's duty to one's community.  A sermon given in

Philadelphia in 1747 unequivocally equated the failure to defend

oneself with suicide:



   He that suffers his life to be taken from him by one that hath no

   authority for that purpose, when he might preserve it by defense,

   incurs the Guilt of self murder since God hath enjoined him to seek

   the continuance of his life, and Nature itself teaches every creature

   to defend itself.



   "Cowardice" and "self-respect" have largely disappeared from public

discourse.  In their place we are offered "self-esteem" as the

bellwether of success and a proxy for dignity.  "Self-respect" implies

that one recognizes standards, and judges oneself worthy by the degree

to which one lives up to them.  "Self-esteem" simply means that one

feels good about oneself.  "Dignity" used to refer to the self-mastery

and fortitude with which a person conducted himself in the face of

life's vicissitudes and the boorish behavior of others.  Now, judging

by campus speech codes, dignity requires that we never encounter a

discouraging word and that others be coerced into acting respectfully,

evidently on the assumption that we are powerless to prevent our

degradation if exposed to the demeaning behavior of others.  These are

signposts proclaiming the insubstantiality of our character, the

hollowness of our souls.

   It is impossible to address the problem of rampant crime without

talking about the moral responsibility of the intended victim.  Crime

is rampant because the law-abiding, each of us, condone it, excuse it,

permit it, submit to it.  We permit and encourage it because we do not

fight back, immediately, then and there, where it happens.  Crime is

not rampant because we do not have enough prisons, because judges and

prosecutors are too soft, because the police are hamstrung with absurd

technicalities.  The defect is there, in our character.  We are a

nation of cowards and shirkers.



                        Do you feel lucky?



   In 1991, when then-Attorney General Richard Thornburgh released the

FBI's annual crime statistics, he noted that it is now more likely that

a person will be the victim of a violent crime than that he will be in

an auto accident.  Despite this, most people readily believe that the

existence of the police relieves them of the responsibility to take

full measures to protect themselves.  The police, however, are not

personal bodyguards.  Rather, they act as a general deterrent to crime,

both by their presence and by apprehending criminals after the fact.

As numerous courts have held, they have no legal obligation to protect

anyone in particular.  You cannot sue them for failing to prevent you

from being the victim of a crime.

   Insofar as the police deter by their presence, they are very, very

good.  Criminals take great pains not to commit a crime in front of

them.  Unfortunately, the corollary is that you can pretty much bet

your life (and you are) that they won't be there at the moment you

actually need them.

   Should you ever be the victim of an assault, a robbery, or a rape,

you will find it very difficult to call the police while the act is in

progress, even if you are carrying a portable cellular phone.

Nevertheless, you might be interested to know how long it takes them to

show up.  Department of Justice statistics for 1991 show that, for all

crimes of violence, only 28 percent of calls are responded to within

five minutes.  The idea that protection is a service people can call to

have delivered and expect to receive in a timely fashion is often

mocked by gun owners, who love to recite the challenge, "Call for a

cop, call for an ambulance, and call for a pizza.  See who shows up

first."

   Many people deal with the problem of crime by convincing themselves

that they live, work, and travel only in special "crime-free" zones.

Invariably, they react with shock and hurt surprise when they discover

that criminals do not play by the rules and do not respect these

imaginary boundaries.  If, however, you understand that crime can occur

anywhere at anytime, and if you understand that you can be maimed or

mortally wounded in mere seconds, you may wish to consider whether you

are willing to place the responsibility for safeguarding your life in

the hands of others.



                     Power and responsibility



   Is your life worth protecting?  If so, whose responsibility is it to

protect it?  If you believe that it is the police's, not only are you

wrong -- since the courts universally rule that they have no legal

obligation to do so -- but you face some difficult moral quandaries.

How can you rightfully ask another human being to risk his life to

protect yours, when you will assume no responsibility yourself?

Because that is his job and we pay him to do it?  Because your life is

of incalculable value, but his is only worth the $30,000 salary we pay

him?  If you believe it reprehensible to possess the means and will to

use lethal force to repel a criminal assault, how can you call upon

another to do so for you?

   Do you believe that you are forbidden to protect yourself because

the police are better qualified to protect you, because they know what

they are doing but you're a rank amateur?  Put aside that this is

equivalent to believing that only concert pianists may play the piano

and only professional athletes may play sports.  What exactly are these

special qualities possessed only by the police and beyond the rest of

us mere mortals?

   One who values his life and takes seriously his responsibilities to

his family and community will possess and cultivate the means of

fighting back, and will retaliate when threatened with death or

grievous injury to himself or a loved one.  He will never be content to

rely solely on others for his safety, or to think he has done all that

is possible by being aware of his surroundings and taking measures of

avoidance.  Let's not mince words: He will be armed, will be trained in

the use of his weapon, and will defend himself when faced with lethal

violence.

   Fortunately, there is a weapon for preserving life and liberty that

can be wielded effectively by almost anyone -- the handgun.  Small and

light enough to be carried habitually, lethal, but unlike the knife or

sword, not demanding great skill or strength, it truly is the "great

equalizer."  Requiring only hand-eye coordination and a modicum of

ability to remain cool under pressure, it can be used effectively by

the old and the weak against the young and the strong, by the one

against the many.

   The handgun is the only weapon that would give a lone female jogger

a chance of prevailing against a gang of thugs intent on rape, a

teacher a chance of protecting children at recess from a madman intent

on massacring them, a family of tourists waiting at a mid-town subway

station the means to protect themselves from a gang of teens armed with

razors and knives.

   But since we live in a society that by and large outlaws the

carrying of arms, we are brought into the fray of the Great American

Gun War.  Gun control is one of the most prominent battlegrounds in our

current culture wars.  Yet it is unique in the half-heartedness with

which our conservative leaders and pundits -- our "conservative elite"

-- do battle, and have conceded the moral high ground to liberal gun

control proponents.  It is not a topic often written about, or written

about with any great fervor, by William F. Buckley or Patrick

Buchanan.  As drug czar, William Bennett advised President Bush to ban

"assault weapons."  George Will is on record as recommending the repeal

of the Second Amendment, and Jack Kemp is on record as favoring a ban

on the possession of semiautomatic "assault weapons."  The battle for

gun rights is one fought predominantly by the common man.  The beliefs

of both our liberal and conservative elites are in fact abetting the

criminal rampage through our society.



                     Selling crime prevention



   By any rational measure, nearly all gun control proposals are

hokum.  The Brady Bill, for example, would not have prevented John

Hinckley from obtaining a gun to shoot President Reagan; Hinckley

purchased his weapon five months before the attack, and his medical

records could not have served as a basis to deny his purchase of a gun,

since medical records are not public documents filed with the police.

Similarly, California's waiting period and background check did not

stop Patrick Purdy from purchasing the "assault rifle" and handguns he

used to massacre children during recess in a Stockton schoolyard; the

felony conviction that would have provided the basis for stopping the

sales did not exist, because Mr. Purdy's previous weapons violations

were plea-bargained down from felonies to misdemeanors.

   In the mid-sixties there was a public service advertising campaign

targeted at car owners about the prevention of car theft.  The purpose

of the ad was to urge car owners not to leave their keys in their

cars.  The message was, "Don't help a good boy go bad."  The implication

was that, by leaving his keys in his car, the normal, law-abiding car

owner was contributing to the delinquency of minors who, if they just

weren't tempted beyond their limits, would be "good."  Now, in those

days people still had a fair sense of just who was responsible for

whose behavior.  The ad succeeded in enraging a goodly portion of the

populace, and was soon dropped.

   Nearly all of the gun control measures offered by Handgun Control,

Inc. (HCI) and its ilk embody the same philosophy.  They are founded

on the belief that America's law-abiding gun owners are the source of

the problem.  With their unholy desire for firearms, they are creating

a society awash in a sea of guns, thereby helping good boys go bad, and

helping bad boys be badder.  This laying of moral blame for violent

crime at the feet of the law-abiding, and the implicit absolution of

violent criminals for their misdeeds, naturally infuriates honest gun

owners.

   The files of HCI and other gun control organizations are filled with

proposals to limit the availability of semiautomatic and other firearms

to law-abiding citizens, and barren of proposals for apprehending and

punishing violent criminals.  It is ludicrous to expect that the

proposals of HCI, or any gun control laws, will significantly curb

crime.  According to Department of Justice and Bureau of Alcohol,

Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) statistics, fully 90 percent of violent

crimes are committed without a handgun, and 93 percent of the guns

obtained by violent criminals are not obtained through the lawful

purchase and sale transactions that are the object of most gun control

legislation.  Furthermore, the number of violent criminals is minute in

comparison to the number of firearms in America -- estimated by the ATF

at about 200 million, approximately one-third of which are handguns.

With so abundant a supply, there will always be enough guns available

for those who wish to use them for nefarious ends, no matter how

complete the legal prohibitions against them, or how draconian the

punishment for their acquisition or use.  No, the gun control proposals

of HCI and other organizations are not seriously intended as crime

control.  Something else is at work here.



                     The tyranny of the elite



   Gun control is a moral crusade against a benighted, barbaric

citizenry.  This is demonstrated not only by the ineffectualness of gun

control in preventing crime, and by the fact that it focuses on

restricting the behavior of the law-abiding rather than apprehending

and punishing the guilty, but also by the execration that gun control

proponents heap on gun owners and their evil instrumentality, the NRA.

Gun owners are routinely portrayed as uneducated, paranoid rednecks

fascinated by and prone to violence, i.e., exactly the type of person

who opposes the liberal agenda and whose moral and social

"re-education" is the object of liberal social policies.  Typical of

such bigotry is New York Gov. Mario Cuomo's famous characterization of

gun-owners as "hunters who drink beer, don't vote, and lie to their

wives about where they were all weekend."  Similar vituperation is

rained upon the NRA, characterized by Sen. Edward Kennedy as the

"pusher's best friend," lampooned in political cartoons as standing for

the right of children to carry firearms to school and, in general,

portrayed as standing for an individual's God-given right to blow

people away at will.

   The stereotype is, of course, false.  As criminologist and

constitutional lawyer Don B. Kates, Jr. and former HCI contributor

Dr. Patricia Harris have pointed out, "[s]tudies consistently show

that, on the average, gun owners are better educated and have more

prestigious jobs than non-owners....  Later studies show that gun

owners are less likely than non-owners to approve of police brutality,

violence against dissenters, etc."

   Conservatives must understand that the antipathy many liberals have

for gun owners arises in good measure from their statist utopianism.

This habit of mind has nowhere been better explored than in The

Republic.  There, Plato argues that the perfectly just society is one

in which an unarmed people exhibit virtue by minding their own business

in the performance of their assigned functions, while the government of

philosopher-kings, above the law and protected by armed guardians

unquestioning in their loyalty to the state, engineers, implements, and

fine-tunes the creation of that society, aided and abetted by myths

that both hide and justify their totalitarian manipulation.



                         The unarmed life



   When columnist Carl Rowan preaches gun control and uses a gun to

defend his home, when Maryland Gov. William Donald Schaefer seeks

legislation year after year to ban semiautomatic "assault weapons"

whose only purpose, we are told, is to kill people, while he is at the

same time escorted by state police armed with large-capacity 9mm

semiautomatic pistols, it is not simple hypocrisy.  It is the workings

of that habit of mind possessed by all superior beings who have taken

upon themselves the terrible burden of civilizing the masses and who

understand, like our Congress, that laws are for other people.

   The liberal elite know that they are philosopher-kings.  They know

that the people simply cannot be trusted; that they are incapable of

just and fair self-government; that left to their own devices, their

society will be racist, sexist, homophobic, and inequitable -- and the

liberal elite know how to fix things.  They are going to help us live

the good and just life, even if they have to lie to us and force us to

do it.  And they detest those who stand in their way.

   The private ownership of firearms is a rebuke to this utopian zeal.

To own firearms is to affirm that freedom and liberty are not gifts

from the state.  It is to reserve final judgment about whether the

state is encroaching on freedom and liberty, to stand ready to defend

that freedom with more than mere words, and to stand outside the

state's totalitarian reach.



                      The Florida experience



   The elitist distrust of the people underlying the gun control

movement is illustrated beautifully in HCI's campaign against a new

concealed-carry law in Florida.  Prior to 1987, the Florida law

permitting the issuance of concealed-carry permits was administered at

the county level.  The law was vague, and, as a result, was subject to

conflicting interpretation and political manipulation.  Permits were

issued principally to security personnel and the privileged few with

political connections.  Permits were valid only within the county of

issuance.

   In 1987, however, Florida enacted a uniform concealed-carry law

which mandates that county authorities issue a permit to anyone who

satisfies certain objective criteria.  The law requires that a permit

be issued to any applicant who is a resident, at least twenty-one years

of age, has no criminal record, no record of alcohol or drug abuse, no

history of mental illness, and provides evidence of having

satisfactorily completed a firearms safety course offered by the NRA or

other competent instructor.  The applicant must provide a set of

fingerprints, after which the authorities make a background check.  The

permit must be issued or denied within ninety days, is valid throughout

the state, and must be renewed every three years, which provides

authorities a regular means of reevaluating whether the permit holder

still qualifies.

   Passage of this legislation was vehemently opposed by HCI and the

media.  The law, they said, would lead to citizens shooting each other

over everyday disputes involving fender benders, impolite behavior, and

other slights to their dignity.  Terms like "Florida, the Gunshine

State" and "Dodge City East" were coined to suggest that the state, and

those seeking passage of the law, were encouraging individuals to act

as judge, jury, and executioner in a "Death Wish" society.

   No HCI campaign more clearly demonstrates the elitist beliefs

underlying the campaign to eradicate gun ownership.  Given the

qualifications required of permit holders, HCI and the media can only

believe that common, law-abiding citizens are seething cauldrons of

homicidal rage, ready to kill to avenge any slight to their dignity,

eager to seek out and summarily execute the lawless.  Only lack of

immediate access to a gun restrains them and prevents the blood from

flowing in the streets.  They are so mentally and morally deficient

that they would mistake a permit to carry a weapon in self-defense as a

state-sanctioned license to kill at will.

   Did the dire predictions come true?  Despite the fact that Miami and

Dade County have severe problems with the drug trade, the homicide rate

fell in Florida following enactment of this law, as it did in Oregon

following enactment of similar legislation there.  There are, in

addition, several documented cases of new permit holders successfully

using their weapons to defend themselves.  Information from the Florida

Department of State shows that, from the beginning of the program in

1987 through June 1993, 160,823 permits have been issued, and only 530,

or about 0.33 percent of the applicants, have been denied a permit for

failure to satisfy the criteria, indicating that the law is benefitting

those whom it was intended to benefit -- the law-abiding.  Only 16

permits, less than 1/100th of 1 percent, have been revoked due to the

post-issuance commission of a crime involving a firearm.

   The Florida legislation has been used as a model for legislation

adopted by Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Mississippi.  There are, in

addition, seven other states (Maine, North and South Dakota, Utah,

Washington, West Virginia, and, with the exception of cities with a

population in excess of 1 million, Pennsylvania) which provide that

concealed-carry permits must be issued to law-abiding citizens who

satisfy various objective criteria.  Finally, no permit is required at

all in Vermont.  Altogether, then, there are thirteen states in which

law-abiding citizens who wish to carry arms to defend themselves may do

so.  While no one appears to have compiled the statistics from all of

these jurisdictions, there is certainly an ample data base for those

seeking the truth about the trustworthiness of law-abiding citizens who

carry firearms.

   Other evidence also suggests that armed citizens are very

responsible in using guns to defend themselves.  Florida State

University criminologist Gary Kleck, using surveys and other data, has

determined that armed citizens defend their lives or property with

firearms against criminals approximately 1 million times a year.  In 98

percent of these instances, the citizen merely brandishes the weapon or

fires a warning shot.  Only in 2 percent of the cases do citizens

actually shoot their assailants.  In defending themselves with their

firearms, armed citizens kill 2,000 to 3,000 criminals each year, three

times the number killed by the police.  A nationwide study by Kates,

the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 percent

of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified

as a criminal.  The "error rate" for the police, however, was 11

percent, over five times as high.

   It is simply not possible to square the numbers above and the

experience of Florida with the notions that honest, law-abiding gun

owners are borderline psychopaths itching for an excuse to shoot

someone, vigilantes eager to seek out and summarily execute the

lawless, or incompetent fools incapable of determining when it is

proper to use lethal force in defense of their lives.  Nor upon

reflection should these results seem surprising.  Rape, robbery, and

attempted murder are not typically actions rife with ambiguity or

subtlety, requiring special powers of observation and great

book-learning to discern.  When a man pulls a knife on a woman and

says, "You're coming with me," her judgment that a crime is being

committed is not likely to be in error.  There is little chance that

she is going to shoot the wrong person.  It is the police, because they

are rarely at the scene of the crime when it occurs, who are more

likely to find themselves in circumstances where guilt and innocence

are not so clear-cut, and in which the probability for mistakes is

higher.



                         Arms and liberty



   Classical republican philosophy has long recognized the critical

relationship between personal liberty and the possession of arms by a

people ready and willing to use them.  Political theorists as

dissimilar as Niccolo Machiavelli, Sir Thomas More, James Harrington,

Algernon Sidney, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau all shared the

view that the possession of arms is vital for resisting tyranny, and

that to be disarmed by one's government is tantamount to being enslaved

by it.  The possession of arms by the people is the ultimate warrant


that government governs only with the consent of the governed.  As

Kates has shown, the Second Amendment is as much a product of this

political philosophy as it is of the American experience in the

Revolutionary War.  Yet our conservative elite has abandoned this

aspect of republican theory.  Although our conservative pundits

recognize and embrace gun owners as allies in other arenas, their

battle for gun rights is desultory.  The problem here is not a statist

utopianism, although goodness knows that liberals are not alone in the

confidence they have in the state's ability to solve society's

problems.  Rather, the problem seems to lie in certain cultural traits

shared by our conservative and liberal elites.

   One such trait is an abounding faith in the power of the word.  The

failure of our conservative elite to defend the Second Amendment stems

in great measure from an overestimation of the power of the rights set

forth in the First Amendment, and a general undervaluation of action.

Implicit in calls for the repeal of the Second Amendment is the

assumption that our First Amendment rights are sufficient to preserve

our liberty.  The belief is that liberty can be preserved as long as

men freely speak their minds; that there is no tyranny or abuse that

can survive being exposed in the press; and that the truth need only be

disclosed for the culprits to be shamed.  The people will act, and the

truth shall set us, and keep us, free.

   History is not kind to this belief, tending rather to support the

view of Hobbes, Machiavelli, and other republican theorists that only

people willing and able to defend themselves can preserve their

liberties.  While it may be tempting and comforting to believe that the

existence of mass electronic communication has forever altered the

balance of power between the state and its subjects, the belief has

certainly not been tested by time, and what little history there is in

the age of mass communication is not especially encouraging.  The

camera, radio, and press are mere tools and, like guns, can be used for

good or ill.  Hitler, after all, was a masterful orator, used radio to

very good effect, and is well known to have pioneered and exploited the

propaganda opportunities afforded by film.  And then, of course, there

were the Brownshirts, who knew very well how to quell dissent among

intellectuals.



                          Polite society



   In addition to being enamored of the power of words, our

conservative elite shares with liberals the notion that an armed

society is just not civilized or progressive, that massive gun

ownership is a blot on our civilization.  This association of personal

disarmament with civilized behavior is one of the great unexamined

beliefs of our time.

   Should you read English literature from the sixteenth through

nineteenth centuries, you will discover numerous references to the fact

that a gentleman, especially when out at night or traveling, armed

himself with a sword or a pistol against the chance of encountering a

highwayman or other such predator.  This does not appear to have

shocked the ladies accompanying him.  True, for the most part there

were no police in those days, but we have already addressed the notion

that the presence of the police absolves people of the responsibility

to look after their safety, and in any event the existence of the

police cannot be said to have reduced crime to negligible levels.

   It is by no means obvious why it is "civilized" to permit oneself to

fall easy prey to criminal violence, and to permit criminals to

continue unobstructed in their evil ways.  While it may be that a

society in which crime is so rare that no one ever needs to carry a

weapon is "civilized," a society that stigmatizes the carrying of

weapons by the law-abiding -- because it distrusts its citizens more

than it fears rapists, robbers, and murderers -- certainly cannot claim

this distinction.  Perhaps the notion that defending oneself with

lethal force is not "civilized" arises from the view that violence is

always wrong, or the view that each human being is of such intrinsic

worth that it is wrong to kill anyone under any circumstances.  The

necessary implication of these propositions, however, is that life is

not worth defending.  Far from being "civilized," the beliefs that

counterviolence and killing are always wrong are an invitation to the

spread of barbarism.  Such beliefs announce loudly and clearly that

those who do not respect the lives and property of others will rule

over those who do.

   In truth, one who believes it wrong to arm himself against criminal

violence shows contempt of God's gift of life (or, in modern parlance,

does not properly value himself), does not live up to his

responsibilities to his family and community, and proclaims himself

mentally and morally deficient, because he does not trust himself to

behave responsibly.  In truth, a state that deprives its law-abiding

citizens of the means to effectively defend themselves is not civilized

but barbarous, becoming an accomplice of murderers, rapists, and thugs

and revealing its totalitarian nature by its tacit admission that the

disorganized, random havoc created by criminals is far less a threat

than are men and women who believe themselves free and independent, and

act accordingly.

   While gun control proponents and other advocates of a kinder,

gentler society incessantly decry our "armed society," in truth we do

not live in an armed society.  We live in a society in which violent

criminals and agents of the state habitually carry weapons, and in

which many law-abiding citizens own firearms but do not go about

armed.  Department of Justice statistics indicate that 87 percent of

all violent crimes occur outside the home.  Essentially, although tens

of millions own firearms, we are an unarmed society.



                        Take back the night



   Clearly the police and the courts are not providing a significant

brake on criminal activity.  While liberals call for more poverty,

education, and drug treatment programs, conservatives take a more

direct tack.  George Will advocates a massive increase in the number of

police and a shift toward "community-based policing."  Meanwhile, the

NRA and many conservative leaders call for laws that would require

violent criminals serve at least 85 percent of their sentences and

would place repeat offenders permanently behind bars.

   Our society suffers greatly from the beliefs that only official

action is legitimate and that the state is the source of our earthly

salvation.  Both liberal and conservative prescriptions for violent

crime suffer from the "not in my job description" school of thought

regarding the responsibilities of the law-abiding citizen, and from an

overestimation of the ability of the state to provide society's moral

moorings.  As long as law-abiding citizens assume no personal

responsibility for combatting crime, liberal and conservative programs

will fail to contain it.

   Judging by the numerous articles about concealed-carry in gun

magazines, the growing number of products advertised for such purpose,

and the increase in the number of concealed-carry applications in

states with mandatory-issuance laws, more and more people, including

growing numbers of women, are carrying firearms for self-defense.

Since there are still many states in which the issuance of permits is

discretionary and in which law enforcement officials routinely deny

applications, many people have been put to the hard choice between

protecting their lives or respecting the law.  Some of these people

have learned the hard way, by being the victim of a crime, or by seeing

a friend or loved one raped, robbed, or murdered, that violent crime

can happen to anyone, anywhere at anytime, and that crime is not about

sex or property but life, liberty, and dignity.

   The laws proscribing concealed-carry of firearms by honest,

law-abiding citizens breed nothing but disrespect for the law.  As the

Founding Fathers knew well, a government that does not trust its

honest, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens with the means of self-defense

is not itself worthy of trust.  Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim

that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people.  A

federal law along the lines of the Florida statute -- overriding all

contradictory state and local laws and acknowledging that the carrying

of firearms by law-abiding citizens is a privilege and immunity of

citizenship -- is needed to correct the outrageous conduct of state and

local officials operating under discretionary licensing systems.

   What we certainly do not need is more gun control.  Those who call

for the repeal of the Second Amendment so that we can really begin

controlling firearms betray a serious misunderstanding of the Bill of

Rights.  The Bill of Rights does not grant rights to the people, such

that its repeal would legitimately confer upon government the powers

otherwise proscribed.  The Bill of Rights is the list of the

fundamental, inalienable rights, endowed in man by his Creator, that

define what it means to be a free and independent people, the rights

which must exist to ensure that government governs only with the

consent of the people.

   At one time this was even understood by the Supreme Court.  In

United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the first case in which the Court

had an opportunity to interpret the Second Amendment, it stated that

the right confirmed by the Second Amendment "is not a right granted by

the constitution.  Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that

instrument for its existence."  The repeal of the Second Amendment

would no more render the outlawing of firearms legitimate than the

repeal of the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment would authorize

the government to imprison and kill people at will.  A government that

abrogates any of the Bill of Rights, with or without majoritarian

approval, forever acts illegitimately, becomes tyrannical, and loses

the moral right to govern.

   This is the uncompromising understanding reflected in the warning

that America's gun owners will not go gently into that good, utopian

night: "You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands."

While liberals take this statement as evidence of the retrograde,

violent nature of gun owners, we gun owners hope that liberals hold

equally strong sentiments about their printing presses, word

processors, and television cameras.  The republic depends upon fervent

devotion to all our fundamental rights.