An open letter to our elected and unelected officials whether they be in municipal, county, state, or federal government. “We The People” is not just the opening to the US Constitution, but is also whom you serve. It is not the other way around we do not and will not serve you. You not only serve us, but have also taken an oath to up hold and defend this same Constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. To violate this oath is to fail to serve the very individuals this document is meant to protect. To cloud sensitive issues with falsehoods and intentional misrepresentations is an example of violation of your said oath.
A good example of this is the current fervor over new gun control legislation in the wake of several recent shootings by disturbed individuals. Although these events are troubling to all sensible individuals who display a sense of conscience, they are not an excuse to remove rights from law abiding citizen of the US. This is punishing the innocent and law abiding to create a false sense of security with the belief that government will be there to protect us at every turn, when we all know full and well our government is insolvent, and with large budget cuts looming there will be fewer officers on the street and fewer prosecutors to pursue justice for all. It has been a consistent misdirection of gun control advocates to state that they are not after “hunting rifles or hunter’s rights to hunt”. This is misdirection, in the fact that it implies that the intent of the second amendment to the US Constitution was an attempt to protect hunting rights. This was never the intention of the founding fathers when they first envisioned the second amendment. It was to establish the right of average citizen to be as well armed as any standing army to prevent tyranny from removing the personal rights that they had just so fought hard to win.
“The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.”
– Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution
“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”
– Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188
“That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms…”
– Samuel Adams
“No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
– Thomas Jefferson, proposal Virginia Constitution, June 1776, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334
It was the worry of the founding fathers that even this new government could evolve and try to attempt to enslave future generations. To prevent this is in fact the whole basis of the second amendment to the constitution. It is instructional to read and be aware to this amendment, it states: “A well regulated Militia, necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
It does not say to help the people keep and hold hunting rights but to keep and hold arms on the same level and caliber as the military. Therefore any attempt to ban assault weapons would by definition unconstitutional. We further more state the 1934 fire arms act is unconstitutional for this very same reason. Just because no attempts have ever been made to challenge it does not mean it is a valid law.
“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”-Thomas Jefferson Just as warrantless wiretapping is Unconstitutional due to the forth amendment which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, Houses, paper, and effects, Against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, Supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, And the persons or things to be seized.”
So is the collection of gun registration of law abiding citizens by the ATF. How can we be secure in our effects(guns), when the government feels a need to keep track of free law abiding citizens who own them(guns). The fact that a few abominable acts of violence using guns make sensational headlines does not negate the fact that there are far more stories that never make the press where legal guns owner’s have protected their lives and property by the very fact that they owned guns. We are voters who are keeping track of your deeds and actions that are in violation of the constructs of the constitution. Just as the Declaration of Independence states:
”When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable 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; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”
– Thomas Jefferson
We will do all that is in our power and use our vote to remove such oath breakers from our service. We will also request an amendment to the constitution making it a requirement to block from elected office anyone holding dual citizenship, because those with divided loyalties will not best serve us the US Citizens.
The false assumption that removing guns from free law abiding citizens will improve public safety was well known to the founding fathers. “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms..disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one.” – Thomas Jefferson quoting Cesare Beccaria, Criminologist in 1764.
It is also a false premise that the founding fathers did not intend for everyone to be able to hold and keep military arms for their own safety and more importantly for the safety of their personal liberties.
“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty, teeth and keystone under independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon and citizens’ firearms are indelibly related. From the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that, to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 and 99-100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil influence. They deserve a place of honor with all that’s good. When firearms go, all goes. We need them every hour.”
— George Washington First President of the United States
“Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?”
– Patrick Henry American
“The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.”
– Zachariah Johnson Elliot’s Debates, vol. 3 “The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution.”
“The best we can help for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.”
– Alexander Hamilton The Federalist Papers at 184-8
Any elected official voting to ban or remove guns, the real defenders of our liberties, will be noted, and selected for removal from office by vote, and will not be supported by our wallets through campaign contributions. We The People the true guardians of our liberties are watching and we have long memories and will exercise our right to freely assemble and exchange our observations on the oath breakers in office. Nothing less then a Constitutional Amendment will remove the right for free law abiding citizens to keep and bear semi automatic weapons as a safe guard against the theft of their liberties by tyrants that our founding fathers warned us about.
When the federal government banned marijuana did it succeed in stopping the sale and use of marijuana? Did the war on drugs make our borders any safer? All it succeeded in doing was to make Mexican Drug Cartels very rich and powerful such that parts of Mexico are no longer governed by its elected officials but by the Drug Cartels, with its violence flooding over into The USA. If we ban guns how long will it take the same Cartels to start selling guns in the USA? They would soon become even more rich and powerful. Any thought of our government stopping such weapons from coming across the border is ludicrous. They can not even stop the flow of illegal aliens from crossing it.
In these uncertain economic times, where there are so few American made commodities in the stores, this ban will only shut down a legal manufacturing segment of the economy. Will Congress guarantee the wages of those that lose their jobs to this unconstitutional act, with commensurate regular increases in salary for the remainder of their lives? Is this now the providence of the congress to decide who can and who can not work in the manufacturing sectors of our economy? If not then this is just one more reason that the ban under consideration is foolhardy at best, downright treasonous at worst.
“Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.”
– John F. Kennedy
“A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.”
– George Washington
“There have been many loyal Americans, that have made the greatest sacrifice possible, to keep and defend our rights and freedoms. Are we now going to invalidate their heroism by the removal of these rights, the greatest in the eyes of the founding fathers was the right to keep and bear arms? Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches the jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.”
– Patrick Henry
“Without either the first or second amendment, we would have no liberty; the first allows us to find out what’s happening, the second allows us to do something about it! The second will be taken away first, followed by the first and then the rest of our freedoms.”
– Andrew Ford
Are we to now expect that it is permissible to take away our rights which have been won by the blood of loyal American’s under the false guise that our government will now protect us in stead? Who will protect us from their abuses should they decide to turn in this direction? The founding fathers feel that it was up to every American to keep and bear military style arms to discourage our government representatives from taking such foolish actions against our personal liberties.
To state that semi-automatic weapons are the same as military weapons, is another falsehood. Our military does not use semi-automatic weapons, but instead use fully automatic weapons. Fully automatic weapons are already heavily control by the 1934 firearms act. Which we have stated we find unconstitutional. To try and equate semi-automatic weapons to be like the guns used by the US Military is a misdirection, because these guns have far more in common with modern hunting rifles which are semi-automatic and have been for decades, long before any kind of weapons ban was considered.
When home invasions are become more common by groups or individuals, a simple revolver or 7 shot semi-auto pistol will not be enough to protect one’s life and property. There is a recent story in the news where a woman shot an intruder in her home 5 times with a revolver and he still had the wherewithal to leave the home. What if he had chosen to go at her and her children instead or had a friend with him? For this reason the proposed ban on large capacity clips is also unconstitutional. With ever increasing budgets cuts and increasing response time from law officials, a semi-auto with a large capacity clip is the best deterrent to home invasions by multiple intruders. To remove this useful deterrent is to say to criminals, who already ignore the law, here you go, if you form a group or gang you will be more successful in attacks on law abiding citizens and their property.
The US Congress was by design a deliberative body, to prevent any rush to change laws in reaction to isolated events, and the extremes of public opinion. To rush and pass any kind of gun control because it is the cause of the moment is to fly in the face of this tradition. Public opinions change and issues fade and rise in popularity with changing events and times. To legislate based on opinion polls was never the intent of the founding fathers. It is only by a constitutional amendment can any kind of gun control be legal or binding. Let us hope our elected officials remember that they are the keepers of an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution, and not designers of a work to go around this document.
This is the exact kind of tyrannical government argument, which caused the founding fathers to enshrine the second amendment in the constitution. The founding fathers created an elaborate set of checks in balances in our constitution; the greatest of these is the right for the people to keep and bear arms, the check and balance against the tyranny of elected officials who would remove our rights one step at a time. We the undersigned avow never to let this happen.
This letter was composed by Kevin Wagner.