(ADDED: Thanks to the Perfessor, as always, for the link. Note that if you comment, if it’s your first time I’ll have to approve it. I will do so ASAP. And thanks for the terrific comments already made. I am not an attorney, but would love to see the proposal actually hit the House or Senate and drive all the right people insane. Er, insaner. If any reader wants to go ahead and submit this idea to their favorite candidate/Rep./Sen., feel free.)
Why do we argue about gun control when we could easily make it about gun control? Here’s what I want to hear from the best current Presidential candidate:
Sen. Cruz: “It is an outrage…it is an abomination…that millions of Americans cannot obtain weapons with which to defend their families, while wealthy Americans can hire armed guards for themselves. And so I submit the Fairness in Firearms Act: in any jurisdiction in which law-abiding Americans are not guaranteed their 2nd Amendment rights, no private bodyguards or security firms can be so armed while defending their clients.”
“This also applies to off-duty LEOs and military personnel. Of course, as they may be called to duty at any time, their weapons can be present but peace-bonded, kept in trunks, etc.”
And how will the Celebutard and Bloombergtard Communities react? Will they give up their security details? HahahaHA. Nope. There are only two arguments possible, and they cannot offer the true one. They will go with, “that’s different! Our guards are professionals! Skills, training, equipment!”
“Ah,” replies Cruz. “You’re absolutely right. We must provide the millions of poor private bodyguards the resources necessary to bring them up to your standards. Perhaps a $2,000 per year subsidy solely for firearm training and equipment? Or more? Whatever you wealthy employers are comfortable with. Oh, and I agree that putting firing ranges in schools and offering security training to students is a fabulous idea!”
Much spluttering.
Cruz, relentlessly, “What’s wrong? This will only lower the cost of your security expenses, what with creating millions more highly trained bodyguards. And even if you don’t directly employ them, you’ll indirectly benefit. All law-abiding Americans will benefit from more law-abiding, highly competent armsmen. And armswomen, of course.”
Almost none of these wealthy hypocrites are sufficiently self-aware to know the reason for their continued objection. And of the few that are, those evil tyrants can’t offer it either. For it is: “Guns for Me but not for Thee! Power to Us and powerlessness to You! We held to no standards and you to ever-changing and contradictory ones! WE HATE YOU!”
Please please please let’s do this to them. If this idea finds its way to Cruz, isn’t there a chance he might actually do it? I intend to send it first to his campaign, as he’s my choice among the remaining field. But prior feedback from you would be great.
Technical Note: while it would be hilarious to slowly back the gun grabbers off the logical cliff, as above, it practice it would be sub-optimal. Wouldn’t it? Better would be an Either/Or proposal. Either we arrange things so that even poor Chicago citizens can defend themselves with arms, or we take such defense away from the wealthy.
Fairness in Firearms.
UPDATE: upon reflection, I’ve already seen how to improve the proposal. Obviously states and municipalities with No License Required or Shall Issue laws are exempt from the Fairness in Firearms Act. They already are fair. The only states or affected are those that allow the wealthy to be protected by firearms, while denying that to the poor.
And, in case it wasn’t obvious, this in no way infringes on bodyguards’ or security firms’ right to do commerce. They just don’t get to tote guns wherever other private citizens don’t. They have 2nd Amendment rights, not advantages.
World's Only Rational Man 
The firearms “discussion” in the US tends to amuse me at times. Or should I call it “incoherent screaming based on pure hysteria by the gun-grabbers”?
Here in Austria…
A semi-automatic rifle (like an AR15, what the screamers call “assault weapon”) is a Category B weapon and 100% legal. In fact, I own a German AR15 clone made by Oberland Arms in Bavaria (fantastic rifle.) I also own a Stery AUG and even bought the military look-alike kit that Steyr sells (gives you olive polymer and the original metal optics used in the military.)
A “high capacity magazine” is 100% legal. Well, a Glock comes with a 17 round magazine. We call that “standard”. But if you want a 50 round drum for that Glock? 100% legal.
Hunting rifles, such as repeaters and single or double barrel shotguns, are C and D weapons. Under Austrian law they don’t even require registry (the EUSSR is trying to register them, but it’s not even remotely working as planned.)
Firearms designed prior to 1871 are called “free weapons”. No registry for them either.
The exact number of firearms here is unknown. The number of registered weapons is currently somewhere around 2.5 million. For not even 9 million people. Estimates by the interior ministry speak of roughly 10 million firearms in private hands.
And yet… we have no spree shootings. The last that I remember was some time in the 90s.
Yes, shootings happen, but those we had this year were all connected to organized crime and other criminals and were all committed with illegal firearms and those are usually smuggled in from Eastern Europe (made easier thanks to the Schengen Treaty.)
Little Austria proves that the availability of firearms is not the reason for violence and we do so literally 24/7.
People are the reason for violence. But that doesn’t fit the agenda. It’s easier to blame “evil gunz” and write more laws that nobody will enforce than be rational and enforce what already exists.
“Oh, and I agree that putting firing ranges in schools and offering security training to students is a fabulous idea!”
Dang straight Skippy:
The U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have the power…To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress”
The preamble to the Second Amendment, that bit about “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state”? That’s not a limit on who is allowed to have a gun–that’s a statement that every citizen should receive the training and ARMING that Congress is empowered to provide!
I’ve long wondered why nobody has picked up on the “militia” angle to the 2nd Amend. Especially the Paul/Cruz sorts – the militia being as far from the federal govt. as possible – it being simply the able bodied bearing arms. Combine the proposed act with the lowest level of govt. (villages/townships/no higher than counties) issuing the regulations, and you’re off. Maybe the state-nat’l guards, but in no event federal authority. Enforce the 2nd thru the 10th!
Bravo. I’m only now looking at the “well-regulated” militia as being simply well-trained. Had been conditioned away from it, no doubt.
Thank you for piling in.
I would argue that “well regulated” also implies some sort of structure, which would mean that members would elect their officers from among themselves.
Which is basically what shooting clubs tend to do, at least over here. The officials representing the club are elected from among the members.
Beautiful. I apologize for being so late to reply to a work of art.
To the left, the ability to resist government depredation IS evil. Of course you know that. Is Austria letting Syrian refugees, both real and supposed, to settle in your country?
Well, most have gone to Germany, because in Germany you get most money in the EU. And we’ve helped them along to get there. In the tens of thousands.
The great thing is, if we (Austria, Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Denmark, Poland and the Czech Republic) team up… we can easily build a massive wall around Germany to contain whatever tries to spread from there.
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The other aspect of fairness is in what guns are allowed. If police “need” something…..
In CA, movie studios can get permits for full auto, but no one else….
Wow, really? Not challenging the claim, but it seems difficult to believe the State would give that option to Hollywood but not itself. Unless you meant no one else except the state.
Police can have whatever they want, like H&K G36K for their motorcycle cops:
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/10/22/potd-motorcycle-trunk-gun/
However, for anyone else in CA, you need a “dangerous weapon” permit that is on a “may issue” basis to possess a machine gun, or even a semi-auto that is deemed an “assault weapon” under CA law. Guess who gets these permits? Most movie industry armorers are federally licensed manufacturers (type 7 FFL), that pay the special occupational tax (type 2), commonly spoken of in gun cirlces a 07/02. This is so they can make (aka manufacture) a machine gun rather purchase one. This because buying a machine gun is either going to be very expensive (a pre-86 transferable) or impossible. This is because any machine gun made after May ’86 is considered a post-sample, and buying one as a dealer/manufacturer requires a letter from a LE agency requesting a demo of such a weapon. However, as a 07/02, making one is as simple as filing a Form 2 with the ATF NFA branch.
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I propose an addition to this act: that all state & local law enforcement are limited to the same type & capacity of arms as private citizens. While I fully support our police on the streets & the difficult, often thankless job they do, they are not soldiers of occupation. They are not separate from the citizenry but of the citizenry entrusted to uphold the law & ensure the peace. Whatever arms limitations imposed on private citizens must also be imposed on our police forces with the exceptions of special services units such as SWAT that would bridge the capabilities between peace officers & military or specialized federal agencies.
If a standard capacity magazine for a pistol or rifle are deemed excessively “high capacity”, if the contemporary semi auto self loading action is deemed unnecessarily modern, if the ergonomic & safety features of modular weapon designs are blanketed as “assault weapons”, and if all of these things alone or in combination are rationalized as weapons of war for mass killing that have no business on out streets then I propose they also be prohibited to law enforcement. Police are not conducting military actions nor equipped to carry out “mass killings”. They are equipped to protect themselves & the innocent in their presence from immediate threat just the same as the private citizen. The only difference is they respond to calls to find the same aggressors that have already found the private citizen. Both should be equally able to defend themselves.
Check the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy, vol 30, num 2, pp. 649-694
They don’t teach in history class that, when North America was being settled by the English, English law required every able-bodied man in the right age bracket was in the militia, and required to have gun, powder, and shot, and train with them. The colonial laws went even further, requiring households without militia members to still have a gun and powder and shot for it.
Given the terrorist attacks that have been executed on our own soil, clearly the government simply cannot be in enough places at once to meet the attacks. We must return to the traditions of our colonial predecessors, and see that the entire populace (excepting the insane, under-age, feeble, and convicted criminals) are armed and trained in the use of said arms.
The Progressives will simply have to be treated for their hoplophobia. (see http://www.gunlaws.com/GunPhobia.htm; http://jpfo.org/filegen-n-z/ragingagainstselfdefense.htm; and http://jpfo.org/articles-assd02/why-jews-hate-guns.htm)
I realize many will see these as radical proposals, but desperate times etc. At least this is consistent with our traditions.
In addition, remember something that many liberals don’t realize and likely would want to avoid comprehending – all able-bodied males between the ages of 18 and 65 (IIRC) are part of the militia. Those men (and women) who are in the National Guard are part of the organized militia, but the rest are by law in the unorganized militia and are still liable to be called up.
Of course, a whole lot of people in this country don’t think they have any obligation to defend anything and don’t want to think about the above. But that doesn’t make it any less true.
Another proposal to counter the illogical premises of the gun grabbers: IF government just has to pass a law regarding guns, then make the only law that might have reduced the death count in San B: “Every assembly of X or more persons shall include y% of those persons bearing arms and capable of using them.”
You’ll note that the gun-phobic’s parties just got more expensive, having to hire Y% armed guards, whereas groups willing and able to protect themselves could meet the requirements of this proposed law with volunteers…
The proposed law is much closer to original intent than any we have today.
I remember thirty or forty years ago reading the introduction to a bound volume of old (many 19th century) issues of The Police Gazette. It began with a reproduction of the front page of a long defunct or merged Boston newspaper whose name I’ve since forgotten. But I do recall it was published in 1838, on the occasion of the creation of Boston’s police department, then only the third such department nationwide. (No quote will be exact, here, as it was too long ago, but to the best of my recall I am close.) The paper announced this new force was organized to “assist” the public in maintaining law and order, and that its members could be identified by yellow (I think) armbands (no copper badges yet; that started in England). It made a point of stating that the members of this new organization would not be armed, “as the sight of armed agents of the State might quite rightly be expected to cause panic among the citizenry”.
It’s that last sentence that made the impression on me and is the reason I recall it today. So, at a time when the signings of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United States were still within living memory, The People knew much more clearly which side their tyranny was buttered on. Our military was intended to be organized much more like Switzerland’s, annual training included. But that wouldn’t give our leaders the power and privilege they seem to believe they are entitled to control.
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