The Insidious Erosion of the Second Amendment

The tragic case of 39 year-old Carol Browne of Berlin Township New Jersey is the first. Ms. Browne was dutifully waiting on a lethargic bureaucracy for her concealed carry pistol permit in order to defend herself against an abusive ex-boyfriend when he accosted Browne in her driveway on June 3 and stabbed her to death.

The second is the mass murder carried out on June 18 by Dylann Storm Drain (it’s actually Dylann Storm Roof, so I’ve been told), the 21-year-old who walked into a South Carolina church and fatally shot nine people as they attended Bible study class.

Immediately after the South Carolina shootings, the leftist leviathan – led by one Barack Hussein Obama – leapt into action, framing the incident as demonstrating a clear need for more gun control. This, despite the attendant facts – such as Roof being a drug-addled loser with a mounting criminal record and parents who may have even less viable grey matter than Dylann himself (his father allegedly gave him a .45-caliber pistol for his birthday earlier this year – shortly after the junior Roof was released from jail).

In liberal-controlled areas, governments (we actually have a lot of them in the U.S.) have enacted very strict gun control measures. The process of purchasing any firearm is profoundly burdensome; trying to obtain a permit for a handgun often takes months. In some cities, you’re not getting a pistol, let alone a concealed carry permit, unless you’re a lawyer, a judge, or a police officer. Liberal elitism at its best.

Despite such measures, these places have the highest instances of gun-related crime in the nation.

On the one hand, we have people saying that the nine South Carolina parishioners would still be alive if Storm Drain hadn’t had access to a firearm. On the other, those who say that Carol Browne would still be alive if she’d received her pistol permit in a more timely manner. One can hardly disagree with either statement.

The problem is that both statements are theoretical. In Browne’s case, the New Jersey authorities should have provided Browne with her pistol permit in a timely manner, but they didn’t – and with the deep entrenchment of big-government progressivism in that state, all the statistics in the world aren’t going to prompt them to change their protocols.

In the case of Dylann Roof, the truth in practice – the reality that liberals absolutely will not acknowledge – is that keeping guns out of the hands of criminals is an impossibility. This is immaterial in that public safety is not the leftist politicians’ motivation behind advocating for gun control in the first place; the motivation is their totalitarian objectives.

Thus, discussions around eliminating bureaucracy in the concealed carry permitting process and how to keep guns out of the hands of the Dylan Roofs among us are the wrong discussions.

Why?

Because no American citizen should be required to obtain a permit to carry a concealed firearm, or endure onerous processes in order to purchase firearms.

For reasons of personal accountability, insurance liability, and public safety, a certificate of completion of a firearms safety or combat pistol course would be quite adequate in establishing an individual’s qualification to carry a concealed firearm safely.

Anything more than this is not only a grotesque violation of the Second Amendment, but indicative of government entities that have gotten out of hand.

And in case it’s just started to sink in, there are a lot of government entities (local, state, and federal) that have gotten far out of hand. Considering the firearms laws that abound in America, one can see how government at every level has been chipping away at the Second Amendment for the last hundred years. The justification (or con) that’s been used in every case has been public safety.

Now … How many of the parishioners at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina might have had a concealed pistol on them – just as a matter of course – if they didn’t have to obtain a permit in order to carry one?

Better still: How many second thoughts would Dylann Roof have had if he knew that someone might wind up shooting back?

In America, if someone shoots someone else without apparent justification, there ought to be only two things considered: Did this occur due to criminal intent or negligence? If it was a crime, obviously the perpetrator should be prosecuted forthwith. If negligence, they may be liable in criminal court, civil court (for damages), or both. That’s the way shooting incidents should have played out from Day One, but we wound up with progressives, liberals, socialists, and finally out-and-out communists in government.

And by the way; not only should any American citizen be able to carry a concealed firearm sans permit, they should be able to own any type of firearm they desire, even if it’s a belt-fed 50 caliber machine gun, tripod-mounted in the entryway of their home.

Now, wait a minute Rush … What about the mentally ill and felons? Do you think they ought to be able to bop down to the friendly neighborhood gun store and pick up any kind of firearm, no questions asked?

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