The Firearms Policy Coalition released the statement below yesterday. I think it makes some very pertinent points about civil liberties, civic virtue, trust in government, and opportunistic politicians.
It is not a short statement meant to be a sound bite. It is a serious response that needs to be read and digested and then read again.
Our hearts break for the victims of the heinous mass murder in Las Vegas and our prayers are with them, their families, and everyone affected by this incomprehensible act of evil. While it is impossible to measure the loss suffered in Sunday’s tragedy, the sting from this senseless violence will doubtless be felt for years to come.
We are deeply grateful for the law enforcement officers, firefighters, paramedics, nurses, doctors, blood donors, and countless volunteers who stood tall and delivered aid to the innocent in a time of great need, as Americans do.
Sadly, opportunistic politicians who prey on tragedies like this one have already begun to suggest that our response should be to abandon our constitutional principles in favor of policies that would ban more guns, disarm more victims, and further expand “gun free zones” — spaces shielded by nothing more than invisible lines and wishful thinking.
Such policies are not only irrational, but outright dangerous. As every attack in what was purported to be a ‘gun-free’, ‘bomb-free’, or ‘vehicle-free’ zone proves, there is no set of laws that will prevent evil people from monstrously plotting an effective means to harm others.
In a cruel and potentially dangerous irony, many—if not most—of the same people who assert that we cannot possibly trust the government under someone like President Donald Trump also claim that it is only the government that we should trust to safely and responsibly possess weapons like the most common semi-automatic rifle in America, the AR-15.
We know that the privileged and wealthy elite will purchase paramilitary protective teams armed with the very firearms they so desperately wish to put out of the reach of the common man, but the rest of us would be left to hope and pray.
That is why the Second Amendment’s guarantees are not a matter of convenience, nor of need, nor even of want. The basic human right to armed self-defense against unjust force is precisely why our Founders enshrined it into our Constitution—to protect it against the capricious nature of popular opinion, the momentum of the mob, and those who would seek to limit it to a watered-down, second-class privilege for some.
Thankfully, as the Supreme Court correctly noted in the landmark Heller decision, the “very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government—even the Third Branch of Government—the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worthinsisting upon.”
Nearly 15 years ago, the Ninth Circuit’s then-Chief Judge Alex Kozinski aptly wrote that the “prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.”
Every day, evil people and governments around the world employ tools ranging from clenched fists to combat aircraft to perpetrate unspeakable and unjustified crimes upon others. But objectivity and reason compels us to recognize that those instruments are but the means to the end, and not the end itself. Indeed, the span of human history shows that such arms are also used to liberate the oppressed, establish order and justice from anarchy, and defend innocent life from cruel despots.
The American people will not be bullied by killers or politicians and neither will we cower against attacks on our most important civil rights. We reject the notion that good, peaceable people and our basic rights must suffer for the crimes of the wicked.
There is no more pure a victory for evil than for our society to assault or eliminate the rights of good people in response to things we did not do. And so a just world must hold accountable the writers of history for their deeds, not the mere quills through which it is written.
We law-abiding people of America do not accept responsibility for the evil, cowardly acts of the deranged and hateful among us, nor do we accept blame for their unconscionable and cowardly uses of instruments that can and do serve as instruments of self-defense and justice.
A great champion of individual liberties once said that if civic virtue does not reside in the people, no constitution, no bill of rights, no legislative body, and no court will be able to preserve our liberties.
That is why, in troubled and troubling times like these, we are honor-bound to stand united in defense of fundamental, individual liberties, in all cases, and in spite of the incalculable grief we feel for the victims of Las Vegas as fellow human beings.
Firearms Policy Coalition takes seriously our chartered duty to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms
FPC and our allies will continue fighting to defend and advance our Constitution’s protection of fundamental human rights.
Firearms Policy Coalition (www.firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 grassroots nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, especially the fundamental, individual Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.
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