The following was published on the now-defunct Examiner.com in 2013. As such, citation links are dependent on the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine and may load slowly:
November 22, 2013
50 years ago today a young president was gunned down in Dallas. Those of us alive at the time and old enough to be aware of the event will never forget where we were, how we heard the news, and how it shook our worldview of an America we’d assumed to be invulnerable in prosperity and power, and on course for an even greater destiny.
Looking back to that day, proponents of what they call “common sense gun safety laws” are decrying that there are still no mandatory so-called “universal background checks,” even as they dismiss fears validated by the federal government that “effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…”
The same activists then dismiss fear of gun confiscation as “paranoia,” even though ample examples not only of intent, but of actual practice are readily observable to any who would look for them. But it is the contention that the Second Amendment stands as a bulwark of liberty that they seize on with the fiercest opposition, throwing out charges like “insurrectionist” at people who maintain that the right provides for resisting tyranny, and “treason” at those who pledge to defy and resist citizen disarmament attempts.
Under United States Code, treason is a capital crime, so such charges are quite revealing about the intent of those who level them.
On a day of remembrance when Americans of good faith should come together, what must we think of an extremist gun owner, and naturally a life member of the NRA, who would publicly affirm what is being called treason?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable,” the gun owner asserted.
“Although it is extremely unlikely that the fears of governmental tyranny which gave rise to the Second Amendment will ever be a major danger to our nation, the Amendment still remains an important declaration of our basic civilian-military relationships, in which every citizen must be ready to participate in the defense of his country,” he conceded.
That’s a clear a rejection of the “monopoly of violence” society demanded by those who would remold ours. And “extremely unlikely” does not equate with “never.” He left that door open as a measure of last resort, when all other peaceable options had failed, essentially adopting a position where he, too, could be accused of treason and executed for it.
If they’re going to be consistent, it’s fair to assume that’s how the radical gun-grabbers want America and the world to remember John F. Kennedy.
