A Credible Threat

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.

-      Mao Zedong

Following a mass shooting during a parade celebrating the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl win on Valentine’s Day, gun control is once again in the news and remains an unsettled issue, and I suspect it will persist as such for a long time.

Citizens of the United States are citizens, not subjects; i.e., they are equal partners with the government in possessing authority under our constitutional system and allow the government to exercise its jurisdiction at their pleasure.

And what validates the government’s authority? Force; the means to force. Without the threat of punishment and the means to carry it out, governmental authority carries no weight. And the authority of an empowered citizenry equally resides in their possession of the means to force, the right to keep and bear arms.

While calls for strict gun control are always couched in terms of public safety, in fact, the driving motivation amongst the ruling class is their fear of an empowered citizenry.

Why, then, would so many willingly surrender the private citizens’ right to some authority to the ruling class? What seems most likely is a desire for the governing class to protect the polity calling for such from the ravages that humanity’s well-documented avarice, greed, deceit, and lust for power can bring to bear. And that desire for protection, drawing on humans’ remarkable capacity for denial, ignores the simple observation that the government is composed of people who are given to all the same avarice, greed, deceit, and lust for power that motivate the non-government predators.

Therein is revealed another common aspect of human behavior: the desire to believe that there is some central intellect in control. A plethora of vagaries threaten everyday life, and humans have long sought security in some “greater power” that seems to understand all. This, of course, describes the appeal of many religions but applies as well to charismatic leaders and political movements. And conspiracy theories.

The impetus for the understanding of the 2nd Amendment of our Bill of Rights that I share with many is based on our necessary possession of authority as described by the Constitution with its separation of powers between the Congress (Article I), the Executive (Article II), the Judiciary (Article III), and the Citizenry (Bill of Rights). An inherent distrust of a concentration of power is a fundamental feature of our government's design.

And it's central to the collectivists' dislike.

Now, I certainly don’t want to have to fight a civil war; the right to keep and bear arms is key to preserving the balance of powers. Obviously, then, the United States’ citizenry must maintain a credible threat to keep the peace.