by Wayne D. Carlson
[email protected]

General discord, division, and disaffection appear to be on the rise in America today. While we could point to various aspects of these social ills at any point in time in the history of this, or any nation, many of us are beginning to sense the depth and magnitude that these traits now occupy in our present fractured society by the preponderance of �issues� that divide us. This lack of consensus and cohesion seems to positively reverberate with every new Supreme Court, Presidential, or Congressional proclamation. Our �leaders� in government, education, and the media take pains to appear oblivious to the possibility of a connection between these rifts and the current liberal dogma surrounding the glories of diversity and multiculturalism. 

In the pursuit of an ever more disparate ethnic, religious, and cultural America, we are increasingly cut off from our Constitutional moorings that had their genesis in Christianity and Western Civilization. We are being cut off from the founding fathers vision of what kind of nation they sought to establish and bequeath to posterity. There is an abundance of evidence as to what that vision was--if we really want to know. Our protections from encroachments on our liberties clearly expressed in the Constitution and Bill of Rights now appear more imperiled today than at any time since King Lincoln suspended the Constitution and set in motion a revolution that amounted to America�s version of The French Revolution. 

In speaking of The Bill of Rights it would be good to remember that these are not privileges benevolently bestowed on �we the people� by our government. No, they are �inalienable� rights, incapable of being surrendered to the government because they are �endowed (provided with something free and natural) by their creator� (God). John Quincy Adams said that �the highest glory of The American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.� There are many that don�t like this fact, but it is a fact nonetheless. 

We should know that The Bill of Rights were only intended as restrictions on the powers of the Federal Government. They did not apply to the State governments. This was true until the 14th Amendment, never legally ratified, was imposed on the American people in order to place the States under the heel of the Central government and destroy their rights guaranteed under the 9th and 10th Amendment. This is another fact of history that is somehow �overlooked� in the government schools today. With the 9th and 10th Amendments now �dead letters�, we are seeing encroachments on the 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th. 

I would like to focus on the 2nd Amendment today. It reads, �a well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed�. George Mason, author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and a participant in the Constitutional Convention, defined the militia as �the whole people�. 

The Virginia Constitution, Article I, Section 13 states, �That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power�. 

The Federal Constitution and the Constitutions of 44 States explicitly state that this right of the people shall not be infringed. Yet, it is not clear to a sizable number of people in and out of government today who do not want to believe we have this inalienable right. We see all manner of specious argument to circumvent this vital protection. The central tenet of all federal gun control laws is that they have a basis in the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution that justifies their attempts at federal gun control. This is the kind of false assumption that a power hungry government, afraid of an armed populace, will use to gain further control over the people. 

Virginian George Mason warned that a disarmed populace was subject to enslavement. All through history, tyrants have sought to disarm the people so as to make them subject to their authority. The Nazi�s paved the way toward disarming the Jews by first requiring gun registration. Isn�t that what prominent members of our own Congress are presently seeking? They may not be Nazi�s, but the stratagem is the same. What gun control advocates refuse to understand is that The Constitution trumps any statute that �infringes� on this right. When have you heard the media drive home the unassailable fact that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment had nothing to do with our right to target shoot or go hunting for deer? We never hear them remind the people that it had everything to do with protecting the Constitution and The Bill of Rights, as a last resort, against tyranny and oppression. Their bias and rabid anti-gun agenda, all the while feigning impartiality, would be laughable were it not so despicable and dangerous.

The veneer is slowly being lifted from more and more eyes today as to who and what pose the greatest dangers to our freedoms. It is no longer inconceivable to imagine a day in the not to distant future when a government edict will demand that we hand over our guns to our benevolent masters in Washington, or to our equally benevolent masters at the U.N. Will we be prepared to respond as those �rebels� and �traitors� did in 1775 when the British Redcoats, 700 strong, marched on Lexington and Concord in order to take away their right to self-defense by stealing their powder? Could the U.S. military actually be used against its own citizens trying to defend their rights and liberties? Of course it can, as it has been repeatedly used in the past. 

What evidence do we have that our government may be contemplating the use of the military, national or international, to confiscate our firearms? Consider the questionnaire that has been administered to many of our troops under the title of a �Combat Arms Survey�. Confirmed by several sources, but wholly covered up by the mainstream media, the story on this questionnaire ran in the February 1994 issue of �Modern Gun� and then in the July 11, 1994 issue of �The New American�. This questionnaire, seeking to find out, among other things, if our soldiers would follow the orders of commanding officers without question (including UN officers), asks in question #46 if they would �fire upon US citizens who refuse or resist confiscation of firearms banned by the US government.� I don�t know about you but I find questions like this highly disturbing. It�s enough to make some of us wonder if the so-called conspiracy nuts don�t have it right after all. At the very least it raises a whole lot of questions, like why the media refuses to cover a story like this, or who originated such a questionnaire and why? 

Perhaps some of you can supply me with some of these answers that I can then pass on to interested readers. Either way, I am firmly convinced that far from acknowledging that what this country needs is gun control, I am persuaded that what we really need is government control. I close with a quote I came across in the course of writing this particular column. It is attributed to Abraham Kuyper, who said, 

�When principles that run against your deepest convictions begin to win the day, then battle is your calling, and peace has become sin; you must, at the price of dearest peace, lay your convictions bare before friend and enemy, with all the fire of your faith.� 

Would that everyone would lay their apathy aside and demonstrate that they are worthy of their heritage. 

I welcome comments at [email protected]

Wayne, the survey to which you refer was called Form 3238, and it was administered to a small group of military personnel in California.  You can read about the survey here: http://thenewamerican.com/tna/1995/vo11no20/vo11no20_survey.htm, and you may see the actual survey in its totality here: http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/419.html. There has been much substantiation of this event, but not in the biased mainstream media.  Your heart is felt, your sentiments are right on, and we are with you, brother--millions of us.  ~KABA