I am not a gun owner or enthusiast, and most of our views on firearms and the second amendment probably don’t line up. However, your blog post has seriously made me think and at least reassess my position. While I don’t like guns, I do agree with what you say about the potential for tyranny and the need for citizens to have a defense against it.

The following questions are not meant to challenge you so much as to resolve some nagging questions I still have after absorbing your blog post. I appreciate any insight you provide.

1) What if – as seems to be the case in America – the state maintains more powerful weaponry than any citizen or even group of citizens can ever hope to amass? If the US government (or even a decent-sized police force) went tyrannical, what chance would one guy with a rifle have? What chance would a hundred citizens with AR-15s have?

Wouldn’t the ability to resist tyranny be predicated on the right of average citizens to stockpile enough weaponry to defeat a tyrannical government? I don’t hear anyone advocating for that, probably for good reason. Given that, how can anyone claim that their rifle or revolver exists because they might one day need to fight a tyrannical government? It seems to me that those guns would be useless, and that any righteous patriot would quickly be incinerated by superior government weaponry.

2) If I read correctly, you say that potential tyrants are kept in check because they know law-abiding citizens might fire back at them. Wouldn’t that also prevent them from, say, raiding the apartment of an armed criminal? My guess is that if cops know that the arrest would be righteous (say the criminal has an arrest warrant out for murder) and that they are sufficiently armed and armored up, they would do their jobs and raid the criminal’s apartment, despite the risk – rightly (and bravely) so.

So if good cops would go after an armed murderer despite the risk, what would prevent tyrannical cops from going after an armed citizen who, say, possesses illegal books in a Fahrenheit 451 world? Wouldn’t the willingness of cops to make the arrest depend more on the balance of firepower than the righteousness of the arestee’s cause? If It seems to me that it would always be an issue of who has the most potent firepower, not of freedom or morality.

I hope these questions made sense. I look forward to hearing your thoughts – and to further exploring your blog. Thank you for challenging my perspective.

You wanted to know what to add on to this article. That would be called the American Legislative Exchange Council….or ALEC. However, most people just want to bicker. They don’t want to know about what is going on. It is about Money over Poverty and there is money to be had in taking away food, civil rights, turning any love into hate at all costs. I know it. Google, AZ secy of state, then left hand side hit: Legislative filings. Well I say start at 2012 to make it interesting and then go to 2013. Called Spiritual Warfare. So what does the next look like. Self sustaining, Holistic, Love Your Brother as Yourself. The Thin Red Line.

Rosemary,

My wife gets really upset when I marry other women. Go figure. I’d take you as a second wife, but my first wife would pull a switchblade from her hair and stab us both. Sorry.

But gosh darn it, this is the first marriage proposal I’ve gotten on my blog. Pretty cool, thanks!

Hey Sharky, that means a lot coming from you. Thanks for the compliment.

Great article. Honest introspection at it’s best. My respect for you continues to grow. Keep doing what you do. Keep speaking the truth. You are making a difference. That’s more than can be said for most people, whether they be LE or civilians.

Sharky

John,

I understand your point. I think the drug war has changed LE in general, and not for the better.

If you don’t mind me asking, what small Texas town was it?

Thanks for reading and commenting, and for offering a fair and well-written opinion.

Chris

Thanks Mountie. Hope you enjoy the book, and please feel free to leave an honest review when you’re done.