Some folks no doubt wonder why the scandal known as “Gunwalker” (inlcuding but not limited to Operation Fast and Furious and other related operations of the various and sundry Federal Law Enforcement Agencies) is a matter of concern.
Gunwalker and the Foundation of Liberty
The lives of the individuals harmed by Gunwalker mean nothing to statists.
by Mike McDaniel | Pajamas Media
It all comes down to this: Is there an inalienable right to self-defense? If there is, each man has indisputable, inestimable value, value that he may rightly preserve even if the life of another man is forfeit. A man may kill another in lawful self-defense even if the policy preferences of the state would prefer his death. If a right to self-defense actually exists, it is in a very real sense the highest law of the land and all lesser laws must pay it deference. It fundamentally defines the social contract, the nature of the relationship between man and the state.
But if there is no such inalienable right, the entire nature of the social contract is changed. Each man’s worth is measured solely by his utility to the state, and as such the value of his life rides a roller coaster not unlike the stock market: dependent not only upon the preferences of the party in power but upon the whims of its political leaders and the permanent bureaucratic class. The proof of this analysis surrounds us.
Indeed it does. Gun Runner has shown that the current Administration holds the rights of its citizens in contempt.
As regards our Rights, our Founding Fathers had some strong, and well thought out, opinions on the rights of men which they passed down to us:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Thus, in the estimation of the Founding Fathers, “Rights”
- Descend from a Higher Power (the Creator)
- Include (but are not limited to) Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness
Governments, according to the Founding Fathers, do not grant or establish rights, they EXIST to defend the rights (per the above, endowed upon individuals by their Creator) of the individuals which are their citizens. The legitimacy of any Government is based on the consent of the governed, and the governed (the individuals, the people, the citizens) retain the right “…to alter or to abolish it…” should Government prove injurious to their divinely invested rights.
Nor is it a coincidence that “Life” is the first stated right.
No man nor Government can bestow human “Life” where there is none.
Nor may Government revoke the individual’s “right” to “Life” absent a jury sentence for violation of a duly enacted felony Law, or in exigent circumstances such as war, rebellion, or the reasonable application of force by agents of the Government engaged in enforcing the duly enacted laws.
It thus stands that the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States:
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.
is the most fundamental right thus enumerated.
The Second Amendment provides the individual citizen with a guarantee to the means to defend himself, his family, his property, and his neighbors not only from criminal activity, but also from overbearing or overweening Government. The armed citizen serves as a guarantor of the individual’s right “…to alter or to abolish…” a Government which has become injurious to the Rights which that Government was created to guarantee.
The only motive thus far proposed for the various ill-found and worse executed “law enforcement operations” known collectively as “Gunrunner” which fits the facts as they currently stand is that these operations were intended to generate incidents which would provide cause to further restrict the Second Amendment rights of United States Citizens.
At an earlier stage of glorious socialist evolution, we find the family of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, murdered by cartel gunmen wielding rifles walked across the border in the gunwalker scandal. As reported by Fox News, the family of Terry requested crime victim status in the case of Jamie Avila, charged with purchasing the guns that reportedly killed Terry. Victims with such an obvious and compelling connection to a criminal case are routinely granted this status by prosecutors, but not in a government fundamentally changing itself into a socialist state.
U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke has opposed the family, claiming that the victim of Avila’s crime was “society in general” rather than any particular persons. It should be prominently noted that it is Burke’s office which has been intimately involved with Operation Fast and Furious and the gunwalking scandal which flourished under that larger operation. At stake is the right of the Terry family, under the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act, to work with prosecutors and to be heard at Avila’s sentencing.
The Obama administration is, to put it mildly, in a panic over the fallout and potential damage to Mr. Obama of Gunwalker. As my co-blogger Bob Owens recently reported, the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation are planning lawsuits against the Justice Department’s administrative mandate that border gun dealers report the sale of two or more long guns within a five-day period, primarily on the grounds that Congress has expressly forbidden the ATF (or the DOJ through the ATF) such power. Continuing revelations such as former Phoenix ATF Agent in Charge William Newell’s repeated discussions of the gunwalking case with a White House National Security functionary, and a multitude of embarrassing e-mails which clearly indicate that the basis for gun walking was a political desire for restrictive gun control policies unattainable through the legislative process, are also very much a thorn in the Obama administration’s collective posteriors.
Our Government has quite obviously failed to police its own elements which have been operating against the Rights of its citizens. Such a failure makes the Government complicit in that attempted curtailment of the Rights of the People. Continued complicity in this attempted abridgement of the Rights of the Citizens of the United States is more than ample cause for a revolt at the ballot box in our next scheduled elections.
Throw the bums out.
