Weapons are unique in the lineup of the items typically banned or regulated by governments. They are the only contraband that can be used to fight the enforcement of the ban on them. Neither a bottle of rum, nor a cigar, nor a bag of salt, nor any of the other things that governments control or ban are good for defeating a team of revenuers. Firearms and other weapons are, and that makes them the subject of special ire from those who wish to control others. Disarm the population, and all other items on their wish list fall into place.
In going after rifles, prohibitionists are more concerned about politically significant firepower than they are about crime. The authoritarians aren’t comfortable with constituents who don’t need state services, however unwanted those “services” may be. This is why shotguns with short effective range remained legal in many countries where rifles were banned from private ownership.
Those of us who hope to hide behind legal definitions, such as the items above being nominally pistols…that’s not how the other side plays this. One, there’s nothing to stop states from re-defining a pistol as a banned rifle. For example, until 2014 Ohio defined any firearm holding 31 or more cartridges as a “machine gun” (“Automatic firearm” also means any semi-automatic firearm designed or specially adapted to fire more than thirty-one cartridges without reloading, other than a firearm chambering only .22 caliber short, long, or long-rifle cartridges.”) Words mean what politicians and their enforcers want them to mean. Further, the various prohibitions simply cover appearance (pistol grip or thumbhole stock), performance (such as muzzle velocity), specific calibers (the way California bans 50BMG), specific actions (ATF banned open bolt semi-autos by an administrative ruling) and, the most encompassing of all, by the political affiliation, sex, age, economic status, medical condition, country of origin or some other attribute of the potential owner. Combined, these bans get the other side their dream of dominance.
Our best hope of stopping this without bloodshed is winning the hearts and minds of our generation and of the next one. Some states and many foreign countries prohibit teaching kids to shoot. Their aim isn’t the achievement of public safety but rather the denial of education and freedom.
What have you done to preserve your own rights lately?
Good post , sir. Thank you.
I continue to explain the Second Amendment to any one within reach.
Your question of “What have you done to preserve your own rights lately”?
Good question.
I have bought The Appleseed Project to my community, but that was only a start.
I also support the local youth shooting teams, The Eddie Eagle program and I also help friends with kids teach their sons and daughters fire arm safety and shooting skills.
I actively am on the look out to help anything that promotes liberty in the county in which I live because it is all about local, local, & local IMHO.
Never underestimate the value of simple disobedience. As with the 94 AWB they can pass any law they want but they can’t force *everybody* to obey it.
If I may make a suggestion, we, as the gun-owning community, need to stop referring to that law by its misnomer; nothing was banned in the way the anti-self defense cult thinks it was. There were certain features that were not allowed to be installed on some rifles. Otherwise the “featureless rifles,” were functionally identical.
It’s really about the precision use of the language, and using their terms only reinforces a stupid talking point (an outright lie) of the Left.
Wow those CZ’s are beautiful.
Very good! I linked your article in preppers forum in Czech Republic 🙂
Remember governments prefer to deal with unarmed peasants.
I shared a buffalo burger with you and your father a few years ago.
I live in a country that absolutely bans concealed carry and ownership of arms for self defence.
Nonetheless, I conceal carry, all day long, everywhere I go.
If a law is patently unjust, it is no law at all, and it is the.duty of an honest man to subvert that law.
You told me at the time that you thought those seeking to promote disarmament of citizens were the moral equivalent of pedophiles.
You were right, and I’ll be damned if I’ll be ruled by such people.