Bearing arms

"Don't doubt for a minute that, if they thought they could get away with it, they would ban guns and ban ammunition and gut the Second Amendment," said Palin, a lifelong NRA member who once had a baby shower at a local gun range in Alaska. --AP

"They," in Ms. Palin's speech, are, of course, President Obama and the Democratic party. Thus conjectures the little woman from Alaska, whose lack of intelligence, knowledge and good judgment have become the marvel of civilized people on six continents, and of all the penguins on the seventh.

Ms. Palin cites nothing to show that the Obama administration has the slightest interest in "gutting" the Second Amendment. She's just firing up the troops, apparently, saying whatever pops into her mind that might get her audience's political juices flowing.

I, myself, on the other hand, would happily gut the Second Amendment. It's a relic of a frontier society that had minimal resources for law enforcement, and of a new nation that had just fought free of the yoke of colonialism by the use of "well regulated militia." While criminal activity is still a problem in today's society, combating such activity is the responsibility of organized police departments. The last thing this country needs is a shooting war between armed criminals and armed victims -- that cure would be the "cure" of anarchy, and would create far greater problems than the criminal acts that it sought to combat.

But personal defense against criminals isn't really what excites the NRA fanatics. Stated or unstated, the true appeal of the Second Amendment to the true believer is the concept of a free citizenry standing up to an oppressive government. To these zealots, the federal government in Washington is the modern equivalent of King George III, and they themselves -- with their carefully maintained cache of automatic rifles and rounds of ammunition -- are the stout-hearted yeoman of Merry Olde England, or the minutemen of the American Revolution.

If we still believe in some form of natural law, we probably agree that every human being has a natural right to fight against an unjust government. But no government, just or unjust, has any duty whatsoever to promote its own destruction by force of arms. The American government, whose Constitution provides ample means for change in both its policies and its structure, should not be required to fuel the fires of revolution lit by those discontents unable to persuade their fellow citizens to bring about desired changes through readily available political processes.

The Constitution defines "treason" as "levying War against them [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Behind all the talk about the joys of hunting and the need to defend oneself and one's family -- goals that many gun advocates no doubt sincerely embrace -- there is a more powerful undercurrent among the true gun fanatics, the ones who insist on the right to take guns into National Parks, city parks, beaches, shopping centers. This undercurrent is the right wing extremist's intense fear of all authority, and his resulting need for the tools to resist American government, now or in the future, by whatever it takes, including gunfire.

In the past, the Republican party has frequently denounced its political opponents as traitors to the American republic. In its passionate embrace of the NRA, the gun lobby and gun kooks in general, the GOP now, ironically, finds itself in bed with a sect of highly organized potential traitors. As a favorite icon of the extreme right wing once proclaimed: "None dare call it treason."

Yes, Ms. Palin. While President Obama does not, in fact, agree with me, I would cheerfully repeal the Second Amendment and outlaw the possession of all guns except, perhaps, those rifles designed specifically for sports hunting. Other civilized nations have such laws and rely successfully on their police force for protection against crime. They maintain law and order quite satisfactorily, and provide their citizens governments and societies as free as any in the world.