Greetings!
This Wednesday will be 4Tucson’s last class in an 8 part series called Biblical Citizenship in Modern America, produced by the Patriot Academy. Historians Rick Green and David Barton do an excellent job in explaining how, as biblical citizens, we must engage in the governmental process to ensure government protects unalienable rights given to us by God. Our Declaration of Independence refers to “The Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God. One of these God given unalienable rights is the right of self protection.
The 2nd Amendment of our US Constitutions gives every citizen the Right to Bear Arms. Many of us believe this right is the kingpin to all the other rights protected in the US Constitution.
President Biden has recently directed the Justice Department to draft regulation banning individuals from building their own firearms from parts that don’t have registered serial numbers, referred to a “ghost guns”. The first federal gun control law was passed by Congress in 1934, the National Firearm Act, which banned machine guns and sawed off shotguns. Even though we do have laws controlling guns, in 2008, the US Supreme Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right to possess firearms independent of service in a state militia and to use firearms for traditionally lawful purposes, including self-defense within the home
Are we in a crisis, like the Corona Virus, for executive action to be necessary to impose new regulation instead of going through Congress to deliberate the merits of a new law? For centuries, honest citizens have been gunsmithing and assembling firearms from parts without much of a connection to crime. It is easier for a criminal to grind off a serial number than to build their own gun. A large number of criminals prefer to steal guns to commit crimes.
Over the last 30 years, violent crime has dropped significantly while private gun ownership has doubled. Cites with the highest gun crime rates ironically also have the strictest gun laws. Since 2010, when Arizona passed permitless carry of firearms, the murder rate decreased faster than the national average.
Over recent years, we have seen our rights as citizens being attacked. The FBI is doing warrantless searches, private citizens are being investigated without any evidence of a crime and being incarcerated for lengthy periods without a trial. Religious liberty is under attack on many fronts and the entire country has been subjected to restrictive government mandates. We have big tech in collusion with government undermining free speech and thought. Should we just sit back as our Right to Bear Arms is threatened with unlegislated gun control?
Tyrannical governments throughout history have first mandated the registration of firearms before they confiscated them. The Right to Bear Arms in the 2nd Amendment is there not only for self protection but also to defend ourselves from tyrannical government.
Paul Parisi
Director-Government Domain
520-869-1679
Paul@4Tucson.com