Why Did it Have to be … Guns? by L. Neil Smith

http://www.lneilsmith.com/whyguns.html

Why Did it Have to be … Guns? by L. Neil Smith

Over the past 30 years, I’ve been paid to write almost two million words,
every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and
gun-ownership. Naturally, I’ve thought about the issue a lot, and it has
always determined the way I vote.

People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single- issue thinker,
and a single- issue voter, but it isn’t true. What I’ve chosen, in a world
where there’s never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political
issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician
– or political philosophy — is made of, right down to the creamy liquid
center.

Make no mistake: all politicians — even those ostensibly on the side of
guns and gun ownership — hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on
bringing it up. They hate it because it’s an X-ray machine. It’s a Vulcan
mind-meld. It’s the ultimate test to which any politician — or political
philosophy — can be put.

If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average
constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware
store and paying cash — for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun,
anything — without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t
your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn’t genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing
that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking
home without asking anybody’s permission, he’s a four-flusher, no matter
what he claims.

What his attitude — toward your ownership and use of weapons — conveys is
his real attitude about you. And if he doesn’t trust you, then why in the
name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn’t want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want
him in a position to control it?

If he makes excuses about obeying a law he’s sworn to uphold and defend –
the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights — do you want to entrust
him with anything?

If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he
calls you names only he thinks are evil — like “Constitutionalist” — when
you insist that he account for himself, hasn’t he betrayed his oath, isn’t
he unfit to hold office, and doesn’t he really belong in jail?

Sure, these are all leading questions. They’re the questions that led me to
the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable
demonstration of what any given politician — or political philosophy — is
really made of.

He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn’t have
a gun — but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John
Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others?
Didn’t you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left
public school — or the military? Isn’t it an essentially European notion,
anyway — Prussian, maybe — and certainly not what America was supposed to
be all about?

And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive
you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other
people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all
along.

Try it yourself: if a politician won’t trust you, why should you trust him?
If he’s a man — and you’re not — what does his lack of trust tell you
about his real attitude toward women? If “he” happens to be a woman, what
makes her so perverse that she’s eager to render her fellow women helpless
on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe
her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group
health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn’t want
you to have?

On the other hand — or the other party — should you believe anything
politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and
make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons?
What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and
ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other
countries?

Makes voting simpler, doesn’t it? You don’t have to study every issue –
health care, international trade — all you have to do is use this X-ray
machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out
how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they
hate it.

And that’s why I’m accused of being a single-issue writer, thinker, and
voter.

But it isn’t true, is it?
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Permission to redistribute this article is herewith granted by the author –
provided that it is reproduced unedited, in its entirety, and appropriate
credit given.

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security!!!