MOLON LABE, CECILIA!

Americans resent Obama's gun control measures, calling them unconstitutional.  Myriad Americans gather in all cities and towns across the United States. They are carrying American flags and banners with words of harsh criticism against Obama's gun control regulations. Molon Labe! Come and take it! Dictators Want You Disarmed, Honk If You Want to Keep Your 2nd Amendment, and Don't tread on me are among the most common slogans.  

 

Owing a gun is a basic right of every American citizen. This isn't a Democratic thing, or a Republican thing, or a Tea Party thing, this is an American thing. This is about the rights USA was founded on. There are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the United States – roughly one for every citizen.  The 2nd Amendment prohibits the government from infringing on Americans’right to bear arms. Americans want to make darn sure kleptocrats don't infringe on American rights. If Americanslost the Second Amendment, they'll lose all their rights.

 

Just look at Greece, the most corrupt country of EU.  Greeks are not allowed to own guns, so they cannot fight Greacokleptocrats.  If Greeks had guns, they would have gotten rid of Greacokleptocrats in a few days, and they would have been free.  But now Greeks are enslaved to Greacokleptocrats, and they live a miserable life with heavy taxes, 23% VAT, kangaroo justice, huge political corruption, and the cancer of socialism.

 
Go ahead, make my day!  A Gentleman's home is his castle. Castle Doctrine, Make My Day, Stand Your Ground, Line In The Sand, or No Duty To Retreat designates any place legally occupied as a place in which the person has certain protections and immunities and may attack an intruder without becoming liable to prosecution.  Most libertarians think deadly force is considered justified in cases when the actor reasonably fears imminent serious bodily harm to himself or another. 

Reducing gun violence in EU

By Cecilia Malmström

Tragic gun attacks in Europe have repeatedly caught our attention in recent years, notably in Norway, Belgium, Finland, France and Italy to mention but a few. On average more than a thousand persons are killed each year by gun violence in the EU.

 

The gunmen responsible for horrendous shootings in the schools in Tuusula and Kauhajoki in Finland, in Cumbria in the UK and Alphen aan den Rijn in The Netherlands, were mentally unstable adults and yet had licenses to possess a firearm.

 

In Winnenden in Germany in 2009 an adolescent used a pistol which wasn't in secure storing in his parents' bedroom to kill 15 people. In the attacks in Liège in 2011, the gunman drew from a huge personal arsenal including military weapons and collectors' items which he had purchased and converted.

 

These specific incidents alone claimed the lives of 61 people, including 19 children. Sadly those cases are only indicative of a wider and truly terrible reality: in 2000-2010 there were over 10.000 victims of murder or manslaughter, killed by firearms, in the 28 Member States of the EU.

 

Most legally-held firearms are used for legitimate purposes by law-abiding people, who own them for hunting, sports shooting and other recreational activities. We will not interfere with these traditions.

But it is also true that firearms which are legally registered, held and traded get diverted into criminal markets or to unauthorised people.

 

In fact, according to the Schengen Information System, almost half a million firearms lost or stolen in the EU remain unaccounted for.

 

Many firearms are also illegally imported from third countries or are the result of the conversion of other objects into firearms.

 

In addition, there is a growing concern about criminals sending parts of decommissioned weapons by regular mail, to be reassembled by the buyer. And we are facing new technological challenges and not least the possibility to manufacture gun parts with 3D printers.

 

The EU has made significant progress in the last decade through updating and strengthening regulation of commercial aspects of firearms manufacturing, possession and sale, and many EU countries have well-functioning gun legislation in place.

 

Yet divergences between national legislation make it easier for organised crime groups and terrorists to exploit gaps in legal supply chains to obtain weapons and ammunition.

 

There is a clear need for EU action, and encouragingly, most Europeans agree that something needs to be done. In a Eurobarometer poll released today, around six in ten European think that there should be common minimum standards across the EU concerning laws on firearms.

 

So how should we address these huge challenges?

 

Today I am pointing out possible actions on how to reduce gun violence in the EU; ideas to address the threats posed by the illegal use of firearms, across the whole lifecycle of weapons, including production, sale, possession, trade and deactivation.

 

We can reduce gun violence by tightening the EU internal market Directive on the possession of weapons, by for example reducing access to particularly dangerous weapons models for civilian use.

 

The Commission will also look at a common approach on how to mark firearms with serial numbers when they are manufactured in order to help tracing those used by criminals. Concrete solutions to procedures for the licensing of weapons will also be examined.

 

The Commission will also look at new technological challenges, such as the online sales of weapons or 3D printing of weapons or ammunition, but also how to reduce the risk of illegal delivery of firearms by postal services.

 

Common EU-wide rules on how to deactivate firearms might ensure that once firearms have been taken out of use they remain inoperable.

 

There is also a need to consider EU legislation with common minimum rules on criminal sanctions to be sure that deterrence works in all Member States and that there are no legal loopholes for the traffickers.

 

Such rules could prescribe which firearm offences should be subject to criminal sanctions and foresee the level of sanctions that should be imposed by MS.

 

Firearms are not trivial goods, and when they end up in the wrong hands they have devastating consequences for communities.

 

The priorities identified in today's communication will now be discussed with the European Parliament, EU Member States and other stakeholders, in view of defining concrete initiatives, including legislation, to prevent and reduce gun violence in Europe.

 

 

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. In oppressive countries, only police and criminals own guns. This means citizens cannot protect themselves from criminals and kleptocrats, who abuse them on a consistent basis. If dissident bloggers had guns, they could have blown the brains of brutal cybercops in thin air when they break in their homes and steal their computers and files.

The Greek phrase Molon labe, Come and get them, is a classical expression of defiance spoken by King Leonidas in response to Persian King Xerxes's demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae. Molon labe is now the official slogan of gun owners.

At Thermopylae, one million Persians lost twenty thousand men, yet they failed to disarm three hundred Spartans. Fifty million lawful Americans would resist even harder. That we promise. Come and get them! Molon Labe!  

 

The Libertarian Party (LP) asserts that gun ownership, by itself, harms no other person and cannot morally justify criminal penalties. Libertarians agree with the majority of Americans who believe they have the right to decide how best to protect themselves, their families and their property. Millions of Americans have guns in their homes and sleep more comfortably because of it. Studies show that where gun ownership is illegal, residential burglaries are higher. A man with a gun in his home is no threat to you if you aren't breaking into it.

 

Only an armed citizenry can be present in sufficient numbers to prevent or deter violent crime before it starts, or to reduce its spread. Interviews with convicted felons indicate that fear of the armed citizen significantly deters crime. A criminal is more likely to be driven off from a particular crime by an armed victim than to be convicted and imprisoned for it. Thus, widespread gun ownership will make neighborhoods safer.

 

Libertarians note that rather than banning guns, the politicians and the police should encourage gun ownership, as well as education and training programs. A responsible, well-armed and trained citizenry is the best protection against domestic crime and the threat of foreign invasion. America's founders knew that. It is still true today.

Government is the #1 mafia! On a clear day, xasteria, lesmiserables and taxstrucks will take their guns and shoot all kleptocrats they could find. Lesmiserables do not need misereres, but guns. Citizens have reached the limit of elasticity, and now is the time to revolt. Sedition is now a patriotic duty.

 

Ron Paul points out a determined individual or group of individuals can cause great harm no matter what laws are in place.  Many states already have restrictive gun laws, including restrictions on fully automatic assault rifles, and gun-free zones.

 

Predictably, leftists respond to gun tragedies with emotional calls for increased gun control.  This is understandable, but misguided. The impulse to have government do something to protect us in the wake national tragedies is reflexive and often well intentioned.  Many citizens believe that if we simply pass the right laws, future horrors can be prevented.  But this impulse ignores the self-evident truth that criminals don't obey laws.  

 

Conservatives, unfortunately, have fallen into the same trap in their calls for quick legislative solutions to gun violence.  If only we put armed police or armed teachers in schools, we’re told, would-be school shooters will be dissuaded or stopped.

 

While Ron Paul certainly agrees that more guns equals less crime and that private gun ownership prevents many shootings, he doesn’t agree that legislation is the solution to violence.  Real change can happen only when we commit ourselves to rebuilding civil society, meaning a society based on family, religion, civic and social institutions, and peaceful cooperation through markets.  We cannot reverse decades of moral and intellectual decline by snapping our fingers and passing laws.

 

The Second Amendment continues to be an important safeguard of Americans’ security. The Constitution’s Second Amendment provides that 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.

 

History is replete with instances in which monarchs succeeded in using select militias loyal to them to suppress political dissidents, in part by disarming their opponents, just as King George III tried to do with the colonists in areas he considered rebellious. This provoked a reaction by the colonists, who invoked their well-established rights as Englishmen to keep their firearms.

 

The right to keep and bear arms enables citizens to defend themselves against violent criminals. Even a model police force is not everywhere at all times, and response times for many police departments leave citizens vulnerable for long periods. The individual right of self-defense is the natural basis for the right to arms. Self-defense therefore, as it is justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the law of society.

 

It is clear that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to privately keep and bear their own firearms that are suitable as individual weapons for hunting, sport shooting, self-protection, and other lawful purposes.

 

Gun ownership is roughly three times as high in Switzerland as it is in Germany, yet the Swiss have had lower murder rates. Other countries with high rates of gun ownership and low murder rates include Israel, New Zealand, and Finland.

 

Gun bans create vulnerabilities by disarming law-abiding citizens. There have been numerous occasions where mass shooters have been stopped before they could continue their mayhem by ordinary citizens with lawfully possessed firearms.

 

The right to keep and bear arms is fundamental to a free society, which depends, ultimately, on personal responsibility. The debate over gun laws must be situated in a larger discussion about the character of our civic order. It should not be used to avoid addressing cultural questions that require much more widespread action on the part of civil society: that is, the personal responsibility of all Americans for their own and their neighbors’ good.

 

Let’s not forget that our own government policies often undermine civil society, cheapen life, and encourage immorality.  Ron Paul laments the president and other government officials denounce school violence, yet still advocate for endless undeclared wars.  American drone strikes kill thousands, but nobody in America holds vigils or devotes much news coverage to those victims, many of which are children, albeit, of a different color. Ron Paul points out the government has zero moral authority to legislate against violence.

 

Furthermore, do we really want to live in a world of police checkpoints, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, X-ray scanners, and warrantless physical searches?  We see this culture in our airports: witness the shabby spectacle of once proud, happy Americans shuffling through long lines while uniformed TSA agents bark orders.  This is the world of government provided pseudosecurity, a world far too many Americans now seem to accept or even endorse.  School shootings, no matter how horrific, do not justify creating an Orwellian surveillance state.

 

Do we really believe government can provide total security?  Do we want to involuntarily commit every disaffected, disturbed, or alienated person who fantasizes about violence?  Or can we accept that liberty is more important than the illusion of state-provided security? Ron Paul declares government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place.  Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives.  Ron Paul asserts we shouldn’t settle for substituting one type of violence for another. Government role is to protect liberty, not to pursue unobtainable safety.

 

Ron Paul notes our freedoms preceded gun control laws, the TSA, or the Department of Homeland Security.  Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference, not by safety. It is easy to clamor for government security when terrible things happen; but liberty is given true meaning when we support it without exception, and we will be safer for it.

Government is the #1 enemy of the people and the source of all major problems of humanity.  Anarchy is the best political system.  Basil Venitis, venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com, @Venitis