With the Democratic presidential candidates stumping across
rural Pennsylvania, an absurd political theater is being dutifully performed to
an audience of presumed hicks. No doubt, these voters are insulted by the
national media’s implication that small-town residents aren’t smart enough to
grasp issues beyond Sen. Barack Obama turning down coffee, his terrible bowling
or the number of times Hillary Clinton has been duck hunting.
Still, the show must go on. Ms. Clinton is set to make a
major address on gun policy, and controversy is brewing over Mr. Obama’s brazen
but true remarks about “bitter” voters clinging to single-issue
voting, such as gun laws. It seems overdue, but gun control has once again become
an election year issue for the Democratic Party.
The political battlefields of the mid-1990s are littered
with the careers of Democrats who advocated gun control and took on the
National Rifle Association. The Democratic leadership’s ceasefire with the gun
lobby transparently comes from necessity. Doing battle with the NRA and
affiliated groups had become equivalent to political suicide for candidates
with national ambitions.
This history of acrimony has obscured a not-so-obvious
truth: Liberals should be strident defenders of the right to bear arms. The
long-term threat the government we empower poses to our individual liberties is
too great to ignore. The final safeguard against tyranny — our collective
right to revolution — cannot be considered intact among an unarmed population.
This justification may seem implausible or even paranoid,
but we can’t be so egotistical about our place in history to believe we won’t
one day plunge into a war of government versus its people. Much like iron and
bronze evened the playing field between servant and master many centuries ago,
firearms are the tools to wrench one’s fate from the government’s clutches.
The obvious duplicity of many Democrats when it comes to
support for Second Amendment rights has certainly hurt the Democratic Party in
the past. (One need only search the Internet for John Kerry hunting photos for
evidence.) When a state or national Democratic candidate speaks to liberal
supporters about gun rights, it’s almost always as an acknowledgment they’ve
got to put principle aside and need tacit approval of this political tactic
from a pragmatic audience.
None of the Democratic candidates truly argued the case for
gun rights in debates or forums. Instead, both cited their past support for the
Second Amendment as a r?sum? item indicative of broad electability. It’s hard
to conclude the current gun-friendly policy positions of the remaining
candidates are genuine because neither has made a concerted effort to explain
their reasoning to supporters.
Promoting gun rights just isn’t a smart-money bet in
Democratic primaries. But showing voters who are passionate about guns that
liberal support is more than general election pandering would pay untold
dividends for the Democratic Party. The best way for a politician to prove he
believes in a cause is to be booed for that cause.
Anti-gun advocates are correct to say many nations with far
lower crime rates have more restrictive gun laws. But the United States has a
different organizational mission — to be principled stalwarts for liberty. If
we abandon the founding intent of our nation, America will lose its ideological
soul and become vulnerable to totalitarians who monopolize power to capitalize
on some popular fear. The ultimate power in our nation lies with citizens. And
if our ballot boxes are corrupted and our democratic institutions defunct, we
have a moral obligation to free ourselves with the sword.
Of course, our collective conscience demands an answer for
the lives senselessly lost to gun violence. It’s easy to construct a law
restricting gun ownership, but we can’t delude ourselves into thinking this
will end our obsession with violence.
The states’ rights advocates of the past had a sound
philosophical point, but they’ve been rife with racist motivations. They were
correct to assert the preeminence of states in most matters, but issues of
equality and our common humanity can only be resolved through a national
dialogue. One state cannot be allowed to undermine our collective soul.
Most conservatives claim liberals encourage tyranny through
government by forcing the promulgation of bureaucracy and
government-administered aid. Rather, we are safeguarding our common humanity.
The guns safeguard our common liberty.
Bassey Etim ([email protected]) is a senior
majoring in political science and journalism.
