February 13, 2013

Guns and Choices

I was in surgery when the first Columbine victims arrived in our emergency room. As I was working to improve one child’s life, my friends were downstairs trying to save others – one cracking a chest and another tending a girl whose breast had been partially blown off by a shotgun. Trust me; I get it. … Trashing our individual constitutional rights is not the answer to mass shootings.

I was in surgery when the first Columbine victims arrived in our emergency room. As I was working to improve one child’s life, my friends were downstairs trying to save others – one cracking a chest and another tending a girl whose breast had been partially blown off by a shotgun. Trust me; I get it.

Set aside that our media have made us numb to violence and our children more aggressive. Set aside that the data overwhelmingly show gun control laws are unhelpful and often counterproductive. Set aside that we have systemically destroyed inpatient psychiatric care in the name of civil rights and saving money. Trashing our individual constitutional rights is not the answer to mass shootings.

The First Amendment was not written for video games like Call of Duty, the Second Amendment was not written for squirrel hunting, and the Fifth Amendment was not written to coddle violent schizophrenics. These rights were written to prevent tyranny. They were written to say to the state: “I am going to say what I want, and you can’t shut me up or lock me up!”

Some of us do still “bitterly cling” to our first two Amendments, and for good reason. Throughout history, various forms of state power have slaughtered millions of men and women who could neither speak freely nor defend themselves. The worst examples occurred in the last century.

Conduct is determined largely by two things – law and conscience. Law is force on conduct. Laws tell us what we cannot do, like kill other people. The freedom to choose right and wrong is constrained by laws. The state makes the decision for you; you do not have to wrestle with a choice or your conscience.

To learn to do the right thing, people must have choices, face temptations, act, and make mistakes. In short, they must be free. We constantly struggle to decide how much of our freedom we are willing to sacrifice to the force of law to be secure. The Constitution is a framework that sets limits on law. We once tried amending it to constrain our choices, but we later decided that a man should be free to destroy himself and those around him with alcohol.

Most human conduct is determined not by law but by conscience. We want our consciences to tell us to try to do the right thing. Evil may be the silence of conscience. Sometimes we do the wrong thing, and the process by which we learn to do the right thing, that is to mature, is the subject of morality.

Right and wrong choices do exist. In this country, good choices are being increasingly undermined by laws and a look-at-me narcissism that runs from Facebook through Reality TV to its worst manifestation, mass shootings. How then do we learn individually and collectively to do the right thing?

We must try to keep the conduct of our basic rights within the sphere of conscience, not law. Passing more laws to restrict our freedom of choices will only weaken our consciences and our chances of living moral lives. By chipping away at our rights and choices, law by law, Big Gulp by AR-15, the state is denying us the opportunity to make mistakes and to learn how to do the right thing, to become moral creatures. A society so denied becomes one obsessed not with doing the right thing, but with figuring out how to break the law.

The inevitable result of violent misconduct is howling for the state to immediately pass more laws that restrain individual freedom to act, the diffusion of power away from the individual and to the state, and the increased risk that the state will become tyrannical and precipitate violence. When we ask our elected representatives to restrict our rights and our freedom of conduct, we are asking them to diminish our chances of becoming good and happy citizens.

There once was a king who had only two laws – “Do as you please, and harm no one.” This is the simplest expression of liberty and of good governance. It is also the only regime under which citizens can fully learn the difference between right and wrong.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.