Shall Not Be Infringed

This is the text of my speech at the Patriots Rally For Freedom. 

I want to start by stealing a line from Ross Perot’s running mate, “Who are we, and why are we here?”  I don’t know all of you yet but my name is Jeff Rakestraw and I am from Missouri.  But I do have an idea who we are and why we are here.

We are individuals from across a wide spectrum of society whohave gathered together because we are concerned about our country and we want to discuss ways to get back on track.  We do not agree on everything, we are not in lockstep, and we are not mind numbed robots spouting a party line.

Having said that, I do think we probably share some common concerns, such as our $17 trillion in debt, the NSA spying on our cell phones and e-mails, a lack of respect for life, and a concentration of power in the federal government and executive branch.  We likely share a concern about Obamacare and cronyism and corruption.  And I think there is probably a shared concerned about the erosion of our second amendment rights.  That final point is what I want to speak about today.

We are here today to discuss these and other issues and ideas and to seek positive ways to return our government to the core values our country was founded on.

Before we talk about those core values, we need to revisit the ideas that form the basis of the American republic, and where they came from.  Jefferson famously wrote in the Declaration of Independence about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  He did not originate the phrase.  John Locke and others wrote about man’s natural, inalienable, God given right to life, liberty and property.  And George Mason had written the concept into the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which reads,

“That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.”

And so at the core of our government is the idea that each of us has an individual right to life, liberty, and property that isinherent, not granted by government.  We are sovereign beings.  We own ourselves, and we alone are responsible for ourselves.  Each of us not only has an inherent right to our life and family and property but we have the right to defend those from others who would seek to take them away.

Work is hard.  Work is unpleasant and throughout history some people have sought to avoid that unpleasantness by various means.  Some become thieves and steal from others rather than producing their own.  Some enslave or bully others and force them to work for their benefit.  And murder is as old as the world, as old as Cain and Abel.  While it is true that your rights are inherent and cannot be “given” to you, they can certainly be taken away by theft or murder or tyranny.

You have the right to your life, liberty, and property, but you do not have the right to the life, liberty, or property of another.  The first caveman to collect food in his cave for his family would have learned that if he did not defend what he had worked for it would be taken by others.  He would have figured out that he had not just the natural right but the obligation to protect himself and his family and his property, and to do so would require the use of force.

At some point it took too much of man’s precious time to defendhimself, and men decided to enter into agreements for collective defense.  Bastiat wrote, “If every man has a right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have a right to combine together to extend, to organize a common force to provide regularly for this defense.”

And this is the basis of government.  Again, Bastiat writes, “What, then, is law?  It is the collective organization of the individual right of lawful defense.”  But notice that the rights extended to the collective cannot exceed the rights of the individuals that extend them.  The collective cannot infringe on the life, liberty, or property of anyone, but can only defend against such offenses.

After the American Revolution the founders set up the Articles of Confederation, but as we know the arrangement did not work out well.  Madison, Hamilton, and Jay began advocating for a stronger federal government that could be more effective.  Not everyone was convinced of the wisdom of a stronger federal government, and so they had some convincing to do.  They produced a number of articles that we now know as the Federalist Papers.

We tend to think of “The Founders” as having a single set of ideas, and we often look to the federalist papers to determine their intent.  But there was significant disagreement about the idea of a strong federal government, with men like Patrick Henry and George Mason and Brutus and Farmer writing very convincing articles on the other side of the argument, pointing out the dangers of a strong federal government to individual liberty.  These articles have come to be known as the Anti Federalist Papers, and they are equally important in determining the ideas of those who founded our nation.

Hamilton seemed to have very little fear of a strong and large federal government and even advocated that the president should be elected for life.  The original constitution had no Bill of Rights, no recognition of the limitations on government and the inherent rights of free men.  Patrick Henry and others were having no part of the new Constitution and in fact it would never have been passed had the Federalists not compromised and agreed to pass the Bill of Rights immediately after ratification.

If one reads the back and forth between these groups of men and their lively but reasoned debate it becomes clear one of the things that was feared was the power of a standing army and its inherent threat to liberty.  And therein was the root of the second amendment.  The idea was that citizens should be armed to prevent their leaders from ever using a standing army to control them.  This is not always evident in the writings of Hamilton butthe Anti Federalist concerns were quite clear.

At the time there were no organized police forces like we have today, no national guard, and so states relied on citizen militias for common defense.  They wanted the citizens armed and trained in case they were ever needed to defend against tyranny or other threats.  And so they clarified the inherent right of self defense in the second amendment by adding a clause explaining why it was needed.

“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.”

It is pretty simple and straightforward, and for the first 100 years of its existence it was almost completely non-controversial.  There is nothing in the amendment or in its intent about hunting or clay pigeons or target practice.  It does not refer to muskets or swords.

Over time the size and scope of the federal government grew and certain people eventually began looking for ways to curb the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms.  The memory of British tyranny faded and people like Patrick Henry and George Mason were no longer around to explain and defend it.  The argument was made that the second amendment was outdated and referred to the National Guard or that they did not anticipate todaysweapons.  

The main argument put forth was that the right was collective, not individual.  Of course, as I have pointed out, the collective has no rights not transferred to them by individuals, and so the collective right cannot exceed the individual right.  But our government has been slowly perverted over time so that the collective (in the form of the federal government) has lost all concept of being derived from the rights of the governed.

Not everyone forgot.  Calvin Coolidge said, “Liberty is not collective, it is personal.  All rights are individual.”  And yet for a number of years gun rights were eroded under the assumption that the second amendment was collective until 2008, when in the Heller decision the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision finally held that citizens has an individual right to keep and bear arms.  One would think that would have settled the question.

The natural right to defend yourself does not depend on statistics or public opinions or even Supreme Court decisions, but it should be noted that states and local governments have nevertheless passed very restrictive gun control regulations, effectively banning guns in certain places like Detroit and Chicago.  I do not need to point out to you that this has not made these places safer, or reduced gun crime.  Detroit has gone bankrupt and crime in Chicago has reached epic proportions.  Criminals do not follow laws and so the evidence is clear that banning guns does not stop criminals from possessing or using them.

I saw a program this week on Chicago and inner city crime and it was very sad to watch.  Kids are growing up with the constant fear of being shot, and the young man in the documentary has lost several friends to gun violence each year.  Detroit’s police chief has recently seen the light and is encouraging Detroit’s law abiding citizens to use their second amendment rights to protect themselves, since the police are clearly unable to do so.

I have traveled all over the great state of Texas and have also spent time across the border in Mexico.  As you know Mexico is a gun-free zone, and when you cross the border there are prominent signs letting you know guns are not welcome there.  And yet, I have often looked from El Paso into Juarez and been very happy to be on the Texas side, where guns are legal and I was safe from the terrible gun violence in Mexico.  I have crossed back over from Reynosa to McAllen and breathed a sigh of relief.

We are assembled here to discuss how best to change things in the country we love.  I believe that change needs to start with educating the American people, and changing their hearts and minds.  To do so, in my opinion, requires that we try to understand their perspective, and their concerns, in order for us to address their point of view and get them to see ours.

I have never lived in inner city Chicago and it is difficult for me to understand what motivates people in that circumstance.  Guns are illegal and yet they represent power and status and they enable the same murder and theft and thuggery that have existed since the dawn of time.  I know graduation rates are dismal and poverty is rampant and jobs are scarce.  We need to change the culture in places like this, and give young people hope of a better life.  Banning guns is not the answer.

Some of you may have grown up in a rural area where guns are also common but for a vastly different reason.  It is likely you were taught proper safety and respect for guns and their use, and how to properly handle and store them.  Guns are used for hunting and not for killing people.

And then lets consider the suburban soccer Mom.  Many suburban folks have never been exposed to guns, and they fear them.  They have never been hunting and their opinion of guns comes from news reports of school shooters or inner city violence.  The spin doctors have told them that the problem issomehow the rural hunter and they do not know any difference.

Finally, there is the perspective of a young father in Cairo or Kiev or Venezuela or Syria or Juarez.  Guns are not toys there,they are a means of survival or of independence.  The folks in the Ukraine or Egypt have walked a fine line between outright war and peaceful protest.  There has been protest and bloodshed.  Without guns tyrants will simply crack down until the protests end.  Guns still matter.

I am so proud of the Egyptian people.  Twice they have had to take to the streets to win their freedom from tyranny.  The Muslim Brotherhood promised freedom but once in power began to immediately curtain personal liberties.  It took courage and bloodshed for them to take to the streets and insist that they have a new government of the people.  Likewise in Ukraine the people were successful in replacing an authoritarian ruler only to now be threatened by Vladimir Putin.

The president has made fun of our use of the word tyranny, as though it is some antiquated word from the 18th century.  Make no mistake tyranny is alive and well in our world.  And yet it seems people all over the world are risking their very lives for the individual liberty that is their birthright, while we seem to be casually discarding it bit by bit.

While we are told that we do not “need” an AR-15 or an AK-47, our government appears to need lots of them.  The IRS has been training with AR-15’s.  The department of Homeland Security has ordered billions of rounds of ammunition.  Local police departments are acquiring armored vehicles and advanced weapons of war.  We now regularly see vehicles with Federal Police on the side.  

The answer to how much do you need to protect yourself depends upon the threat you face.  A thief or rapist presents one threat, and an armed SWAT team presents quite another.  Your right to use force to defend your right to life, liberty, and property is proportional to the threat.  An AR-15 may be the very minimum you need given the buildup of arms by agencies that do not travel overseas to face foreign armies.

The founders were very clear that the time will come when the people will need to protect themselves from their government.  Let’s hope that an armed citizenry is enough to deter government from outright tyranny.

One thing I hear from people a lot that continues to concern me is the idea that our second amendment rights will protect all of our other rights.  We like to think that as long as we still have our guns we can defend our other rights.  I think we need to rethink this notion.  While defending our second amendment rights is necessary, it is not sufficient.

While we sit with our firearms in our warm, living fingers, your government is busy monitoring your cell phones and e-mails and trashing the 4th amendment.  They have decided that you are required to buy health insurance.  The government is also attacking the first and tenth amendments, and using the IRS to target political enemies.  Our rights are under attack, while we have the false sense of security that our guns give us.

Make no mistake, despite the Heller decision your second amendment rights are also under attack.  Most notable is the conflict taking place in Connecticut, where certain weapons have been banned and letters have been sent to guns owners giving them one last chance to turn them in or face confiscation.  I really do fear that may not end well.  Only 9% of gun owners in Connecticut complied with the law.

I sometimes ask people, what comes after “shall not be infringed”?  The answer: Period.

I do not know what motivated Charles Manson or Adam Lanzaor the Boston Bombers to commit mass murder.  But I do know that depriving innocent law abiding gun owners of their inherent right to self defense does not punish the criminals and will not be effective in keeping deranged lunatics from killing people.

Our founders, like today’s Egyptians and Ukrainians decided that they were not going to stand by and see their liberties eroded.  They were of course not of one mind any more than the Egyptians are.  The loyalists and Tories did not support the Revolution any more than the Muslim Brotherhood did in Egypt.  Washington and others ended up having to fire bullets and killing people that had once been their neighbors.

This is serious business.  I am not suggesting we need to take up arms against our government and fellow countrymen.  I realize many do not agree with me.  But I fear that situations like that in Connecticut may force the issue and make us decide.  And all of the good intentions in the world will not allow you to defend your rights if you do not have the means.

We came here today to discuss the issues we confront, and to seek positive solutions to the problems.  Although we may at some point need to take up arms to defend our rights let us hope that is a last resort.  Let me suggest some alternatives.

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We need to be responsible gun owners.  Use them and store them properly and only for sport or lawful defense.

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Teach your children about firearms.  Teach them gun safety and proper handling and take them hunting or to a firing range.  Teach them to be responsible and to respect firearms but not fear them.

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Take the time to understand the perspectives of others, so that by understanding their point of view you can better address their concerns.

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As much as possible we need to educate people on the nature of rights and government and liberty.  Most people are unaware of the ideas of Locke and Bastiat and Hayek and Jefferson.  We need to study the debates between the Federalists and Non-Federalists.

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Please!  Engage people with respect and patience.  We will not win the hearts and minds of others by calling them names or repeating slogans.  Be respectful and make them think.

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VOTE.  2014 is an election year, and our best hope of restoring our core principles is to elect good people to office who understand the need to reduce the size and scope of government.  Get to know the candidates and what they believe.  Support the good ones regardless of what you are told by parties or pundits.

The great men of the past were just men.  Our founders left us with a great legacy but they are not here to defend it.  Too often when concerns are voiced I hear people say “they would never let that happen.”  Who are “they”?  I suggest that there is no “they”, there is only “we”.  We must be the ones to make the tough decisions.  We must defend liberty.

Centuries from now we will be the forefathers our descendents will read about.  History is being written now, and what we do or do not do will be part of that history your great grandchildren will teach their kids. We must have the integrity and courage to do what is right, to protect our individual liberties for future generations.  Our rights can never be given to us, they can only be taken away.  And if we do not defend them we will lose them.  Those who came before us shed their precious blood to ensure not just their freedom but ours as well.  This is our time.  It is our turn to face history.  And it starts here and now, with me and with you.  Let’s do the right thing.

Thank You and God Bless….