![James Leuenberger](images/JLuenberger-SML.jpg)
By James Leuenberger,
Attorney
Oregonian columnist Steve Duin took aim at liberty on December 17, 2012.
He fired. He missed the truth.
First he demanded the Gov. John
Kitzhaber convene a special legislative session dealing with “semi-automatic weapons.” What is Mr. Duin’s
problem with semi-automatic weapons? A semi-automatic firearm fires one bullet
with each pull on the trigger. A semi-automatic firearm is not an automatic
weapon (a.k.a. “machine gun”). Federal laws have made automatic
weapons rare and expensive for people who are not employed by a government.
Second he pointed to a $11,000 Barrett 50 caliber as being, somehow, bad.
What Mr. Duin and the other liberty haters do is ascribe moral qualities
to inanimate objects. No firearm, no matter how large, no matter how accurate,
no matter how many bullets can be fired through it in a given time, has any
goodness or badness whatsoever. To ascribe badness or evil to a gun is as
nonsensical as to ascribe badness or evil to a hammer or an automobile.
Because his column contained a hyperlink to a picture of a Barrett 50 caliber,
Mr. Duin knows that a Barrett 50 caliber is merely a rifle that fires one
half-inch diameter bullet with each pull of the trigger. So what? So nothing.
Is Mr. Duin envious because he
can’t afford to spend $11,000 for a
rifle? Only a short time ago liberty haters called for laws prohibiting the
sales of “Saturday Night Specials.” What is the one “bad” characteristic
of “Saturday Night Specials?” The liberty haters claimed “Saturday
Night Specials” are bad because they are cheap (inexpensive).
Third he ridiculed a firearms salesman for saying the right to keep and
bear arms is necessary to protect us from tyrants rather than from criminals.
Please Mr. Duin, read the history of our country and our state. The Englishmen
who deposed their tyrannical kings and their descendants who revolted against
King George and Parliament and declared independence from England in 1776
spoke of tyranny and the dangers posed by a standing army.
The well-regulated militia of
the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was at least until
passage of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and
Fifteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution all white, male adults
capable of wielding weapons. With the recognition that former slaves had
rights – including the right to keep and bear arms – and the
destruction of the Indian Tribes as effective armed forces – membership
in the militia was extended to all men capable of wielding weapons.
The founding fathers of the United
States and Oregon recognized and understood power in the hands of the people
cannot be used to take from those people
their property, their freedom, or their lives. Although Mao was a mass murdering
monster, he knew and proclaimed one important truth. “Political power
grows out the barrel of a gun.”
Duin ridicules the idea that our governments can threaten our freedoms.
The fact that government employed tyrants have rarely stolen our freedoms
is not because they are good people. Its because they know that when they
come to take our firearms from us we will be shooting back at them.
Tyrants are often frightened people. Few people, tyrants or otherwise, enjoy
being fired upon. It is their rational fear that they may lose their lives
when taking our freedom, our property, and our lives that keeps tyrants in
check. It is not their benevolence.
Oregon’s most recent,
notorious example of tyranny occurred at the Clackamas Town Center. A
tyrant
who had just stolen the lives of
two people revealed his cowardice when he was confronted by a hero. A hero
armed with a firearm. A hero who witnessed tyranny and reacted in the correct,
true, and proper fashion. That hero aimed his firearm at the murdering tyrant.
The tyrant then displayed his weak, spineless character by turning his own
firearm on himself and ending his own, worthless life.
The hero at Clackamas Town Center was an ordinary man. A person who could
and did defend himself and others because he had the tool necessary to defend
himself and others. The hero had and used his firearm.
After the hero had done his duty to himself and his community, law enforcement
officers arrived to write their reports and collect their evidence.
What Mr. Duin and the liberty
haters fail to understand is, law enforcement officers can’t be everywhere where heroism is needed immediately. The
murdering tyrant’s butcher's bill would have been much higher had the
hero been unable to act immediately and effectively.
We don’t have too many firearms.
We have too many laws infringing our right (and our duty) to defend ourselves,
our families, and our communities.