When I tell people why I won’t be voting for His Excellency in the next election, the most common response I hear is some variation of: We have to vote for him, or we’ll lose our gun rights! But this is wrong, for a few reasons.
First, the right to self-defense, which includes the right to keep and bear arms, is inalienable. That word means ‘unable to be taken away from or given away by the possessor’. You have that right no matter who is running the government, or what they’re trying to do. The most they can do is make it more difficult for you to exercise it.
Second, short of repealing the 2nd Amendment to the federal constitution and Article 2-a of the state constitution — neither of which is in play — anything enacted by one legislature can be repealed by a later one.
Third, enacting a bunch of gun control laws that will be widely and conspicuously ignored can actually work out better for us in the long run, undermining the ability of future legislatures to overstep constitutional bounds by encouraging people to question what other laws and regulations and judicial opinions they ought to be ignoring.
Fourth, as any parent understands, sometimes a little discipline in the short run — even if it’s unpleasant for everyone involved — can head off a lot of trouble later on. It’s called ‘building character’.
Frankly, building character is something that the GOP sorely needs, and has been putting off for too long:
And if it needs to lose some elections in the short run in order to get things back on track in the long run, then so be it.
