Progressively over the years, Texans have seen more and more of their fundamental rights infringed upon by the Federal government in the name of providing security. Yet, the only outcome has been no improvements to security and plenty more restrictions on freedom. Today, we find ourselves potential victims of yet another of these ploys – our very right to keep and bear arms is under threat!
The founding fathers ingrained this right in the very constitution of the country as a means to prevent government tyranny. With its citizens armed, a country’s government can never have a monopoly on violence and thus is forced to rely on the approval of the governed to govern. Without this right, there are little means of security against tyranny. History is definite proof of it, with the United States being the only country in the world that has never had a dictatorship in its history. Formal rules of a democratic competition may work in good times, but in periods of crisis, it is only the prospect of an uprising by a well-armed citizenry that prevents would-be tyrants from pursuing their dictatorial ambitions.
Yet, today this right that for long served as a bulwark against tyranny is in danger. A narrative is being perpetuated that guns are to blame for the high rate of violent crimes within the United States. Thus, stricter regulation of arms has to be implemented to make us all safer.
Manufacturing consent has always been the modus operandi of the Federal government to make us ‘willingly’ accept their actions. By doing so, no one can criticize what the authorities did against the will of the people. Consent was manufactured to raise our taxes, to lead us to costly wars in far off third-world countries, to spy on us, to deny our right to peaceful assemblies, and as of this moment, take away our arms. So far, the current process of manufacturing consent has been effective. Recent polls suggested that the overwhelming majority of Americans do support stricter restrictions on firearms
Yet, will banning more firearms and restricting who can and who cannot purchase and keep guns really help with reducing violent crimes, specifically homicide rates? While it is true that the United States has a higher rate of violent crimes among developed countries, can we really just blame it on guns, or is it bad governance? Take a look at the following graph of countries’ civilian gun ownership per capita and homicide rates.
What does the above graph reveal? There is NO correlation between the number of guns and number rates. You can increase the sample size and still find the same result. Many countries with far higher rates of homicide rates have far stricter gun laws than the US. Simply banning or restricting firearms won’t reduce violent crimes as criminals will always find ways to obtain them illegally. In contrast, law-abiding citizens will have even fewer means to defend themselves and their loved ones.
High crime rates result from a failing government that cannot or is unwilling to fulfill the primary duties of protecting the rights and liberties of its citizens. We can completely ban firearms, and it will not lower our violent crime rates because it was never the real cause behind it. California today has one of the strictest gun laws in the country and one of the lowest rates of gun ownership, yet their violent crime rates are similar, if not worse, then the ones here in Texas.
As with any other erosion of our liberties, the real reason has always been to control. Today’s Texans can be detained indefinitely without access to a lawyer. We can have our property seized on the most ambiguous of reasons. We are under continuous surveillance and face many restrictions on freedom of movement. All of this has been realized as a result of us repetitively having believed that such measures were meant to aid in our security.
Our votes seldom have any effect on the formulation of these policies. We are stuck between a choice of two parties, both intent on curbing our liberties. Regardless of which party is in power, save for a few token differences in policies, the overall path towards which the Federal government has led America has been the same. If we simply stay within the Union, we are destined to become victims of an increasingly tyrannical government.
In 1836, Texans chose to act and declared their independence against Mexico rather than have their liberties denied further. Rather than passive acceptance of an increasingly oppressive regime in Washington, it is time for us to put our vote where it can actually count – in a referendum for our independence and the only guaranteed way of safeguarding our inalienable rights and freedom.
