By Karen MacNutt,
Contributing Editor

"Your article is due," Peggy said. My mind drew a blank.

"What would you like me to write about," I said probing hopefully. Some times articles write themselves but at other times finding a topic is an excruciating task. Peggy was silent for a while.

"Ahhh. . . why don't you write about when we win!"

An interesting thought. What would the world be like if certain groups of people stopped pushing for more restrictions on guns? There would be a lot more time to enjoy gun related hobbies such as target shooting, hunting and collecting. Money that goes to fight absurd laws could be used to expand safety programs and range improvements. More resources could go to conservation and wilderness preservation. Rather than glaring at activists on the other side of the issue, we might find some areas of common ground. We could work on programs known to save lives such as safety programs or expanding first responder training. We could work on neighborhood watch groups, civil rights issues, or having government better serve its citizens. An end to constant attacks on lawful gunowners would be nice.

To win the gun law battle, however, not only does the scapegoating of lawful gunowners have to stop, but unreasonable gun laws need to be repealed. Some people seem think that would cause the world to come to a violent end.

Philosophers often speculate about what a society without laws would be like. Karl Marx, the founder of Communism, theorized that if you did away with the right to own property, government would fade away leaving a workers' paradise. Marx saw history as a class struggle between the "haves" and "have nots." Of course Communism did not work. Communist governments did not fade away. They became all powerful and totally destructive of human freedom and economic prosperity.

The international disarmament lobby believes that if you take away all the guns, the world will be a peaceful place. That did not work after World War I when the responsible nations disarmed. Nations ruled by very evil people saw disarmament as weakness and invaded their neighbors. That aggression caused World War II. Disarmament does not work. It empowers evil people who are only interested in how much they can get away with.

The philosopher Thomas Hobbes believed that without governments people would live in a constant state of war. Not a war of nations, but the war of each person against every other person. History supports Hobbes. When all government authority is withdrawn, anarchy arises. Looting, murder, and all kids of atrocities take place. Anarchy is not a good thing.

In totalitarian societies deep class separations develop. A few people enjoy the benefits of life but the majority live in hopelessness. The privileged create theories to justify their position and use the law to deny other people the same advantages. Societies in which class structure is enforced by the law are not a good thing either.

Prior to the age of enlightenment in the 17th century, most Europeans believed that kings and nobility ruled as a matter of right. The nobility was above the law. The function of the law was to keep the common people down. Common people were not thought to have the capacity to make decisions for themselves.

The American Revolution was based upon the belief that each person was entitled to the fruits of his or her own labor and that the common man was capable of governing himself. The genius of the American system is its elaborate power sharing arrangement in which the common man, through the ballot, has the ultimate control of the government.

History shows that too much government destroys individual freedom and economic prosperity. No government, anarchy, also destroys individual freedom. A government with limited power and just laws that recognize and protect individual liberty works best.

What is the purpose of a rational system of gun laws in a free society? It is to allow responsible citizens the ability to enjoy the blessings of living in a free society, to defend their property and their lives, to protect civil rights, to assist in the common defense, and to seek happiness after their own fashion. This is bounded only by the caveat that no one has the right to endanger others without just cause, nor to intentionally place members of the public in fear, nor to interfere with the civil rights of others who also have the right to seek their own peace, safety and happiness. Laws that do not further this purpose should be repealed.

It should be presumed that all citizens over the age of majority are capable of possessing firearms unless the government states and proves valid grounds to prove otherwise. If there has been no criminal conviction justifying a loss of rights, a judicial body, after a fair and open hearing, should make a determination that a person is either a danger to himself or others before the right to own a firearm can be taken away. If there is an immediate public safety concern, however, it is reasonable to provide for an emergency suspension of an individual's right to have a gun until there can be a hearing. Such a system is a reasonable balance between public safety and private rights. Some states have such a system, others do not.

A majority of states in the United States issue non-discretionary licenses to citizens who wish to carry concealed handguns. That is, anyone who meets the statutory standard can carry a gun without having to justify need for a license. Dire predictions were made by anti-gun proponents that such "concealed carry" permits would cause an upswing in violence. That did not occur. Many states saw a reduction in crime.

Although some would contest any licensing, this form of licensing for people who wish to carry a gun concealed on a public street is a reasonable compromise between rights and public safety. The problem is that the anti-gun lobby has used increasingly restrictive licensing in some states as a way of prohibiting most citizens from having guns. That is not a valid use of licensing. Because of the misuse of licensing and showing of bad faith by the anti-gun lobby in their support of grossly unfair licensing systems, many gunowners are justifiably hostile towards licensing.

A minority of states, such as Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey, have discretionary licensing systems. Under those laws even if you are qualified to have a license, you must convince the police that you are a "suitable" person to be licensed and/or that you have a "proper" purpose for wanting the license. If you suggest making licenses in these states non-discretionary, you are branded as a radical.

Gun control in the so called "liberal" eastern states has always been about keeping certain classes of people down. Undefined terms in their licensing statutes such as "suitable," "proper," and "good character" were, and are, discriminatory code words. Laws that allow the assignment or denial of important rights based on undefined standards are a mask for corruption, extortion, cronyism and discrimination. It is no coincidence that our earliest gun laws arose in states with heavy immigrant populations. It is no coincidence that the drive for gun control followed the waves of immigration and union activity that peaked in the first half of the twentieth century and then again in the mid-1960s during the growth of the black civil rights movement. Those that had power feared those who wanted power.

Government decisions should always be subject to public scrutiny. There is no place in America for laws that lack definable standards. Discretionary licensing laws should all be replaced with laws that have fixed, impartial, and easily definable standards so that all citizens are treated equally. This is a reasonable request by gunowners.

Gun laws should be more like the laws governing cars. You do not need a license to have a car in your driveway or to buy a car. You only need a license to drive a car on a public street. The few states that require you be licensed to possess a gun in your home should repeal those laws. In a free society people should be presumed competent until a court finds them otherwise.

Once you get your driver's license, you can go anywhere in the U.S. with your car. Why is your gun license only good in the state that issues it? It is not a public safety issue if your home state says you are okay. Law enforcement officers should not be the only people who can carry a gun interstate. Many Americans like to travel. Many of our highway rest areas are both remote and unsafe.

Good people should be able to protect themselves after all, when our immigrant ancestors crossed the continent they were able to carry guns to protect themselves from rustlers and thieves. Reasonable laws would allow Americans who are licensed to carry a gun to travel freely with their gun throughout the United States.

That brings up another unreasonable law. Some state restrict the purposes for which you can carry a gun. For example, in Massachusetts, a license can be restricted to target shooting. That is silly. If I am a responsible person, what difference does it make why I want to carry gun? If I have evil in my heart, I am not going to be inhibited by any limiting words on my license. For the same reason laws that require me to carry a gun in a particular manner seem to lack rational basis.

In some states you have to carry the gun openly; in others you have to carry it out of sight. No one has ever shown it makes a bit of difference. Such laws go back to a time when honest people wore their guns for all to see. To hide the gun implied some sneaky-or worse-intent. In our increasingly urban society, many people would rather carry concealed so as not to upset those who might not like guns.

The so-called safe storage laws should also go. Pushed in many states by the image of a small child getting ahold of a gun and causing a fatal accident, these laws have been used to make it difficult to keep a gun for self defense. That is, you are required to keep the gun locked up if you are not carrying it. The statistics used to obtain these laws included as "children" young adults in their late teens and early twenties. By including that age group, large numbers of guns used in drug and gang violence were included in the figures. The number of children of tender years hurt by accidental gun discharge is very small. Many of these laws were proposed in bad faith. Many of the "safe storage" laws either as proposed or passed were not restricted to homes with children.

The proponents of the laws were often adamantly against instituting safety programs in the schools. I live in a big city. There are no children in my household. I do not care to wear a gun while I walk around the house in my slippers. I have never had any luck with key pads, combinations or other locks. In a crunch, I fumble. If someone tries to smash in my door while I am home, I want to be able to greet them properly. The "safe storage" laws should go because they endanger the lives of homeowners in the instance of a home invasion. There are probably more home invasions than there are small children who get hurt with guns.

Laws that limit the number or types of guns people can own should be repealed. No one limits the numbers of cars you can own. No one requires you drive a Ford rather than a GM. Although someone could come up with the color and model of the car most often used in crime, no one would seriously suggest banning that particular model or color of car would have any effect on crime. It should make no difference what type of gun you want to own.

A good citizen is not going to be led to a life of crime because he or she owns a particular type of gun. Such beliefs shadow ancient pagan beliefs that inanimate objects have mystical powers. Such arguments appeal to naive superstition. A gun is a mechanical device. Its capacity to do good or evil rests entirely with the human being who controls it. Mankind possesses free will and, except for those with serious dementia or mental illness, knows the difference between right and wrong. Rational laws hold that each man or woman is responsible for his or her own acts.

I guess I could go on to point out all the changes that need to be made to have "reasonable" gun laws. Those who dislike guns also want "reasonable laws." They however, define "reasonable" much differently than I.

The battle is not really about guns. Long before guns existed, there were arguments over who should be able to have weapons. Weapons at that time were things such as swords, knives, and body armor. On one side were those who wished to confine the owning of weapons to the government and the elite. On the other side were those who thought that all citizens should be armed.

Today there are growing numbers of laws restricting knives or anything else that could be used as a weapon or anything, such as a bullet resistant vest, that could be used by the common citizen to defend him- or herself. Governments cannot control crime by controlling objects. Indeed, government can only keep objects away from citizens who are basically honest. The black market will supply those who do not care about the law. By reducing the ability of honest people to defend themselves, governments empower criminals. The more criminals are empowered, the more power government thinks it needs to control the growing crime.

The gun control debate is about power and the perception of the common citizen. Government can not abolish guns, it can only take them away from basically honest people. The real dispute is about who can be best trusted not to abuse power, the government or the people.

"The chief foundations of all states...are good laws and good arms. [T]here cannot be good laws where there are not good arms and where there are good arms there must be good laws. . . ." Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513.