Dakota Beacon

President Obama went ahead and decreed that he and his family should enjoy lifelong Secret Service protection.  No one really argued with him.  It was undoubtedly one of his more prudent ideas.  But it does serve to point out that we definitely have developed the unhealthy condition of two classes in America – the special, privileged, entitled and the rest of us.  Diane Feinstein and her ilk, people like Chuck Schumer, want to see guns taken out of the hands of the rabble (that’s us) and yet they would not feel safe and secure without their Secret Service and their private body guards.  I don’t know who all has Secret Service protection, but it doesn’t matter.  The rich – by whom I mean the elite in our government and select celebrities – will have their paid body guards. 

The recent NRA ad addressed this issue.  It is not so much that anyone wants to deny protection to the children of Obama, but it is all about the idea that you and your children are just as important.  And they are.  We do not have a monarchy in America.  Our president is but a citizen temporarily elevated to a position of leadership of equals.  In other words, the child of today’s private citizen is as important as Obama is or as his family is.  After all, that child is equal under the law.  The wealthy, the celebrity and government “class” will not be concerned about their own protection but they disdain all of the rest of us.

So they call for bans on guns.  And, just like with Obamacare, they don’t plan to bone up on what they are talking about.  Ban this.  Ban that.  What difference does it make that we don’t know what we’re talking about?  “Military-style semi-automatic assault weapon” sounds SOOO BAAAD!  Just what does it mean?  A gun that can be shot without reloading.  How would you deal with a typical home invasion (like the ones they enjoy in Great Britain, where guns are banned) when you find a team breaking in?  Shoot at one, and then ask for a pause while you reload? Or do you want a second shot?  That’s what semi-automatic will give you.

A number of years ago, the great patriot Rosie O’Donnell, opined that there should be no guns in the hands of the American citizens.  Then it slipped out that her daughter had an armed body guard.  Oops!  Oh, well, any fool can understand the importance of O’Donnell’s daughter having special protection.  After all, Rosie and her daughter are important.  They are stars and celebrities.  Ordinary people don’t have to worry about fame.  Trouble is, it is the ordinary person – the one without the fame – who is most often victimized and in need of defense.  How many big entertainers have been murdered since John Lennon?  A few, perhaps.  How many “ordinary people” who don’t need to be defended have been killed?  There is no way to count them. 

The arrogance which has grown around our political leaders and our entertainment personalities is really showcased when we read their opinions on our right to guns.  They obviously don’t believe in this for themselves.  They think they would feel safer if we were less so, apparently.  Ironically, this, of course, would not be true.

Over the holidays my daughter and I were visiting my uncle.  She had just acquired a small handgun in the wake of the Sandy Hook killing.  Because politics and current events are always under discussion, guns came up.  My daughter showed her gun to my uncle.  He said, “That’s just like Rachel’s.  One time she said to me, ‘All I want is a chance.’”   “All I want is a chance.”  Is that so much to ask?  Should we even ask? 

The class division is becoming more and more pronounced.  As time goes by you might take note of those calling for our disarmament.  Are they disarmed?  Are they defenseless?  Or do they have enough money and power to arrange for their own armed guards?  Are their guards, in fact, armed?  What do you think?  James O’Keefe did an interesting experiment.  He assembled a group of young people who introduced themselves as “anti-violence” activists, purportedly going door-to-door to offer to post signs proclaiming the subject home “proudly gun-free”.  They approached the homes of Journal News staff – the people who so proudly published the names and addresses of gun owners in their area.  These people are on record as in favor of “gun-free” zones (defense-free, that is).  None of these people agreed to accept and post such a sign.  They even gave their reasons – it might give the impression that it would be a good area for criminals.  What they thought was good enough for you or me or the public schools was not good enough for them.  They admitted to recognizing the deterrent of not knowing who had a gun and who didn’t.  They acted to their own benefit on that understanding, and yet these craven, self-centered, self-appointed keepers of the social code point-blank refused to live by it themselves.  They can afford to be smug.  Many of them had armed security guards running interference with O’Keefe’s “activists”.

We don’t have a class system in America.  That is the way our country was designed.  We don’t have a class of Brahmins and another class of Untouchables.  What is good for Barbara Boxer or Diane Feinstein or Charles Schumer or Barack Obama is good for you and me.  If our important political people and our celebrities have protection, we have that right as well.  We might have to do it for ourselves, but we have that right.  Don’t let anyone try to tell you that you are not as important as Barack Obama or Joe Biden or Barbara Boxer or Charles Schumer or New York Mayor Blumberg.  Just don’t listen. 

Writing about the possibility of bad faith on the part of our legislaors, as “Publius” in Federalist 57, James Madison, the Father of our Constitution, said:

“I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and, above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America—a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it.

If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty.”

Go back and read the Constitution.  Again and again you will see evidence that we do not have special classes in America.  If Boxer and O’Donnell and Obama and his family and Schumer and all these other important people have a right to armed protection, so do you.  So do I.