Single-Issue Voter

(Updated 12/18/23: Complete post below. I think SteemIt might be on its last leg.)
(Originally Posted 12/5/06)

TRIGGER WARNING: Gun Stuff. Pun and reality intended.

I am a gun and freedom enthusiast. I always have been. I first shot a gun, when I was six. I got my first subscription to a gun magazine, when I was twelve. I didn't own an actual firearm until I was 19.

I have been all over the map on politics. I voted Republican, Democrat, Perot (whatever the hell he was), split ticket, registered Libertarian recently, and pretty consistently voted Republican over the past 15 years.

But one thing that has grown inside me is an understanding that I am a single-issue voter. In the simplest analysis, I am a pro-gun voter. But if you talk to my Facebook friends, coworkers, analog friends, and neighbors, you would think that I was a libertarian Republican. That isn't the kernel of my truth - simplified or complexified.

In the end, I am an anarchocapitalist. My favorite U.S. document is the Declaration of Independence, despite its specificity. I love the flawed Bill of Rights. The guarantee of free speak and assembly is sacrosanct and needs no government modifications. But the gun is concrete, it is a tool and tactile.

Though I might pledge fealty to certain rights, a Constitution, or amendments, in the end I vote singularly for the gun.

Join the NRA

UPDATE: October 23, 2020

I finally bit the bullet and did it. I joined another gun-rights organization. I'm still a proud member of the NRA, bit the 2nd Amendment crowd needs to put its eggs in more than one basket.

Wayne LaPierre has overstayed his welcome. The State of New York has some legitimate claims against the NRA's top brass and definitely wants to neuter the organization. But the NRA is made up of million's of members and is a multi-faceted group that offers much value to its members and other fellow citizens.

But there are other organizations that are better at providing more targeted services for our natural right, and they are smaller and more nimble and are able to move quickly.

One such organization is the Second Amendment Foundation. As of last week, they are one stronger.

But again, the NRA is still vastly important. They provide tons of safety training, sponsor many events where gun owners exercise their rights, actively lobby legislatures, and make legal challenges to unconstitutional laws. I'm still a member. You too should maintain your membership or join the NRA. 

ORIGINAL POST: January, 2013

You might not like everything the NRA says. You might not like what Wayne LaPierre said about video games. You might not like that the NRA wants the federal government to fund putting police in every school on a short-term basis. You may want the NRA to help with mental-health research. There's a lot you might not like about the NRA, or that you want the NRA to do something, but the NRA is the 800-lb gorilla for gun rights.

I put a note on my calendar to ask my wife tonight to get an NRA membership. She hadn't had one for a while. I didn't have to ask. The NRA is now 4,300,001 strong.

And I'll be joining my second gun-rights organization shortly.

Obama threw down the gauntlet and sniped at gun owners right after Sandy Hook. The NRA launched the first real volley. Now Obama has loosed his return fire in this pitched battle, throwing one of the NRA's missiles back at us ("school resource officers", "a police officer in every school").

The NRA is a special-interest group, no doubt. It is my special-interest group. It defends a vital natural right enumerated in the Bill of Rights. I defend a vital natural right.

I am the NRA.

Time to write some letters, again. Congress, state house, governor, sheriff, etc, etc, etc.

Constitutional Rights for the Individuals of the World (Intro 1.0)

Do U.S. Constitutional rights extend to individuals who are NOT citizens of the United States, who live outside the United States?

I feel that those rights are everyone's, regardless of nationality, regardless of locale. Why? Because - based on my accepted definition of rights - rights are inherent to the individual, not privileges granted by a group or government.

That's my opinion - or interpretation. But what does the U.S. Constitution say? ...

Well, after a cursory review of the original articles of the Constitution, I have found no mention of rights. So what about the Bill of Rights?

Well, the Bill of Rights does not say how far the rights extend, but it does mention rights for the "people," which was explained contemporaneously to mean "individuals." And it was also assumed contemporaneously that the rights in the Bill of Rights were "enumerated," meaning that they were being "counted," therefore already inherent to individuals. Therefore, if the rights are inherent to individuals, being naturally owned by individuals, then it is logical to conclude that those rights are Constitutional rights that were simply enumerated by amendments to the Constitution, and therefore they are violated by our government, when our government does to foreigners in foreign lands what it says it can't legally do to U.S. citizens on the partial(more on this later)-sovereign soil of the United States of America.

(Note: I know that this is not an exhaustive argument for U.S. Constitutional rights protection for those traditionally not afforded protecting from rights violations outside USA borders, so comments are definitely welcome, and I will be revising this post.)

"Simply A Business Decision" 1.2

Right now, I'd like to write a nice post about a sheriff's deputy in Albany, New York who stood up to an airport authority PR director and protected a newsreporter/civil-liberties activist's first amendment rights.


But, instead ...

I am going through the tortured process of applying for a job with one of the big-box retailers. I am in desperate need of a job, and so I have fired a shotgun shell today, trying to hit the high-hanging fruit and the ground fruit of job possibilities. I'm tortured to know that, if I do get a big-box job, I will most likely work in an environment where most of the employees - including most likely me - will be forced into a sub-30-hour workweek, because Obamacare redefined full employment as 30 hours per week, which takes effect in 2014.

And in conclusion, thanks to Jason Bermas and Sheriff's Deputy Stan Lenic for standing up for the First Amendment. Really, watch the entire video. Though I am not a Bill of Rights scholar, it appears that Deputy Lenic went beyond protecting the First Amendment by refusing to act as an agent for the airport authority, when he was asked to collect ID from Jason Berma.

Oops. I went ahead and wrote about the nice deputy!

PREVIOUS IN SERIES:  "Simply A Business Decision" 1.11

The Myth of Negative Rights

Those opposed to freedom, civil rights, constitutional rights, and civil liberties often call the Bill of Rights "negative rights." The Bill of Rights lays out basic rights of the people that the government is not allowed to infringe upon. So:

The Natural Rights to Keep and Bear Arms

I don't know if I "chafe" at the prospect of making my blog have a political taint. We're all political; we all channel Machiavelli when we really want something. And writing a blog about being a gun enthusiast invites a politically motivated attack.

That all has the potential to be true, as long as I know the definition of politics. Well, at least this disclaimer is halfassed. 

I'm concerned that the leading defenders of our Second Amendment rights are painting us into a corner. Our Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms are actually our natural rights. And that appears to have been the view of the original representatives that debated the inclusion of Bill of Rights in the Constitution to be ratified by the states. Many of the representatives felt the Bill of Rights were not needed, because the rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights were self-evident natural rights that every person was not "entitled to," but owned outright. The Bill of Rights was included to limit the power of government, not to entitle citizens privileges.

By treating our rights to keep and bear arms as a legislated right and therefore a privilege, we lower our moral platform to the level of the misguided statist socialists who are attacking our natural rights.