Gun Hysteria On The Right

At the risk of offending my fellow conservatives and fellow gun-owners, I feel compelled to point out that Second Amendment absolutism is as naive as First Amendment absolutism. Yes, the left has long sought to get our guns out of our hands on multiple pretenses and factual inaccuracies. The old NRA slogan "when guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns" remains as true today as when it was first coined.

But some pro-gun advocates need to lighten up and recognize that the government occasionally comes up with a reasonable idea. The FBI recently told military-surplus stores to keep records of bulk purchases of the following items: Weatherproof ammunition or match containers, meals ready-to-eat, night vision devices, high-power flashlights, gas masks, high capacity magazines, and bi-pods or tripods for rifles. The handout to storeowners also advised them to require valid ID from all customers not personally known to them, talk to customers, ask questions, and listen to and observe their responses, watch for people and actions that are "out of place," make note of suspicious statements, people, and/or vehicles, and if something seems wrong, notify law enforcement offices.

As a Second Amendment near-purist, were I a military-surplus/gun store owner, I would be doing exactly those things, with or without instructions from the FBI. But several gun ownership advocates have gone ballistic (pun intended) over the handout. There seems to be a consensus among them that the government has no business advising private businesses to be watchful for potential terrorists or just plain violent criminals. Oath Keepers, a group of former and current military and police members, have sworn not to enforce unconstitutional government orders, and they include this handout as one of those unconstitutional orders. They are advising storeowners not to comply with the FBI handout.

Now I'm as suspicious of the federal government as the next gun-toting, Constitution-loving, Bible-clinging guy. But even I can recognize FBI instructions which are nothing more than plain common sense. Store owners are not being required to become unpaid FBI and anti-terrorism agents. Rather, they are being asked to do what a good citizen in dangerous times ought to do--assist law enforcement in identifying potential danger. Most of the potentially disastrous attacks planned in America since 9-11 have been thwarted first and foremost by alert citizens who reported suspicious activity to law enforcement.

The handout is part of an FBI program to garner public participation in stopping terrorist attacks and criminal violence. It is called "Communities Against Terrorism." The handout includes the following statement: "Preventing terrorism is a community effort. By learning what to look for, you can make a positive contribution in the fight against terrorism. The partnership between the community and law enforcement is essential to the success of anti-terrorism efforts." Again, a common sense statement backed by proof that community awareness is essential to the efforts to prevent terrorist and violent criminal activity.

Could there be an ulterior motive for the handout? You bet there could. The gun-grabbers in the Obama administration want to identify their "enemies" in the gun-owning community. Furthermore, there is a hint of this mentality in the handout, which says: "Consider as suspicious anyone who demands identity privacy or anyone who expresses extreme religious statements, and those who make suspicious comments regarding anti-US or radical theology." Even a good idea can be perverted, but that doesn't make the idea any less good.

The Obama administration is paranoid about "Christian militias" and "Christian extremists" which largely don't exist. But I'd be the first to report an alleged Christian who wants to blow up or shoot people for having different views. Christianity strongly opposes such violence, but like good ideas, religion can also be perverted. So let's face it--the underlying point of the handout is that Muslims attacked the World Trade Center, even if it were true that this was a perversion of Islam. If so, there are a lot of Muslim perverters of Islam. As for Christianity, both Timothy McVeigh and the Oslo terrorist spouted perverted versions of Christianity and both would have been "suspicious" if they had turned up to buy weapons at my gun store.

And as further criticism of the handout, there is the genuine argument and glaring fact that conscientious gun storeowners attempted to report suspicious gun sales to federal authorities who were participating in the disastrous Operation Fast and Furious. They were told by ATF and FBI agents to go ahead and make the sales, move on, nothing to see here. If government agencies choose to ignore reports of suspicious activity, or worse, are actively participating in the suspicious activities, that is a problem quite separate from the purposes of the handout. Congress is already investigating that deadly fiasco.

Can I see that this common sense approach to preventing terrorism could be detoured or perverted by government authorities? Of course I can. But there is a sensible balancing test in the law (and philosophy) which addresses the issue: "Does the utility of the act outweigh the risk of harm?" In this case, I believe it does. And we must remember that the leftist anti-gun Obama administration will not be in power much longer, nor will the prosecution of terrorist activities be in the hands of the highly-politicized Holder Justice Department forever.

The likelihood of innocent civilians being persecuted as a result of complying with the FBI handout is extremely small. I didn't say impossible, just extremely small. Frankly, I'd like to know why a completely upright citizen would need or want multiple semi-automatic weapons and paraphernalia myself. I wouldn't deny him that right, but I'd sure want to do at least a cursory investigation into what his legitimate purposes are and whether they are for purposes of hunting and self-defense or more sinister purposes.

The burden on the government is to prove that the guns are being purchased for unlawful purposes rather than on the citizen to prove he is using them lawfully. That is a legal distinction which does indeed seem to escape the Obama administration. But we must also remember that for now at least, the Supreme Court has upheld the individual right to keep and bear arms pursuant to the Second Amendment. Yet like the exception to the First Amendment that says you can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater, it is likely that there will be exceptions to the Second Amendment rule.

Multiple gun ownership will not be forbidden by one of those exceptions, but multiple gun ownership for purposes which are a clear and present danger to the safety of American citizens likely will be. Still, the FBI handout isn't advocating gun confiscation. It is merely asking for citizen participation in identifying suspicious activity and staving off potentially deadly terrorist and criminal use of deadly weapons. I support the theory completely. It remains to be seen whether I will support the way it is practiced.