There are many claims from anti-self-defense forces in the country that make me lose my mind, but one really takes the cake. It’s when they try to argue that their nebulous, subjective, “right to feel safe” must somehow be taken into account when the constitutionally explicit right of Americans to keep and bear arms is being contemplated.
It usually comes in the form of a question like, “What about my right to feel safe?” And it is becoming more prevalent all the time. It’s like nails on a chalkboard to me. It is also one of the best examples of these activists being utterly incapable of critically analyzing their own arguments.
When I was a kid, I remember being bombarded by a “this is your brain on drugs” campaign that tried to discourage drug use by showing an egg frying in a pan. A similar “this is your brain on emotion” campaign should be launched to keep people from embarrassing themselves in public policy debates. The sympathetic media does these emotion-driven folks no favors when they refuse to question their illogical arguments and ways of thinking. They just play along, nodding with approval and understanding during interviews.The meek can feel as safe and comfy as they would like, but with the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution I have an explicit right to actually make myself safe.
The meek can feel as safe and comfy as they would like, but with the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution I have an explicit right to actually make myself safe. If one of the thousands of thugs in our society intent on committing murder and mayhem is kicking my door down in the middle of the night, my .44 mag, AR-15 or 12-gauge shotgun is going to make things really loud for a moment or two. Then, things will be very quiet and safe for me—and for any others who would have been attacked in the future by the evildoer if not for my active intervention.
What are those who live in La-La Land going to do with their supposed right to feel safe in this same terrible scenario? I’m pretty sure that as the door is crashing off of the hinges, they would regret choosing not to exercise their right to actually make themselves safe, as James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and the others hoped they would. The bad guy interested in nothing more than causing pain and anguish might even laugh at these people’s right to feel safe as he has another successful night “out in the community.”
For the record, I’m fine with someone having the right to feel safe. The government sure as heck can’t try to ban us from feeling a certain way, right? What is so intensely offensive is that these people who exercise this right are trying to impose their weak will and ways on the rest of us who choose to live in the real world. They want all of us to trust our fate to sheer luck, good karma and the ability to sweet-talk really bad people in order to remain safe. At the least, this is immoral.
It’s time to get into what should be the obvious problems associated with claiming that the right of an individual to feel safe can somehow take a legitimate place in public policy debates. Let’s start with my right to feel safe. What makes me feel safe is having lots of loaded guns and extra ammo around me at all times. While Michael Bloomberg apparently shares my sentiment, judging from his multi-million-dollar-a-year heavily armed security detail, those working for his extravagant anti-gun groups are probably a little different.
How do we square my right to feel safe with their right to feel safe? Does my right get trumped by others who feel safe only by ensuring everyone around them is as helpless against a violent attack as they are? Couldn’t we potentially have somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 million competing views of the right to feel safe? This is all making my head hurt, but I’m beginning to assume that this is one of the many reasons the brilliant Founding Fathers didn’t talk about individual feelings in the Bill of Rights, or anywhere else for that matter.
If a particular individual’s right to feel safe in a supposedly gun-free world trumps another individual’s Second Amendment rights, what other explicit rights that have been recognized for more than two centuries could be negated? It seems like the answer might be “all of them.” This is the kind of question the antis and the media seem incapable of contemplating. They need a little help.Talking about the right to feel safe is not appropriate for serious, adult conversations. Our real individual rights were secured at too great a cost to demean them by equating them to individual feelings and emotions.
What happens if a person feels safe only if the press is prohibited from reporting on the fraudulent activities of his business in violation of the First Amendment? What happens if a neighborhood watch leader feels safe only if the local police conduct unwarranted, random searches of all residences in his subdivision on a regular basis in violation of the Fourth Amendment? What is to be done if a past crime victim feels safe only if the jury system is eliminated and she is allowed to always play judge, jury and executioner in local criminal cases in violation of the Fifth, Sixth and Eighth Amendments?
While the media and others who routinely advocate for stripping their fellow Americans of their right to arms couldn’t care less about the Second Amendment, they do care about most of the other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights. It’s one more thing that makes them hypocrites. They should understand that if the silly right to feel safe is allowed to render the Second Amendment meaningless, it can just as easily do the same to all of the other rights they actually do care about.
Talking about the right to feel safe is not appropriate for serious, adult conversations. Our real individual rights were secured at too great a cost to demean them by equating them to individual feelings and emotions.
The antis could use some critical thinking classes. But then, that would make them gun-rights advocates.
