Lies the government told you by Andrew Napolitano (big screen ebook reader .TXT) 📕

keep and bear arms is “fundamental” (meaning natural, not government created) and thus is immune from all government interference, absent a state interest of the highest order and due process.

Historical Ignorance Is Not Bliss

The philosopher Santayana once said that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And it seems that we have not learned from history and we shall let the government lie to us once again. Currently there is a hue and cry about renewing the assault weapons ban that expired in 2004. In 2007, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), a strong supporter of renewing the Assault Weapons Ban, spoke of the mass murders at Virginia Tech and Columbine High School to justify the need for a ban on high-capacity assault rifles. The guns used in those tragic events were not assault weapons, but a legal variety of firearm. Yet, the government will lie and lie again to serve its own ends until the general public supinely believes it. One should consider what the result would have been if one student present at either of these massacres had firearms training and was able to carry a weapon to take down the killers. How many lives would have been saved?

President Obama has stated that he “has seen the impact of fully automatic weapons in the hand of criminals . . . [and] [t]hus supports making permanent the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban. These weapons such as AK-47s belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets. These are also not weapons that are used by hunters and sportsmen.” Such a short statement, yet so full of either mistaken beliefs or continuing government fraud.

As John Lott points out: First, the Assault Weapons Ban did not, as discussed, ban fully automatic weapons; second, the firing mechanisms banned are the exact same as those in the semiautomatic weapons used by hunters and sportsmen. Third and foremost, the percentage of deaths attributed to fully automatic weapons is so miniscule that no person could attribute them to the high murder rate of any city.27 As should be clear, we do not know any better and we have not learned that governments, no matter from which party, are adept at deception.

Since, as noted earlier, there is no evidence that an assault weapons ban reduced crime in the United States, even when the research was compiled by bureaucrats in the Clinton administration who were assuredly searching hard, the federal government recently attempted to reinstate the assault weapons ban, this time claiming that it “will have a positive impact in Mexico, at a minimum.”28 In Mexico? Apparently, even though the expiration of the ban has not had an effect on overall violent crime rates in the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder feels that new laws in this country will help cure Mexico of its gun violence, even though we have not through our drug laws managed to cure it of its drug problems. And the basis of this lie is that more than 7,700 guns sold in the U.S. have been traced to Mexico.

What no one has determined is the number of those guns falling under the Assault Weapons Ban.29 Yet the government throws the statistic out to the public, holding it to represent something that they do not know it does. But why question that; as long as we buy the lies and create scapegoats of American gun owners, does it really matter what the truth is? Apparently, not to the government.

Conclusion

Some would argue that registration and licensing weapons are not really infringements, but would anyone seriously argue that citizens must register with the police and obtain a license in order to exercise freely their political or religious beliefs? What would happen if the government attempted to force people to register or obtain a permit if they object to unreasonable searches and seizures? Once this dichotomy is noted, a rational person will never resort to such an argument again to justify disparate treatment of the right to bear arms.30

Noah Webster once said that “before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword because the whole body of the people are armed.” The gun bans and registration laws have in effect continued the transfer of power from the people, as envisioned by the Founding Fathers, to the government, progressively walking toward an end where the people will be helpless and the government all-powerful. Why would the government not take the opportunity to disarm us, while espousing the lies that it is not disarmament, that we continue to have a right to keep and bear arms, and that any regulations are only to ensure our safety?

If after reading this, you are too disturbed by the fact that the government can dictate whether or not you choose to protect yourself, then you may want to stop here. The lies the government tells you, about safety, security, liberty, and privacy are only going to get more unbelievable, including the fact that the government cannot only prevent you from receiving medical life-saving measures but also force you to ingest items you would otherwise refuse.

Lie #7

“Your Body Is Your Temple”

If we do not have control over our own bodies, we have control over little else. If anything belongs to us, reason would tell us that the thing we enter into and leave this world with—our body— belongs to each of us. Everything we do, our thoughts, our speech, our movements, and all physical action, come from our bodies. Therefore, having control over our bodies is one of the most fundamental rights we can possess.

In The Libertarian Manifesto, Professor Murray Rothbard argues:

The case against outlawing narcotic and hallucinogenic drugs is far weaker than the case against Prohibition, an experiment which the grisly era of the 1920s has hopefully discredited for all time. For while narcotics are undoubtedly more harmful than is