More about the CSGV and tyranny enablement

Recently, I mentioned Ladd Everitt, of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and his proclamation that "the government must have a monopoly on force." I should make clear that I am not at all surprised that Everitt, as a civilian disarmament advocate, believes that citizens (subjects, really, if Everitt has his way) should be utterly without the power to resist government excesses (that belief is, after all, the driving force behind the civilian disarmament agenda), but I hadn't expected him to come out and say it in public, at least not in the U.S. Americans, after all, even those with no affection for firearms, tend to be rather wary of excessive government power.

Actually, in my earlier post, I omitted (for sake of brevity) some of what Leveritt had said on the subject. On giving it some more thought, I think it's worth looking at the entirety of his tyranny enablement advocacy.

More revealingly, Everitt insisted that “the government must have a monopoly on force,” according to an account by my assistant Rebekah Sharpe, who attended the meeting. He identified the obstacles to fuller gun control as “hardcore gun owners” who have a “profoundly, virulently anti-government attitude.” Many of these hardcore zealots adhere to the National Rifle Association’s ostensible belief that “if our government becomes tyrannical they have a right to take over that government, our democratically elected government!”

Apparently uninformed about the political thought behind America’s founding, Everitt cluelessly asked: “If we love to say that we’re the freest country, then why [do]… our elected representatives… talk about getting government out of people’s lives? If you’re so proud of democracy then acknowledge that government had some role in that.” Undoubtedly, the “Living Letters” must have been nodding their heads. The South Africa “Letter” responded: “Yes… the right wing out there wants to de-legitimize government… [If we give in to them] we are playing into the hands of the forces of chaos.”

Orwell's dystopian vision brought to reality--I keep expecting him to chant the Party slogan: "War is Peace; Freedom is Slavery; Ignorance is Strength."

It would seem that Everitt's position is not at all out of line with that of the organization he represents, the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence. This is made quite apparent in the CSGV's article, "Guns, Democracy, and Freedom."

When gun enthusiasts talk about "freedom," they have something specific in mind—freedom from government oppression.

So . . . um, what do non-enthusiasts have in mind when talking about freedom--the presence of government oppression?

They argue that the only way to keep centralized authority in check is to ensure that individual citizens retain the capability to confront the government with force of arms.

But that's giving us modern-day Bill of Rights advocates too much credit--we can hardly claim to have invented that idea (one example out of many):

Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.-Tench Coxe, 1788

The CSGV article goes on with its disparagement of the idea of people defending themselves from domestic tyranny.

This idea, which we call “insurrectionism,” is part of a broader ideological perspective that opposes a strong, activist government in nearly all of its forms. Big government is seen not only as inefficient and corrupt—but as an alien force that threatens to annihilate us if we fail to exercise constant vigilance against its natural tendency toward tyranny.

Funny--where did we ever get that idea? Oh, by the way, I hear Burma (or Myanmar, if you insist) has "a strong, activist government"--how is that working out for the people, I wonder?

For more of Josh Horwitz's (Horwitz is the CSGV's executive director) interesting views on protecting freedom by . . . restricting freedom, see "Parker Ruling Encourages Insurrection," and "Gun-Control ruling affirms the Confederacy."

Basically, it seems that the CSGV is arguing that freedom comes from the government, and that freedom is threatened when citizens are empowered with the ability to defend themselves from said government. Doublethink at its finest. They ought to love this guy:

"We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do," - Rudy Giuliani, March 1994.

All hail Big Brother.

UPDATE: By some kind of odd coincidence, Snowflakes in Hell today raises some good points about civilian resistance to tyranny.