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In a move sure to disgust my liberal friends in high tech, I renewed my membership in the National Rifle Association today. And I am very proud to have done so. The NRA is an important voice in Washington, D.C., and for reasons that go well beyond the right to bear arms.
Unlike a lot of gun owners, my motivation for preserving our rights is more political science than it is a love of making loud noises. There has been a move afoot in liberal circles for well over a decade to rewrite our constitution. That's such a bizarre thought to most of us that you may think that I'm spreading extremist-style alarm.
I wish that were the case.
There have been calls for a modern "Constitutional Convention" for a long time. A "con con", as it is sometimes called, is by design a time and place where the constitution would be rewritten. Check out this link if you don't believe me:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83364
Here's a very telling quotation from that story:
Melody Barnes, a senior domestic policy adviser to the Obama campaign, said in the Fox News report, "His [Obama's] view is that our society isn't static and the law isn't static as well. That the Constitution is a living and breathing document and that the law and the justices who interpret it have to understand that.
Whenever you hear talk of the U.S.constitution being a "living document", you're talking to someone who wants to reinterpret and maybe even rewrite the document into a form more palatable to their "modern sensitivities". We modern folk have a strong tendency to think our advanced technologies mean that we're smarter than those who've gone before us.
We're not.
I used to teach history, and I can tell you with authority that human brain capacities were the same in 1787 as they are now. What's different now is that our capacity for both good and evil is enhanced by our technologies. Technologies are just tools, and the more powerful the tool, the more important it is that it be wielded by just and moral men who are accountable to both man and God.
Think nuclear weapons. Think internet. Think of the unyielding power of the state.
Back at the ranch, I see the second amendment's right to bear arms as the "canary in the coal mine" when it comes to rewriting the constitution. Although the founding father's intent was clearly that individuals should have the right to bear arms to protect themselves, "enlightened moderns" see that as a crude and unintellectual view.
My enlightened liberal friends argue that, if the founders were as smart as we are now, they would say that we have a "collective right" as a nation to defend ourselves, but guns are too dangerous for individual ownership.
My question is simply, "Too dangerous for whom?" Thomas Jefferson argued that citizens should have guns precisely because their government does. It was another one of those checks and balances for which our founding fathers became famous.
Unfortunately, in today's political climate, nobody wants to be checked or balanced anymore.
If you're not already a member, join the NRA now.
Help defend the constitution. There is a lot more at stake here than just our firearms. Once the canary dies, a whole host of other bad things can happen faster than we would ever imagine. If the tyrannical Soviet empire can crumble in a handful of years, why do we think our own government and the liberties it provides are guaranteed to last?
Ross W. Lambert
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