Attribute to L. Neil Smith’s The Libertarian Enterprise

The bureaucrat who commands an army of over forty-nine thousand armed men and women (the largest police force in the world, slightly more than three Army divisions) in its century-old struggle against the Bill of Rights, has loftily decreed on 60 Minutes, the famous CBS newsish show, that it is “insanity” to “allow” national concealed carry reciprocity for law-abiding citizens. This according to an article that appeared this week on the Breitbart website, written by their distinguished Second Amendment specialist, A.W.R. Hawkins.

The bureaucrat in question is New York Police Department Commissioner James O’Neill, an individual who clearly believes that his thirty-five years spent plodding unspectacularly up the NYPD chain of command equips him better to tell you what your rights are, and what they are not, than the Founding Fathers of this country and the Framers of its unique social contract.

Well I’ve got news for you, Jimmy, there is no “allow”.

“Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon—rifle, shotgun, handgun, machine-gun, anything—any time, any place, without asking anyone’s permission.”* That’s the essential freight of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, the highest law of the land, which you and yours have been illegally suppressing since passage of the 1911 Sullivan Act, named for Tammany Hall’s Timothy Sullivan, perhaps the most corrupt, bigoted politician ever to occupy office in New York.

Since the ability to own and carry weapons unmolested by the State is a fundamental right, there can be no thought of any unit of that state “allowing” it or not “allowing” it. Any government employee who attempts to interfere with that right deserves a long stay in prison among those whose rights he’s violated. Note that I am not saying that peace and civil order are a bad thing, just that it has to be achieved within Constitutional parameters. The Founders put them there for a reason; they had seen the rule of law abused too often by arrogant and brutish British authorities.

New York is very fond of calling itself “the world’s safest big city” and, compared with earlier decades that I remember vividly, when New York had a reputation like Detroit or Baltimore has today, that claim may even be true. However it was achieved, primarily, during the term of “tough guy” Rudolf Giuliani, a Mayor whom East Coast “conservatives” adore, who believes the only way to keep the peace is to to take away the rights and freedom of the very people who aren’t committing any crimes. As Benito Mussolini established in the 1930s, fascism—and that’s exactly what this is—does actually work, in a limited sort of way. The trouble is, it’s very expensive to maintain; takes a lot of time and energy, and everybody ends up hating you. For good reason.

Out here in “flyover country”, beyond the big, muddy river that, in many ways, like Europe’s Iron Curtain used to, marks the difference in America between freedom and something else these days, the people keep the peace, themselves, and cops—or sheriffs’ deputies— are only there as referees, making sure it’s done according to the rules. Our peace and civil order is deeper and longer-lasting because it’s imposed less often from the top down.

And still, this bureaucratic empty suit in New York declares that it’s insanity to “allow” law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons. I repeat, Jimmy, in the matter of rights, there is no “allow”. We, the People allow you to keep on drawing your overstuffed paycheck. We allow you to make idiotic pronouncements on national TV. We’ll probablyallow you to retire on a bloated pension without putting you in jail where you belong. That’s what ”allow” means.

And now that we’ve gotten these few points clear, I have even worse news for you, Jimmy. Try hard to understand it, or get somebody to read the big words to you. Maybe you can explain it to the crooked crew of 60 Minutes. The fact is that fewer and fewer members of America’s ”gun culture” like me give a damn about this ”national reciprocity” that you’re so worked up about. You have fallen behind the times. Reciprocity is about different jurisdictions recognizing each other’s carry permits. Well, to hell with that. The imposition of any licensing requirement is a violation of the law, as clearly expressed in the Second Amendment, which I’ll repeat, happens to be the highest law of the land. There’s something for you to be really hysterical on TV about, Imagine: no victim disarmament (what you call ”gun control”) of any kind in New York City or anyplace else in America.

That’s the shape of things to come, Jimmy. Maybe you’d better retire now. What does anybody have to lose?

I know what a New York City Police Commissioner is supposed to look like.

I have watched Blue Bloods avidly for seven and a half years.

I have witnessed New York City Police Commissioner Francis Xavier Reagan**, a tower of strength, integrity, reason, and reasonableness, discharge his duties and raise his large, Irish Catholic family with admirable style and grace.

I have enjoyed seeing Commissioner Reagan combat the eternal, endless, butt-stupid corruption of City Hall without partaking of it, himself.

Jimmy, sad to tell you, you are no Frank Reagan.

 

* ”The Atlanta Declaration”: L. Neil Smith, 1987

** Hat-tip to Tom Selleck