Dear Mayor Woodfin,
I live in the suburbs and would like to try to help you on advancing your gun control agenda in Birmingham.
I believe that gun control advocates should initiate by establishing that the Second Amendment does not give citizens a right to bear arms against the Federal government, and, based on that, that gun control is to be judged on the basis of what is a reasonable exercise of the government's police power.
Establishing the foregoing is needed to deal with gun rights advocates who go nuts over any governmental regulation of guns, because, in their minds, any such regulation contradicts United States' history of being borne out of the Revolutionary War's throwing off the bonds of England's tyranny over the colonies. In support of this, such gun rights advocates summarily cite sacred Declaration of Independence language of "a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government," and Thomas Jefferson's words "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."In doing the foregoing, gun rights activists fail to recognize that the formation of the United States under the Constitution changed the situation. The Constitution set up an elaborate legal framework for protecting the American people from their government becoming despotic and tyrannical, including representative government determined by elections and voting by citizens; free speech and the "right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances;" prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government; and procedures for amending the Constitution.
In this legal framework, the Second Amendment does not give citizens the right to bear arms against the Federal government and avail of their guns to change the government by force and violence.
Congress has the power to enact laws against treason, sedition and subversive activities in order to protect the United States, and Congress has done so. See https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=%2Fprelim%40title18%2Fpart1%2Fchapter115&edition=prelim.
The gun rights advocates, who go nuts over any governmental regulation because they take the Second Amendment as giving them the right to use guns and violence against a Federal government they contend is tyrannical and despotic, are wrong. Such gun rights advocates need to acknowledge that they are wrong, and they need to join in conversation regarding what gun regulation is a reasonable exercise of the government's police power.
To advance a gun control agenda, besides laying out the foregoing to gun rights advocates, I think it is helpful to lay it out to other interested parties and entities, including business chambers of commerce, law enforcement, and health care providers. Getting those parties and entities to be expressly aware that the Second Amendment does not give citizens the right to bear arms against the government will allow them to better respond to gun rights advocates who go nuts over any governmental regulation of guns. .
I have been trying to press the foregoing on gun rights advocates and to approach business chambers of commerce and law enforcement about the same. I will continue doing this.
If you think what I am doing can help you in trying to advance your gun regulation agenda in Birmingham, I would like to talk with someone in your administration about what I am doing, find out whether they have suggestions for my improving what I am doing, and learn if they can refer me to others who wish to contribute to my efforts.
Thank you for you attention to this letter.
