opinion

OPINION: Rebuttal to Paul Karrer (by a returned U.S. Peace Corps volunteer)

Like Paul Karrer, I served in the U.S. Peace Corps. I served in El Salvador, several years after the conclusion of its civil war, and I witnessed events in the years which followed the peace accords.

In an unfortunate turn, ex-combatants from both sides of the civil war found themselves, at the conclusion of the war, thrust abruptly into a society which did not offer them work. This led to an increase in crime. For some, the bad economy and crime, and opportunities abroad, cause them to leave their country, to come to the U.S.A.

Unlike Mr. Karrer, I am of the mind that people in the United States have Constitutional rights for good reasons and that we do not have to choose between rights and responsibilities. They go hand in hand. By exercising rights we are being responsible.

An action committed with malice of heart and mind, where the intent of the individual is to harm another human being without the element of self-defense being present, is not the exercise of a natural or Constitutional right.

Furthermore, states do not have rights, they have powers - and they cannot legally deny rights to individuals. Paul Karrer had the choice to obtain an AR-15, and he had the choice to sell it. He doesn't think anyone needs a semiautomatic weapon. Others, such as those who have confronted armed criminals, will no doubt disagree with Paul.

The response of the State to the current level of robberies and drug epidemics has been to pass laws making it easier for transnational drug cartels to traffic hard drugs into our communities, to develop its own "state-legal" drug-based revenue and to propose measures which have driven businesses out of the State.

Defending yourself against crime that the State legislature fosters is a challenge. What if you should attempt to exercise a Constitutional right by getting ownership of, and training on, the use of a firearm?

The majority in the Legislature, ignoring rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court, has advanced a bill (SB 1100) which would ban adults from 18 to 21 years of age from ownership of any firearm, encouraging criminals to attack Californians - but depriving law-abiding people of access to defense tools which are theirs by Constitutional right. If we were to concur with the State, or with Mr. Karrer's position on semiautomatics, we would be defending a position where a thief or a rapist would readily be able to obtain a firearm, ready to fire, from any random criminal, but a 19-year-old law-abiding woman or man would not be able to obtain a firearm legally under State law. In this untenable scenario, where the law-abiding would be prosecuted for exercising a right, who are the perpetrators of widespread or systemic crime against society?

Arguably, systemic criminals are those who scheme to deprive people of their rights, while acting under color of law. The activities of many in the Legislature have resulted in a persistent deprivation of rights secured by the Constitution. These activities of the Legislature foster violent crime, as they empower those who would use organized violence to enforce monopolies against a largely defenseless citizenry, whether by use of violence for enforcement of unconstitutional laws that are the result of the State's crime creation, or in the context of use of violence by persons who wish to commit theft. The remedy to this is to challenge the Legislature's actions in the courts. From October 2013 to October 2016 alone, nearly thirty unconstitutional gun control bills were signed into law in California -- many of which are now being challenged in the courts. This approach of the Legislature is a systemic deprivation of your rights.

In 2017, the Legislature attempted to censor speech of a blogger who posted publicly available names and addresses of legislators that had attacked Californians' rights. The Legislature's attempt to infringe upon First Amendment rights was stricken down by the Eastern District Court, which ruled on Feb. 27, 2017 in Publius v. Boyer-Vine that “content-based laws — those that target speech based on its communicative content — are presumptively unconstitutional.” This victory was the result of case funding by Firearms Policy Coalition.

Opponents of rights should study our nation's Constitution, and should study the harsh lessons of the Prohibition era, when the 18th Amendment was passed and eventually repealed. Rather than arguing for a ban of tools, "New Temperance" folks should take responsibility for themselves and practice compassion.

That would be common sense.

- Colin Gallagher, Monterey