In today’s world of thousand-page pieces of legislation and 5000-word terms-of-use just to post an image on Instagram, it’s often challenging for people to understand how the 27 words of the 2nd Amendment can suffice. They do.

Let’s read them:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

There are sticking points that many will try to debate, particularly gun grabbers. They’ll point to “well regulated” and say that’s the reason we need more gun laws. They’ll say “Militia” is outdated and therefore the whole concept is outdated. They’ll even say that the idea of establishing “security of a free State” means the police and military and therefore shouldn’t apply to citizens.

They’ll skip the last half or, as is more common lately, say that the right to keep and bear arms should no longer apply to Americans.

Those are the talking points of the overt gun grabbers. I’m not as worried about those people. They can neither be convinced that they’re wrong nor bothered by actual facts, though an occasional exception does pop up from time to time:

How one gun-grabber slammed head-first into reality Libresco went on to explain how she arrived at the conclusions many on the Right arrived at long ago. Both of these pieces, based on Libresco and her colleagues’ work, are worth the read. They are also worth sharing with your friends on the Left. Libresco went on to explain how she arrived at the conclusions many on the Right arrived at long ago. Both of these pieces, based on Libresco and her colleagues’ work, are worth the read. They are also worth sharing with your friends on the Left. When presented with the facts, from someone who once believed as they do, perhaps the liberals you know will change their minds as well.

My bigger concern are the people on the right, left, and in-between who acknowledge the legitimacy of the 2nd Amendment and believe in gun owners’ rights but feel that we need just a little more in the law books to make it safer for everyone. They point to Las Vegas, Sandy Hook, and other mass shootings as examples for the necessity of stricter measures to make sure the “wrong people” don’t get their hands on the “wrong weapons” or any weapons at all.

There are two problems with that. One is big and one is much bigger. The big problem is the challenge with identifying what makes a person or a weapon wrong. Stephen Paddock, the Vegas shooter, was prescribed anti-anxiety drugs in June. He had no psychological issues reported nor did he have a criminal record. The two primary ways that common-sense gun law advocates want to identify potential violent criminals is through their psychological and criminal records. Unless we’re ready to take guns away from anyone in America with anxiety, no law could have identified Paddock as someone who shouldn’t possess firearms.

The other aspect of the argument is in controlling the types and/or quantities of guns and ammunition a person should be able to own. The laws on the books today already do this, often to an extent that some consider TOO drastic. With liberals and the media calling anything scary looking an “assault rifle” and making arguments that you don’t need a machine gun to hunt deer, it’s clear to anyone familiar with the laws as written that many on the left simply don’t understand guns, their applications, or the limits already in place.

If someone is determined to kill people with the type of modified weaponry Paddock used, the only laws that would prevent them from being able to do that are laws that would greatly hamper every American citizen’s rights to protect themselves from harm or oppression. Moreover, people like Paddock would still be capable of achieving their goals through illegal channels while law abiding citizens would by their nature be unable to do the same.

This brings us to the bigger problem: oppression. Two decades ago, it would have been hard to imagine America establishing unconstitutional healthcare mandates on the people. A decade ago, nearly 2/3rds of Americans, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, opposed gay marriage. Two years ago, nobody imagined the primary method of communication for the President would be Twitter. Things change culturally and politically. These changes are dramatic and often universal, just shy of a 1984 scenario where opinions are shifted swiftly and permanently. “Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

It’s important to understand the speed at which things change in society today because the vast majority of Americans cannot imagine the need to defend themselves against oppression from within. We assume that the government has our back and will always have our back as long as we pay our taxes and don’t rip the labels off our mattresses. It’s unfathomable that circumstances may arise that convinces the government we’d all be better off if they seized more control, Constitution be damned.

I’m not a conspiracy theorist who thinks the government is out to get us. I don’t believe they’re turning the frogs gay. I have a healthy distrust of politicians who want to consolidate power and prolong their membership in the DC country club, but I also have faith that the majority of them don’t want to do us harm. With that said, I’m acutely aware that politicians go in the direction of the political winds. Right now, gun grabbers are blowing as hard as they can to push for totalitarianism whether they know it not. They can’t do it alone. They need the sensible people to embrace “common-sense measures” in order to build the steam necessary to lead to their gun-free utopia.

Those who are giving them steam, even when doing so in order to get just a couple more minor gun laws on the books, are the people who worry me the most. They don’t realize they’re helping to push the first in a string of dominoes that leads to full-blown gun grabbing. It starts with attempting in vain to stop people like Paddock. It moves on to further restrictions on the types and quantities of firearms and ammunition we can own. Background checks turn into competency tests which lead to psych evaluations. Gun registries turn into smart guns that can be turned off by law enforcement. This will continue, domino by domino, until the 2nd Amendment is repealed and replaced by European-style measures.

If you don’t believe it can happen like this, you’re not paying full attention. Here are three points to consider:

America is shifting culturally to the left. This is undeniable. Politicians generally love extreme measures, particularly those on the left. The primary methods of media consumption (NOQ Report readers notwithstanding) are controlled by people who wish nobody had a gun other than their bodyguards and law enforcement.

The founders weren’t too worried about gangbangers or rampaging deer. They didn’t install the 2nd Amendment just for defending the home and hunting for grub. They had experienced life under an oppressive regime and were forced to fight for their rights to live free. They installed the 2nd Amendment so we would never fall as a people to an oppressive regime foreign or domestic. The unimaginable scenario where the 2nd Amendment was practically applied to defend against government oppression may seem far-fetched today, but things change quickly. From Spain to Iran to Venezuela to North Korea, we see clear examples of oppression where once it didn’t exist. Let us not be so pompous to believe that American politicians could never go that far or that foreign invaders could never breach our borders. With millions of people pushing politicians to take control, establish socialism, and prevent any “bad” people from committing violence, it’s delusional to think this scenario is impossible.

If you really want the government to reduce gun violence, tell them to do a better job of getting illegal weapons and components out of the hands of potential criminals. We don’t need more laws. We need the current laws enforced. We don’t need fewer people armed. We need law-abiding, responsible Americans to freely carry their firearms. Where gun owners’ rights are protected, crime rates are lower. New laws that “protect” Americans from attacks such as Las Vegas and Sandy Hook are laws that would make us less safe.

It’s understandable for conscientious Americans to want politicians to DO something. When it comes to gun control laws, the emotional responses calling for stricter measures can make even those who appreciate the 2nd Amendment inadvertently assist in weakening or eliminating it all together. We must prevent the first domino from falling because if it does, it’s going to be difficult to stop it from leading to totalitarian oppression.