THE “AR-15 NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES” BILL IS A BAD IDEA FROM THE GET-GO

DISCUSSION OF H.R. 1095

PART TWO

FOR PRAGMATIC REASONS ALONE, THERE IS REASON TO VIEW H.R. 1095 AS AN AWFUL BILL

We always read with interest comments of readers that spend time reviewing, thinking about, and responding to our articles. And we take readers’ comments to heart. This is in reference to our article posted on Ammoland Shooting Sports News on February 28, 2023.

We surmised that some readers might disagree with our position on H.R. 1095, a bill introduced on February 17, 2023, by Representative Barry Moore, Republican, Alabama, and co-sponsored, originally, by three other Republicans, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, and George Santos of New York. See the article in Forbes.

Marjorie Taylor Greene subsequently added her name to the bill as the fourth co-sponsor.

Had we thought H.R. 1095 simply unproductive but benign, we wouldn’t have written about it. But we feel the bill isn’t merely unproductive and benign. It does harm, and on both pragmatic grounds and legal and logical ones.

In this article, we look at the harm this bill does to the cause of preservation of the Second Amendment, on pragmatic grounds.

First, in the mere assertion of the AR-15 as the National Gun of the United States the bill undercuts, if unintentionally, our natural law, God-Given right to armed self-defense.

The bill is harmful to the preservation of our Second Amendment because it merely offers the public a slogan, nothing more.

The slogan gains unwarranted gravitas as a bill.

It would do better service as a bumper sticker. H.R. 1095 trivializes the natural law right of the people to keep and bear arms.

Second, the bill alludes to something we believe untrue and harmful to the sanctity of the right: namely the false notion of America as a “Gun Culture.”

One source attributes the creation of the phrase ‘Gun Culture’ to the American historian Richard Hofstadter, who wrote an article for the periodical “American Heritage,” titled, “American As a Gun Culture.” That was back in October 1970. See also articles in Boston Review, genius.com, and compass.

The phrase, ‘Gun Culture,’ has since dominated Anti-Second Amendment literature and Anti-Second Amendment activism, along with expressions such as, ‘Gun Violence,’ ‘Gun Control,’ and ‘Gun Safety.’ Messaging is a major component of social conditioning.

Third, a bill that would talk about this or that “gun” as the “National Gun” of the United States gives Anti-Second Amendment proponents and fanatics another reason to demonize and ridicule Americans who cherish their natural law right to armed self-defense.

We do not need to give ammunition to those who abhor firearms and who demonize, ridicule, and heap contempt on those Americans who insist on exercising their God-Given right to keep and bear them.

Fourth, the bill directs the public’s attention to firearms generally, and to semiautomatic weapons, particularly.

The armed citizenry is as much needed today as the armed colonists were needed back at the dawn of our Nation’s birth. Back then, the first Patriots fought against tyranny to create a free Constitutional Republic, one devoid of noblemen and kings where the common man was deemed sovereign over his Government and sole master of his fate.

Today, America’s armed Patriots are needed as a counterweight to those people in service to a new tyranny, one that seeks to destroy our Nation, selling the remains off to interests that aim to create a world empire.

Yet, the empire envisioned today is vaster and more treacherous, and more dangerous than that of the British Empire under George III and of the nascent Rothschild Banking Dynasty.

Fifth, Americans don’t need a bill to declare this or that firearm to be a National Gun.

It isn’t “The Gun” per se that is the source of our Nation’s FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. A firearm is just a tool. It is, rather, the notion of the SANCTITY and INVIOLABILITY of the INDIVIDUAL and of the importance of the COMMON MAN who wields that firearm: the “ARMED CITIZEN.” 

It is the wielder of a firearm, then, not the firearm itself, that is the foundation OF FREEDOM AND LIBERTY. And it is in the COMMON MAN’S WILL and of his ability, THROUGH FORCE OF ARMS, to resist THE TYRANT who would dare crush his mind, body, and spirit, that our Nation’s GREATNESS derives and thrives.

Sixth, A bill to enact a law that simply denotes something as a “NATIONAL SYMBOL” is unnecessary.

Such symbols often become the target of aggression when attention is directed at them.

Recall flag-burnings. Does this Country need or want to see the mass destruction of “GUNS” if this or that GUN is designated a national symbol?

Yet, to raise the AR-15 to the status of “NATIONAL GUN OF THE UNITED STATES” merely taunts Anti-Second Amendment fanatics, nudging them to do just that: a call for the destruction of all AR-15 Rifles.

Do we really want to see H.R. 1095 serving as the catalyst for public displays of the destruction of firearms across the Country?

Just undertake some cost/benefit analysis. What is gained from this bill? A trifle? Anything? And what is the cost? Much!

Further, national symbols have historical roots. If some Congressional Republicans wish to raise a particular firearm to recognition as a ‘national symbol’ we have better candidates: namely those that hearken back to the American Revolution.

There is the “BROWN BESS” smoothbore flintlock musket. It would serve us better. First, it draws attention, but in a good way, to our great history—something the Neo-Marxist Internationalists and the Neoliberal Globalists loathe and wish to erase.

The “BROWN BESS” is connected to the American Revolution. If we are going to draw out a debate, then let us compel these ruthless forces to call out the American Revolution as a bad thing, if they dare.

Let us talk about our Nation’s history and point to the ARMED CITIZEN to whom we owe our FREEDOM and LIBERTY.

So, far, those who would destroy us, only tinker around the edges, using ANTIFA and BLM, and many unthinking college students as storm troops to burn buildings, deface art, and destroy statues and monuments.

But it would be very difficult for the Federal Government to attack our history and artifacts directly: our HISTORICAL BATTLE FLAGS for example, even as the Government attempts to do just that, obliquely—claiming that those who cherish our history and its emblems are “MAGA” REPUBLICANS, “WHITE SUPREMACISTS” “CHRISTIAN NATIONALISTS,”—presumptively, all of us “HINTERLAND HICKS.”

If Republicans want to draw the ire of the Anti-Second Amendment fan base in an uproar, we don’t need to give these fanatics another reason to go after firearms by taunting them with this nonsensical bill. And that is all this bill does. It is meant as a colossal tease. But it is, rather, a colossal blunder.

Seventh, H.R. 1095 does nothing concrete. The bill’s title says everything a person needs to know about it. And, while there are those who support it, (note very few Republicans have signed on to it), there are many people and interests in this Country that do not.

And those who do not are especially irate over civilian citizen ownership and possession of firearms they refer to as “ASSAULT WEAPONS,” like the AR-15 Rifle. And they voice their anger vociferously, vehemently, endlessly, tying the “AR-15” to “mass shootings,” particularly at schools.

“The AR-15 was used by the school shooter last year in Uvalde, Texas, to massacre 19 elementary school children and two teachers. It was used during the 2019 shooting in Parkland, Florida, to murder 17 students and educators. Of the roughly 24 guns that the 2017 Las Vegas shooter brought to the deadliest mass shooting in modern history, in which he massacred 60 people and injured hundreds, over a dozen were AR-15s.

The effects of AR-15 style guns are brutal. The AR-15 is a weapon built for war, designed and manufactured to shred human flesh. During the Vietnam War, the AR-15 left bodies of Vietnamese fighters looking as though they had been hit with an explosive, much like the bodies of the children killed in Uvalde, some of whom first-hand witnesses said were only identifiable through the clothing left intact on their ripped-apart flesh.

The bill [H.R. 1095] is the latest Republican display of the party’s worship of guns and its attempts to normalize the violence the right is often associated with.” See the article on the radical left website, truthout.org. 

No, contrary to the remark of the author of the above yellow journalism article, those who cherish the right codified in the Second Amendment do not worship guns. Those Americans worship the Divine Creator. But they recognize the utility of “guns” for self-defense and to resist tyranny.

But, that is how the H.R. 1095 comes across: AS WORSHIPING GUNS, IN ADORATION TO A “GUN CULTURE.” In a nutshell, that explains why this bill is wrong-headed.

Consider the remarks of New York Governor Kathy Hochul:

“‘The governor, a Democrat, told Newsday in an interview Thursday that Santos’ proposal is an insult to those people killed and wounded in mass shootings and their families.

‘That is so abhorrent,’ Hochul said, ‘especially from a representative from New York, especially from a representative from Long Island, which is home to one of the victims of the Parkland shooting.’” See the article in Newsday.

Hochul is not entirely wrong. We wouldn’t say H.R. 1095, is “abhorrent,” but it is absurd. It was not well thought out.

The aforementioned news and media reports prove our point. The bill is a bad idea because it draws volatile and unnecessary attention to the Second Amendment. The bill stirs up a hornet’s nest but does nothing to strengthen the Second Amendment. The only thing it does is give those who detest the Second Amendment, another reason for eliminating the exercise of the right in it.

Perhaps that was the sponsor’s salient purpose in drafting the bill up, and then introducing it in the House.* Perhaps that was the only purpose for the bill. If so, the sponsor and co-sponsors of it accomplished their aim. They got their wish.

But, if it doesn’t strengthen the right of the people to keep and bear arms, then why bother with it if all it does is simply antagonize the opposition, drawing unnecessary attention to a firearm? It surely does nothing positive to secure the right, without which this Republic is well lost.

In the next article in this series, we look at the legal and logical flaws associated with H.R. 1095.

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*It is odd that many news reports tie H.R. 1095 to George Santos. He isn’t the sponsor of the bill. He is only one of four co-sponsors. Perhaps it is that Santos generates so much antipathy among so many people, that they blindly tie a poorly drafted and poorly considered House bill with a sorry excuse of a person, an inveterate liar.

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Copyright © 2023 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.