Safety is probably the natural right most easily explained and is based primarily on the presumption that people have the right to exist and will naturally first flee from danger, then, if unsuccessful, will arm themselves regardless of what the law may or may not say or permit. Nature's law will never allow gun confiscation to be fully implemented in a free America.
I learned this lesson my first year teaching college in California many years ago. A Mexican gang led by a Black attacked two white students in the college quad because they were white. As the nearest faculty member available, I intervened only to have the students flee, and I alone faced perhaps a dozen thugs I had never seen before who hated me only for the color of my skin. On the ground, unable to comprehend what was happening to me, I took a boot every time I raised my head.
Another faculty member came into the quad and, being white, was also attacked. Half the group left me to attack him. Eventually, we were able to escape behind a nearby classroom door. When police arrived, the leader of the gang threatened to kill me if I identified him. A day later a student who was a highway patrolman secretly gave me a can of mace, at the time illegal. "This will take care of 20," he told me. I carried it for years. Giving it to me would have cost his job and mine. Neither cared -- safety was the issue.
Thousands fled socialist countries as socialism enveloped their countries. Hundreds risked their lives going over the Berlin Wall once socialism was embedded in Eastern Germany and hundreds of thousands fled to the south in Korea and Vietnam or on boats away from Cuba to America. The same is so from Venezuela in our day. It was once said that communism would end tomorrow in China if everyone were issued a handgun tonight. You might miss the shooting the next day if you slept in. Certainly, the more than a million Uyghurs in slave labor camps would take their religious freedom back and their genocide would end in China.
Thousands are escaping socialist-leaning states of California, Oregon, Washington, Michigan, New York and New Jersey under excessive, even tyrannical, rule by their Democrat governors exceeding that of the tyranny of King George III. Political refugees are finding freedom from excessive governments by moving to Florida, Texas, Idaho, Utah and South Dakota, Republican-led states that refused to lock down their citizens.
Residents feel unsafe when society or government appears unstable, as in 2020, when Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots were staged in most major cities in America, even near the White House, especially in Democrat-controlled cities. This was especially so when such actions were nowhere condemned by Democrat Party leadership or their media. When statues were torn down, inner city buildings and automobiles set afire, Molotov cocktails thrown at police, and thugs occupied downtown Seattle and Portland, people did not feel safe. When George Soros financed district attorneys in Chicago, Los Angeles and St. Louis were setting criminals free as fast as they were arrested, it resulted in concern for normal people. When a senior citizen couple living in a private gated community in St. Louis, Mo., threatened to use firearms to protect themselves and their property from a mob of thugs who broke down the gate, were themselves arrested -- instead of the thugs -- all Americans felt unsafe. This could happen to me. If the government won't protect me, I must.
The Democrats' solution to runaway crime has become allowing convicts to vote, releasing inmates back on the streets during the Wuhan, China, virus, to same-day release arsonists, looters and Molotov cocktail throwers in our cities during the social unrest of 2020, to deny potential victims the means of protecting themselves through confiscatory gun laws, to open our borders to every thug in the world and, most insane of all, to defund, disarm, cancel and victimize law enforcement -- those willing to risk their lives in the defense of others to maintain a civil society.
Those who spoke out against these dangerous practices, like Tucker Carlson, could expect a mob of thugs to do property damage to their homes or threaten bodily harm to wife and children, who in Carlson's case, had to hide in a closet for protection. My point? The more these practices become common, and anarchy and lawlessness reign, the more the victims and innocent seek a gun to protect themselves -- natural law -- whether legal or not.
When cities like Chicago, where a person is shot every two hours, have the toughest gun laws but the most gun violence, it is obvious that what Democrats, because they are the government in most of these cities of chaos, propose does not, has not, and will not work because their measures violate natural law. Yet they want to spread their chaos to the whole nation and leave the weak and innocent perpetual victims. Natural law postulates that, when cities defund police and people do not feel protected, they will flee first, then arm themselves for protection whether legal or not.
Here are some other natural laws relating to guns. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws have guns. It takes a gun to stop gun violence and police can't get there in time. Good people will acquire firearms in proportion to their threat of danger. Violence begets violence; if a gun is not available, a knife, bat, or perhaps poison is. Mass shootings almost always occur in gun-free zones like schools, theaters, supermarkets, because would-be shooters know they are not likely to be confronted with someone who can shoot back. Finally, there has never been a gun in the history of the world found to have, by itself, killed anyone.
Gun confiscation and individual liberty are oxymorons.
Harold W. Pease, Ph.D., is an expert on the United States Constitution and a syndicated columnist. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He taught history and political science from this perspective for more than 30 years. To read more of his weekly articles, visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org. Opinions expressed are those of the author.