A Declaration of Civil Disobedience

By [email protected] 

I will not register my guns. If such a law is ever enacted on the federal, State or municipal level, I will choose to ignore it. I was required to leave my personal data with the gun dealer when I purchased each of my guns legally, and this data is doubtlessly on record already. Let law enforcement look it up if they choose, but I will not register my guns: not now, and not in the future. Registration of handguns, or any other firearm, will not prevent a single crime from happening. It only serves to harass the law-abiding citizen for the sole "offense" of owning a politically incorrect item. 

I will not surrender my guns voluntarily, ever. If the possession of handguns is declared illegal by any legislative body, I will choose to ignore it. If the owners of newly or soon-to-be illegal weapons are asked to turn them in for compensation, I will not comply. Let them try to enforce a law that is not enforceable, and declare a war on guns that will be no more successful than the war on drugs that has eroded most of our civil liberties in the last two decades. If they go from door to door to ask for guns, I will deny ownership; if they break down doors to search for guns, I will do my best to make their mission difficult. Confiscation of firearms will do nothing to make society safer. It merely takes away an essential basic right from the peasantry: the right to self defense. Without the means to it, the right itself is nonexistent except on paper. 

I will never again concern myself with concealed carry laws. I will carry my sidearm as I see fit, and wherever I choose, whether I am in Wyoming or New York City. I will ignore unjust laws denying me the right to determine my own fate while exempting friends and cronies of the legislature and the executive from the same laws. I will try to comply with the law whenever possible and obtain a permit whenever given the opportunity; I do not wish to be a lawbreaker if I can avoid it. But I will no longer comply with the demands of legislators who want to leave us defenseless against those who will always prey on others with the help of guns no matter what the law says. 

I know that I am not alone. I am part of a growing group of citizens that are fed up with being painted as radical, violent, ignorant and bigoted. Most of us are not camouflage-wearing conspiracy theorists. We are doctors, lawyers, soldiers, carpenters, nurses, computer programmers and convenience store clerks. We are fathers, mothers, grandparents, brothers, sisters and colleagues. We are "the American people" so often quoted and invoked by politicians. We come from all walks of life, all levels of income and education, all faiths and non-faiths. We share a common anger at those who want to take our self-determination away from us, those who blame us for every senseless and over-publicized act of gun violence in this country, those who are more than willing to trade an essential liberty for the illusion of safety. We are tired of politicians who create law after law to fight actions by people who by definition do not obey laws, in order to pacify a vocal but ignorant portion of the population. We also share the belief that the responsibility for our safety is up to us, and can never be completely entrusted to an understaffed, underpaid and overworked police force that is mostly tied up in an unwinnable battle against drugs. 

We do not ask for special rights, we merely ask that our right to self-defense and self-determination is respected and not undermined. We wish to be left alone, and we do not want to surrender our integrity and our means to enforce our right to life and liberty for a social experiment that has already been a massive failure in those countries who attempted it. We are citizens, not peons. We are free men and women, not serfs who exist to provide taxes to the ruling caste. 

We have tried to play by rules that have turned more pointless and nonsensical by the year. We have paid the fees, filled out the forms and subjected ourselves to the background checks. We have been fingerprinted like common criminals. We have tolerated the insults and the scapegoating of some of our fellow citizens, and that of the mass media. We have, where we could, taken all the steps necessary to go armed and obey the laws at the same time. Here we draw a line in the sand. Stop harassing us, for we are not the problem. Taking our rights away from us will not solve your problems, or make us all any safer against crime. We have done what we can to work with you when you came after us year after year. We gave up our military-style sporter rifles, and society did not turn any safer. We were forced to purchase guns with crippled magazines that limited their functionality, and yet society did not turn any safer for it. Yet you come back with sure regularity, asking for more of what is ours, in return for the promise of a safer society. You pass laws because it is the only thing you can do in the face of outraged soccer moms demanding that something be done to "stop the violence'. You cater to ignorance, and you willingly chip away at the rights of a group that is perceived to have little public support--minimizing the risk of election day backlash. Everything you have done has failed to improve society, yet you return and ask for one more restriction, one more "common sense" gun law, arguing that the last round of restrictions was just not severe enough. 
We are tired of it. We know that if you made all guns illegal, it would have no effect on crime and violence, but we also know that you would not turn around and return us our rights and our guns after you are proven wrong by reality. 

As an individual, I will choose to disobey whenever you enact a law inconsistent with my basic right to self-defense. Try to force us into registering our guns, or giving them up altogether, just so you can garner support for your next election, and you face the responsibility for whatever happens next. Many of us will refuse to obey, and then you will have a choice between trying to enforce this law or silently ignoring those who choose to disobey it. A law that is not obeyed, and cannot be enforced, does more harm to you than it does to those you try to govern. As Albert Einstein said after the repeal of the Prohibition laws, nothing will cause more disrespect of government than the enactment of laws that cannot be enforced. And make no mistake, a general gun registration or outright ban can only be enforced by sending the police from door to door, forcefully entering those homes which refuse to cooperate. How many dead citizens are you willing to tolerate before you repent? How many police officers are you willing to sacrifice? More importantly, how much of this is the general population willing to take? The war on drugs has brought about the demise of most civil rights, a war on guns would bring society to its knees. You've declared drugs illegal, yet they are available on most every street corner in this country. What good will a ban on guns do? 

Law is law, but a bad law is just that. It was the law in Germany to refuse Jews access to public air raid shelters during World War Two, and many people chose to ignore that law. I am glad they did. I value my conscience and my integrity over your seat in Congress. Therefore I declare that I will no longer obey laws that are an affront to my humanity, laws that are nothing but elitist arrogant attempts to keep arms out of the hands of the unwashed masses. Pick another group for your social experiments, like the criminals for example. 

We have no intention to commit crimes of violence with our guns, and we are deeply offended by the notion that you alone can make the decision who can be trusted with a gun, and that we serfs just cannot act in a responsible fashion when given access to guns. 
No registration, no confiscation. Ever. If I should ever break your laws and get caught, you can arrest me. I'd rather live in jail with the knowledge that my spirit is free, than on the outside as a tax-paying serf knowing that I only serve as a worker bee with no rights and little personal freedom. I know that I am not alone, and let's see just how many jails you can build to accommodate all those who have had enough of your failed and unjust policies.