I’ve been resistant to the idea of owning a gun.  I’ll be frank: guns scare me.  When I was a kid, my father taught me to shoot one, but seeing what a gun could do just made me realize I wanted to be far away from them and have nothing to do with them.

Unfortunately, the type of gun I really need is not available to me, because I live in a Nation of Laws which, when it isn’t busy violating it, simply ignores its own Constitution.

Because what I really need is a weapon that will allow me to fight my own government, and they have some pretty damn big guns.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution notes:

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.

Of course, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms is routinely infringed.  By “law.”  In California, for example, the people are currently allowed to bear Arms, but since the Second Amendment forgot to expressly mention the ammunition that goes with it, the guns must be unloaded. A lot of good being able to bear unloaded Arms does.

Of course, when the Revolution starts, California can go fuck itself.

At any rate, as Scott Greenfield, Radley Balko, Jeff Gamso, Norm Pattis, Robert Guest and Brian Tannebaum have done, so do I bring you this disgusting video:

The police in the video followed the “accepted procedure” of our courts, announcing themselves (under cover of darkness) giving the occupants a few seconds to rouse themselves before busting down the door, rushing in and shooting the family dog.  Apparently, the dog must have refused to comply with their orders even after being shot, because after a brief pause several more shots are fired into the dog, silencing its screeches of pain.

Fortunately, they appear to have missed the children.

The officers are dressed in exactly the type of outfit that would have roused George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Elbridge Gerry and the thousands of other Founders of our nation to go to war against their government.  And anyone who doesn’t think these men would go to war against the government under circumstances like we face today simply doesn’t know much about the history of this country.

This is one reason the government wants to ensure that you do not exercise your right to bear arms.

George Washington, for example, reportedly said:

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s liberty teeth and keystone under independence. From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events occurrences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.

In actuality, there is no reliable evidence that Washington made this statement.  But he should have.  Because it’s true.  “Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.” They are our “liberty teeth” intended to protect us against our own government. The reason we have the right to bear arms is in case we need to shoot back at our own government.  This is why the right belongs to “the people” as the right of each one of us.

Don’t believe me?  You don’t think the Founders thought we might need to protect ourselves from our own government?  They frequently made comments about the fact that one thing that made America different, and unlikely to fall to a tyrannical government, was the fact that Americans own guns.

James Madison wrote in Federalist No. 46, that people had nothing to fear from the federal government partly because of “the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation….”¹

Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, said,

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.²

And Jefferson also said, in that same letter,

What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms.³

Even Noah Webster, of Merriam-Webster (yes, the dictionary) fame, said,

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme Power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.⁴

In 1873 — admittedly now taking us out of the realm of the Founders — a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Justice Story, wrote that:

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers, and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.⁵

Story was, however, citing Tucker — as would our current Supreme Court in the 2008 case of District of Columbia v. Heller — and Tucker was writing in 1803, shortly after the founding of the United States.  And while I can’t say the same for our current Supreme Court, Tucker was no nutcase.  In a time when integrity, intelligence and honor were still the best guarantee of success, he was a judge of the Virginia Supreme Court and later the United States District Court in Virginia.

But, again, views like these are the reason why our government wants to take away our right to own weapons, or, in the alternative, wishes to limit the types of weapons we can own.  The Founders, by the way, talked about that, too.  They knew that tyrannical governments first work to disarm their citizens.  Today, that starts by making sure the weapons available to us are not nearly as powerful as the ones the government uses to shoot our dogs.

This move needs to be resisted politically.  We can vote out any politicians who try to limit our right to own weapons powerful enough to protect us against them.  For as Rich Mason of Tennessee put it,

If the arms of the soldiers of this era are automatic rifles, machine guns and sub-machine guns then it is the right, in fact the obligation, for the citizens of this country to possess such arms themselves. It is laughable on its face, as some have stated, that the Second Amendment would grant to us the right to only have flintlocks or muskets, such weapons as were in use at the time of our countries founding, to defend ourselves against an armed force raised by the government to oppress us, or to defend against an invading enemy. … If anything, we have the rights to limit the governments use of technology, not the other way around.⁶

And, frankly, to those apologists for the police who frequent this site, there is no excuse for the increasing militarization of our police force and for their willingness to shoot defenseless citizens and their puppies.

I echo the words of Norm Pattis:

So if you are thinking about bursting into my home with or without a warrant, be forewarned: Shoot to kill my dogs, and I will shoot to kill you. Period.

And if anyone has a recommendation on a good weapon, drop me an email.  Unfortunately, for now — I am an attorney until the Revolution starts, after all — I’m looking for one that’s powerful, but strictly legal.  Still, it needs to be a good one: Fresno’s police department is fond of shooting citizens, as well as dogs.

Oh, yeah, in fairness I think I have to mention: the little “war on drugs” involving the cops who busted down the Missouri family’s door and shot what I understand was a Corgi were ultimately able to charge the homeowner with misdemeanor possession of marijuana.

That’s right: misdemeanor.

1. The Federalist Papers, No. 46, at p. 296 (James Madison) (Clinton Rossiter, ed., Signet Classic 2003).
2. Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787.—The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 356 (1955).
3. Jefferson, supra, letter to William Stephens Smith.
4. Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, in Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States (P. Ford ed., 1888) 25, 56.
5. Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States: with a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States Before the Adoption of the Constitution (1873) p. 620.  Story cited to 1 Tuck. Black. Comm. App. 299 for this.  It is worth noting that in the recent United States Supreme Court case of District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) 128 S.Ct. 2783, 2805 [171 L.Ed.2d 637] cited this same quote from St. George Tucker’s version of Blackstone’s Legal Commentaries in support of its opinion that the right to bear arms was personal; i.e., that individuals and not just militias, have the right to bear arms.
6. Rich Mason, “Why the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is Important to You” (1999) available online at http://www.tennesseefirearms.com/articles/rkba_important.asp, bold-face emphasis in the original.

I recently ran across one of the small things in this passage from Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here:

“Remember our war hysteria, when we called sauerkraut ‘Liberty cabbage’ and somebody actually proposed calling German measles ‘Liberty measles’?”  (Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here (2005 ed.) p. 17, originally published in 1935.)

Can I interest you in some “freedom fries”? 

There’s a situation that’s been brewing for quite some time in Maricopa County, Arizona.  Although more than one of my friends have blogged about it, including Scott Greenfield (criminal defense attorney in New York, New York), Brian Tannebaum (criminal defense attorney in Miami, Florida) and, particularly, Mark Bennett (criminal defense attorney in Houston, Texas), I’ve found myself wanting to delve a little deeper before tossing my hat into the ring.

Aside from my usual tendency to over-prepare for things, I think the reason is because early on I saw the connection between this and my beliefs about how police states are born.  (Some) People I’ve talked to about this scoff, but I believe we’re living in a nascent — maybe “prenatal” — police state in America right now.

And I wanted to dig into this a little more; not just to discuss Maricopa.  I wanted to show exactly why Maricopa and Chief Arpaio are so scary. 

Police states, as I’ve said before, don’t spring into existence fully-formed, as Athena did from the forehead of Zeus. 

First, there is the beginning of a gradual, even imperceptible, erosion of “the rule of law.”  After all, if the rule of law remains in place, the police state — which is a major tool for “the rule of man” — cannot come into existence.  The erosion of the rule of law prepares the ground for the police state.  If I were to stick to the allusion I made above of pre-natalism, I’d say ”the erosion of the rule of law prepares the womb for the birth of a police state.” 

Seen in this light, Maricopa is just another step in the transformation from the rule of law to the rule of man.  It is a demonstration of fertility.

Once started down the path — once fertilization occurs – a symbiosis develops.  The erosion of the rule of law is accentuated by the nascency — the beginnings — of the police state. 

By the time the average person recognizes that a police state exists, it is too late.  The police state has grown up enough to survive outside the womb.  The rule of law is gone.

People don’t think about this much.  Perhaps it’s because the so-called Godwin’s Law teaches that the minute you start to compare something or someone to Hitler and the Nazis, you’ve lost your argument.  That’s usually — perhaps nearly always — true.  But it cannot be always true because if it were, that would mean that there never can be anything that can compare in any way, shape, or form, to Hitler and the Nazis. 

To believe that is not only stupid, it is the most surefire way to ensure that another Hitler, another Nazi Party, another repressive regime will “surprise” us.  By refusing to consider how free democratic republics — such as pre-Nazi Germany was — turn into fascist dictatorships, we leave ourselves wide open to them.  It’s like ignoring the obviously gravid woman and being surprised when her child is born.  What?  Did you think she was just fat? 

The rule of law began taking hits almost from the time the Founders of the United States initially embraced it.  The desire to control others, which is a necessary (but not sufficient) precursor to fascism, is not at all an abnormal desire.  I’m not immune from it, however much I’d like to think I am, and neither are you.

Nor is the push to control always wrong.  Nobody — and that includes me — wants to live in a completely anarchic society.  No one — and that includes me — wants to see those who murder, rape, steal, or otherwise harm society freely roaming the streets, plying their illicit “trades.” 

Unfortunately, it is here, where we are weakest and most emotional, that the Joe Arpaios of the world find purchase on our souls. 

On a day in late October, suddenly striking in every city and village and back-hill hide-out, the Corpos ended all crime in America forever, so titanic a feat that it was mentioned in the London Times.  Seventy thousand selected Minute Men, working in combination with town and state police officers, all under the chiefs of the government secret service, arrested every known or faintly suspected criminal in the country.  They were tried under court-martial procedure; one in ten was shot immediately, four in ten were given prison sentences, three in ten released as innocent…and two in ten taken in the M.M.’s as inspectors.

There were protests that at least six in ten had been innocent, but this was adequately answered by [President of the United States] Windrip’s courageous statement: “The way to stop crime is to stop it!”

The next day, Medary Cole crowed at Doremus, “Sometimes I’ve felt like criticizing certain features of Corpo policy, but did you see what the Chief [as they called the President] did to the gangsters and racketeers? Wonderful! I’ve told you right along what this country’s needed is a firm hand like Windrip’s.  No shilly-shallying about that fellow!  He saw that the way to stop crime was to just go out adn stop it!”  (Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here (2005 ed.) pp. 206-207, originally published in 1935.)

With this — the illegal acts which “ended all crime in America forever” — the fascist President Windrip of Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here temporarily beat down the concerns of ordinary Americans for what fascist tendencies he had already exhibited.  Maricopa County residents — including, amazingly and shockingly, an attorney — approve of Arpaio’s actions and seem unperturbed by what they actually signify.  Arizonans — not just those living in Maricopa County — are similarly pleased with Sheriff Arpaio for his attitude toward “criminals.”  Nor is Arpaio himself apologetic for his obvious abuses of power. 

Nevermind that Arpaio’s tactics have brought widespread criticism from Jewish groups such as the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee (who well-recognize what happens when fascism goes unanswered), as well as the Arizona Ecumenical Council (a Christian group of churches) and the much-reviled protector of civil liberties, the ACLU.

This is how police states are born!  These Arizonans and all who share their opinion about Arpaio are why it can happen here!  As Doremus Jessup, the “hero” of Sinclair Lewis’s book noted:

“The tyranny of this dictatorship isn’t primarily the fault of Big Business, nor of the demagogues who do their dirty work.  It’s the fault of Doremus Jessup!  Of all the conscientious, respectable, lazy-minded Doremus Jessups who have let the demagogues wriggle in, without fierce enough protest.

“A few months ago I thought the slaughter of the Civil War, and the agitation of the violent Abolitionists who helped bring it on, were evil.  But possibly they had to be violent, because easy-going citizens like me couldn’t be stirred up otherwise.  If our grandfathers had had the alertness and courage to see the evils of slavery and of a government conducted by gentlemen for gentlemen only, there wouldn’t have been any need of agitators and war and blood.

“It’s my sort, the Responsible Citizens who’ve felt ourselves superior because we’ve been well-to-do and what we thought was ‘educated,’ who brought on the Civil War, the French Revolution, and now the Fascist Dictatorship.  It’s I who murdered Rabbi de Verez.  It’s I who persecuted the Jews and the Negroes.  I can blame no Aras Dilley, no Shad Ledue, no Buzz Windrip, but only my own timid soul and drowsy mind.  Forgive, O Lord!” 

(Sinclair Lewis, It Can’t Happen Here (2005 ed.) p. 186, originally published in 1935.)

Hopefully, Maricopa County will turn out to be just another Beer Hall Putsch.  But this does not mean we do not need to be concerned.  Hitler’s push, after all, did not end with the putsch.

That was just the beginning.

It can happen here.