The gun control industry’s premise is based on the myth that if the government outlaws guns, outlaws will turn in their guns along with law-abiding citizens. Of course, outlaws do not obey gun laws, and they don’t turn in their guns. Just ask any cop.
Logic and reality inform us that this mode of thinking can be tragic for a nation. Especially if gun control forces implement their toxic, anti-liberty, anti-gun laws which essentially revoke a people’s God-given right to self-defense.
As it happens, we’re watching play out in real-time the consequences of gun control in a virtual laboratory experiment conducted in the oil-rich but economically devastated socialist state of Venezuela. The left may want to heed a lesson Venezuelan tyrants have been teaching. Nicolás Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s handpicked replacement, may be in the midst of a grand firearms miscalculation. Apparently, the socialist regime wasn’t thinking ahead when it set out to confiscate Venezuelans’ guns.
The Washington Times reported that in 2016, “the socialist government of Venezuela began seizing and destroying handguns, rifles and shotguns — continuing the late Hugo Chavez’s effort to solve the nation’s crime problem by disarming the nation.” Chavez, who ruined…oh, sorry…ruled the country for 13 years, began his ban on private gun ownership in 2012. Although the BBC appeared sympathetic to the tyrant’s gun-banning efforts (as a means for “reducing crime”), they reported that “Hugo Chavez’s government says the ultimate aim is to disarm all civilians.”
After years of government efforts to disarm the people, Maduro had an Uh-oh! moment. My enemies don’t have guns but neither do my supporters. Apparently, he’s not so confident the military will remain loyal to him. So, like trying to level a three-legged stool, Maduro decided he was going to re-arm his supporters. But how could he justify rearming some civilians but not others? No problem. Just manipulate the language.
The Washington Free Beacon wrote that Maduro simple gave the people he re-armed a title: “militiamen.” In a speech, Maduro said, “A gun for every militiaman!” Like magic, he transformed civilian supporters into a quasi-military armed force—serving his cause, of course. And, while Maduro maintains an armed militia (and current control of most of the military), those supporting his opponent, Juan Guaidó, remain disarmed.
Maduro’s supporters would have guns, but his opponents would not. Not a great circumstance for those citizens opposing the socialist regime or those who support Maduro’s challenger, interim President Juan Guaidó. Guaidó was the leader of The National Assembly of Venezuela, which the Maduro regime has attempted to abolish.
After what was widely described as a “sham election,” as head of The National Assembly, Guaidó declared himself president. With the state of the economy suffering from what experts predict will rise to an inflation rate of 10 million percent, despite having the largest oil reserves in the world (yes, more than Saudi Arabia), it’s not hard to understand Guaidó’s motivations. The U.S. is among about a dozen nations that have recognized Guaidó as the legitimate president.
According to cbsnews.com, Maduro is attempting to abolish, or at least neuter, The National Assembly, creating a competing assembly comprised exclusively of his supporters. Panampost.com reports that Maduro created a National Constituent Assembly “to impose [a] ‘communal’ dictatorship.” It has granted itself vast authority with which it has banned The National Assembly from passing laws, and it also intends to scrap the constitution and write a new one.
It is with this usurpation of democratic rule that Maduro’s socialist regime is also disarming the people—well, his opponents, anyway. You know there’s a real issue when an MSNBC reporter forgets for whom he works and is bum-rushed by common sense.
As reported by freebeacon.com, Kerry Sanders said, “You have to understand, in Venezuela gun ownership is not something that’s open to everybody. So, if the military have the guns, they have the power and as long as Nicolás Maduro controls the military, he controls the country.”
Let me see if I have MSNBC’s report right. Those who have the guns have the power. Got it! Any country is either of, by, and for the people or of, by, and for the government. We the People created the United States of America, right? That is where the ultimate power should lie. So, if only the government (military and law enforcement) has the guns, and the people are not allowed to have guns, then what happens to a country run by We the People? Doesn’t it cease to exist?
You know…like the gun-controlling, anti-liberty socio-communists are currently doing to Venezuela, which used to be a thriving nation, ultimately attempting to put the finishing touches on a Cuban-style communist dictatorship. Socialism is the foundation upon which a communist dictatorship constructs its malevolent, human spirit-crushing machine upon the ashes of what had been a prosperous democratic-republican form of government.
If it happened there, it could happen here.
