Guns On Campus: The Debate continues.. and continues and continues . . .

By John Longenecker

Something's being forgotten... or sidestepped.

Many cases of quandary are in the news over guns on campus. I have written on the subject since the Virginia Tech Shooting, and I critique the Review Panel's conclusions in a monograph available to seminar hosts.

Outside of that dissertation, let me address some of these questions and quandaries in the debates over what to do on the subject of concealed carry on campus.

To begin with, let me state the obvious which the debaters do not want to accept.

In this country, it is a liberty truth and patriotic truth that officials do not have the authority to allow or disallow anything when it comes to guns. This is the part officials and anti-gun nuts won't accept and somehow try to work around, from any individual ban to 20,000 gun laws: you do not have the authority to allow or disallow guns, much less how a citizen may carry, what they carry and where they carry.

Read carefully this analog. You are an official. You want to serve your constituency, but you are torn between sides on this issue of guns on campus. You are told by the anti-violence activists that gun owners are just more guns on the street, and you're told by gun owners that they are the first line of defense in time of any violence when first responders are not on scene. The gun owners remind you that they already have full legal authority to act and the anti-gun crowd says that disarming citizens will take more guns away.

I'm here to add a new dimension to the discussion: the Sovereignty perspective. The anti-violence activists ask you to abandon your oath of office while the liberty nuts expect to you adhere to it. That's for starters, but let's take a look at it from yet another angle.

Again, you want to serve constituents, but you are torn on how to handle violent crime. Again, I say that your guide must be that you do not have the authority to allow or disallow anything when it comes to guns and that you may not legally interfere with anyone's right to carry a gun. No one in this country can goad you into abandoning your oath nor a civil right. Stay with me.

Now we have a special interest group who keeps an appointment with you on the subject of crime. You are shocked to hear the proposal. You are not at all torn on this idea, not in the least. It is outrageous.

The special interest groups has proposed to you – in the name of fighting crime – that you introduce a bill that transfers title, care, custody and control of one human being to another for a period of twenty-four months in the name of fighting crime and violence. This bill begins with profiled persons of interest for a start.

Yes, this group has, in the name of fighting violence, urged you as an official to draft a bill making it legal to own another human being for a period of two years, because they can show how it will promote community safety by supervision and control.

What would your answer be? How would you explain your "Out of the question" response?

You might perhaps say that it is illegal. Their answer is that you could make it legal.

You might say that it goes against our way of life after we fought so hard and paid such a price for the freedom of all. Their answer would be that it elevates civility for a good cause in Security, and will set an example for the world. You get the feeling you're being tricked.

Finally, you explain that you have no right – no, that Congress has no authority – to advocate the ownership of another human being, for whatever reason.

Then it occurs to you that the situations of how to handle crime by banning weapons or owning another human being in this country are identical, both wrong, both most un-American, not to mention ineffective.

You come to realize that what the gun owners tell you or what the anti-gun interests tell you are immaterial, because Congress and whole states or cities have positively no authority to go against a civil right secured by law. It occurs to you that these are two rights which were, unlike the First Amendment, made absolute - the owning of another human being and regulation of guns are both absolutely forbidden.

You throw the activist out of your office and, in contemplating the 2008 election, you begin to think about how wrong, how ineffective and wrong gun laws have been. You start a letter which begins with the words, "Dear Colleague: I want to call your attention to a matter of concern with regard to the civil rights of our constituents..."

Patriotic officials will remember that because the citizen is supreme authority in this country, we have no need for so-called Leaders. For our executives as public servants, there is some authority they simply do not have.

And that, my friends, is good for the country.

John Longenecker is President and CEO of Good For The Country Foundation, a patriotic non-profit organization.