The End of Gun Control: 7.2 A Federation of Freedom
Having arms, modern communications, micro processing, additive manufacturing, blockchain, and other technologies available puts the ideal of decentralized political authority in practical reach.
The contract between the states and the people to create a general government is an operating charter for a federation of independent polities cooperating for mutual security. The subsidiarity principle means each political unit in the federation enjoys sovereignty at the appropriate scale, and power can only be exercised in the specified areas delegated to it via the terms of the contract. Yet, here too, mere words on a piece of paper are meaningless without enforcement.
It is the enforcement of law in practice, then, that matters in the quest to advance law in the direction of more explicit contracts with greater specificity (while simultaneously preventing the backslide into status-based law). Here is where We The People must reassert their stake as principal parties to the contract.
By making the ‘execution of law’ dependent upon We The People as ‘the militia of the several states’, the US Constitution, conceptually, realizes the ideal laid out by James Madison in Federalist 51: “A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government…” and experience shows the need for “auxiliary precautions.” Not only is this why there is a “separation of powers” but also differing levels of authority split between the political bodies within the federation, where each has “precise equality of value and effect” in the actions of government.
I would be remiss, while citing Federalist 51, to neglect pointing out that Madison acknowledged the sole purpose of government is “no less for protection of the property, than of the persons, of individuals.” Chalk up another affirmation of the Property Integrity Principle as the basis of law!
Now is the time to put those idealized principles into actual practice. The ‘domestic tranquility’ promised when the Constitution was being marketed for ratification have rung hollow and there are plenty of disabilities baked into the structure of the federation, to be sure, yet the key pillars of purse and sword, money and militia, are already provided in the ‘supreme law’ of the land.
Restoring, if not advancing, the ideal of self-government, liberty under law, is merely a matter of putting these principles into operation. It begins by denying the political caste with a ‘monopoly on the use of force’ in a given geographic territory. This is the real of purpose of putting an end to gun control. Politicians, bureaucrats, other policy makers, and their associated propagandists must rely upon the voluntary consent and positive action of We The People to bring law into effect.
The dependence upon the ‘militia of the several states’ to ‘execute the laws of the union’ ensures voluntary consent and positive action relative to the member states and the general government. The principle works at scale relative to states and their constituent counties, and within counties relative to their constituent cities or towns, as well as the ‘ward republics’ within those towns or cities.
Having “arms”, modern communications, micro processing, additive manufacturing, blockchain, and other technologies available makes the great economist Ludwig Von Mises’ ideal, of having the practical means of decentralizing political authority “to every individual person”, within reach.
We The People can have liberty under law, equal justice, and enjoy domestic tranquility without affording anyone special privileges or licenses to invade anyone else’s person or property. Yet it requires a paradigm shift.
This is why The End of Gun Control is premised upon Philosophy and Strategy. There is a great deal of mindset work to be done in order to truly secure the ‘right to keep and bear arms’, even though ‘shall not be infringed’ is clearly spelled out. Aspiring tyrants have whittled away at the interpretation of what these originally ironclad guarantees over time through innovative constructions of language and concept. Most gun rights advocates, not matter how well intentioned, have unfortunately facilitating this perversion by responding to the gun control agenda’s intellectual lead.
Securing fundamental rights requires a similar shift in consciousness, to remember that We The People are just as much “the government” as any other public official, and every individual is equal under the law. The restoration of self-government is more about the thinking that precedes, stimulates, and guides action than anything else.
It begins by changing the narrative and proceeds toward a realization that “gun control”, or any other private property violation, cannot abide under a universally applied standard of justice, which also means equality under a common law treats every case and every person the same regardless of their status. A level legal field, where all disputes are settle based on the facts of ownership and contract, is the only way to ensure the blessings of liberty and ensure domestic tranquility.