Enough is enough, Mr. Mayor

“All politics comes from the barrel of a gun?” Actually, the quote is: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” The latter is a quote from Mao Zedong. The former is from Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright misquoting Chairman Mao who, it seems, is his favorite Communist. In either case, the meaning is the same and belies a breathtakingly medieval view of government.

In a recent op-ed appearing in the Frontiersman, Rupright laid out his argument for Second Amendment rights. He writes that “since firearms ownership is a right, not a privilege, and the state retains sovereignty in many areas, that being the Ninth and 10th amendments as well as the Articles of the Constitution, then firearms laws are actually a state issue.”

First of all, the Ninth Amendment refers to the rights of the people being inherent and not granted by any government. In other words, our U.S. Constitution outlines the powers of the federal government and not the rights of the people. Likewise, the 10th Amendment simply states that powers not held by the federal government may be held by the states if the exercise of that state power is not at cross-purposes to the Constitution. That being said, the Constitution does grant the federal government various powers needed to govern.

Secondly, Articles of the Constitution is a rather broad subject. I’m not really sure which article or articles the mayor is referring to. Could it be Article 1 Section 8, the powers of Congress? It states one of the powers of Congress is “to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress.”

That means Congress has authority over militias and, subsequently, the regulation of firearms.

In any event, the U.S. Constitution does take a dim view of anybody who would take up arms against the U.S. government. That’s called treason, and that subject is clearly dealt with in our Constitution.

As to the original point and the Mao misquote, “all politics comes from the barrel of a gun,” enough is enough mayor. This is nothing more than ill-conceived, inflammatory rhetoric. Equitable governments are formed to avoid this sort of “might makes right” despotism.

Granted, these governments need a mechanism to enforce their authority, but that mechanism is called the law. You might have heard of it. It’s an idea we came up with in one of our more rational moments that keeps Larry in the cave down the hill from shuffling up to your cave, beating you senseless and taking all your stuff. Because of this law thing, your mayoral jurisdiction does not come from the firepower in your gun closet. It’s an agreement among the people you serve and you remain in office as long as you don’t violate that agreement. Your stated view of what lies behind political power is an extremely coercive and destructive judgment of our political system and the government it attends.

If you truly believe the authoritarian nonsense you gave us in your column then you must conclude that there is no point to a constitution or even the sacrosanct Second Amendment. What you are really saying is every political system is just embellishment on feudalism. Do you really believe this, Mr. Mayor? I would suspect that your constituency is not that cynical.

I’m not completely sure what is driving this angst. A few short years ago, Congress passed an assault weapons ban and I’ll be darned if I can remember any storm troopers beating down my door. Your experience may have been different than mine, but I vaguely remember a safer country that had fewer deaths caused by these military-style rifles. That ban had a sunset clause and came to an end 10 years later. Oddly enough, deaths from those weapons have risen.

The 1994 assault weapons bill garnered bipartisan support from some very high profile partisans, one of whom was former president Ronald Reagan. Reagan urged Congress to “listen to the American public and to the law enforcement community and support a ban on the further manufacture of military-style assault weapons.” In a Boston Globe editorial, he wrote: “As a longtime gun owner and supporter of the right to bear arms ... I’m convinced that the limitations imposed in this bill are absolutely necessary.”

The former president also was in favor of beefing up background checks.

By the reckoning of mayor Rupright, it appears that ex-president Reagan must have been a pinko-commie-dictator bent on eviscerating the Second Amendment and putting us all in chains. Or maybe he just understood the Constitution a little better than some other elected officials.

In your column you admonish the reader to “turn off the boob tube, put down the beer and bag of Doritos and read.” I suggest you do the same, Mr. Mayor.

Chuck Legge is a freelance political cartoonist and community columnist who lives in Sutton.