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          GUN CONTROL, PATRIOTISM, AND CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE
                       By Jacob G. Hornberger

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The State of California recently enacted a law which requires owners of
semiautomatic weapons to register their guns with the State. But when
the law went into effect, thousands of California gun owners, although
risking a felony conviction, refused to comply with its requirements.

These gun owners were immediately showered with harsh criticism, not
only from their public officials, but from their fellow citizens as
well. The critics implied, among other things, that since the law had
been passed by the duly elected representatives of the people, the gun
owners, as members of society, had a duty to comply with its terms.

The controversy raised important issues concerning liberty, property,
government, patriotism, and civil disobedience.

As I have repeatedly emphasized, by adopting the welfare-state,
planned-economy way of life, the American people of our time have
rejected and abandoned the principles of individual freedom and limited
government upon which our nation was founded. But they have also
rejected and abandoned something of equal importance: the concept of
patriotism which characterized America's Founding Fathers.

There have been two different notions of patriotism in American history.
The one which characterizes the American people of the 20th century -
the one which is taught in our public schools - is this: patriotism
means the support of one's own government and the actions which the
government takes on behalf of the citizenry. The idea is that since we
live in a democratic society, the majority should have the political
power to take any action it desires. And although those in the minority
may not like the laws , they are duty-bound as ``good'' citizens to obey
and support them.

The distinguishing characteristic of this type of patriotism is that the
citizen does not make an independent, personal judgement of the
rightness or wrongness of a law. Instead, he does what he has been
taught to do since the first grade in his government schools: he places
unwavering faith and trust in the judgement of his popularly-elected
public officials.

The over concept of patriotism was the type which characterized the
British colonists during the late 1700s. These individuals believed that
patriotism meant a devotion to certain principles of rightness and
morality. They believed that the good citizen had the duty to make an
independent judgement as to whether or not his own government's laws
violated these principles. And so, unlike their counterparts in America
today, these individuals refused automatically to accept the legitimacy
of the actions of their public officials.

Let us examine how dramatically the ``real world'' applications of these
two concepts of patriotism differ.

In the late 1700s, the British colonists suffered under the same kind of
oppressive regulations and taxes that present-day Americans endure. What
was the reaction of the colonists to this regulatory and tax tyranny?
They deliberately chose to ignore and disobey their government's
regulations and tax acts. Smuggling and tax-evasion were the order of
the day! And the more that their government tried to enforce the
restrictions, the more it met with resistance and disobedience from the
citizenry.

Sometimes smugglers or tax evaders would be caught and brought to trial.
The result? Despite conclusive evidence of guilt and the judges
instructions too convict, the defendants' fellow citizens on the juries
regularly voted verdicts of acquittal.

And civil disobedience was not limited to economic regulations and
taxation. There was also widespread resistance to conscription,
especially during the French and Indian Wars. Those who were conscripted
deserted the army in large numbers. And those who had not been
conscripted hid the deserters in their homes.

This was what it once meant to be a patriot -- the devotion to a certain
set of principles regarding rightness, morality, individualism, liberty,
and property; and it meant a firm stand against one's own government
when it violated these principles.

If an American of today were magically transported back to colonial
America of the late 1700s, he would immediately find himself at odds
with the colonists who were resisting the tyranny of their government.
How do we know this? By the way which Americans of today respond to what
is a much more oppressive and tyrannical economic system - with either
meekness or, even worse, with ardent ``flag-waving'' support for the
actions of their rulers.

And what is their attitude toward their fellow citizens who are caught
violating the rules and regulations? Again, either meekness or fervent
support of the rulers. After all, what was their reaction to the
Internal Revenue Service's seizure of Willie Nelson's property? ``I'll
make a small donation but otherwise don't get me involved - I don't want
them coming after me!'' And to the conviction of Michael Milken for
violating economic regulations that were so ridiculous that even King
George would have been embarrassed? ``He got what's coming to him -
shouldn't have made so much money anyway!'' And to Leona Helmsley's
conviction for having taken improper deductions on her income tax
return? ``She's obnoxious - she should go to jail.'' The thought of
rising to the defense of these victims of political tyranny is anathema
to the present-day American ``patriot.''

And what about jury trials involving economic crimes? Like the good,
little citizens they have been taught to be in the public school system,
American ``patriots'' dutifully comply with the judge's instructions to
convict fellow citizens caught up in this regulatory and tax tyranny.
Although they have the same power as their ancestors to disregard the
judge's instructions and to acquit their fellow citizens, the thought of
doing so is so repugnant to present-day ``patriots'' that they choose to
do their ``d uty'' and thereby become ``patriotic'' agents of their own
government's tyranny.

Therefore, there is no doubt that the American of today would feel very
uncomfortable if, all of a sudden, he found himself in the British
colonies in 1775 - in the midst of smugglers, tax-evaders,
draft-resisters, and other patriots of the time.

This brings us back to the individual in California who are refusing to
register their guns.

As our American ancestors understood so well, the bedrock of a free
society is private ownership of property. And there are fewer more
important rights of private ownership than the unfettered right to own
weapons.

Why is ownership of weapons so vitally important? Not for hunting. And
not even to resist aggression by domestic criminals or foreign invaders.
No, as history has repeatedly shown, the vital importance of the
fundamental right to won arms is to resist tyranny by one's own
government, should such tyranny ever become unendurably evil and
oppressive.

The lesson which Americans of today have forgotten or have never learned
- the lesson which our ancestors tried so hard to teach us - is that the
greatest threat to our lives, liberty, property, and security lies not
with some foreign government, as our rulers so often tell us; instead
the greatest threat to our freedom and well-being lies with our own
government!

Of course, there are those who suggest that democratically-elected
public officials would never do anything to seriously harm the American
people. But let's look at just a few twentieth-century examples: They
confiscated people's gold. They repudiated gold clauses in government
debts. They provoked the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor and then
acted like they were surprised. They incarcerated Japanese-Americans for
no crime at all. They injected dangerous, mind-altering drugs into
American servicemen wi thout their knowledge. They radiated the American
people in the Pacific Northwest and then deliberately hid this
information from them. They have surreptitiously confiscated and
plundered people's income and savings through the Federal Reserve
System. They have plundered and terrorized the citizenry through the
IRS. And, most recently, they have sent our fellow citizens to their
deaths thousands of miles away in the pursuit of a relatively
insignificant cause.

Those who believe that democratically-elected rulers lack the potential
and inclination for destructive conduct against their citizenry are
living in la-la land.

Of course, the proponents of political tyranny are usually
well-motivated. Those who enacted the gun-registration law in California
point to criminals who have used semiautomatic weapons to commit
horrible, murderous acts. But the illusion - the pipe-dream - is that
bad acts can be prevented by the deprivation of liberty. They cannot be!
Life is insecure - whether under liberty or enslavement. The only choice
is between liberty and insecurity, on the one hand, and insecurity and
enslavement on the other.

The true patriot scrutinizes the actions of his own government with
unceasing vigilance. And when his government violates the morality and
rightness associated with principles of individual freedom and private
property, he immediately rises in opposition to his government. This is
why the gun owners of California might ultimately go down in history as
among the greatest and most courageous patriots of our time.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of the Future of Freedom
Foundation, P.O. Box 9752, Denver, Colorado 80209. Tel: [phone].


                        RECOMMENDED READING:

That Every Man Be Armed:
The Evolution of a Constitutional Right, Halbrook ........... $12.95
Restricting Handguns:
The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out, Kates .......................  $9.95
Firearms & Violence, Kates .................................. $15.95
A Right To Bear Arms, Halbrook ..............................  $24.95


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