Tag: Second Amendment

Take All Their Security Clearances: Can’t trust the government, can’t trust the media, but you can trust the gun

Let’s get something straight, John Brennan, Bruce Ohr, and many, many others are losing their security clearance not as some form of censorship to a media looking for the next leak coming from them, it’s because they can’t be trusted. We do not have a free press if they are all pulling for one political party and are working in conjunction with villains who want to destroy the concept of American independence. Trump is the head of the executive branch of government and he was elected to drain the swamp and by looking at the list of people he is considering revoking their security clearance especially those attached to the government case against him, every one of them would be justified. The media and their leakers are not part of any resistance that I want to be a part of. I voted for Trump to resist them and they should consider themselves lucky, because they wouldn’t have liked the alternative.

I had a very nice visit to the Premier Shooting range this past week with my son-in-law so that he could get a chance to shoot my Desert Eagle. The people working at Premier are always good to talk to and the general environment is very representative of the type of gun enthusiasts that are pretty common in the county that I live in, mostly conservative, mostly affluent, and extremely family friendly. Premier Shooting in West Chester is more of a country club for shooters where the traditional venue for that kind of thing is golf. They have a very nice lounge area with a fishing lake to go along with their various classroom settings and sales floor. But shooting is their business and the range was very busy on a Thursday in the middle of the day during my lunch hour. So busy in fact that there was only one lane open for us to shoot on.

The people attending are not a bunch of slack-jawed hippies or tattooed freaks. They were nice, clean-shaven affluent West Chester, Fairfield, and Liberty Township residents enjoying their firearms in what I think is the best range of its kind in southern Ohio. Everything is clean and well-lit, as well as safe. It’s the perfect venue for my .50 caliber Desert Eagle which always provokes a lot of discussion these days whenever I get it out. It’s hard to believe that I’ve only had the gun since May and by August I had already put 1000 rounds through it. But that was a bit of cause for celebration. Going there during my workday with people who I share my day with often is my way of managing stress, so I use the place often for that purpose and it doesn’t take long to go through 50 boxes of ammunition in a three-month period. My son-in-law and I went through two boxes in just twenty minutes so it doesn’t take long. The other people around us were in similar situations, shooting for them was part sport, part philosophy. It was the joining together of a lifestyle that mattered which made the whole Premier experience part of the magic.

We don’t go shooting thinking about killing anybody. I go, and I know that the other West Chester people who share those lanes with me often do the same to enjoy the ballistics of the craft, of a finely tuned gun dispensing a lead projectile toward a target at a distance appropriate to the effort. But always under the layers of endeavor is the reminder that the gun is key to the Second Amendment and that means private ownership and possible militia gathering should it become necessary. Having a gun on your hip or in your bag at the range is a distinct reminder that you are a free person in charge of your life. The government isn’t there to rule you, it’s there to manage affairs on our behalf and if they get out of control then we as people have the means to reel them back in to a properly managed society. Getting to know your firearms is part of the fun, but having them is part of a philosophy of independence that keeps the government from getting out of control.

Over several years of thinking about it now I realize that the NRA isn’t enough. I love them, they do good work, but just their very existence is a kind of appeasement toward the big government gun control lobby. I am of a mind that the government has no business in the regulation of firearms in any manner, because the purpose ultimately of them is to prevent the kind of corruption that we have witnessed as a direct result of the Trump presidency, where massive corruption has been revealed because he was in office to expose it. It was always there, but it was hidden from us by a corrupt media, and many corrupt officials. It has been stunning to learn just how many high-level intelligence officials are part of a culture within the Beltway that have involved relationships with the press. It reminds me of the kind of relationships that form at Premier where people of alike mind join to enjoy shooting, only the like-minded behavior of the advocates of more state control are joined for the opposite intentions.

We do not have a free press with the corporate media types. I am not one who dislikes corporations, but the big names in media have hired and evolved along the lines of big government state controls, likely because they all went to the same type of schools and learned the same values which have evolved on the coastal regions of America. But in the Midwest a different culture exists that does not like all that proposed state control. We put Donald Trump in charge to fix it hoping that things wouldn’t have to get messy. But if they do, that is the next alternative. Giving more power to people like John Brennan was never part of our plan. Not that we wish to be a bunch of crazy radicals, we really just want to be left alone to run our businesses and families. We don’t want the state to assume they are doing anything for our benefit. They aren’t smarter than we are and they are not qualified to herd us all into little groups, to steal our money through taxation and regulate us into everything being such a pain in the ass that running companies isn’t even worth it.

Security clearances are not a right. Brennan lost his because he had a big mouth and acted in ways that were not conducive to traditional American values. His friends within the intelligence community are no better off, they should all lose their access to any security information. It’s not Trump doing these things because he wants to be mean, he’s doing them because he’s fulfilling the objectives that people who like to shoot guns at Premier Shooting in West Chester, Ohio voted for him to do so that they wouldn’t have to take up guns against a corrupt government selling itself to the public through a corrupt media. We know the difference. But by listening to the reaction of people on the other side responding to John Brennan’s loss of clearance, I don’t think they understand much of anything of what is going on in my neck of the woods. They don’t have a choice. Trump is doing exactly what we wanted. There wasn’t a single person at Premier Shooting that day who disagreed with anything that Trump was doing. We’d all give him an A+ on a report card. If there was anything different we’d have him do is to do it all faster. He has the power to shut down these expensive investigations that are only meant to attempt to hurt Republican majorities in the house and senate. Why would we want to help Democrats with that? Its time to kick all those people out of office and take away their security clearances. Its time to cut off the media from the nation’s secrets with their contacts in the intelligence community. I’m not sure we can trust any of them, let alone some of them. But we don’t have to trust them. In many cases we don’t even need them. Because we are gun owners and most of the time, that’s all we really need.

Rich Hoffman

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The Mighty .50 Caliber Desert Eagle: Winning the fight again the vile Dionysians

There are few pleasures in life like buying a new gun. In America it’s always a special thing to do and is unique to our culture. I don’t do it as much as I’d like, but when I do it’s usually something very special that I purchase, something I had been thinking about for a long time. In this case it’s the Desert Eagle .50 Mark XIX. When I was 19 and newly married I was a FFL holder and I had a shop in the back of the place I lived with my new bride as a baby was on the way. She and I had plans to live a crafty life where we’d basically tell the world to go to hell and live free of the chaos from the outside world. We had very romantic notions of how we wanted to live and I was going to be a gunsmith protecting the Second Amendment with the fine craftsmanship of a field of endeavor that was specific to American culture and I was very proud of it. But of course, money was hard to come by, and the idea that we were going to be able to shut ourselves from the world was a fleeting hope. The world found a way to stick its nose into our business at virtually every turn, even though we didn’t go out looking for such intrusions. They literally came to our door in what I would refer to at best as a conflict between the god Apollo and a bit of a nemesis in Dionysus. Since I was so young, it was hard to get started in the business. I needed time to acquire the skills and reputation of a gunsmith and time wasn’t on my side.

I would spend hours upon hours going over ballistic data and learning about the various guns that were manufactured so that I could talk shop with my clientele. I always viewed guns and the business of them to be a very intellectual exercise. Not only were the inventions of guns there to protect the thoughts and deeds of civilization from the savage impediments of mankind’s barbaric side, but their rise in America were specific to our Constitutional foundations which was always a beautiful thing to me. That was why I wanted to be a gunsmith and a happily married guy raising a new family in America. And out of all the guns I came in contact with and had the most desire to own it was the .50 caliber Desert Eagle. There wasn’t then, nor is there presently a more powerful semi-automatic handgun in the world. There’s nothing quite like it, and it was the gun I most wanted to have. The whole exchange was very Apollonian for me—it was a thing of beauty and technical perfection that had the American flag oozing from it. The gun’s manufacturer was Magnum Research which built them at IWI, Israel Military Industries, but since 2009 they have been manufactured at the MRI Minnesota plant and are an American icon. Desert Eagles are very popular with pop culture and have appeared in many entertainment venues, but only in shooting one can you truly grasp the wonder of owning one of these fantastic guns, so it was at the top of my list for many, many years. But they were too expensive for me at the time and once we started having kids, there were fewer opportunities to get one. As much as I wanted my little gunsmithing idea to work out, necessity required that I make a lot more money so I had to abandon the idea in favor of jobs that would infuse more cash into my starting family.

Finally, when it came time to talk about what to do on my 50th birthday we decided to spend the money to finally get that .50 Desert Eagle that I had been wanting all my adult life but had put it off.  Until that point it just wasn’t practical to tie up so much money, several thousand dollars, on a gun that I might only occasionally shoot. It was my wife’s idea ultimately because I so tenaciously had held on to the dream of finally getting one. If it was just me I was concerned about I would have bought one way back in my twenties, but all the money I made even down to the last dollar went to raising my family and I seldom had any cash to work with that didn’t require the needs of my family. If it wasn’t braces, it was a new instrument for school, a broken car, or some other unforeseen expense that always seemed to come along to consume any extra money I made. It’s not that I didn’t work hard to get the money, I was telling a young guy who tends to work a lot of overtime the other day that even now I have never worked a 40-hour week my entire adult life. Most of the time I worked either two full-time jobs or had a full-time job and two-part time jobs, sometimes working seven days a week. But for my 50th my family had been talking about doing some big party but honestly, I would have rather had spent that money on something that meant something to me, and the Desert Eagle was it.

My wife and I went to our local gun dealer which is at the end of my street and finally ordered the Desert Eagle I wanted which was the Mark IXI in the stainless-steel variation with the rails on the top and bottom of the barrel and Magnum Research assured me that I wouldn’t have to wait long to get the gun from the factory, because they certainly didn’t have it on the shelf. There are a lot of Desert Eagles out there, but most are in the .44 magnum variation, and few are stainless steel because it takes the cost up over $2K. But that’s the one I had always wanted so we bought it and it felt good. I felt privileged to be able to pick it up at Right 2 Arms and to then take it down to Premier Shooting in West Chester which is a fantastic target range and unleash it with a friend of mine. I’m at a point in my life where I am going to make this Desert Eagle my CCW gun for a number of reasons, so the entire experience of purchasing it, and shooting it was a very intellectual one for me. As I said, I have always viewed guns as Apollonian while the anti-gun people out there are very Dionysian. The way that mankind advances is with thought, not drunken surrender to the sentiments of existence, so what protects human advancement from the clutches of the parasites who bask in drunkenness and emotional chaos is the gun. I don’t think its ironic that so many top end gun stores and shooting ranges are near my home, it’s a philosophic necessity. I live in an affluent area where people have values. To protect those values guns are a necessity, not so much in shooting some bad guy, but in the practice of participating in elevated thoughts and income making potential. Where there are people who work to advance the efforts of mankind, there needs to always be gun stores. The Dionysian types would argue that other places in the world don’t have guns, and that they are advancing mankind, but that is only from their perspective. Their aim is to turn off their minds to reality through wine, women, and other intoxicants whereas my yearning as well as people who really work to advance human civilization, like the friend I had with me at Premier Shooting in West Chester shown in the video, are to protect the intellectual advancements that are driving culture in a positive direction.

A gun like the Desert Eagle to me is not a menacing killer, it’s a protector of mankind’s mind from the clutches of evil chaos that is always trying to turn back the clock toward the vile impulses of tribal mentality. Even though I had been thinking about the Desert Eagle for many years and had on occasion interacted with them, I never let myself enjoy the experience until I had one of my own, because I didn’t want to think much about something I couldn’t have. But once I finally did and could take some time to shoot it, my many years of waiting came to a fruition that was very satisfying. The powerful gun is a real treasure to shoot. With such a powerful cartridge that is producing a muzzle velocity bullet at 1475 fps the Desert Eagle in the .50 caliber was astonishingly smooth. I had heard reports from other shooters that their experience with the Desert Eagle was not so pleasant. But as my readers here know my other favorite gun is one that I’ve had for a while, my .500 Magnum Smith & Wesson. I’m used to firing that one, but it’s just too big to use as a CCW. I’ve tried and it just doesn’t work. The barrel hangs out constantly from under my jacket since it’s essentially a hand cannon. This Desert Eagle handles those big magnum cartridges with astonishing ease and it amazed me what a wonderful engineering feat Magnum Research had performed. The gun was certainly worth the wait, and the money.

So why so big? Well, my thoughts are that if you are going to have a gun, it should be as big as possible, especially these days. There are so many bad guys running around with body armor, even helmets that can easily deflect a 9mm bullet. I want to be able to disable such a person if the need arises and possibly prevent their armored cars from escaping. As a gun advocate, I am not interested in firearms that are in the smaller calibers. I haven’t been in the past which is why I’ve held on to this notion of getting a Desert Eagle. If I couldn’t get what I wanted, I didn’t look for smaller supplements over the years which is why nobody has ever seen me get very excited over a Berretta 92F or a Ruger EC9. Those are all fine weapons, but to my mind they aren’t much different from a standard BB gun. If you are going to carry a defense gun, it needs to be able to stop just about anything. Even my treasured Vaquero that I use for Cowboy Fast Draw is not something I’d consider these days as a proper defense from the hostilities of Dionysian aggressiveness—that’s the best way I know to put it. The more you are involved in things that are valuable intellectually and productive, the bigger the guns need to be because its only a matter of time before some mudslinging, drug induced loser will think about taking what you’ve worked so hard all your life to build, and upon knowing that you have a Desert Eagle, they just might fight back the impulse to act on their aggressions—hopefully.

The 30-year wait was more than worth it to me. While I would have liked to have had a Desert Eagle when I was 19, I’m happy to have it at 50. It is a work of art in every way possible, the gas piston system that the gun runs on is a marvel to me—the way it absorbs so much of the recoil from such a powerful magnum cartridge. I was expecting a much harder kick than I received from the .50 AE Desert Eagle. My friend and I were a little astonished to feel the shock wave of energy that hit our faces with each shot but the gun itself didn’t seem to be struggling at all with the massive power involved. The loading mechanism from the clip worked well beyond what I would have expected and the overall experience was much smoother than I would have thought for such a large, and powerful firearm. I am happy to have it and intend to put it to good use—in a very Apollo oriented way. In my view, the more intellectual the pursuit of mankind, the bigger the guns need to be to protect those pursuits from the parasites of Dionysus. A lot of people might consider a gun like this .50 AE Desert Eagle to be a novelty gun, a fun thing to shoot with the guys for some testosterone induced levity. But I consider it essential to my personal lifestyle given the types of things I’m involved with because it’s always better to function fairly from a position of perpetual strength than on the whims of hope that people will behave themselves. The Desert Eagle assures that they will, taking speculation out of the equation which is a very valuable thing.

Rich Hoffman
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Surrender is Not an Option: I will never give up my guns, not to the Stayin’ Alive Hogg kid, or anybody……

After watching the various speeches from the March for Our Lives rally, especially the one with the “Staying Alive” kid David Hogg there are a few things that need to be said for the health of our country. It is quite obvious that the people behind the rally have in mind a quiet overthrow of the American way of life. They are clearly intent on being insurgents, and speaking for myself, they are attacking the values I have. When they attack the NRA, I see that they are attacking me, personally—and I take offense to that. Now, up to this point, I think most of us can agree that the laws of our nation are something we can generally agree with. With that understanding we live in a commonly peaceful society free of daily concerns, and I think that’s great. If the police pull you over for speeding, you should be cooperative. If they need to look in your back yard for a fugitive, then you should let them have a look. And if they come over to your house because a neighbor complains about your fireworks on the Fourth of July, you should give them some respect—maybe even given them a hot dog from the grill. If protestors like these anti-gun kids have something to say, we should let them have their First Amendment rights. And we should try to be as fair to as many people as possible. I do not see America as a nation of white people with privilege. Every American born in this country no matter what sex, color, or ideology has upward mobility if one chooses to unleash it and that is a very special thing worth protecting. However, the only way to protect that open opportunity world isn’t with any law, its only with the threat of an armed society.

My new concealed carry gun I decided after watching Hogg speak on Saturday March 24th 2018 is going to be a .50 caliber Desert Eagle from Magnum Research. I hope I never have to use it under contentious circumstances, but I’m going to have it just in case because I see a world emerging for which these little socialist insurgents are looking to change my country into something else and they seek to do it by shaming gun owners into giving up the very defense which prevents such a mass revolution within North America. Guns to me are an honorable device which keeps society on the up and up. What David Hogg is attacking in the NRA as a gun lobby group is essentially attacking me, because I support that gun lobby group to protect the basic foundations of American life. Not as a white male of privilege, but as a way to keep America free so that people of all colors and backgrounds can have a chance at the American dream. Without guns in the background of that protection America simply doesn’t exist. And even if Hogg and his youth are successful in changing out politicians I have to remind him that it has been members of the political left who have broken many laws—specifically illegal immigration and drug enforcement that has openly undermined the American society I love so much. So even if Hogg got his way and outlawed all our guns and ammunition I can say quite openly that I will not surrender my guns to anybody anywhere at any time. And I certainly won’t comply with a world led by people like David Hogg. No matter how many their number there is no force in the world that can make me change my mind. I’m smarter than they are, and so are a lot of people and there won’t be an “oh gosh” moment where a guy like me lives under a flag taken over by insurgents where the meanings of America is changed without there being trouble. I could live quite happily as an outlaw, if that’s what they want. They should be careful what they wish for.

Even as a conservative I am not pro police all the time. I think the thin blue line is necessary for a productive society but I dread the day some officer comes to my house the way they did in New Orleans during the Katrina hurricane and demands to confiscate my guns because I’ll have to say no. And when I say no the police will try to assume control over my individuality for which I won’t yield, and there will be trouble. The police will say they are only following orders for which I’ll have to say those orders don’t matter to me because I don’t have faith in the society that gave those orders. If the politicians who gave the orders to the police were put in power by people like the Hogg youth, then I have to say I don’t support that society and will openly go to war with it. That’s what war is after all, its not about complying with laws. A lawful society is one where people generally agree to follow the same common laws, but liberals of today have openly declared that they are not willing to follow the laws of immigration—they insist on breaking the law with sanctuary cities and other acts of defiance. It was even against the law for Rosa Parks to stand against southern white Democrats and the laws they had for segregation. The law that I follow is the one in the Constitution. Any deviation from that Constitution, any attempt to erode it and to take away the Bill of Rights to me indicates the necessity for a war to protect those rights, and in war there is death. And that will be ugly.

In many ways I wrote my book The Tail of the Dragon to lay out this precise case, when the law enforcement community is not representing traditional America what are we to do? The character in that story decided he wasn’t going to be compelled in such a way to surrender blindly to the authority of the state and as an individual he goes to war with the American military complex starting with police officers and ending with the military. I wrote that book to defend my future self in a court of law for when our society finally breaks and I will be forced to choose. With the Trump election I have a hope that I might avoid that future life. However, living under the changed laws of a David Hogg society is not an option. Even if his youth get what they want and change our society and our gun culture the way that liberals have prodded them into attempting, it doesn’t mean that the gun culture is going to just say, “ah, shucks—here you go. Here are all my guns.” The compliance with officers today is only in the context of an understanding that our society still values the Second Amendment. The minute that disappears, which given the actions of the FBI against Trump has indicated, that time has passed. The weapon I choose to carry needs to be able to deal with all the modern challenges, and these little pea shooters with insufficient muzzle velocities won’t cut it.

The essence of my thoughts on the March for Our Lives rally is that I see it as an attack. If they do succeed in voting out representatives put in place by my gun lobby—because I am the NRA—then the violence that follows will be their responsibility. The NRA is there to protect guns which then protect the rule of law as established by the original Constitution. We know why mass school shootings happen, we know why there are problems in modern society, we know who the villains are. And getting rid of guns will not solve those problems. Instead, it will make America more socialist and much less capitalist, and that’s where I draw the line. I’ll obey the laws as they stand today. But if they change tomorrow, and guns were to be made illegal, then I’d decide at that moment that our society based on historical context is headed in the wrong direction and the only way to defend my life and my country is with a gun—in fact—lots of guns. I’d prefer to live in a peaceful life with other people, and I have shown that I can live well even around people who don’t think exactly the way I do. But surrendering my guns isn’t an option for me. I simply won’t do it, and I have no intention on just sitting around and being a victim. If its war they want, then they’ll get it, and I can promise this much, I have no intention on losing under any condition. The only thing that keeps a truly orderly society is a gun to defend yourself from anything the temptations of power might corrupt in our political system. They must fear what you might do with your guns, because in a world not functioning from the laws of man, or a God who granted rights of freedom to those people—there is only the fear of death which keeps bad people in line.

Rich Hoffman

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The Most Effective Argument in favor of Guns in Soceity: What everyone misses about the need for the Second Amendment–Institituions cannot be trusted

The support for an armed society is a philosophical one, not one of just emotional attachments to tradition. There is a reason the Second Amendment was inserted into the Bill of Rights and was so important to the Anti-Federalists in the 1790-time period of American history that is just as relevant today as it was then. The human race has not “progressed to a certain level where a one world government like the utopian Star Fleet Command is running everything on earth—and it never will. The reason is that there are traits to human beings that so long as they exist prevent the complete trust of individuals into all institutions created by society. To properly have a check and balance against absolute power, individuals must have the ability to overthrow their institutions before they get too big, and too power hungry to handle the affairs of civilization properly. Guns are that fine line of control which keeps our institutions in check with the fear always in the back of their minds that at any moment the population could remove them from office under armed rebellion and replace them. The issue has never been about “assault weapons” or “bump stocks.” It’s about the nature of people and what they do when they have power over other people. Those who want more power over more people obviously are those who support removing guns from society—to whatever degree. But the essence of the argument is that we would be fools to completely trust any institution created by the minds of man. The gun allows us to manage that power we give those institutions—and without that management assistance, institutions by their nature spiral out of control and become oppressive. Because at the heart of most humans who crave power is a laziness that always retreats to default mode and would rather run society as a bunch of compliant automatons rather than free thinking variables.

To put the issue in the most simplistic forms I will provide an example that I have used actually quite often. To provide a little background about myself I am a person who loves personal freedom likely more than most people, and I have always built my life around the ability to be free of institutional control. In my youth I was a martial artist and had developed the personal ability to defend myself no matter what was presented. Growing up I never had the feeling that anybody could “kick my ass” and I still feel that way. I don’t care how big the person is or how skilled, I made a point physically to be the top of the pecking order in regard to fighting in hand to hand combat and that allowed me a certain freedom to think properly about these matters of institutional control. But melee weapons are one thing, if a person approaches you with a gun physical confrontation is not the best way to deal with a threat like that. You really need a gun no matter how skilled you may be in disarming people. The best way to prevent a threat is to show them you have a gun and give them a choice as to whether or not to continue.

For a short while I was a repo man in my early years and I was shot at on occasion. That was back in the old days before there were the kind of rules that there are today. Back then the bank would let you do quite a few things to recover an asset, so I know what it feels like to be a bit of a thief sneaking up on a car to take it away from a hostile person likely armed. I even know what it feels like to break into a home knowing a person was armed to get the car keys. This wasn’t an accepted practice but it’s always better to ask for forgiveness than permission when dealing with bureaucracies and if I could get my hands on the keys, it meant doing less damage to the asset to retrieve it so breaking into a home to get the keys was forgivable—if you were successful. But people did get mad and they did shoot to kill. So in speaking about this kind of stuff I understand it from both sides very well.

I’ve also been to Europe and can report that the people there are pretty much a defeated people. Their gun laws and progressive societies have destroyed individual initiative and expectation. They live in small homes that are too expensive and do not have an expectation of personal sanctity the way that Americans do—and this really does trace back to gun ownership. In Europe the chances of being robbed in your home are much, much greater than in the United States because thieves know that nobody is armed in the home. They think nothing of breaking and entering to steal a person’s possessions even if they are there—because being shot is not on their minds. If they have managed to get a gun off the black market then they suddenly have become the strongest person around and they use that force to their advantage—because that’s what most human beings do when they acquire power—they tend to abuse it unless they are governed by a personal constitution of morality and valor. Without those elements they become tyrants quickly—whether they control a vast institution, or are just petty street criminals. It’s all the same human dysfunction on the micro or macro levels.

The person who trained me in martial arts during my teenage years was a thug. He was a lot like the karate school owner in the movie Karate Kid. His sole purpose for the school was to teach young strong males to be killers so that they’d go to tournaments and win trophies for his wall, so that he could then charge high fees to provide instruction. I thought of him as an evil person and he eventually was busted for many crimes and did jail time, but I learned a lot from the guy. I learned that it wasn’t hard to kill a person with your hands, in fact it was pretty easy and once you learned the basics you had leverage over every other human being that didn’t know that information. Most of his students went on to become terrors—and they got into nearly as much trouble as he did. Once they had the power to literally kill with their bare hands they had no fear of anybody and they began to be bullies that nobody could stop. It was the same concept as the robber with a gun who had something everyone else was missing. Outlawing a gun doesn’t change the nature of dominating others as a human predilection. Until that problem is solved, where humans wish to dominate others, whether it’s the liberal using institutionalism to control individual behavior, or a common street thug beating people over the head with a pipe to steal $25 dollars—the desire to rule over other individuals is the problem that must be solved. No institutional laws will have any effect—because the problem at its core is an institutional issue.

More times than even I can recollect I’ve used the threat of violence to keep peace. If someone is robbing you the way to handle it best is to say, “Hay man,” show them the gun under your jacket “you don’t have to die today. I won’t even call the cops. If you keep walking you can go to sleep tonight.” It’s that simple. Just say that, have the gun to show them—even if they are pointing one at you, letting them know you have a gun and are willing to use it, will most of the time cause them to leave you alone. These things don’t happen like they do in the movies. Criminals want a nice easy hit on someone. They don’t want to die or risk injury. If they have to risk that with you, they’ll move on most of the time. That also goes with hired killers. I’ve also known several of them as well, and deep down inside they are just people like anybody else. They don’t want to die. They know that just because you shoot someone they don’t die instantly. They know if you have a gun on you that you could still shoot them even if wounded. Because of guns in our country, we see much less crime than we otherwise would because nobody really knows who has guns in the house and who doesn’t. That secures our private property in the correct way and allows for Americans to think differently than other people around the world do because private property and ownership is the essence of personal responsibility—and protecting those elements makes for a much more civil discourse at the macro level.

Any person advancing gun control measures of any kind, even the “bump stock” debate after the Las Vegas massacre are avoiding the real issue in human failure in dealing with one another. Human desire to control other humans and their thoughts is the problem and until respect at a fundamental level is established for individual sanctity, violence will always be a threat. Those threats often come from institutions because responsibility for individual behavior is disguised. However, gun ownership is more than just symbolic, they are a proper check against the human tendency to inflict through force beliefs of one group against another. The gun creates a level playing field and forces people to respect each other—which is the first foundation of proper human interaction. There is a fine line between fear and respect, and the gun helps society get there better than any law that human beings could invent. And that is the key to a properly managed society. There is nothing barbaric about gun ownership. In fact, the concept is quite a sophisticated one because it takes the human race to a level of thought that has never been achieved before in the history of the world, and the United States is the evidence that it works. Not in the presence of an active gun culture, but in the type of society and options that Americans enjoy that nobody else around the world has. Guns are key to advancing our civilization in very positive ways because they take the bullies out of contention and allow average people to rule their own lives however they see fit. And if their institutions get out of control, then people have guns to retake control, and that is the most important thing of all. Just having the gun does wonders. Hopefully nobody ever needs to use them. But I can say from personal experience that guns work very well at keeping things……..peaceful. Better than anything else ever could hope to. Institutions want to believe they can, but they can’t. They can’t control individual behavior at its core. They can influence it, but they can’t manage it without the occasional madman emerging to destroy innocent people over any little thing.

When I hold a gun, or buy a new gun, I am making an investment into the kind of human freedom that only a gun can provide. And that is not a symbol of violence. It’s a declaration of independence that is philosophical and unique to our species.

Rich Hoffman

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