So, consider the following - if you can, be armed always. Yes...I know. But consider the implications. Of those who died facing an armed attack, how many would have willingly disobeyed unconscionable laws in order to stay alive? If it is difficult, learn to conceal the weapon better. At the very least have a knife with which to stab an enemy to death.
Always carry a reload - and a knife. Need we say anything more. Learn to reload without thought and learn to draw the blade the same way.
Learn to shoot accurately at distance. One may not always be able to have a rifle at hand, but with practice one can develop skill with a handgun to engage the rifleman.
More ammo is better. You can't kill the bad guys if you run out.
If You Are Armed... If You Are Decisive Enough... If You Are Accurate Enough... If You Are Violent Enough... when someone crashes through your gate and opens up with an AK-47, the answer to this problem is at hand. If you allow yourself to be unarmed because of some law, policy, or regulation... then you just die. Never be unarmed! Be skilled with your weapons, for you never know when you may have need of them.
Both Federal and state laws restrict the average person’s right to buy, carry, and use firearms even though the U.S. Constitution specifically states that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed;" a right the U.S. Supreme Court has held is an individual right.
"On June 26, 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller [554 U.S. 570 (2008)], the United States Supreme Court issued its first decision since 1939 interpreting the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Court ruled that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution confers an individual right to possess a firearm for traditionally lawful purposes such as self-defense." (Law Library of Congress 2008)
Two years later in 2010 the Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment is applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. Veronica Rose, Chief Analyst for the Connecticut General Assembly wrote:
In McDonald v. Chicago (561 U.S._ (2010)) the court held that an individual's right to keep and bear arms is incorporated and applicable to the states through the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause. Writing for the majority, Justice Alito observed: "It is clear that the Framers and ratifiers of the Fourteenth Amendment counted the right to keep and bear arms among those fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty" "The Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms fully applicable to the States." In a separate concurring opinion, Justice Thomas wrote that the 2nd Amendment is fully applicable to states because the right to keep and bear arms is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment as a privilege of American citizenship. (Rose 2010)
Similarly, we see that "The carrying of arms in a quiet, peaceable, and orderly manner, concealed on or about the person, is not a breach of the peace. Nor does such an act of itself, lead to a breach of the peace." (Wharton’s Criminal and Civil Procedure, 12th Ed., Vol.2: Judy v. Lashley, 5 W. Va. 628, 41 S.E. 197).
Restrictions on the possession and carrying of firearms, both openly and concealed, substantially interferes with an individual’s right to self-defense. However, the right to self-defense is generally recognized in every state. The following example from Washington State is similar to what one may find in court ruling from several other states.
In State v. Hull (Wash. Ct. App. Dec. 18, 2014) the court held that the Washington Constitution expressly secures a “right of the individual citizen to bear arms in defense of himself, or the state.” The court concluded that this provision and the Second Amendment “are most reasonably read not as creating a right of self-defense but as lending support to the existence of an unenumerated right to self-defense retained by the people or fundamental to due process,” though the court also noted that some other courts “have read constitutional guarantees of a right to bear arms as implicitly guaranteeing a right to self-defense.”
A quotation sometimes attributed to Thomas Jefferson, though actually a passage from Cesare Beccaria's “Essay on Crimes and Punishments” that Jefferson included in his own "Legal Commonplace Book" states: "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one." (Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia 2015)
“According to U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics data, having a gun and being able to use it in a defensive situation is the most effective means of avoiding injury (more so even than offering no resistance) and thwarting completion of a robbery or assault. In general, resisting violent crime is far more likely to help than to hurt, and this is especially true if your attacker attempts to take you hostage, such as sometimes happens in a carjacking situation. Most often with gun defenses, criminals can be frightened away or deterred without a shot being fired. Estimates of these types of defensive uses of firearms are wide ranging, from a low of 65,000 to 82,000 annual defensive gun uses (DGUs) reported to the U.S. Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), to a high end of some 2.1-2.5 million annual DGUs, but they seem to occur at least as often (if not far more often) each year as misuses of firearms by violent criminals.”
If the right to keep and bear arms is a right guaranteed by the US Constitution and by several state constitutions, a right determined by the US Supreme Court to be an individual right, and if the constitutional guarantees of a right to keep and bear arms implicitly guarantees a right to self-defense, how can we then be told that we may not carry a firearm when and where we choose?
Placing restrictions on where a person may carry firearms causes them to suffer a loss of their Constitutional freedoms, and that loss “unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury”.
It has long been established that the loss of constitutional freedoms, “for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976) (plurality opinion) (citing New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)).” — Caneisha Mills et.al. v. District of Columbia, No. 08-7127, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, July 10, 2009
It has long been established that the loss of constitutional freedoms, “for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.” Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976) (plurality opinion) (citing New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713 (1971)).” — Caneisha Mills et.al. v. District of Columbia, No. 08-7127, U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, July 10, 2009
Laws restricting when, where, and how a person may be armed are clearly unconstitutional.
The General rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation, is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted.
Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts performed under it... A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded thereby.
No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it. (16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256)
Does owning and carrying a firearm make you safer? Look at the pro-gun arguments and there are plenty of studies that says it does. Look at the anti-gun arguments and there are plenty of studies that says it does not. But the bottom line is that it does not matter. In the United States the right to keep and bear (own and carry) arms is a right guaranteed to the individual citizen. No legislative body, administrative agency, or executive order can legally take this right away from the American People. Laws, rules, and regulations that attempt to criminalize “the carrying of arms in a quiet, peaceable, and orderly manner, concealed on or about the person” serve as another example of the problem over criminalization in the United States, and the creation of a ‘Nanny State’ where government attempts to address issues by placing restrictions on the personal choices and freedoms of the people.
