I listened to the impassioned speeches of the Students who rallied in Tallahassee in support of better gun control laws. Many of them made extremely relevant and important points. One said they had lost confidence in the Government. Another said he did not know what the right answer was, but he knew we were not doing enough. These ideas are at the heart of the problem, but sadly do not identify the cause of the problem and consequently the solution.
I have many things I want to tell you. Perhaps now is not the best time, but they are important and will ultimately help you understand the world you are inheriting. Perhaps you will choose to keep this letter close and read it from time to time.
First, no law prevents crime. A law simply tells you something is illegal and tells you the consequences for violating it. If laws prevented crime, there would be no criminals. It is true that laws may reduce crime by discouraging some people from committing crimes, but I rely upon the original statement. Ultimately, laws do not prevent a determined person from committing a crime. You may decide that new gun laws are important, but you should not be so naïve that you believe they will stop people from using guns to kill people or prevent evil people from finding other ways to accomplish their goals.
There are many things you should understand about your government and the Constitution. One thing is the real meaning of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment talks about guns and a well regulated militia. The idea behind the Second Amendment is far more important. The idea is that your life is an inalienable right. You have the right to defend yourself against any assailant even if it requires you to use deadly force to do so.
There are a couple of ideas about the Constitution that will help you understand what is wrong with our Country and explain why you cannot trust your government. In the simplest terms, the Constitution created the Federal Government. It tells each of the major players what they have the authority to do and more importantly what they cannot do. The Tenth Amendment reads “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” In simple terms, if the Constitution does not tell the people in the Government they can do something, they have no business doing it.
This idea that the power of the Government is limited is hated by politicians. They will go to all kinds of lengths to tell you it should not be limited. One of the worst of these is the idea that a decision by the Supreme Court is superior to anything else. This violates the basic principle that the Constitution is the Supreme Law. It also violates the idea of three co-equal branches and allows the court to make laws over the will of the legislature. It allows the Supreme Court to circumvent the amendment process. As simple and logical as this sounds the government has been successful in planting this idea in all of our law schools and virtually every lawyer is willing to accept this as true.
A second, equally dangerous idea is that the Constitution is a living document. The Founding Fathers understood the Constitution might need to change. That is why they created the amendment process. They did not give anyone the authority to interpret the Constitution. The responsibility of the courts is to interpret issues in our society to see how the Constitution applies to them. If the Constitution does not address something, it most likely means it is an issue for the States, not an excuse to interpret the Constitution and give the Federal Government more power.
The basic idea behind our Constitution is that people who want to be free and to govern themselves must be both capable and willing to do so. Our Founding Fathers told us when they created the government that it was the responsibility of us, the citizens, and a free press to hold the government accountable to the Constitution. Over the last two hundred years or so, you would have to say we have failed.
The ambition of politicians to take more power upon themselves and our willingness to avoid responsibility by asking the government to solve all of our problems has brought us to where we are today.
The simple truth is that no government in a free society can solve all of your problems and protect you from all calamities. The only way a government can do that is to take away all of your freedom and not allow you to do anything that might cause harm to yourself or someone else.
The simple and hard truth is that the Federal Government cannot solve this problem. If you place your trust in them to solve it, it will keep happening. This problem has to be dealt with at the local level.
The reason no one prevented the tragedy at your school is that no one wanted the responsibility. Perhaps they were afraid if they tried and failed, they might be blamed for it. Perhaps they just thought it was someone else’s responsibility. Clearly, all of you knew the risk. Interviews with your classmates demonstrated that the students knew the risk. Did you tell your parents? Did they know? Clearly the teachers and the school administration knew the risk. They first restricted the person and then expelled him. They must have known that would not prevent the atrocity. In other similar situations firing or expelling someone has actually acted as a trigger to initiate the violence. Clearly, the local police knew the problem and the risk as did at least one health official. And, yes, the FBI knew as well.
The problem is that everyone expected someone else to take care of the problem. No one felt it was their responsibility to do anything more than they did.
I applaud your ambition and commitment in going to Tallahassee. More importantly, I hope that you have learned that, as harsh as it sounds, you could have done more. I do not tell you that to make you feel guilty or to place blame. I tell you that because I want you to be empowered by your freedom. It sounds like I am telling you that you are responsible. Yes, that is what freedom is. Freedom is taking responsibility for your own life in every circumstance. It does not mean you do not make mistakes. It means you can learn from them. What you do with that knowledge is your choice. You can help other students and faculty at other schools understand what they need to do and that the government will not be able to protect them.
As I watched your speeches today in Tallahassee, I was impressed with your emotion and passion. I felt the pain you expressed. Your stories brought tears to my eyes. But I must caution you. We do not do our best thinking when we are reacting emotionally. In fact, it makes us extremely vulnerable to manipulation. I’m sure, if you think about your experiences while preparing for and attending the rally, you will be able to identify people who were taking advantage of your emotion to promote their agenda on gun control. There will be other people trying to do the same thing in the future. This tactic is not limited to any party or to any issue. All politicians as well as the media use this tactic.
With the passage of time, your emotions will subside at least to a degree. I hope for you that your passion does not diminish. I would like for you to learn to listen to politicians and media to identify those people who are appealing to you emotionally and those who are appealing to you intellectually. You will find the right answers through your intellect. Learn to avoid being manipulated emotionally.
There are many ways you can honor the memory of your lost friends. One of the ways that will have the most impact in your own life and the life of your community is to learn the real history of the founding of our Country. One of the things you will ultimately learn is that the divisions in our society are not an accident of nature. They are a contrivance of career politicians who use these divisions as a tool to distract us from a simple truth and maintain their own power. This simple truth is the fact that the struggle for freedom is not a struggle between blacks and whites, liberals and conservatives or between any religious groups. The struggle for freedom is a struggle between people who would be free and their government.
Do not rely on other people to teach you this history. Powerful people do not want you to understand it. All of the original documents are available. You can read all of the debates and everything the Founding Fathers wrote. A good place to start is to get a good book on the founding and start looking for the real documents. As you learn, share your experience with your family and friends. When we all start to understand the truth about our country and our own responsibility, we can start to see everyone else as an equal participant without the political manipulations.
Understanding our common history is the path to unity.
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