A gentleman at an open carry protest in Texas was giving a reporter an interview. He stated; word to this effect: “If they tell me I cannot say certain things, then I am going to fight ya. If they say I cannot go to church, or tell which church to go to, I am going to fight ya. So when they come and tell me that I cannot do with a gun what the 2nd Amendment says I can, you can be sure I am going to fight ya.” He then went on to say: “We tell the legislature what laws we the people want. We tell the courts what those laws mean. Courts do not get to invent new laws that oppose what we the people say.” (Note I do not claim this to be an exact transcript of his comments but I feel that I captured the essence of them.) I think the heart of his claim rests on consent. The people, by way of the 2nd Amendment has told the government what they want in law, open carry etc, and that the courts are duty bound to uphold the view of the people therefore no restrictions on guns, where they can be carried and who can carry them is permissible under the 2nd amendment.

There is a lot to unpack in this comment. First, he does not mean what he thinks he means. He says the courts should reflect the views of the people. If he truly meant that then he would be against open carry, for stronger, longer background checks. How can I say that when clearly he is advocating the opposite? If the views of all Americans are to be considered, and we have such information by the way of opinion polling, then it is clear that the vast majority agree with background checks, restriction as to age and outright ban on assault style weapons. See he only thinks he is in the majority. He is not. But this brings up another point when dealing with gun advocates. They are one issue voters. If they see anything that might be against gun ownership or against the right to openly carry, they will vote against that politician in a heartbeat. Hence why the NRA is so powerful, in marginal districts where the vote is near evenly split, the loss of even a few votes could mean the difference in winning and losing.

This also brings us to the notion of consent. I as a citizen must consent to all laws. Therefore if I do not consent to any gun laws I do not have to follow them. Correct? That is seemingly what he is trying to point out. The issue of gun control is not something they consent to so they do not have to obey. Just like all taxes are voluntary, even if you don’t want to pay, you still have to. The questions on the understanding of what is voluntary. In the case of taxes, we send democratically elected representatives to the capital who vote in tax laws that we then have to pay. Where is the voluntary part of have to pay? You can always leave the jurisdiction. You can run for office and then you can get laws passed that remove the burden of paying such taxes. But just as a President does not have a line item veto, you do not have a line item veto over what laws you will voluntarily consent to. It is all or nothing. This gets even worse. You cannot say; “well, fine then I disagree with all of it and be done with it.”You have to leave the jurisdiction and then once gone, you have to renounce citizenship in the country. Sort of like the grandsons of Greek immigrants used to travel as tourists to Greece only to find themselves under arrest and forcible inducted into the army. The logic was, since they could claim to be Greek citizens by way of their grandparents citizenship, the state could impose the military service upon them even if they were clearly citizens of another state. If you had renounced you Greek citizenship while in your birth country, they would not, could not force you to do military service.

In the case of gun control, the rules in effect are established by the people, for the people, with the people by way of the Constitution. The words of that document, only 3000 words long, are essentially meaningless on their own. It requires a legal mind, based on precedent and case law to interpret what those word mean. We call this the judiciary branch of government. There sole job is to read what has come before then make pronouncements as to what this means in the current era and in the current case. Sometimes, this means they make new rules out of seemingly thin air. But that is their job. To then say, well the people tell them what to say is not just, justice or even legal. It is tyranny. Much worse, since the vast majority or hard core gun nuts never amount to more than 3% of the population, they would be the tyranny of a small minority. I don’t happen to like District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) but as I read it, and I have read it a few times, the legal arguments while disagreeable, are consistent and they are clever in their own right. What matter is not if *I* like them, or *You* like them, or even the speaker from Texas. What matters is that the Supreme Court of the United States has said this is what the law says, this is what it means. You can agree to disagree as you want, but you will obey. Or you can leave; give up consent by merely becoming a citizen of another state or country. Just up and leave. This is stark choice you have. Or in the very last case, you can change the law. Simply gather together your fellow citizens and change what the Constitution says. This is what has happened in the past and it could happen again. But as only 3% of the population agree with you, it will be a clearly an uphill battles. Just as *I* and majority, 97%, have to abide by the laws that allow you to open carry,  because the courts say this is allowable, we can also fight to change the law so that it is no longer the law and thus not acceptable.

Times are changing. People are no longer going to accept the need for unrestricted guns and gun violence. The war upon the people will reach a terminal velocity and stricture controls will be implemented. Those who disagree can do so from a different country or they can obey. The status quo will not stand.