Violence isn’t a disease, it’s a behavior. They only call it a disease as a willing participants in the gooberment attempts to acquire power to control the people
Why doctors are calling gun violence in the U.S. an epidemic.
A growing number of health care providers say gun violence is a public health issue……
Click on the pic for a large image
Here’s another take on the moronic crap-for-brains CBS article about Japanese gun control laws. And an interesting statistic
Why comparing gun violence here to Japan is stupid
Japan and the United States don’t have a lot in common. Culturally, we’re quite different, though not necessarily incompatible. After all, while legions of Americans consume bits of Japanese culture as if it were the greatest thing ever, other legions in Japan do the same thing with American culture.
But there are profound differences between the United States and Japan.
You wouldn’t really know that if you saw this story going on about their low rates of gun homicides.
As the U.S. gun control debate intensifies, some Americans are looking overseas for ideas on how to prevent mass shootings. Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the world. There were more than four firearm homicides in the U.S. per 100,000 people during 2019, compared to almost zero in Japan.
As CBS News senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports, Japan’s strict laws on private gun ownership have surprising origins in the United States. She met Raphael, a well-known Japanese YouTuber who decided to take skeet shooting lessons. Despite being ex-military, he had to jump through all the same hoops that any Japanese civilian must clear to get a gun license.
There’s mandatory training. You have to pass a written exam, plus a physical and mental health evaluation. Even then, the police will go and ask your family and friends whether you have any violent tendencies.
The point, of course, is very clear. Japan good, America bad. (The article later goes on to point out the irony in the fact that their gun laws are the result of American occupation following World War II.)
However, for all of Palmer’s questions, she never bothered to dig beyond the surface level.
Japan’s total homicide rate is 0.3 per 100,000 people. That’s for all weapons, and yes, that is incredibly low by anyone’s standard. It’s easy to see why some would look to Japan and try to see what they’re doing in hopes of replicating it here.
If our gun homicide rate were only 0.3 per 100,000, that would probably be a rate we could live with, right?
Except, our non-gun homicide rate is 1.6 per 100,000. That’s more than [5] times greater than Japan’s total rate.
In other words, whatever is making Japan so relatively safe has little or nothing to do with their gun laws. After all, the Japanese government can’t ban knives, hammers, sticks, or body parts–all of which are used to kill plenty of people here in the United States.
Instead, whatever has created such a low homicide rate is likely something that has nothing to do with weapon restrictions and more to do with culture or, at least, some other regulation.
Unfortunately, that’s beyond the modern media to delve into. That’s a question they never bother to think to ask because they’re apparently conditioned to not think of homicide as anything other than a gun issue.
The thing is, though, if you managed to make all guns go away overnight from every hand in the country, we’d still have a higher homicide rather than Japan–at least five times higher, though I suspect it would increase since you have to assume a large percentage of those who kill with guns would simply shift to another weapon.
So yeah, Palmer skimmed the surface and never dug any deeper, which is par for the course in this day and age.
Feminist Naomi Wolf takes the red pill and takes the first tentative steps on the path to see reality
BLUF
Without the brilliantly-conceived and clearly-worded Second Amendment, without the deterrent to state and transnational violence of responsible, lawful, careful and defensive firearms ownership in the United States of America, it is clear that nothing at all will save our citizens from the current fates of the people of China, Australia and Canada; including the children; who are facing — unarmed, defenseless as their parents sadly are — even worse fates, perhaps, still ahead.
Rethinking the Second Amendment
I wrote this essay some weeks ago, but I kept waiting to publish it til tragic mass shootings were no longer in the news. But that day looks as if it will never come, so I am publishing it anyway, with grief and mourning for those lost to gun violence, as we must nonetheless have this difficult conversation.
The last thing keeping us free in America, as the lights go off all over Europe- and Australia, and Canada – is, yes, we must face this fact, the Second Amendment.
I can’t believe I am writing those words. But here we are and I stand by them.
I am a child of the peace movement. A daughter of the Left, of a dashingly-bearded proto-Beatnik poet, my late dad, and of a Summer of Love activist/cultural anthropologist, my lovely mom. We are a lineage of anti-war, longhaired folks who believe in talking things out.
By the time I was growing up in California in the 1960s and 1970s, weapons were supposed to have become passe. When I played at friends’ houses in our neighborhood in San Francisco, there were posters on the walls: “War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.” Protesters had iconically placed daisies in the rifle barrels of unhip-looking National Guardsmen.
We were obviously supposed to side with the daisies.
Weapons were archaic, benighted — tacky. A general peace was surely to prevail, in the dawning Age of Aquarius.
Observation O’ The Day
“Our ‘elites’ are now promoting the kind of history one would impose on a conquered nation, to break its people’s spirit.”
Common Sense? CBS Urges U.S. Adopt Japan’s Occupation-Era Gun Control
On Monday’s CBS Mornings, the network continued their series globetrotting for gun control laws. This time they left Europe and jetted over to Japan where senior foreign correspondent (and friend to the Iranian regime) Elizabeth Palmer touted their oppressive system where a citizen could wait a year or longer to get a gun license as authorities prod their lives and a gun shop owners need to get permission to buy ammo. All imposed on them during the post-WWII occupation.
So much for “common sense” gun laws.
“As the U.S. gun-control debate intensifies, some Americans are looking overseas for ideas on how to prevent mass shootings. Japan has one of the lowest rates of gun violence in the world,” co-host Nate Burleson announced at the top of the segment. “Seems like it’s about time we adopt some of those laws,” he pushed at the end.
Hanging out with Japanese YouTuber Raphael at a skeet shooting range, Palmer praised the “mandatory training” citizen had to go through, in addition to a “written exam, a physical and a mental health evaluation, and even then the police can go and ask your family and friends whether you’ve got any violent tendencies.”
“It took me a year,” Raphael told her. She also noted, “the police had even interviewed his wife.”
She also touted how Japanese citizens were only allowed to buy firearms from three categories and the ridiculous fact that gun store owners needed permission to restock ammunition:
He’s proud of the buck he shot in northern Japan with a rifle, one of only three types of guns a civilian can own. Air guns are also allowed, he said, as shotguns, but that’s it.
I’ve heard that there’s very strict control on ammunition, as well. I see you have some rounds here in the cabinet.
“Yes,” he tells me. “When a gun owner runs out he needs police authorization to buy more.”
“Does he think the law goes too far? Not a bit. Like most Japanese, he supports it as the price for almost zero gun violence,” she boasted.
Palmer was absolutely giddy to note that the reason Japan had such strict gun control laws was because of the United States. “And how’s this for ironic? Japan owes its strict gun laws to America,” she mocked. “When the U.S. occupied Japan after World War II it disarmed the country.”
She even threw in a soundbite from an old documentary where the narrator proclaimed: “To the scrap heap went the guns.” Palmer conveniently omitted the part where the U.S. also banned Japan from having a military.
“Americans shaped the legislation that took firearms out of the hands of civilians, and to this day, that means getting hurt or killed by a gun in Japan is an extremely long shot,” she jabbed as she wrapped up the report.
Palmer is essentially praising the American confiscation of firearms for there to be a smoother occupation and pacification of a citizenry, the exact opposite of what the founders intended. And given the fact that the Democratic Roosevelt administration put Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, perhaps looking to that era for guidance is ill-advised.
Since all the previous laws didn’t work, let’s try it harder!
New York governor signs gun control package into law
The Supreme Court has yet to officially opine on the constitutionality of New York’s “may issue” permitting laws for concealed carry licenses, and now a host of other newer restrictions will likely be getting court attention in the days ahead. On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul signed several sweeping new restrictions into law, including a ban on sales of so-called assault weapons to adults under the age of 21, new registration requirements for all owners of modern sporting rifles, and an expansion of the state’s “red flag” law that could have some unintended consequences for those in need of mental health services or counseling.
The laws were rammed through the Democrat-controlled legislature last week as a response to the mass shooting at a Buffalo grocery store in which ten people were murdered by an 18-year old suspect, and during today’s signing ceremony Hochul and other Democrats made it clear that even more restrictions are on the way.
Like actors have any claim to authority.
How does; No, work for you Matthew?
McConaughey calls for background checks, waiting periods, & more.. but don’t call it “gun control”
No, the actor and native of Uvalde, Texas wants you to think of his laundry list of proposed new laws as “gun responsibility” instead.
To his credit, Matthew McConaughey doesn’t call for an outright ban on any firearm in his USA Today op-ed, but there’s still plenty of talk of “reasonable compromises” and “commonsense solutions” in demands for a host of new gun laws that he claims will “immediately reduce the gun violence tragedies that have become too common in our country.”
McConaughey lays out four new measures he wants to see in place: universal background checks, a ban on sales of modern sporting rifles to adults under the age of 21, the establishment of “red flag” laws in all 50 states, and an undefined waiting period on all sales of semi-automatic rifles.
Integrating gun safety training, safe storage proposals, and bolstering school safety are also beneficial, but are not government-only solutions. Companies, private organizations, and responsible gun owners have a big role to play.
I want to be clear. I am not under the illusion that these policies will solve all of our problems, but if responsible solutions can stop some of these tragedies from striking another community without destroying the Second Amendment, they’re worth it.
This is not a choice between guns or no guns. It’s the responsible choice. It’s the reasonable choice. It’s a quintessentially American choice: Where I have the right to be me, you have the freedom to be you, and we have the responsibility to be US.
To find common ground on this issue, both sides are going to have to answer the call and reach for the higher ground of our collective responsibility.
Business as usual isn’t working. “That’s just how it is” cannot be an excuse. The heinous bloodshed of innocent people cannot become bearable. If we continue to just stand by, we’re living a lie. With every right there comes a duty.
For ourselves, our children, and our fellow Americans—we have a duty to be responsible gun owners. Please do yours and protect the Second Amendment through gun responsibility. It’s time for real leaders to step up and do what’s right, so we can each and all just keep livin’.
The simplest argument against McConaughey’s recommendations are that each and every one of his proposals are already law in the state of California, which, according to the FBI, had the highest number of active shooter incidents in the country last year. If he truly believes that his “reasonable” and “responsible” measures will have an immediate impact, he should at least be able to explain why they’ve failed to do so in the Golden State.
Then there’s the fact that many people don’t actually view this measures as “reasonable” at all, especially once they start to look at the fine print. Universal background checks typically poll well, as McConaughey himself noted, but when voters actually have a chance to approve them, the results aren’t anywhere close to the 80-90% support shown in public opinion polls. Maine’s voter referendum in 2016 failed to get 50% of the vote, for instance, while Nevada’s referendum that same year squeaked by with 51% of the vote. Since then Maine’s violent crime and homicide rates have continued be among the lowest in the nation, while shooting and homicides have continued to increase in Nevada, particularly around Las Vegas.
Southern Nevada’s largest law enforcement agency, the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, handled 185 of last year’s killings, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
Homicide Lt. Ray Spencer, in a recent interview, attributed the busiest year since he began heading the unit in 2018 to easy access to guns. He cited loaded firearms found in nightstands and cars.
“The access juveniles and criminals are able to get to firearms is concerning,” he said. “That’s probably the biggest reason on what’s driving our homicide numbers is that guns are so easily stolen and accessible.”
Criminals will find a way to illegally get ahold of guns even in states with “universal background checks” on the books, and because there’s no way to proactively enforce the law requiring private person-to-person sales to go through a federally licensed firearms dealer, these laws have little-to-no deterrent effect on preventing or reducing violent crime.
In his op-ed, McConaughey acknowledged that “the need for mental health care, school safety, the prevalence of sensationalized media coverage, and the decaying state of American values are all long-term societal factors that must be addressed,” but claimed that we “don’t have the luxury of time” to deal with those underlying issues. Why not, if they’re actually going to be more effective at preventing these types of attacks than the gun control solutions he’s offering? I’d argue it’s much more reasonable to address our mental health crisis and school security than passing gun control laws that are all too often ineffective, unconstitutional, or both.
I don’t fault McConaughey for reaching for what he believes are “reasonable” responses to the horrific murders in Uvalde, but a gun control solution to this issue only takes us further away from but both realistic and reasonable strategies to stop these kinds of killings; better enforcement of the laws on the books (including violent crimes), improving access to mental health treatment (both in-patient and out-patient options), and ensuring that our most vulnerable are protected from attack on school grounds while recognizing the right of the people to bear arms in self-defense.
Because they know they’d lose
Murphy rules out assault weapons ban, new background checks in Senate plan
Among the proposals on the table are investments in mental health care and school safety and “modest but impactful” changes in gun laws, said Sen. Chris Murphy.
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy, who is helping lead Senate talks on gun control, said lawmakers don’t plan to bring any bill to the floor that would ban assault weapons or include comprehensive background checks but are actively working on legislation that would include a range of other measures.
“We’re not going to put a piece of legislation on the table that’s going to ban assault weapons, or we’re not going to pass comprehensive background checks,” Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But right now, people in this country want us to make progress. They just don’t want the status quo to continue for another 30 years.”
He’s right about the ‘status quo’ Gun control laws must be repealed.
Among the items currently on the table are investments in mental health care and school safety, red flag laws and changes to strengthen the background check system, said Murphy.
Gun-Control’s Latest Contradiction with Charles C.W. Cooke
Here is my proposed gun control compromise following the latest attack on children that millions of us did not commit. Ready? You gun fascists can kiss my Schumer and we keep our guns. In fact, let’s also repeal the National Firearms Act and impose national constitutional carry. I think this compromise fairly balances our respective legitimate interests regarding guns. Our legitimate interest is maintaining the capacity to deter and defeat tyrants and criminals. Your legitimate interest in limiting our ability to do so is non-existent.
There are several Republicans who are apparently eager to come to a compromise on guns with the Democrats, whose ultimate goal is to rule unchallenged over a nation of disarmed, supine Canadian serfs. Some are lawyers, which explains why they are in Congress and not raking in bucks lawyering. If I went to one of my clients and suggested, “Okay, I propose we resolve this matter by giving the other side a lot of money and getting nothing in return,” I would have to find an alternate income stream too.
The idea of a compromise involves getting something you want but giving away something to get it. So far, so good – that’s how negotiating works. But the key point is to get something you want. Here, what we get is that we lose less than they want us to ultimately lose. Instead of banning “assault rifles” completely – every healthy, law-abiding adult citizen should have a real military assault rifle, but that’s a tangent – the proposed “compromise” seems to be just to ban them completely for some younger adult citizens. See, I’m missing the part where we get something in return instead of merely losing less. But the durwoods of the softcon wing of the GOP seem pretty eager to fail less spectacularly than they might otherwise and call it a victory.
Of course, this effectively buys into the premise that there is something wrong with guns. There is not. Guns, as I point out in my new book “We’ll Be Back: The Fall and Rise of America,” are an essential element of any free society. Australia gave up its guns and look at them. Canada, too. Nah, I say we unreservedly reserve our ultimate veto over tyranny.
People who wish us ill wish the opposite. Recently, Chris Hayes, the bespectacled nimrod who holds the briefcase of the slightly more masculine Rachel Maddow at MSNBC, recently simpered that a lot of Americans insist on keeping their guns to fight tyrannical government agents. Well, yeah. Exactly. Nothing gets by him. Weird that he would reach back about 250 years to oppose the Revolutionary War, but whatever. Sissies gotta siss.
The unspoken premise of the people outraged that the citizenry wants to retain the ultimate veto on government power is that they are the ones who will be wielding that government power. And you need to wonder why they want us disarmed.
Actually, you don’t. You lived through COVID and know.
In support of this noxious notion come some establishment people waving their credentials on Twitter around like you should simply defer to them. One is a major general who used to run my alma mater, the Infantry School at Ft. Benning. According to the general, he gets it. He knows that these are weapons of war and that we civilians don’t need them. Well, not so much.
As much as I love generals [INSERT THEATRICAL EYE-ROLL HERE], I must point out some problems with the two-star’s premise. A major general typically commands a division of about 15,000. He is a conductor of organized violence, operating in the macro. Of course, he understands what a 5.56mm/.223 round can do. You know who else knows what a 5.56mm/.223 round can do? Me and every other vet who ever shot one, as well as the 20 million or more Americans who own AR-15s and the tens of millions of others who have used them. So, there’s no special expertise there.
We know those rounds can hurt people. That’s why we want them. To hurt bad people if deterrence fails. That’s why in the LA Riots, the Army gave me a 5.56mm rifle to carry. I just think everyone else should get the same protection I had.
The general goes further than mere technical details and opines that such weapons do not belong in the possession of anyone outside the military, where, presumably, people like him can control their use. But that’s not a technical issue for which he is offering his expertise. That’s a policy issue. Why is a former (but sympathetic) government official under the impression that his past position gives him some sort of special expertise that we should defer to in terms of foundational constitutional policy, i.e., whether or not citizens should have the capacity to resist violent tyranny? The answer is that he doesn’t, and the fact that guys like him are presumably the ones who would be called upon to carry out the dirty work of a tyrannical government (in the remote but potential scenario where that might happen in the future) actually makes him the very worst person to opine on the policy.
But you are supposed to be dazzled by the stars and submit. You can be sure there are GOP dummies just aching to, held back only by Mitch McConnell – the frustrating Murder Turtle who nevertheless is no dummy – whispering in their ears that screwing us over on guns is just about the only thing that can turn an electoral environment of $6 a gallon gas and public school groomers into a Republican rout.
No, this is not the time to go soft. This is not the time to indulge the perennial Republican disease of craven spinelessness in the face of Democrats and their regime media minions screaming lies about them. This is the time to say “No.”
No compromise on our rights. Not now. Not ever.
Biden’s Inner Trudeau: On Guns, the President seems to be Operating Under the Wrong Constitution
Below is my column in The Hill on the calls for gun bans after the massacre in Uvalde, Texas. The massacre has already been used as the basis for calls to end the filibuster, pack the court, limits on gun ownership, and outright bans. One member called for all of the above. The rhetoric is again outstripping the reality of constitutional and practical limits for gun control. Last night, President Joe Biden formally called for banning “assault weapons” while repeating the dubious claim that an earlier ban sharply reduced mass shootings.
Here is the column:
In our increasingly hateful and divisive politics, there are times when our nation seems incapable of coming together for a common purpose. Tragedies — moments of shared national grieving and mutual support — once were the exception. Yet one of the most chilling aspects of the aftermath of the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas, was how the moment of unity was quickly lost to political posturing.
Politicians have long admitted that a crisis is an opportunity not to be missed — the greater the tragedy, the greater the opportunity. After the mass shooting at a Buffalo supermarket, New York’s Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) called for censorship to “silence the voices of hatred and racism.” After the Uvalde massacre, some Democrats renewed calls for everything from court packing to ending the Senate filibuster.
The most immediate response, however, was a call for gun bans. Vice President Kamala Harris got out front of the White House by demanding a ban on AR-15s, the most popular weapon in America. Then President Joe Biden created a stir by suggesting he might seek to ban 9mm weapons.
Such calls are not limited to the United States. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that his government is introducing legislation to “implement a national freeze on handgun ownership.” He said Canadians would no longer be able “to buy, sell, transfer or import handguns anywhere in Canada,” adding that “there is no reason anyone in Canada should need guns in their everyday lives.”
The difference between the push in the two countries is the existence of the Second Amendment in the United States — a constitutionally mandated “reason” why Americans are allowed to have guns; they don’t have to prove it to the government.
While the White House subsequently tried to walk back his comments, Biden saying there’s “no rational basis” to own 9mms and AR-15s sounds like he’s channeling his inner Canadian.
There is now a strong majority for gun control reforms. However, politicians are once again ignoring what is constitutionally possible by focusing on what is politically popular with their voting base.
NY Times gets it right: polls showing support for gun control doesn’t mean the votes are there
How many times have you seen a news article talking about how most people support gun control? I know I’ve seen it a ton over the years. The media and politicians latch onto poll numbers as if they’re sacrosanct, telling us this proves the public supports them.
Then the election rolls around and gun control doesn’t seem to make a blip on the radar.
Over at the New York Times, they decided to delve into just why that is.
It’s one of the most puzzling questions for Democrats in American politics: Why is the political system so unresponsive to gun violence? Expanded background checks routinely receive more than 80 percent or 90 percent support in polling. Yet gun control legislation usually gets stymied in Washington and Republicans never seem to pay a political price for their opposition.
There have been countless explanations offered about why political reality seems so at odds with the polling, including the power of the gun lobby; the importance of single-issue voters; and the outsize influence of rural states in the Senate.
But there’s another possibility, one that might be the most sobering of all for gun control supporters: Their problem could also be the voters, not just politicians or special interests.
Oh, blaming the voters, right?
Not really.
You see, the argument being made isn’t that the voters are somehow wrong, but that issue polling is, well, useless.
‘Killing Weapon’? So he wants what; Nerf Guns with marshmallow bullets? Using any gun is using a ‘killing weapon’. That’s why they’re referred to as a class of ‘deadly weapon’
And, again, it’s not about ‘need’. That comes from communism.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his need”
— Karl Marx
“It’s a killing weapon, and we don’t need them.” Sisolak blasts assault weapon ownership at rally
****
Sisolak claimed assault style weapons weren’t designed for self defense calling them “weapons of war” not protected under the second amendment.
“The nonsense that it’s a right, well then why isn’t it a right to have a rocket launcher, or to drive a tank instead of a car,” he said……..
In point of fact, you can have a rocket launcher and a fully armed tank, as well as artillery. All it takes is money, and in the case of explosives, proper storage. And yet these mental midgets get elected to high office.
99.99% of NICS denials are not prosecuted because they are false denials.
I’m concerned the NICS background check for gun purchases produces a disproportionate number of false denials for minorities.
Fortunately Democrats accepted my amendment to require the Attorney General to provide a NICS report based on race, age, and sex. pic.twitter.com/8ozV0eegqF
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) June 3, 2022
The Second Amendment was inspired by British plans to disarm every American.
A part of you probably already knew this, but didn’t have the details.
I’m about to chill you to the bones And give you every piece of evidence you need moving forward. So buckle up.
It began In 1768, “the freeholders” led by John Hancock and James Otis, met in Boston at Faneuil Hall and passed several resolutions. Including “that the Subjects being Protestants, may have Arms for their Defense.”
The royal governor rejected this proposal.
And per The New York Journal, (Feb. 2, 1769) they ordered colonists turn in their guns.
BLUF
Disarmament, national or personal, is not a moral stance, but the abandonment of morality.
Gun controllers have had a field day with the inaction of the Uvalde cops, but it never occurs to them that’s who they are, standing around, wringing their hands and waiting for someone to tell them what the plan is, so they don’t have to make any difficult choices in the face of a crisis.
Gun control is the moral idiocy of the irresponsible blaming those who have taken responsibility.
The Moral Idiocy of Gun Control
Is it more moral to own a gun or to pay someone else to do it for you?
I was chatting with a horrified Swedish visitor who described a visit to Nevada.
“There was this grandmother, an elderly lady, and she took out a gun from her purse,” he told me, shaking his head.
We were having this conversation in a city which had racked up 77 shootings in just one month.
Few New Yorkers legally own guns. The NYPD has issued around 40,000 handgun permits in a city of over 8 million. That’s around one handgun for every two-hundred New Yorkers.
Don’t assume that the parts of the city with the most guns are the most dangerous.
The vast majority of handgun permits are in Staten Island, which has the lowest crime rate in the city, as opposed to the Bronx, with the highest. Manhattan has few legal guns relative to its population while the white working class areas of Brooklyn have some of the most legal guns.
The Daily News, which interviewed a criminologist as part of its anti-gun crusade, found that he was “puzzled”. “Some people see a mugging in the Bronx, and they want to get a gun on Staten Island,” he argued. “That’s not rational, but some people really want guns.”
Perhaps one of the reasons that there are fewer muggings in Staten Island is that more of the folks there can prevent them. Muggers, like most predators, prefer victims who don’t fight back.
It Took Two British Civil Wars to Plant the Seeds of American Liberty
In the previous installment of this series, I gave the historical and religious background of the English Civil War — which planted the seeds of every significant institution that would take root in American soil. As we noted before, there were many concrete issues at stake in the struggle between the Crown and Parliament.
Rural people, gentry, nobles, high-church Anglicans, and persecuted Catholics feared that the power of Parliament would benefit city-dwellers, merchants (including slave-traders), nouveau riche speculators, and radical Protestants. So they rallied behind the efforts of monarchs such as James I and his son Charles I to increase the king’s own power, independent of Parliament.
This led them to support a political theory which James I called “the Divine Right of Kings.” On this view, the king embodied the law itself, which was identical to his will. Obedience to God required obedience to His appointed ruler on earth, leaving no justification for resistance or revolt. As David Kopel notes in The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action, James’ theory was new to Englishmen. It was quickly denounced both by Calvinists and Catholics.
The theory had ancient precedent. The absolute power of Roman emperors, oriental monarchs, and other pre-Christian rulers was still the norm outside of Europe even in the 17th century. It was only the collapse of the Western Roman empire that allowed for much more decentralized political institutions to emerge. The rediscovery of Roman law during the Renaissance gave monarchs a powerful, prestigious weapon in their quest to consolidate power.
Feudal barons would zealously guard their independence throughout the Middle Ages, yielding concessions from kings like the Magna Carta. The Church would assert her rights, and protect her vast institutional wealth and land-holdings, wielding moral authority over the people.
“Do Something” Is Not A Serious Policy And Will Not Prevent Mass Shootings
