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Should the Vikings be able to use the University of Minnesota’s TCF Bank Stadium?

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Natural rights are basic rights that government cannot rightly take away from us. One of the most fundamental rights we have as citizens is the freedom to protect ourselves from being physically harmed by someone else. It is a natural right that all of us as individuals have.

Most natural rights are enumerated in our Constitution’s Bill of Rights. These include, as most know, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and so on. One amendment speaks to the right to bear arms.

Much is made of the way the constitution’s second amendment is written. But that is not really the issue. The real issue is that our right to protect ourselves is a fundamental right irrespective of what the constitution says, and irrespective of what any laws or judicial decisions have been made pertaining to the right to protect ourselves.

As we have organized our society, we have decided that individuals will no longer have the option of enforcing justice as each of us sees fit. We turn that over to one of the legitimate functions of government. That is why we have laws, law enforcement agencies, courts, prisons, and all of the rest.

In large measure we also turn the functions of protection over to government. There is however, one thing that law enforcement cannot do for us. That is, it cannot always and everywhere protect each of us all of the time. And we cannot expect it to.

Certainly our laws and law enforcement agencies and personnel do prevent some crimes. However, much of the work they do in protecting our people and property has to do with solving crimes already committed.

Therefore we as individuals have not given up the right to self protection. It is fundamental and basic. The idea that government can solve the unsolvable problem of ensuring each of us is always protected by taking away guns is a ridiculous fantasy. Moreover, the idea that confiscation of guns can reduce crime cannot be supported by any empirical evidence anywhere in the world.

There are some human beings whose characters are deeply flawed. We will never, ever solve that problem. On the day of terrible killings in Connecticut, the Drudge Report had a report about a man in China who slashed more than 20 children. This is far from the first time that an incident like this has occurred there.

These kinds of things happen everywhere in the world as mass murders in China, England, Norway, and Germany, for example, reveal. By the way, the incident that killed the most school children in the United States occurred early in the 20th century. They were killed with dynamite.

What troubles me most is the arrogant belief of the elites that we cannot be trusted. Those who do not trust our country’s people constantly take advantage of any tragedy to try take away our means of self defense. They think it is up to them to make worse what cannot be fixed.

I also find it really rich listening to folks who live in places where they are not nor will they ever be in any danger of physical harm. Moreover, they will never experience the fear and terror of being assaulted. But they think they can tell others who live in dangerous environments that they we wish to make it even more dangerous for them by taking away their ability to protect themselves.

I briefly lived for a time in the worst part of Minneapolis. There is nothing so terrifying as being awaken by someone who has broken into your apartment. Other than my fists, I was totally defenseless and scared to death. Fortunately I escaped harm, but it left a deep impression. We do have an absolute prerogative to defend ourselves and our families.

There is a common theme in the round of deadly mass killings in the United States. Most if not all of these murders occurred in “gun free zones.” A fat lot of good that stipulation did. Why the these evil monsters target children is impossible to imagine but certainly children are largely defenseless. And we place them in facilities where there are no other defenses.

In the case of schools, every single school board in the country ought to authorize its teachers and staff to carry concealed weapons whenever and wherever they are on school grounds. If lovely little loony tunes knows that someone will be shooting back at him within seconds of an assault on a school, he will likely not pursue his macabre fantasy.

That’s not what will happen of course. The left will try to get the rest of us to place the blame where it doesn’t belong and try to solve the problem by attempting to eliminate a fundamental natural right.

That is the right to protect ourselves. With what is effective, and what is effective is guns. Handguns, shotguns, and rifles. Their effectiveness is due to the threat of or circumstance where a projectile is forced out of a tube at a high enough velocity to make a mess of flesh and bone. And it doesn’t matter one way or another if an overwrought liberal thinks a gun looks funny.