Monday, October 11, 2004

The 2nd Amendment and WMD's

There's been much ado the past year about WMD's. More specifically, the lack thereof. The left is drooling over the fact that we haven't found the stockpiles of WMD's. Naturally we haven't. They were all shipped to Syria and Jordan and Iran at the start of the war, but I digress. As anyone who's halfway informed knows, the war was not about the WMD's. Well, at least not completely. Unfortunately, the current administration thought (wrongly) that this was the best argument for the war. Again, I digress. For now, I want to take a look at the whole WMD thing from a different angle. Not on whether or not Iraq had WMD's, but on whether or not they had the right to have WMD's. Does any country have the right to have WMD's? After all, it's easy to say we should have them, we're the good guys. But which country really has the right to possess the dreaded (echo effect on) weapons of mass destruction. The answer, according to the not so humble opinion of this blogger, lies within a little paper document written 200 years ago. The Constitution of the United States of America. How does the Second Amendment of the Constitution apply to WMD's? It's simple. Our founding fathers wanted to make sure that every citizen had the right to protect themselves, from common thugs to a tyrannical government. But how does a government protect itself from another government? One part of that is covered directly by the second amendment; the right to keep a well regulated militia. The other part would be through the use of WMD's. The constitution says the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That pretty much sums it up. Now you'll have arguments all day about whether private citizens should be allowed access to certain weapons and what-not, and I'll leave that to wiser minds than myself. Personally, I think every law abiding citizen of this great country should be allowed to own whatever piece of artillery their little heart desires.

So how does this all tie into Iraq? If we can have WMD's, why did we go into Iraq to disarm them? Are we trying to become the world's bully? Well no. But we are the big kid on the block. Every country on the planet has a right to defend themselves. They have the right to possess the means to defend themselves. Thus, they have the right to posses WMD's. So you ask, If they can have WMD's, why did we invade? And of course I would say, "You idiot, we didn't go in just because of WMD's, and if you'd shut up a minute I'll explain." Think of it this way. Every law abiding citizen has the right to keep and bear arms, i.e. the right to own a gun(s). But typically, when that same citizen commits/is convicted of a felony, especially in the case of violent crimes, they lose that right. There is really no reason to not hold a country to that same standard. The "laws" my be different, but the principle is the same. If a country commits a crime, say...selling weapons to or providing aid to terrorist groups, they have effectively lost their "rights". Now, I'm not saying that the U.S. should go around policing the world. But as I said before, we are the big kids on the block. And when our interests are directly involved, the simple fact is we have to act, to protect ourselves. Just as the Constitution provides.