I posted a quote by Niccolo Machiavelli from his 1521 treatise The Art of War on the gunowners facebook page today.

Now, while most have understood the difference between a citizen and a subject, a few have missed the point and spoke out that both Rome and Sparta had slaves.  My counter to this is that those slaves weren’t Romans or Spartans.  They also weren’t armed, thus making their slavery easier to manage.  That is always the point of arms control…control.  It actually validates the quote even more so.

What happens when slaves get weapons?  You get Spartacus and his followers who fight for their freedom.  Even though they eventually were defeated and died, they died free men.  But it illustrates the point that slavery exists when only those in power have the armament to impose their wills.

Now lets fast forward a thousand years or two into the new world.  The US had slavery, eventually focused primarily in the south.  Slaves were kept disarmed because Southerners were afraid of insurrection.  They wanted to maintain power so when ideas of arming slaves and free blacks during the Revolutionary war came up, the South stood in opposition and eventually had the practice removed.  

As a side note the British didn’t have such qualms and the totals of blacks fighting for each side were 5000 for the Colonials and 20,000 for the British.

Now, we can see where the beginnings of gun control fermented in the US.  By those in power trying to keep their slaves from exerting their god giving right to be free. 

After the Civil War and the 13th Amendment, slavery no longer existed in its prior form.  What did exist was a series of roundabout ways to keep the black population from gaining the American dream.  Jim Crowe laws tend to spring to everyone’s mind first.  But I contend that gun control is the most insidiously racist of laws trying to keep black Americans (and later all colors, and eventually all poor) from their Second Amendment rights.  “Black Codes” sprung up throughout the south with its main purpose to limit civil rights amongst former slaves.  The most important civil right it looked to curtail was that of owning firearms.

The saying: “God created Men, but Sam Colt made men equal” is as true today as it was when he was making his firearms.  Only a disarmed people can be slaves.  Even if they are not in chains, even if they live in a “free” country, it does not undo the infringement of their liberty.  An infringement of the Second Amendment is an infringement on the freedom and liberty that all American’s are supposed to enjoy.

So when Michael Bloomberg talks about reducing crime and stopping violence in the inner city and all the rest; he means first and foremost you have to get guns out of the hands of black people and minorities.  Then poor white people.  Then middle class people.  Then anyone who disagrees with him.  Finally, only the government and its enforcement arm (cops, military etc) will have the power to impose its will upon the disarmed populace.

Don’t believe me?  The non-refundable cost to apply for a CCW in New York city is about $450.  How many poor people who live in a dangerous part of New York are going to roll the dice with $450 and hope that Emperor Bloomberg will privilege them with a CCW?  Bloomberg is a billionaire plantation owner with New York City as his plantation.  

Just because we’re not bound in chains, and just because we may now be of all colors, creeds and nationalities doesn’t mean that Michael Bloomberg and his gun control zealots are any less interested in making us all slaves.

After all, if we do not have the ability to defend ourselves from tyranny…can we call ourselves free?