Vice-President Biden appears to be showing a bit of frustration at us plebs who refuse to get in line and support his boss when it comes to gun control.  He seems amazed that we would have the temerity to question their motivations when it comes to infringements on our civil rights, and opines that we don’t ‘need’ an AR-15 to protect ourselves or to have fun.  It appears that he’s forgotten that my ‘need’ for any legal object that I want is my desire for it.  That’s why it’s called a ‘right’.  I don’t have to demonstrate a ‘need’ to exercise my rights in order to do so.  You’d think that someone who’s sucked at the government teet for so many decades, supposedly in support of the Constitution, would know that.

Here’s a few other things someone doesn’t need:

• One doesn’t ‘need’ government funded country retreats, wide body jets, gourmet chefs, and a staff of hundreds to be the chief executive and his head gofer/comedy relief/anti-assassination insurance, especially during a time of economic stagnation, but rank hath its privileges, huh, Mr. Biden?
• One doesn’t ‘need’ armies of armed troops, military or not, to protect two men, their wives, and their children, for the rest of their natural lives, just because they failed their way into a temporary government job for a few years, but I don’t see you two giving that one up, do I?
• And, yes, one doesn’t ‘need’ an Ar-15, FAL, AK clone, Saiga shotgun, M&P pistol, or an assault slingshot for protection and recreation, but if your mother had raised you right and taught you to read something more in depth than the wrapper on your bubble gum, you’d know that how I choose to enjoy my rights and protect my family are none of your damned business, now wouldn’t you?

I’m glad to know that Mr. Biden believes in the bottom of his heart that no-one is going to try to take away his shotguns, so at least there seems to be a level of gun control that even he won’t countenance.  Let’s just say that some of us paid attention in history and math class, and we can see where this downward leaning curve is taking us:

• When my grandfather came to this country, a citizen could own pretty much any firearm he wanted to and could afford.  Heck, the best names in mail-order had entire sections devoted to shotguns, rifles, and pistols that the nice man on the Wells Fargo wagon would bring right to your doorstep.
• When my father was born, a citizen could legally buy a gun at the hardware store, that gun could be carried just about anywhere in the country without being afoul of the law, and the government actively advocated the teaching of gun safety and marksmanship to children.
• When I was born, a citizen could legally purchase a brand new machine gun for a few hundred dollars, my cousins drove to school with guns in the gun rack of their trucks, and the Boy Scouts taught gun safety with BB guns in the basement of my elementary school.

With each successive generation, our right to keep and bear arms has been progressively narrowed and weakened.  Reasonable compromises have been the death of our rights.  I’m tired of being reasonable.  I’m sick of compromising just a little more.  The past few generations have been perfectly willing to passively watch as their rights have dwindled, but I won’t.

Mr. Vice-President, I would oppose the measures you and your ilk are proposing if George Washington himself was to rise from the grave and propose them.  I will oppose you through my representatives in Congress and my legislature here in Kentucky.  I will oppose you in the courts through the NRA, the SAF, and other organizations who stand up to litigate away any gains you make in this push to strip me of my rights.  And I will wave the bloody shirt of gun rights in your face in 2014, 2016, and for the rest of my natural life.

You, the President, and the rest of your band of semi-accomplished twits have picked this fight.  You have made radicals out of moderates, and pushed people who were lukewarm about guns into the markets of firearms and of ideas.  You have sewn this garden of thorns, and I will weep with joy as you are whipped with them.  I don’t ‘need’ to watch your utter failure and humiliation in the Congress, the ballot box, and the courts, but it will be very sweet to do so.

A few months a go, the federal courts found that the state of Illinois has been acting unconstitutionally when it gives its citizens no legal manner in which to carry a firearm outside of their homes.  Illinois is the only state with no provisions for legal carry.  The court gave the state 180 days to pass a law that regulates this constitutionally protected behavior, and apparently the state legislature has been arguing how many dead voters can dance on the head of a pin ever since.  In other words, business as usual seems to be happening in Springfield.

Something novel happened the other day, though.

But Paul Castiglione, policy director for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office, told lawmakers there is no need for a new law.

“Only the Illinois Supreme Court can declare a statue from (the legislature) unconstitutional,” Castiglione told lawmakers Tuesday. “I heard (someone) say that after 180 days our UUW (unlawful use of weapon) statute is unconstitutional. Not so.”

Did y’all get that?  A lawyer who represents one of the largest cities in the country believes that only the courts of a state have the authority to rule on the constitutionality of a law passed by that state’s legislature.  I’m guessing things like Brown v. Board of Education, or maybe Roe v. Wade, or maybe McDonald v. Chicago mean nothing to him.  I’m no lawyer, but I’m pretty sure we settled the supremacy of the federal Constitution over a century ago.

But this raises a good point.  Let’s say that Chicago ignores the courts on this issue, whether or not the legislature passes a new law.  People found carrying a gun in Cook County are arrested and possibly even imprisoned.  The local government continues its obstinacy, defying the federal courts.

What recourse do those who are harmed by this have?

Do you think the Holder Justice Department is going to lift a finger to file a civil rights complaint?   Do you think that Obama and his minions will enforce contempt citations drawn up by the federal courts if they are against his most intimate political allies and in relation to gun rights?

What happens to our system of Constitutional jurisprudence when those with powerful friends defy it and those charged with executing its laws ignore it?

This is, to me, a chilling prospect.  A precedent of ignoring the courts’ interpretations of the Constitution and, by so doing, the Constitution itself, with no repercussions will lead to others ignoring it, and eventually its rending and destruction.  I know that sounds melodramatic, but to me, it’s true.  Our system is not based on territory, or blood, or culture, but on trust.  We must trust that the Constitution is the overarching law of the land, and that the authority of the Judiciary will be enforced by the Executive.  Anything else will be a boost of speed in a death spiral that we cannot survive as a republic.

I pray that calmer minds prevail in Illinois.  Provoking a Constitutional crisis is a dangerous thing, and I fear that even should those who hold the Constitution dear prevail, we will not survive the damage it causes.