Mandatory gun ownership?

As word surfaced that the town of Nelson, Georgia was seeking to join the city of Kennesaw, Ga as cities that require firearm ownership, Second Amendment advocates throughout the nation applauded the North Georgia city.  After all, they note, more guns equal less crime.  A town that requires everyone to own a gun will obviously be a bad place to go to get rowdy with the law abiding, right?

Well, all of that may be true.  However, it’s also irrelevant.

You see, many of those applauding Nelson are the same folks who rightly decried ObamaCare’s individual mandate.  They weren’t comfortable with the idea of government telling them they had to purchase a product.  They were right, the government has no business telling the individual what they should spend their money on.  However, now that the product is one they genuinely believe in, they are now perfectly fine with requiring such things.

I am a big advocate for the Second Amendment.  I’m a gun guy, in fact.  I love shooting, and I honestly have a difficult time understanding people who don’t enjoy shooting.  However, none of that gives me the right to enforce my beliefs on another.  Yes, I believe guns save live.  I believe it with all my heart.  I also believe that some people shouldn’t be armed, and those people are folks who hate guns.

If we are to have individual liberty in this nation, we must have the ability to make decisions for ourselves.  That means we should be free to own guns as we wish, but it also means we should be able to not own guns as well.  Freedom means making a decision on your own, and then living with that decision.  How am I free if I’m forced to do something?  Am I free to buy insurance since, thanks to President Obama, I’m required to own it?  Of course not.  How is this any different?

Of course, Nelson isn’t the only town out there with this kind of thing.  Kennesaw, Ga has had such a law for some time.  In reality, it’s virtually unenforceable.  That leads us to another question that must be considered: Why pass a law which you can’t really enforce anyways?

Maybe the answer lies in the fact that ideology trumps liberty in the minds of so many who buy into the two party system?

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