Missouri August 5th Ballot Initiatives -- Amendment No. 5

Part Two in a series.  Part 1.  Part 3. Part 4. Part 5.

Affirming the unalienable nature of the right to own and carry arms.

 

Constitutional Amendment No. 5

Proposed by the 97^th General Assembly (Second Regular Session)
SCS HJR No. 36

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to include a declaration that the right to keep and bear arms is a unalienable right and that the state government is obligated to uphold that right?

State and local governmental entities should have no direct costs or savings from this proposal.  However, the proposal's passage will likely lead to increased litigation and criminal justice related costs.  The total potential costs are unknown, but could be significant.

[  ]  Yes

[  ]  No

I AM VOTING YES ON AMENDMENT 5.

I think this is mostly symbolic.  It's another way to approach the Firearms Protection Act that our Democrat governor vetoed.  

I know a lot of times our talk about firearms can sound like a near-religious fundamentalist fervor.  That can be off-putting and hard for those who don't share our enthusiasm to comprehend.  God made men; Sam Colt made them equal.  

Owning firearms is not about fear -- at least not for me.  It's about forcing the state to respect the individual citizen, reminding the bureaucrats and the politicians that we are citizens and not subjects.  Subjects can be armed by their sovereign to defend the sovereign.  Citizens are sovereign and defend themselves.  

I have no problem with those who happily and willingly submit themselves to an all-knowing and all-caring state.  Just don't ask or expect me to do that.

The difference in this call for protection of a right and the usual kind of laws that we pass -- and the reason I say it's most symbolic -- is that we are asking the state to protect us from the primary threat to keeping and bearing arms, which is the state.  In this case, we are demanding that our state of Missouri stand with its citizens against any encroachment on the part of the federal leviathan.

I'm not sure how that will work out, but I'm voting "Yes" anyway.