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Gun control is a quintessentially totalitarian preoccupation, and not just for the obvious reason that disarmed people cannot resist tyranny. Gun control fundamentally changes the way people view their relationship with the State.
This is one reason why so many vicious arguments erupt over the precise wording of the 2nd Amendment and what the Founders said about the importance of armed resistance against tyrannical government.
People on both sides of the gun control argument largely view the possibility of an armed citizen uprising against a tyrannical U.S. government as very unlikely and agree that such a cataclysmic eventuality should be avoided at all costs.
But the argument is fierce because totalitarians don't like it when citizens THINK of themselves as having the power to resist tyranny. They don't like it when citizens believe they have a duty to defend themselves and their families against criminal assault.
The sight of Americans reverently quoting the Founders and talking about the 2nd Amendment as a bulwark against oppression enrages totalitarian leftists because when citizens see themselves that way, it poses a grave threat to collectivist ideology.
Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are a tangible symbol of independence from the State - not because the owners expect to be shooting federal agents anytime soon, but because they have accepted responsibilities the Left thinks should belong exclusively to the State.
When totalitarian leftist Democrats couch their gun seizure programs in the rhetoric of "gun buybacks," they are implicitly suggesting their childlike subjects had no idea what they were doing when they bought those guns. Gun ownership foolishly insults the dignity of the State.
Private gun ownership implies (and its advocates often make it explicit) that the State cannot protect its citizens, so they must shoulder the burden of defending themselves. Never underestimate how infuriating that argument is to the totalitarian mind.
Gun owners are "stealing" privileges that totalitarian leftists believe should belong exclusively to the elite. THEY should have armed protection, because they're important. The little people are like Prometheus stealing fire from Olympus by claiming you need it too.
The heart of the debate over guns and how they define citizenship is the notion that gun ownership is an intrinsic, God-given RIGHT, rather than a PRIVILEGE to be dispensed as the elite see fit. Everything about a society changes when it believes in universal self-defense rights.
More than with most other rights, gun control also carries a great burden of responsibility. That's really true with every right, but it's extremely obvious with guns. The right to own weapons clearly comes with the responsibility to maintain and use them properly.
The totalitarian Left HATES that line of thought, because it believes the elite should control and redistribute responsibility. Their whole ideology is based on declaring some people eternally guilty of social crimes while others have no responsibility for their actions.
You can't redistribute the responsibility that comes with gun ownership. If everyone has the right, then everyone also has the responsibility - and until proven otherwise, every citizen is PRESUMED capable of accepting that responsibility.
In sum, gun rights recognize in all American citizens a powerful combination of rights and responsibilities - which combine to become DIGNITY. Totalitarianism cannot function if that level of dignity is assumed for all of its subjects, so the Left needs gun control. /end
