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Every few years over the last 25, I’ve gone out to Penn Yan in late summer to a pig roast put on by the Yates County SCOPE chapter. Sometimes it’s an actual pig at the sportsmen’s club, and sometimes it’s roast pork at the firemen’s field.
This year it was the latter. Good food, nice people, bright sun, and, just over a ways, the beautiful waters of Keuka Lake.
SCOPE is the Shooters Committee On Political Education, and its goal is to educate politicians on gun issues and to educate gun owners on how to encourage politicians to respect the Second Amendment. In the latter regard, it’s not been a good run. In New York, the Second Amendment, like much of the Constitution, doesn’t apply. In New York, the Democratic Party is the supreme law of the land and it routinely wipes its ass with the Constitution.
And nobody knows that better than the regulars at the Penn Yan SCOPE pig roast. Each year they convene a little less free, a little more enslaved, a little more under the boot of a political party hostile to their liberty.
But each year the politicians of whatever race is on the ballot that November show up to give speeches and beg votes, offering promises once again that if we only vote for this one or donate to that one that the sun will shine and the eagle will fly and the Democrats will get off our backs.
Which gets to the point.
This year, in the speechifying, two candidates showed a misunderstanding of the Second Amendment and gun rights that ought to be corrected – attorney general candidate Michael Henry and congressional candidate Dave Wagenhauser. Henry is from New York City and Wagenhauser is a Democrat so their ignorance is to be expected. Both are nice guys, but both believe in a stereotype.
Namely, that guns are a rural thing.
That the Second Amendment is for hillbillies and farmers and people who shoot pheasants.
That their understanding of country people and their ways gives them a respect for gun ownership that ought to earn them some votes.
Well, no doubt they’re great guys, but the Second Amendment isn’t about living in the country, it’s about living in America. It’s not just for rural people, it’s for all people. The right to keep and bear arms is not about putting antlers on the wall, it’s about keeping government in its place. It’s about the right to self-defense, against tyrants and thugs. It’s about having the power in your own hands to protect both your freedom and your family.
Owning guns is not the culture of the hayseed, it is the birthright of the American. It is as much for people in big cities as it is for people in small towns. In fact, in cities with high crime rates, the right to be armed may be even more crucial than in rural communities with low crime rates.
You support the Second Amendment not because you understand rural voters, but because you understand the United States Constitution. And you ought to champion it in front of urban black voters just as passionately as you do in front of rural white voters – because they both, like all Americans, are covered by its protection and entitled to its free exercise.
Politicians should back the Second Amendment not because it buys them votes at smalltown pig roasts, but because their oaths of office require them to.
Owning guns is not some quaint folk way of the people of the hills, it is the birthright of every American. Some may choose to exercise that right, and others may choose not to – but all have the right to make that decision for themselves and no politician or political party has the right to stand in their way.
“Shall not be infringed” is a pretty clear statement by the Second Amendment, and it extends from coast to coast and border to border for every type of American in every situation and jurisdiction.
We hillbillies appreciate the love, but the Second Amendment isn’t just about us, and anybody who thinks it is is confused about the Second Amendment.
So that’s my bit for political education.
We appreciate the pols coming out to the country, but the Second Amendment is for the whole country.