OPINION:
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s emergency gun order should reopen the debate over self-defense (“Sheriff in New Mexico’s most populous county rejects governor’s gun ban, calling it unconstitutional,” web, Sept. 11).
The Supreme Court ruled that government is not obligated to protect individuals unless they are in its custody. Yet governments allow 800,000 sworn law enforcement officers to keep and bear arms for self-defense; their choice is handguns.
Ms. Lujan Grisham poses a micro/macro question that permeates theory-of-everything debates involving general systems, including government.
America’s government began when the Founders and patriots committed life and fortune to creating a government that would protect the individual’s unalienable rights, including life and presumably arms to protect that life. They called it the Declaration of Independence, meaning a rejection of attempts by those with a God complex to rule individuals.
Had they thought otherwise, they would have labeled it the “Declaration of Dependence (on Government).”
People like Ms. Grisham don’t see the hypocrisy of their actions. They want to ban the individual’s right to bear arms for self-defense but would not hesitate to activate the state militia to defend state interests.
JOE BOYETT
Montgomery, Alabama
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