The point on the  political spectrum most frequently associated with gun control is the extreme left. They tell us to trust in government, and that no one needs a machine gun, assault rifle, or handgun. Deer rifles and skeet guns should be more than enough for civilians. When supporters of the Second Amendment point out that we need guns for the eventuality of a fight against our own tyrannical government, the leftists laugh at and belittle them; after all, tyranny is not even on the horizon.

Have you ever heard of the Battle of Blair Mountain, the assault on Holly Grove, or the Battle of Matewan? You might be wondering what a war in some foreign country has to do with our Second Amendment, except that the foreign country was West Virginia, and the attacker was the victims' own government. Tyranny is not on the horizon, because it is nipping at our ankles, and has already taken a chunk from our buttocks. Leftists should know this better than anyone.

The early 1900's was a tumultuous time for labor. The beginning of the last century saw the formation of both unions and strikebreakers. In the big cities, mob-controlled unions were more than willing to break the knees of anyone who defied them, but in the country, the "1%", in cahoots with our trustworthy, non-tyrannical government, were more than willing to use heavily armed thugs, state police, and the National Guard to force the workers back into the mines, as if they were slaves.

The Assault on Holly Grove was just one incident in the Paint Creek Mine War. One of the mine operators, along with the county sheriff, decided it would be a good idea to put three machine guns on a train car and have one of the first drive-bys on a strikers' camp full of miners and their families. Another incident in that war was the 85-day long house arrest of Mary Harris "Mother" Jones, which almost led to her death. The Battle of Blair Mountain and the Battle of Matewan were exactly that; battles between miners on one side, armed with "squirrel guns" (small caliber hunting rifles) and state police, National Guard, and hired thugs on the other, armed with infantry rifles, machine guns, airplanes, dynamite, and bombs. There was also the Ludlow Massacre, but that occurred in Colorado, also perpetrated by your trustworthy, non-tyrannical government.

Back then, there was not even the slightest notion of gun control. The difference in weapons was not imposed by government, but by economics. Machine guns were expensive, easily costing as much as a car, and bullets were pricey too. Machine guns and bullets are still not inexpensive, but even a poor mine worker can afford to buy the cheapest of them. It is now government that keeps itself and the "1%" well armed, and the rest of us comparatively unarmed.

Our right to keep and bear arms is just like the other rights. Unless we are in prison or on parole, we enjoy voting, habeas corpus, Miranda, and 4th Amendment protections without limitation, but when it comes to guns, we are required to apply to exercise that right. Gun "control" laws are onerous and ineffective, and do infringe.

For example, if you live in Illinois and are visiting a friend in Oklahoma, and on a whim, you stop by the local gun store. On the shelf is a previously owned handgun, of a model you had been casually looking for, in good condition, and at a great price, but you cannot buy it because the gun shop is in a state you are visiting. The Gun Control Act allows you to purchase the gun, but only by having the Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL) in OK ship the gun to a FFL in IL. You have not made any arrangements to ship and hold the gun, so you cannot purchase the gun. Even worse, after accounting for the costs of the service, the gun is no longer a great price, but a fair price. So you have a right to own that gun, but you cannot buy it.

If we had no flaming hoops, gang bangers and wanted criminals would just be able to buy all the guns they want, right? Even with the hoops, gang bangers can already buy all the guns they want, as long as they have no felony records or warrants. Even though they can be legally purchased, gang bangers obtain the vast majority of their guns through alternative channels; they steal them, import them, or get them from the black market. Without a background check, the sale of the gun is still recorded. Without registration, the retailer knows whom they sold it to. If you buy a gun through legal channels, and it is left at the crime scene or found on someone you gave it to, it comes back to you.

Ballistic fingerprinting is also a waste of money, and ineffective. The microscopic striations left on a bullet by the barrel change with every shot. Cleaning the barrel once with a copper brush will turn that fingerprint sample, made when the gun was new (or your victim shot), into a useless chunk of lead. Microstamping of the cartridge case can be easily removed through minor modification of the gun, often just by replacing parts. All of these flaming hoops are easily defeated, are only useful for guns purchased through legal channels, and only work if the criminal is stupid enough to leave his brass for the cops to find.

If the objective is to prevent dangerous criminals from having guns, give up, because all you will do is make it harder for yourself to have a gun. If the objective is to make it more difficult for criminals to use guns, then fewer laws and restrictions is probably the best answer. By recognizing the right to carry, without any restrictions or licensing, we could have 75 million cops walking the streets instead of 0.8 million. We place police on a rather high and undeserved pedestal. In the grand scheme, police departments are new, and police are little more than civilians who are paid to maintain order. Before professional police departments, policing was a volunteer assignment, handled by any willing civilian (aka militia). If the objective of gun laws is to make people jump through hoops, then you are sick. If the objective is to make certain that only our trustworthy, non-tyrannical government can have modern guns, then slap the shackles on your ankles and bend over for Uncle Sam and his "1%" friends.

Will the SEIU be forced to man the hospitals for a pittance? Will teachers be forced to teach for pennies? Unions exist because of guns, and our right to own, bear, and use them, but a lot of strikers died because the fights were anything but fair. The difference in weapons then was due to economics, but under modern gun control laws, the difference is government imposed, and the gap is greater than ever.