According to those briefed, the POTUS may resort to a broad and unprecedented (ab)use of his powers to include multiple executive orders as part of his comprehensive plan to “reduce gun violence”. Whilst acknowledging the script for public consumption, the following public service announcement is now given as a warning shot. Read my lips. You will have to pry it from my cold dead fingers. Not the gun, silly. You will have to pry a copy of the United States Constitution from my death grip. My forefathers gave me the right to bear arms. I am a warm-hearted American who retains a cold disdain for anti-constitutionalist ‘solutions’. President Obama intends to arm a few executive bears. And the grizzly of them all is the rumour that he will tap the Centres for Disease Control to conduct research on gun violence. Gun ownership as a subtle sign of mental illness? Lock me up now. Into my e-mail scampers the usual foe. He is a devoted reader of Daily Times. We disagree on certain topics. This is freedom of expression. It brings societal health. But the reader broke the rules of engagement for private email dialogue. He used passive aggressive intimidation. The Chihuahua barks loudly when the Mastiff is standing right behind him. He cc’d our thread on gun ownership to: ‘Mr Dan Gross, President, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Washington, D.C’. The reader opined from an illogical stance, which has more lives than a feral cat. “…Americans don’t have any constitutional right to carry assault rifles. They have the constitutional right only to carry single-shot muskets or shotguns for hunting and sport. And there must be some psychiatric evaluation for hidden mental illness before allowing people to own any type of gun…As for the constitutional right to carry guns, the 18th century Founding Fathers had single-shot muskets and not 21st century assault rifles, in mind. So Americans have no constitutional right to carry assault rifles.” The Orwellian newspeak of press corps complicity continues. Check out the January 28 Time magazine cover. As a constitutionalist, a prior LCDR in the Naval Reserves, a wife, mother, and registered nurse, I support responsible gun ownership. I also believe that Americans have a right to the same level of firepower as any local police force. Public safety officers should not pack more firepower than what is within the reach of law-abiding citizens. As long as our officers constitute a reconfigured force, possibly nullifying the spirit of the law as expressed in the Posse Comitatus Act, I do not support a ban on semi-automatic weapons. I support a doctrine of force equalisation between citizen and state. I believe our Founding Fathers understood force equalisation. It provides a practical means of ensuring that the state will not enslave the population to oppressive demands. It only takes one term for a despotic leader and Congressional madness to destroy the safety net provisioned from a right to bear arms. Tens of millions of Americans are genteel constitutionalists. We own and properly clean and store our weapons over the course of a lifetime. Weapons are used to hunt. The doves, which were shot and field dressed by my young son, found their way to the grill the same evening. Protein. God’s gift to our family. Weapons are maintained in good working order to deter threat and guarantee personal safety. Other Americans are anti-constitutionalists. They have a right to their personal self-determination. Let them buy a slingshot and aim their pepper spray at will. From the alpha generation of Adam sprang the beta generation of a criminally violent Cain. Abel did not stand a chance. I do not believe in vigilantism. But I do believe that a properly used weapon is a deterrent against the criminal intent to commit bodily harm. Gang rape on a bus in India? Death by instrumentation with a pipe is also murder. The image, which was released on January 10, was an interesting one. It showed two of the stallions from Obama’s stable, seated side by side. Isn’t Attorney General Eric Holder the same man who gave the final nod for semi-automatic weapons to flood into the hands of murderous drug cartel leadership? It seems a distinct conflict of interest when the insensible man who oversaw the supply end of a botched gun-running operation seeks to mould gun-control policies against non-criminals. This would be campy irony were it not such a travesty. In one massacre alone, 14 teens lost their lives in a hail of bullets. These weapons were part of the ‘Fast and Furious’ delivery package approved by Holder. He has no moral authority in this endeavour. The blood of children is on his hands. In recent years, I have noted a curiosity, an evolutionary movement within the American film industry. There is a greater march towards anti-hero depictions. The lines are increasingly blurred between the good guys and the bad guys. What distinguishes the two is how the good guy is not as evil as the bad guy. He also lacks redeeming qualities. He merely has less dirt and blood on his hands. Real life is different. Responsible gun owners are the good guys. They are blue collar and white collar professionals. They are taxpayers who attend church on Sunday and raise up a shout for Monday night football. On Tuesday, they coach a neighbourhood soccer team. Later in the week, they can be found as part of a community volunteer hub. They are not mentally ill. They are not fascinated with, but rather respect, the power of their weapons. The marrow of my forefathers is in my bones. The ink on their quill is my ink. I am entirely sane and in my right mind. Those who would bivouac under the aegis of ‘protection for our children’ run a false flag operation. Pry the Constitution from my cold, dead fingers. The writer is a freelance journalist and author of the novel Arsenal. She can be reached at tammyswof@msn.com