Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership, Inc.
P.O. Box 270143
Hartford, WI 53027

Phone (800) 869-1884
Fax (425) 451-3959

---

With No Apologies To John Lennon

By L. Neil Smith

Imagine ...

Imagine what it will be like, one morning, to wake up and find the Bill of Rights being stringently and energetically enforced as if it were exactly what it is: the highest law of the land -- the Ten Commandments of politics -- taking precedence over every other law, from the latest intrusive and expensive city ordinance, to some evil and illegal treaty just signed with some hellish People's Republic.

Imagine two thirds, or three fourths, or seven eighths, or nine tenths of the government simply gone, because it failed to comply with that highest law.

Imagine, for the first time in your life, knowing precisely, right down to the last cell in your body, what your rights are and where you stand. They are firmly leashed – they who used to have the power to brutalize and destroy everything you love, anytime, anywhere, and for any reason.

Imagine that the government minions no longer have that power. Most of them are now in jail. There are no more federal police forces, because no federal police forces are authorized under the Bill of Rights. Local police forces, limited to weapons and resources common to the public they serve, are required to justify every move they make, under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, as well as Article I, Section 8, and Article VI, Section 2 of the Constitution.

Imagine: you can't be persecuted by the EPA for filling in a mud puddle on your own land. You can't be persecuted by the local "social services" who want to kidnap your child because they think your house is messy.

You can't be persecuted by the DEA for manufacturing little plastic bottles or selling ultraviolet gardening lights. They can take and keep your money just because you’re carrying “too much” of it, and then make you prove you aren’t a criminal to get it back.

You can't be persecuted by the Forestry Service because your property rights impede their plan to close the countryside to private individuals and drive everyone into the cities (where their lives can be minutely controlled by police state policies).

Imagine: you don't have to worry constantly, somewhere in the back of your mind, about your door being smashed in at 2 AM and your family being roughed up and terrorized by Kevlar-clad thugs with machine pistols who got the wrong address -- or simply don't like the way you write.

Maybe you hadn’t thought about any of these things consciously before, but those and a hundred other dark, ugly fears were always there in your subconscious, making every day, every hour a sorrow and a burden when, in the dawning 21st century, living in America should have been a delight.

Thanks to changing not just the politics but actually changing to a Bill of Rights culture, there's virtually no crime. You hardly ever see a cop, because most laws have been repealed, nullified, or otherwise disposed of -- including those that prevented you from carrying a weapon and defending yourself. Burglary and rape are all but unknown; the occasional mugging gets six-inch headlines in the newspaper.

Thanks to the renewed Bill of Rights culture, there are also only about a tenth as many radio and television news broadcasts as there used to be. The few newspapers remaining (most news comes over the Internet these days) may run for a week without a single article about government or politics. Gone are the days when, because of politicians on the make and pressure groups with vile agendas, every issue carried dozens of threats to your property, your liberty, and your life.

Now instead the media proclaim new inventions, new discoveries, new risks, new opportunities that are up to you to take advantage of or ignore, with nobody -- no government busybody -- looking over your shoulder.

Thanks to a Bill of Rights culture, you can stand down. You can breathe. You can listen to the music. You can relax.

But never entirely. You know "the price of liberty is eternal vigilance" and that "most great men are bad men." The Bill of Rights must be stringently, energetically enforced as if it were exactly what it is, the highest law of the land -- if only so that your children and your grandchildren won't have to go through the black times you used to envision.

Until this morning, when you woke up from a lifelong nightmare of endless oppression lurking just over horizon, and stretched into the clear, bright light of liberty.

Imagine ...

* * *

L. Neil Smith is the award-winning author of more than 20 novels about individual liberty and the right to own and carry weapons. He authored (with Aaron Zelman) the novel Hope to help people visualize our nation running by the principles in the Bill of Rights. (Only $14.95 postpaid.)