The following piece was written as
an introduction to my 2014 piece “Altering the Second Amendment to Protect
Conscientious Objection”.
At the Illinois State Line Rifle Association (S.L.R.A.)’s April 27th meeting in Round Lake Park, Illinois, I read the following piece to an audience of about fifteen people, followed by that article on the relationship between gun control and draft registration.
At the Illinois State Line Rifle Association (S.L.R.A.)’s April 27th meeting in Round Lake Park, Illinois, I read the following piece to an audience of about fifteen people, followed by that article on the relationship between gun control and draft registration.
Thank you very much for having me.
My name is Joseph W. Kopsick, and I’m a candidate in the race for the U.S.
House of Representatives, representing my home town of Lake Bluff, as well as
Round Lake Park, and much of the North Shore, including most of Lake County,
and parts of northern Cook County.
Illinois state “sore loser laws”
prevent me from running as an independent, so I’m running as a New Party
candidate, and seeking the nomination of the Libertarian Party. I am the only
candidate in the race besides incumbent Republican Bob Dold; and challenger and
former congressman, Democrat Brad Schneider.
A little bit of background on me: I
was born in Lake Forest, grew up in Wildwood, went to preschool right around
the corner in Grayslake, and when I was five, my family moved to Lake Bluff. I
attended Lake Bluff public schools, and graduated from Lake Forest High School
in 2005. In 2009, I graduated from the University of Wisconsin at Madison,
having majored in political science.
Growing up in an upper-middle-class
suburban household, I was never around guns; I never went hunting. In fact,
before the age of eighteen, the closest thing I ever saw to a hunting rifle was
a potato gun. For part of my idealistic, naïve liberal youth, I even thought
that it was immoral to defend yourself… and then I turned
fourteen. Since then, I’ve handled a few guns, but I’ve still never fired one.
I started showing some conservative
inclinations during high school, and throughout the Bush era, I grew to value
the Bill of Rights and civil liberties. I was especially concerned that I’d be
drafted, since I was upset about being required to register for the draft at
the age of seventeen, with a $125,000 fine threatened against myself and my
parents for failing to ensure that I registered. It was only recently that I
noticed the connection between the Second Amendment and draft registration.
In 2007, I discovered Ron Paul and
libertarianism; my interest in civil liberties; individual rights; and
personal, social, and economic freedom only grew from there. I went on to run
for Congress from Wisconsin’s 2nd District in 2012, and Oregon’s 3rd
in 2014.
In early 2011, after the shooting of
Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, I saw the demand for increased gun control grow
exponentially. Since that, the massacres in Aurora, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino,
and other places, have only added fuel to that fire.
Calls for quote-unquote
“common-sense” gun legislation abound; especially at the federal level, despite
the contents of the Second Amendment. Bans on so-called “military-purpose
assault rifles”, high-capacity magazines, stronger background checks,
elimination of gun-sale background check loopholes that arguably don’t exist,
safety precautions – like safety locks, requirements that guns be stored in
locked places, and even requirements that guns only be able to be fired by
their owners, perhaps through the use of a fingerprint scanner – these
regulations are based on purely cosmetic differences, they are unenforceable,
they are written and defended by gun-illiterate people, and they have
disastrous unintended consequences.
Some say “guns don’t kill people; people kill people”; others say guns do kill. But accidentally shooting
yourself or someone else does not mean guns kill by themselves. Many defenders
of gun control are peaceful, well-meaning people, but their rhetoric is flawed,
and they fail to see the connection between guns and our freedom.
I’ll get to that in a minute, but
first I want to say that if I am elected, I will not support any gun control legislation at the
federal level. Since I believe in the Tenth Amendment as much as the Second, I
would not cast a vote that interferes with the states’ rights to legislate on
matters of guns.
However,
any such laws can only, rightfully, be applied to the intrastate manufacture of guns; not interstate manufacture, and
certainly not to commerce and trade of guns across state borders, due to the
Commerce Clause. Furthermore, while I would not vote to interfere with the
states’ rights to craft constitutional
gun control legislation, I would also support the resistance to overbearing state gun laws, by supporting
communities’ rights, counties’ rights, jury nullification, and civil
disobedience of such unjust laws.
The only (arguably)
“pro-gun-control” position I would take, is that I would oppose protections for
gun sellers and manufacturers, from being sued by victims of gun violence and
their families. But I take this position because, as it says in 42 U.S. Code
Section 1981, “All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States, shall
have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts,
to sue”, among other things.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe that
after a gun is manufactured and sold to you, it becomes your property, and what you do with it is your responsibility. And the seller – and especially not the
manufacturer – ought have any positive obligation (outside of direct contract
with you) to do background checks on you, nor take any other measures to ensure
that you will be responsible with it.
I believe such lawsuits are
frivolous, and I believe that they should be settled out of court, and laughed out of court. If Ben Carson hits
his mother in the head with a hammer, it wouldn’t make sense for her to sue Ace
Hardware, but I’d welcome her to try. I oppose these protections, also, to take
a stand against corporate privilege.
To those who would argue that this
position puts me to the left of Bernie Sanders on the issue of lawsuits against
gun sellers and manufacturers, I’d respond that while Sanders voted for such protections, he was glad that
Sandy Hook victims’ families won in a preliminary judgment concerning their
right to sue, so Sanders has not been consistent on this issue.
But on to my main point: I’d like to
read a piece that I wrote several years ago, which is entitled “Altering the
Second Amendment to Protect Conscientious Objection”. I think this information
is crucial, especially now, a time when seasoned liberals – from Carl
Bernstein, to Robert Reich, to Charlie Rangel, to Rahm Emanuel – are openly
calling for some form or another of mandatory national civil service; even
calls to require women to register
for the draft.
Please click on the following link to read the remainder of this speech:
Please click on the following link to read the remainder of this speech:
"Speech to the Illinois State Line Rifle Association":
Written on April 27th, 2016Edited on May 28th, 2016
Written on April 27th, 2016Edited on May 28th, 2016
"Altering the 2nd Amendment to Protect the Right of Conscientious Objection":
Originally Written in May 2014
Edited on January 9th, February 18th, and May 28th, 2016