A anti-gun progressive by the name of Tom Harvey published a whining op-ed in the Huffington Post last night that shows just how poorly some understand the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

Here’s a taste.

I Have a Right to Hate Guns
I’m not sure that I do; it’s not that simple; but I certainly have the right and plenty of reason. I shouldn’t have to hide my position. I should be free to state it clearly, directly and simply and say:

• It’s much too easy for people of bad will or unstable emotions to become armed and dangerous and we should take the strong action needed to stop it.
• It is the responsibility of gun owners to prove that their activities do not create a danger to the public and submit to whatever regulation is needed to enforce that.
• Unless one has an exceptional need, the risks of having guns far outweigh the benefits, making gun possession unwise for nearly everyone.
• Notwithstanding Antonin Scalia’s bogus logic, the Second Amendment only establishes a collective right.

Harvey’s opinions are just that—opinions—and apparently drawn from a deep well of emotionalism that has overridden his reason. He asserts that gun owners are guilty until proven innocent, and assumes the worst in his fellow man, and then engages is abject denial as he attempts to manufacture a collectivist view of the Second Amendment where no such valid argument has ever existed.

Mr Harvey, you have the right to hate our guns.

You have the right to rail against the ownership of handguns by American citizens.

You are free to shout at the top of your lungs that you believe that no citizen should own an AR-15, an M1917 Enfield, a Sharps carbine or even what is arguably the first suppressed assault rifle, the nearly silent 22-shot-per magazine Girandoni air rifles purchased by the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson.

You may say what you desire.

What you don’t have a right to do, Mr. Harvey, is disarm the citizens of this nation.

The Founders recognized a pre-existing right to self defense that is every persons birthright. That right comes with a right to own the tools of self defense, and in these contemporary times, that means firearms, including handguns, rifles, and even fully-automatic machine guns, which have never been illegal in the United States on the federal level.

You are on the wrong side of history, Mr. Harvey.

You are on the side of totalitarians and dictators,  tyrants of oppressors. There is no legitimate reason to disarm a free people.  The only reason to disarm a citizenry is so that those that retain their arms may impose their will upon the disarmed with impunity.

The result of this sort of disarmament in the 20th Century was Democide, the murdering of 220+ million by their own governments.

You say that you want to prevent mindless violence, Mr. Harvey?

Disarm governments, not citizens.