I can assure you that I am not a coward, but I did move out of the state when the opportunity presented itself. Here is an incontrovertible fact: California is already well past the tipping point. There aren't enough philosophical conservatives or philosophical libertarians left in California to change it. Those that wanted out, for the most part left when they had the chance, because they saw the writing on the wall. There are many others that want out, but can't leave for various reasons, but they are a small percentage of the state's overall voting population. Even the Republican Party in California is nothing like the GOP in other states. Many of their "pro-2nd Amendment" people think that it exists to preserve your right to own a shotgun for clays competition or upland bird hunting, and maybe to own a revolver or a pump action shotgun for home defense, but they have swallowed the nonsense hook, line, and sinker that you don't "need" an AR15 or a semiauto pistol, and you certainly don't "need" a standard capacity magazine of more than 10 rounds. The state is a lost cause.treadlightly wrote:I'm not - and probably won't ever be - from California. Hard for me to comment with precision.
Anarchy is bad, tyranny is bad, lawlessness in one case is moral civil disobedience. In most others, hooliganism.
Law unequally applied is tyranny.
Civil rights not defended in some states means those states practice tyranny.
Human nature includes a lot of pettiness. Some, maybe all, of those officers are engaging in "illicit" arms deals for the same reason heroin traffickers run drugs. Money.
But if their motive is to bypass tyranny, it's a little different. It's the wrong method, since the majority in California seem to want to exclude themselves from portions of the American experience, but on the other hand, what if the majority of Americans voted to ban all guns?
Is it moral to respect the will of the majority when it exceeds the Constitution?
Personally, I'd take the coward's way out. I'd move out of the state. But what if enough of them moved to Texas to halt our own swing away from repressive law?
I am fairly typical in that I took a job opportunity to leave when I did, but in so doing I left all of my family behind except my wife and son. That's not exactly a cowardly act. We didn't know anybody when we got here. It was just us. We had no preestablished network to help us get settled in, help us find lodging, show us where the markets were or the churches, etc. My long term goal always was to retire outside of California just so that my retirement dollar would go a bit further......preferably in Texas where I where I went to college and so I was sort of familiar with the state, but almost anywhere outside of California or the northeast. When my employer decided to move its operations to Texas, I was all in.
And yes, I believe it is the citizen's obligation to put the Constitution above the law. When I moved here, I didn't own any guns that would not be currently legal in California. I owned a Model 29 S&W, a 1911, a Colt Gov't .380, a Ruger .308 bolt rifle, and a .22 LR Remington semiauto rifle. I own literally 6 times that many guns now. When I left California, you could still own an AR15 without all their bullet button and magazine limit nonsense. I can promise you that if I had owned such a gun, I would have simply kept it to myself once the laws were passed. If I had owned a Glock 19 when the 10-round magazine limit was passed, I would have kept all my 15 round magazines, and simply bought a couple of 10-rounders for range use. It was completely against California law - but NOT the Constitution - for me to carry a concealed handgun on my person, or in my car, and yet I sometimes did so because I'd rather be tried by 12 if caught than buried by 6 because I was unable to protect myself. I was discreet about it, but I did it. And by the way, that happens a LOT more commonly than the lefties in California suspect - that otherwise law-abiding people place the Constitution ahead of indefensible law and carry a concealed firearm when THEY feel the need (and not the state's definition of "need").
My example of the moral obligation to defy the law when it is unconstitutional would be slavery. Slavery was never defensible under the Constitution. It was only made so (temporarily) under the law by the corrupt arguments of morally corrupt slave owners, or by morally corrupt judicial decisions that completely violated the spirit and intent of the Constitution........which NEVER did make an exception excluding slaves from the enumerated rights of man. Slavery was justified by the sophistry that a person of color was not fully human.....without any scientific evidence to back it up. Whether or not one views the civil war as a war to preserve the union, or a war of northern aggression, slavery was never morally defensible, and it was the moral obligation of people everywhere to do what the Underground Railroad did in violating the indefensible "property rights" of slave owners by helping slaves to escape slavery. It's actually shameful that more people didn't help.
So it goes with California's gun laws. Sometimes, civil disobedience is the right thing to do, especially when acquiescence to tyrannical laws simply ensure that tyranny becomes more deeply entrenched. There comes a tipping point in every tyranny where gov't pushes its people into violent reaction against that tyranny.......IF there are enough people left to protest. California is past that tipping point, and there has been no violent reaction because enough freeloaders moved there looking for the grift, and enough people of principle left when they saw the writing on the wall; so it's a lost cause. The pro-Constitution residents who are left will simply go underground, or they'll eventually leave.
As a religious person myself, I am always reminded of the last verse of Romans 1 when I contemplate the direction that California's politicians have taken the state:
They are an amen choir driving the state off the cliff. The danger isn't so much liberals leaving the state right now and coming here - for a while the situation has stabilized there......they have what they want, and for most of them, there's no reason to leave. Those that are coming here now are just a trickle who are following their jobs. Most of them would rather stay there if they could. But sooner or later, and I'm guessing less than 10 years from now, the state is going to collapse completely because it cannot sustain its commitments, and the rest of the country won't be inclined to bail them out. THAT is when we'll see the rats deserting the ship in huge numbers and fleeing to the free states........bringing their political diseases with them."Romans 1:32 (ESV)
32 Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them."