By Nathan Barton

The Maryland House of Delegates is attempting to take yet another step towards nullifying the Bill of Rights. Maryland gunners and liberty-lovers have begun a “Will Not Comply” movement that saw more than 1,000 witnesses in suitable tee-shirts show up at the legislative hearings to speak up and preserve their God-given right to keep and bear arms.  In 2019, it appears that freedom- and gun-lovers in Maryland are not taking it lying down. As a correspondent for Freedom Outpost reports, pro-liberty people in Maryland have established a “We wll not comply” movement.

A number of legislators and other political leaders (Tranzis all, I presume) immediately attacked them as “homegrown terrorists” and claimed their Will Not Comply tee-shirts were “threats.”  But apparently, it has made at least a few people change their minds, at least for now, about trying to take those next steps that we all know are a prelude to confiscating guns and attempting to erase a vital liberty.

Some Marylanders are pushing to take the “Will Not Comply” movement outside Maryland, which is far from the only State that is trashing the Bill of Rights. Already, you can get teeshirts and such at CafePress and other sites.

Perhaps we need to take a lesson from the treatment of alcoholics.  As various scholars have pointed out, the fear of weapons, and guns in particular, is a mental condition: a serious psychological abnormality as bad or worse than arachnophobia or acrophobia. Alcoholics Anonymous has been one of the most successful programs that has helped millions of alcoholics deal with their condition and learn to live normal lives free from the effects of drunkenness.  (My own brother was one, who lived sober for nearly 30 years before his death about a year ago.)

While I cannot and do not agree with all the tenets of AA, still, their may be a way to use their methods to help those we call “hoplophobes.”  And maybe even more.

“Hoplophobes” (I don’t recall who coined the word) are people who fear weapons – especially guns. Taken from the Greek word for arms (weapons), this word has become more common in recent years.  A similar word was (I think) coined by me: “Hoploclasts.” Those who hate guns are “hoploclasts,” whether it is all guns or just guns in “the wrong hands” (which might have various definitions).

Both of them fit into the overall category of “gungrabbers.” But there is a third type of gungrabber.  Those who want to take away weapons from others because they want to control those others, and see weapons as a threat to their ambitions to power and wealth.

But I know people who in the past, have been one of those three types.  And have reformed.  Even people who still fear guns but have learned to control their fear, letting their intellect and reason rule over their emotions and fears.

The traditional 12 Steps of AA are these (with some modifications for Gungrabbers). They appear to fit gungrabbers well.

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol our hoplophobia – that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity. (That power might be the Constitution, or Natural Law.)
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God (as shown in Liberty given by Him or by Nature) as we understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. (Perhaps even their constituents?)
6. Were entirely ready to have God (or Nature or the People) remove all these defects of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all. (How about a census report from their jurisdiction?)
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God (or just plain listen to the Founding Fathers and the People and the call of Liberty) as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Now, I realize that these are quite religious, and Christian or Jewish in nature, but I think that they are a great start.

The “homegrown terrorists” of Maryland are acting in the right way.  I don’t know if any of them are reformed gungrabbers (though I suspect that some are).  A “recovering alcoholic” doesn’t wait until someone shoves the drink in his face to tell them “I don’t drink.” Neither should lovers of liberty and guns and self defense wait until the laws are already passed: tell them NOW to leave us along.

What do you think?