The Right to Bear Arms, Now Available in 'Federal-Employee Only' Sizes!

We tend to harp on the Second Amendment quite a lot on this blog, and today will be no exception.

Despite the withering strength of the Second Amendment these days, it appears as though there is one group of individuals that the federal government, perhaps unsurprisingly, wholly supports in its right to bear arms - the federal government.

Indeed, there are currently upwards of 40 armed federal agencies in today's version of America.  Some of these agencies, such as the FBI, CIA, ATF, DEA, Secret Service, Homeland Security and Military Security Forces, will come as no surprise.  And then there are the other ones.

For example, in 2010 the Department of Education purchased 27 Remington Model 870 Police-Variant 12-Gauge Shotguns.  Why?  To replace the aging models currently in use, of course!  Here's a more detailed explanation, courtesy of The Washington Post:

"The Office of Inspector General is the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Department of Education and is responsible for the detection of waste, fraud, abuse, and other criminal activity involving Federal education funds, programs, and operations. As such, OIG operates with full statutory law enforcement authority, which includes conducting search warrants, making arrests, and carrying firearms."

So the DoE needs shotguns to handle wasteful and fraudulent misappropriations of education funds by teachers and principals?  If your reaction to the above statement was anything other than "Why in the hell does the Department of Education have a law enforcement arm?", then you may have come to this blog by mistake.

Abusive teachers and officials do, of course, require their own category (the wording above is quite vague - I will give the benefit of the doubt that 'abuse' here is meant to signify the physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse of children in schools or by school officials, and is not being used as just another way of saying 'fraudulent use' or 'exploitation' of federal funds).  But is it necessary to create an entire paramilitary wing of the Department of Education, when local police departments, and even the FBI, would be more than willing to investigate and apprehend such scum? 

I wish that were the worst of it.

The Food and Drug Administration (not to be confused in ANY way with the Drug Enforcement Agency, which actually does conduct dangerous raids (whether or not you agree with their purpose)) makes a somewhat surprising appearance on the list as an armed federal agency.  I neither exaggerate nor simplify when I say that the purpose of an armed FDA is to raid Amish settlements and small, local farmers who are suspected of possessing raw milk and other prohibited consumables with the intent to distribute and/or use them for personal consumption.  Some people often mock Ron Paul for his advocacy of raw milk usage, but it's not often that these people mention the FDA's activities against it.

Speak of the Devil - the good doctor's son, Senator Rand Paul (R, Kentucky), recently introduced an amendment to the Food and Drug Administration User Fee Reauthorization bill which would disarm the agency and also allow for the acceptance of medicinal studies conducted outside of the U.S. to prevent “overzealous regulation of vitamins, food and supplements by codifying the First Amendment prohibition on prior restraint.”

So who else made the list?

• Internal Revenue Service - Thank God I filed on time this year!  To be fair, I think we've all imagined ourselves roaring triumphantly, hammer in-hand, over the now-unrecognizable body of an auditor.
• The Small Business Administration - Just in case an 8(a) application is actually a terrorist device in disguise.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration - A little-known but promising study has shown that hurricanes may be effectively dissipated by shooting them a lot.  The study is suspiciously moot on whether or not this effect may be enhanced by yelling "Yee-haw!"
• The Railroad Retirement Board - Because ... you know what?  I give up.  I can't even think of a satirical reason for this one.

And over 35 others.

It's bad enough that the right to bear arms is being eroded throughout the public sphere.  But to do so while simultaneously promoting armed paramilitary forces in even the most (hilariously) mundane of federal agencies is downright terrifying.

Anonymous and the Second Amendment

Much has been made in recent times of the cyber-antics of the hacker collective known as Anonymous.  The group has claimed responsibility for data breaches and Distributed Denial of Service attacks on countless religious, corporate, and government servers in the past few years, with 2011 seeing a sharp rise in activity.  This increase in activity can mainly be attributed to the notorious rise of splinter group LulzSec, the publishing of military files and diplomatic cables by watchdog group Wikileaks (and subsequent government responses), and the attempted legislation of internet censorship in the U.S. via SOPA and PIPA, although there are those who believe that the time has simply come.

There have been a plethora of responses to Anonymous and their active resistance tactics against what they perceive (not without cause) as widespread wrongdoing, corruption and censorship in our political and economic systems.  These responses generally range from hero worship to cries of Terrorism, and everywhere in between.

However, the media and the blogosphere have been relatively mum on the topic of what Anonymous (not to mention the social media-driven Arab Spring) has shown us about the power of the Internet, especially as it pertains to the United States' Second Amendment. 

We have already pointed out that there is a large-scale ground war being waged for the soul and future of the Internet.  Now, more than ever, it is important to take a look at what has made this war possible; specifically, how a single father living in a housing project can obtain the power to successfully take on the U.S. Government (and, subsequently, the power to help the U.S. government track and arrest other such individuals).

The Internet is a beast unlike any mankind has seen before.  With a seemingly-infinite amount of information freely available to anybody with a phone or cable line, it is now possible to do just about anything online, from shopping to earning a Master's Degree.  Theoretically, a motivated individual could learn just about anything online; with enough patience (and a skillful choice of Google search terms), one could learn everything a college degree has to offer, and more, for free.  In fact, university sites worldwide have begun posting lesson materials and even offering free courses with open and limitless enrollment.  With this much information available (and currently uncensored) to the average citizen, ignorance and lack of education have become a willful choice, rather than a tragedy of circumstance.

Equally important is the Open Source movement, which has exploded over the past decade and created a vast market of tools and utilities which are free to download, use, modify and distribute.  Such projects are run by a dedicated base of volunteer coders who modify, expand and perfect the software as they see fit, creating customized and powerful tools for almost any use case.  With thousands of such tools emerging from the movement every year, there is an open source alternative to everything.

As any true believer in the Second Amendment will tell you, the right to bear arms is not merely just a tool to ensure citizens have the right to defend themselves against lone criminal aggressors (unless they are outside their house, and as long as they can prove to a court that they made every effort to hide and retreat, and had no choice but to use deadly force).  The Founding Fathers, having just fought a war for freedom against a tyrannical and vastly superior force, wanted to ensure that there would be an everlasting physical deterrent against tyranny and opression (having correctly predicted that the lawful deterrent of the Constitution may not always be strictly adhered to).  Perhaps V said it best from behind the Guy Fawkes mask: "People should not be afraid of their government; Government should be afraid of its people."

Here we are, 236 years later.  There is no civilian militia (nor any foreign power) which can match the technology, training and discipline of the United States Military - but then again, the Second Amendment is not about being superior in might to the government, nor is it about violence or coups.  To me, anyway, the Second Amendment is about reminding the powers-that-be that this country was founded on a Fuck-You-Attitude towards authoritarianism, and that we will not bow to threats against our freedom, be they foreign or domestic in origin.

And that, if nothing else, is what the Anonymous movement has shown.  Through an albeit controversial show of force, Anonymous has proven that with free military-grade encryption and powerful anonymization tools, a little bit of patience and motivation, and a whole lot of talent, the playing field has been effectively leveled by the Internet.  There are no social, educational or financial barriers to what one can achieve on the Internet; all one needs is a connection and a willingness to learn.  The technology and training available to the NSA and the Military are effectively identical to those freely available to citizens online; the discipline is something that must be developed from one's self.

As recent events worldwide have shown, the power of an idea has become increasingly competitive with the power of an armed force.  And on the Internet, Ideas are free.  On the Internet, Ideas are weapons.

On the Internet, Ideas are King.