Template talk:Self Defense

Self Defense PART 1

The Decline of Freedom

DO CHRISTIANS HAVE A RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE? – PART 1

Does a modern Christian have a right to self defense? With every right there is a correlative responsibility. The ancient right to bear arms has been described in antiquity as the obligation to bear arms in defense of your community. In those ancient times if you would not arm yourself to defend your community you were often shunned if not run out of town all together.

Chuck Baldwin in an article published by NewsWithViews.com quoted the statistic that “as of 2004, 50% of the adults in the United States own one or more firearms.”

My first reaction was, why so few? As someone who once wore a badge and a gun to protect the property and lives of citizens I can testify that my biggest disappointment was the apathy and even cowardice of the people I was often expected to protect.

To refuse to come to the aid of others has been considered a crime and good Samaritan laws have prosecuted citizens who failed to assist and aid people in need of assistance or protection.

Yet, I have heard many people say they would not own a gun or they did not believe in guns. On further inquiry everyone of these purveyors of pseudo-pacifism confirmed that if someone was breaking into their house they would call the police, who will come with guns. The truth is they do believe in guns, but they are either to lazy, to cheap, to cowardly, or just to irresponsible to own one.

One of the last things Christ said to His apostles before His crucifixion was to go and buy a sword, even if they had to sell their garment to do so. When armed men came “with swords and staves for to take” Jesus, one of His disciples, realizing what was coming, asked if they should “smite [them] with the sword”.

Jesus chose not to fight that day. He told Peter to “put up thy sword into the sheath”. Jesus did not tell Peter to throw his sword away. He simply had a better strategy to free the people from the exercising authority of the corrupt government set up by the people who were “making the word of God to none effect.”

The apostles were armed men, but they were also men of peace. They were “gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.”

They supported the weak, patient toward all men, with “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, [of] faith,” but they were armed.

Jesus never came to disarm or weaken the people. That would only tempt brutes of the “world”. Had Peter, the apostles and their thousands of supporters began armed conflict to establish their liberty under God there would have been disastrous and fruitless bloodshed. The people needed to learn first hand the courage and sacrifice needed to sustain a truly free society.

There has been a lot of talk about government usurpation, declarations of independence, sovereign states, rights of citizens, and even references to revolution and armed rebellion in America, but such talk is not only foolish, but unwarranted. You have the government you deserve.

The diminishing rights of people are the direct result of personal neglect, abdication or the waiving of rights in exchange for peace, security, and bountiful benefits. The decline of liberty is always due the failure to retain rights. The failure to retain rights is always linked to the failure to put your hand to the responsibilities of the individual to society. The secrets of a free society belong to the diligent, humble, and wise.

There were no greater revolutionists than John the Baptist, Christ, and His apostles. Their call to repentance, was a call for change. The way of John and Jesus was also truly one of hope. It changed the course of history by changing the ways of the people. If the people were to be ruled by God they had to pursue the righteousness of God.

With this renewed spirit of liberty early Christians tended to what Jesus called the “weightier matters of law, justice, mercy and faith” by loving one another in a international network of faith, hope, and charity under the perfect law of liberty. They did not create a socialist state which exercised authority one over the other. That was forbidden by Christ and Moses before Him.

In the decaying Roman Empire the people had returned to the ways of Pharaoh's Egypt and Nimrod's Babylon. They prayed daily for the privileges and benefits of those authoritarian governments provided at the expense of their neighbor, but Christians did not.

Christians could not covet their neighbor's goods through the exercising authority of Rome nor the government of the Pharisees. Christians prayed to their Father in heaven, not the fathers in Rome. The gifts and benefits of a Christian government were freely given by the people in a network of the people in congregations, for the welfare of their society and rightly divided from house to house by the chosen ministers of His Church.

The modern church and their people have relinquished that responsibility of care and sacrifice to the governments of the world that exercise authority. They tickle the ears of their congregations with great swelling words but no longer teach the people to live by true faith, hope, and charity. Because they have forgotten the perfect law of liberty, they are no longer at liberty.

All rights originally come from God, not the State. Christ, Moses, and Abraham were teaching us how to be responsible and free souls under God so that if we were set free from our bondage to men we could live as a “peculiar people”.

Many people who profess Christ as Lord today do so with their lips, but deny the power thereof. They do not really understand how much Christ set the people free. Jesus could have appealed to Rome for protection from the Pharisees, but His kingdom was not a part of the “world” order of Rome. To Appeal to Pilate for protection would have subject Jesus and His kingdom to the jurisdiction of the Roman Patronus, Father of Rome.

Few people today understand how Abraham set many souls free from the bondage of city states like Ur, Haran and Sodom, nor do they understand the persona jurisdiction of the Israelites in the bondage in Egypt. They are again entangled in those elements of the world.

Jesus came to set the captive free from the same sin and bondage that has always enslaved men under the gods of the world. Jesus had kept His apostles separate from that “[[world]” in a unique manner used by Moses and Abraham centuries before.

Anyone in Judea who got the Baptism of Jesus was cast out of the system of social welfare offered by the government of the Pharisees, while the Pharisees went more under the authority of Rome by denouncing Christ who was the king of peace and freedom under God and saying they had no king but Caesar, the Father of Rome.

The Church established by Christ was not subject to the decrees of Caesar because it was not a part of that “world” and they often did contrary to those decrees according to a natural God given right and Liberty in Christ, but they had to care for the needs of their own community and did not pray to Caesar for his benefits.

The Church was “one form of government” recognized by Rome, and was called a republic by historians like Edward Gibbon. It taught the people true freedom under God by serving one another in love as Rome declined and fell under the authority and the corruption of a socialist state.

Today, Citizens often bear arms for the defense of themselves and their neighbor not so much by right, as by privilege. They do not like to hear and will undoubtedly protest that truth, but it would be better to follow the advise of men like Patrick Henry who was, “willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it.”

Patrick also said “The great object is, that every man be armed.” To be armed may include the principle of being prepared for any disaster which may strike individuals or communities. Are we prepared to come to the defense of our neighbor or will we continue to rely on the protection of an unresponsive government that serves its own interests?

There are fundamentals in a free society that require that we allow others to be as free as we wish to be free ourselves. There is also the requirement of a free society to come to the aid of their neighbor. The early Christian Church was the social welfare system of the faithful. They provided the needs of society in a way contrary to the system of social security offered by the Pharisees, which made the word of God to none effect.

If we are to be a government of, for, and by the people then the people should be the first line of defense for the protection of the people. If you will not take back your responsibilities for yourself and to your neighbor then the one who bears that responsibility will assume your right. Have we forgotten the wisdom expressed by Plutarch 2000 years ago "Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection"?

If we covet our neighbor's goods providing our personal welfare through the exercising authority of governments we ordain, then we are bad citizens and Patrick also stated “Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.”

Modern practices, policies, and pandering of US citizens and their governments are seemingly void of moderation, temperance, and frugality, with justice and virtue in short supply when the desire for personal benefits are demanded by the public. The whole truth may hurt, but, for those who are willing to take responsibility for their own part in the decline of liberty and are willing to change their ways, it will be worth the journey.

In Part two of this series on self-defense we will take a deeper look at the problems that arise among a people who are no longer free and the nature of the impediments that makes them subjects of the will of others.

Self Defense 2

DO CHRISTIANS HAVE A RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE? – PART 2

As we saw in Part 1, it is clear by an honest reading of the Bible that while the men of the Old and New Testament were consistently armed their motives were equally divided between defending themselves and defending others. Their mandate by Moses and Jesus was always to love others as much as they were to love themselves. This meant they were to diligently tend to what Jesus called the “weightier matters of law, justice, mercy and faith” or lose the rights endowed upon them by God and end up serving those who by nature are not gods.

Paul said there were gods many and of course both the Old and New Testaments tell us that those gods were "ruling judges" who ruled the people. Men often are cunningly coerced into into giving other men power by waiving their own rights in exchange for personal benefits or security.

People from the beginning were not to oppress the stranger in their midst, nor deprive the workmen of the value of his labor, nor do anything to their neighbor that they did not want done to themselves, nor covet their neighbor's goods in any way. They were to even love their enemy, being just to all people, defend the weak, and care for the needy without using force. The gods of the “world” often disregard these precepts.

Are Christian soldiers and policeman not to have their weapons any more and give beasts and bullies of society the right to rob and murder with impunity?

That is not what John the Baptist said.

“And the soldiers likewise demanded of him, saying, And what shall we do? And he said unto them, Do violence to no man, neither accuse [any] falsely; and be content with your wages.” Luke 3:14

There is a difference between violence and using strength to put yourself reasonably in harms way to defend the needy.

Recently in California several men raped a 15 year old girl on school grounds while dozens of people stood around doing nothing. Those who did nothing were just as guilty as the criminals. They did not love their neighbor nor tend to what Jesus' “weightier matters.” Their apathy, sloth or cowardice was an act of violence.

“Thus saith the LORD; Execute ye judgment and righteousness, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the oppressor: and do no wrong, do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, nor the widow, neither shed innocent blood in this place.” Jermiah 22:3

In a pure Republic the obligation of good government falls on the shoulders of everyman who must come to the aid of his neighbor by every means at his disposal. To righteously defend the lives of others who are unjustly violated by the brutes and criminals of the world is a duty and an obligation of everyman. It is not violence to do so, but violence to fail to do so.

These precepts define and limit the power and authority of the people and therefore it also limits the power and authority of governments defined and ordained by men.

Rep. Fred Maslack with a stricter interpretation of the Second Amendment and the Vermont's Constitution proposed a bill to register "non-gun-owners."

The bill would require them to pay a $500 fee to the state for the privilege of not owning a gun. That would seem reasonable if the citizenry will not answer the “Hue and cry” of their neighbors in distress then they should bear the weight of hiring more police.

Should the government have a right to take money from non gun owners?

There are governments that exercise authority one over the other and force the compliance and contributions of the people, but these institutions are ordained by the selfish and self indulgent nature of men, not by God. Those governments are here to punish the wicked who create them.

Those who reject God by stealing, murdering, or merely coveting their neighbor's goods are in violation of God's law already, and are and will be judged accordingly.

Those who are slothful in the exercise of their responsibility to God and their fellow man, those who have gone away from the precepts of God by “consent” deserve the governments their own evil hearts create. The slothful should be under tribute and have no right to rebel, but only repent.

In a recent NWV article “The Republic is Dead; We Are Ready to Fight, Now What?” Greg Evensen wrote "We as a nation of citizens, have been brutalized so badly by criminals inside the government, that we could have easily justified the use of deadly force to beat back the pillaging of our homes and communities."

I beg to respectfully disagree. The truth is we have brutalized and pillaged our neighbor through wanton social schemes and our personal apathy and avarice. We have no right to rebel against the so called government benefactors which we have elected time and time again for our private gain.

To protest that we have been violated is a point of hypocrisy when we are just as guilty of sloth and coveting our neighbor's goods through those schemes created by our own democratic hands and consent. The first chapter of Proverbs warns us not to “consent” with others who desire to take from one another for personal benefit or welfare or we would be snared in the net of our own making.

In Part 1 of this series I attributed the legal maxim "Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection" to Plutarch. While I have no doubt he would agree, what I meant to quote was his statement, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.” No man can be free in society until he frees his neighbor from the tyranny in his own heart.

Government today is a product of our own greed and sloth. We have no right to fight for liberty until we set our neighbors free from our own wanton desires. We must turn around, repent, and form a society that frees our neighbor from our own covetous schemes. We must learn to live again by faith, hope, and charity under that perfect law of liberty we claim to seek as the early Church once did.

Consent of the people is created in a variety of ways, but the offer of benefits is one of the most common. Peter the apostle warned people that they would become merchandise, human resources, if they coveted each others wealth. He warned that with “feigned words” they would be seduced into giving up their liberty. He knew some men would promise liberty and bring in a corruption that would bring the people back into bondage to the “world.”

Although, Thomas Jefferson never said, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have," it is undoubtedly true.

Thomas Jefferson did say "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground." The only thing that can keep governments in check is the due diligence of virtuous people.

The standards of virtue required are set by God and it is the job of those who serve God including the Church to point out when and where the people and their institutions stray from the moral and virtuous character of God. One problem is that the modern Church has strayed from even the most basic commandments of Christ as a matter of policy. Coveting your neighbor's goods through the agency of others that exercise authority has become commonplace and acceptable while living by faith, hope, and charity has been, for all practical purposes, abandoned except for lip service.

Even William Pitt, Prime Minister of Great Britain, knew that “As long as we look to government to solve our problems we will always suffer tyranny.” Yet we still look for state or Federal governments to solve all our problems. Could there be a better way?

William Penn said it “If we will not be governed by God, then we will be ruled by tyrants.”

I know the people want to believe all their natural rights are retained by them, but the people have delegated or relinquished the responsibilities correlative to every natural right. Those who bear the responsibility wield the right.

After almost a hundred years of a steady increase of socialism in the “world” are there any natural rights that have not fallen under the regulating powers of men with power?

After all, if you delegate the authority to others to take from your neighbor for your personal benefit and security then it only seems reasonable that those who protect you may also regulate your right to protect yourself.

That may not be a popular concept of law for many, but that is exactly what has happened and in part three we hope to show that there is neither a state nor federal government that you may rely on to retain the rights God has granted you.

Self Defense PART 3

DO CHRISTIANS HAVE A RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE? PART 3

The right to exercise force to prevent a crime, injustice, abuse to another individual or even yourself has nothing to do with violence, vengeance, punishment, resistance, or judgment. It has to do with what Jesus called the weightier matters of law, justice, mercy, and faith.

If someone or something is out of control driven by greed, anger, lust or vengeance to attack, abuse and even kill another innocent member of society you have every right, every obligation to confront them, restrain them, or stop them altogether by whatever reasonable force is required to prevent further criminal abuse. That being said is there a better way than force of arms to tend to law, justice and mercy?

Christ spoke many times about getting the beam out of our own eye or cleaning our own house first. Modern Americans need to take a sobering and humbling look at their part in the present decline of personal freedom and rights.

Most of the people have responded favorably to this series. A small minority have imagined and applied all sorts of preconceived notion, doctrines and unsupported assumptions to what was written based on their own prejudices or limited view. Some actually claimed that Christians cannot be armed or use armed force at any time. Yet, in every case they agreed they would call the police who would come armed to their aid. Some people cannot see the hypocrisy or sloth of this particular position. Violence has to do with an unjust or unrighteous use of force. Doing nothing to stop the abuse is a crime of omission. Sticking your head in the sand has nothing to do with turning the other cheek.

Most all of these would be pacifist are content to call upon the same forceful hand of government to supply their daily bread in time of deprivation or need. The same could be said of those who think that modern government is out of control with its power to tax. Although some might be willing to give up the benefits supplied by that power of government to tax few would offer to supply the same or similar needs of their society unless they are forced.

Before we can learn how God wants us to be ruled or to rule ourselves we need to examine what we have done or failed to do. First, we have excessively empowered governments contrary to the will of God. In the days of Samuel when the voice of the people cried out to give someone authority and power to protect them it was called a rejection of God. We have been warned through history that a loss of freedom would result, yet, we continuously look to governments of power to solve our problems.

“Society in every state is a blessing, but a government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.”

“All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”

“Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government can render us secure.” The growth of virtue in society requires free choice in the hands of the individual. If rights are responsibilities, is the dereliction of a responsibility the delegation of a right?

The problem is not the leaders of government but the people who corrupt them by giving them more and more power through neglect and omission. We often think that the myriad of laws and legal codes are a sign of man’s love for law, yet, Tacitus warned that, “In the most corrupt state, the most laws,”

I have heard modern Christians boasting that they are “no longer under the law,” while in truth they are under millions of laws today and are less secure for it.

The governments of men are made in their own image. Over the last five decades I have seen abundant evidence of judges, lawyers, and district attorneys abusing, defrauding and even robbing the people. I have also known men amongst the same group who are frustrated with an inability to do anything about that corruption and abuse. The reason those few honorable souls are unable to fight the blatant corruption rampant behind the scenes of modern courts is because of the apathy and sloth of the people. The question remains what can we do and remain righteous in or pursuit of the weightier matters?

There are many who think we must return to the constitution, but such thinking is fundamentally flawed. Most Americans opposed the constitution at the time it was proposed and for many good reason.

Even if the warnings against it had not proven to be true it is the character of the people that make the nation healthy or sick for that character will forge the social bonds of a frre society.

“I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes to much upon constitutions, upon laws and courts. These are false hopes, believe me; these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no Constitution, no law, no court can save it.”

The modern State is a product of the modern man. Void of virtue he has followed and fallen into a labyrinth of legal subjugation through application, contract, and dependence. People have coveted their neighbors' goods, muzzled the ox that treadeth out the corn, lurked privily for the blood of others for their own gain. I recently heard someone say at a gathering of men calling themselves the Continental Congress 2009 that they were doing the same thing the Forefathers did. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Early Americans had spent two hundred years striving to obtain true and actual title to land as freemen by the sacrifice of their own blood, sweat and tears, their money actually “paid” debt with present value, they developed a social security system entirely dependent on voluntary charity to maintain the deserving poor of their society, they established an intimate network of local and national groups that would come to each others aid voluntarily at a moments notice. Modern Americans are not doing anything like the early Americans and should not expect to be free, nor claim that right.

As a people, we have stooped to equate license with liberty, favor with freedom, and artificial affluence with autonomy. Such foolishness can only produce tyranny and decay. In a nation morally corrupt only the selfish will reign. Neither freedom nor liberty can flourish nor survive.

It should be clear by now that I have not come to tickle the ears of the people nor their ministers. There is no hope without virtuous societies that loves their neighbor as themselves. Free people must voluntarily and equally accept the duty of protecting their neighbor, as well as themselves, on all levels of social welfare through daily charitable actions if they are to be justified in any form of “self defense”. How to do just that was the roll of the Church in early Christendom.

On the other hand modern Churches have failed to supply the daily bread of their members through faith, hope, and charity, but instead have sent their members to the men who call themselves benefactors but exercise authority, even though Jesus and the prophets have consistently said it was not to be that way with you. Abraham, Moses, and John the Baptist had previously called the people to live another way.

Moses had said “thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” The Old Testament even told us to be kind to our enemy. Jesus command to 'love your enemy' is not new to God's plan, just to the misguided Pharisees. It is the bonds of the love and brotherhood created by people who voluntarily answer the needs and calls of their neighbors through personal and charitable sacrifice that makes a society healthy, wealthy and secure.

Before governments will change men must change. The call was to repent, live another way and not forsake the gathering together. Most people will not come together with the spirit and Character of Christ so those who do need to strive to find the way that sustained and defended the Christians through the decline and fall of Rome and the failure of the unrighteous mammon.

The people of America, and of the world, cannot afford to continue to imagine it is still 1776, nor should they disregard the change in their relationship to governments and community over the last 200 years, nor fail to take into account what they have been doing and failing to do since their youth.

You cannot ask men to provide for your health, education and welfare by enslaving your neighbor and expect to remain free. If you want your government to remain a titular servant of the people you must retain your rights by retaining your responsibilities. In Part four of this series we will show the technical reality and results that occur when we fail to do so.

Self Defense 4

DO CHRISTIANS HAVE A RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE? PART 4

While the State of Montana has recently made an attempt to protect individual rights by enacting state provisions, few understand that individual rights require individual responsibility. Gun rights advocates wait to see what the Federal reaction will be. The difficulty the Federal government faces will remain, as always, how will they maintain the delusion that US citizens still enjoy natural God given rights as free people, while continuing to regulate such rights as the privilege they have become?

“Brian Schweitzer [governor of Montana] has signed into law a bill that aims to exempt Montana-made guns from federal regulation.”

To call on one government to protect your rights from another is simply to shift the authority and power over that right from one agent to another. Truly free societies are based on voluntary networks of liberty minded people who care about their neighbor's rights as much as they care about their own. Freedom only belongs to a peculiar people that are willing to equally protect their rights and their neighbors while allowing their neighbor the right of choosing to do the same.

Let us face the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The truth is that most people covet their neighbor's goods through the power of the governments they elect. Most people do not care about your rights as much as they care about their own welfare and comfort. They have long abandoned the precepts of Abraham, Moses, or Jesus Christ, to say nothing of the early American Republic.

Only virtuous people with diligent enthusiasm may consistently secure liberty. Institution of power created by man's own hand will claim to protect individual rights but like the gods of old they will soon turn those original rights into regulated privileges. If institutions of power protect and secure your rights then those rights will become privileges.

“Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection”

The Natural God given Right to defend yourself and your community requires that the individual and their community recognize their God given Responsibility to equally protect themselves and their community from “any” threat that might jeopardize the life, liberty or the well-being of all.

Americans struggled for centuries to earn the status of freemen or freeholders securing the right to declare unwarranted usurpations in 1776. Few Americans today realize that when you elect men who call themselves benefactors, but exercise authority one over the other, providing security at your neighbors' expense, you are rejecting Christ, God and your natural rights.

The government that is empowered by you to take from your neighbor for your personal welfare and benefit, using your own standard, has the right to take from you for their benefit. As you judge, so shall you be judged. The contract makes the law. If you want to be free you must first free your neighbor from the tyranny in your own heart.

The truth is Americans are snared in a trap of their own making. No past laurels of dead heroes or patriotic flag waving, nor rationalized hope or imaginary rendition of the truth will alter that fact. Citizens of the United States are no longer free. They have sold themselves slaves to their own sloth and wantonness.

Although you may began to finally realize now that “self defense” is not about guns or self, the recent decision in the Nordyke v. King case is a good place to seek to understand your loss of liberty, if you have the stomach for it.

The Second Amendment Foundation founder Alan Gottlieb claimed “The Heller ruling in 2008 was the first critical step toward full restoration of the individual citizen’s right to keep and bear arms to its rightful position as a cornerstone of the Bill of Rights. This victory in the Ninth Circuit not only reinforces the Heller ruling, it expands upon it.”

Neither the Heller ruling nor the Nordyke opinion do anything to restore individual rights once enjoyed by early American freemen. The Nordyke opinion clearly states that, “The Bill of Rights directly applies only to the federal government.”

It is important to understand that the phrase “We the People” in the Constitution of the United States originally referenced those men whose names appear at the bottom of the page. The States did eventually acquiesce to the provisions of that constitution, but it was never put to the vote of the American people nor were the people, who were opposed to the constitution, a party to it. The people as citizens of the States were far closer to a pure republics than the United States ever was.

The Constitution only granted privileges to a body politic called the United States by the states' permission. The United States had no way of expanding its power beyond that of the States original power unless the people failed to “retain” rights and consented by word or deed to grant more power to that Federal government.

Americans have failed to retain those rights by failing to recognize the consequences of applications for and acceptance of benefits, along with pervasive participation in social schemes dependent upon mutual surety and debt as seen in Pharaoh's Egypt, Nimrod's Babylon, Caesar's Rome, or Herod's Judea.

The relationship between the Federal Government and its Citizens is completely upside down from the original intent. But that was their choice. When the leaders are lawmakers liberty is titular.

The “government” makes laws, compels contributions, regulates, and licenses almost every aspect and choice of their lives. As regulated “persons” they have few to blame for this subjection more than themselves, although blaming others for their dilemma has become a national pastime.

In Nordyke v. King the Circuit Judge O’Scannlain's opinion verifies that the Constitution only bars Congress and the National government from infringing on the right to bear arms. But they also recognize that the second Amendment is incorporated against the States by the power of the 14th Amendment.

The far ranging consequences of a former citizen of a State republic becoming incorporated to the Federal government places the federal citizen in subjection to a justified reasonable regulation. Rights, once granted by God, are now incorporated privilege granted to Federal citizens who become merely “residents” of their respective states.

Circuit Judge Gould's concurring opinion, goes on to clarify that the important governmental interests in this corporate federal citizen allows the government to regulate activities concerning rifles and handguns:

If early free Americans were bound by a corporate Federal Citizenship, subject to the administration of government, described in the 14 Amendment and other subsequent acts they would have no right to halt the actions or claim unwarranted usurpation if officer came to confiscate their guns on April 19, 1775 at either Concord or Lexington.

If every aspect of our care as individuals or communities falls within the province of the State or Federal governments then no activity is immune from regulation. In the original American Republics, citizenship of the individual freeman depended upon his private ownership of land as an estate, but “in the United States ‘it is a political obligation’ depending not on ownership of land, but on the enjoyment of the protection of government; and it ‘binds the citizen to the observance of all laws’ of his sovereign.” If they are sovereign, then you are not. Stop pretending to be what you have failed to be by acquiescence or sloth.

Modern Americans are accustomed to forcing their neighbor to guarantee their personal and community social welfare at the point of a government owned gun. This ungodly approach to secure their society has brought the people back into subjection again and again.

While there is hope, you cannot undo a century of sloth and avarice, covetousness and greed with the waive of the States pen or your own. Early Americans took responsibility for themselves and their community, for every aspect of their social welfare, through voluntary network of charity and sacrifice. Unless individuals come together with a true love of liberty and the rights of others there will be no freedom in this land or any other.

If you will not take back the responsibility to govern yourselves, to care and protect one another, to live by faith with hope through charity under the perfect law of liberty which is love, and the duty of every Christian and God loving man, then you are probably to irresponsible to own a gun without being regulated by one government or another.

Footnotes

https://www.mcsm.org/ammilitia31.html

http://www.newswithviews.com/Gregory/williamsA.htm