A Relationship Of Trust Between Government And Citizens.

Mister Americano has added another item to his Second Amendment Disaster Preparedness Kit. (For prior additions, see here, here, and here.) It's an authentic M-1 Garand. The M-1 Garand was the rifle used by American soldiers in World War Two. It's a great rifle, if heavy. Mister Americano got his through the kind auspices of the U.S. Government.

The feds long ago established something called the Civilian Marksmanship Program "to provide civilians an opportunity to learn and practice marksmanship skills so they would be skilled marksmen if later called on to serve the U.S. military." (Here.) Law-abiding American citizens can participate in the CMP and buy surplus military firearms.

To get a gun from the CMP, you have to submit to a background check, and send proof of participation in a CMP-sponsored shooting match, an application form, proof of American citizenship, and $550 to the CMP. A few weeks later, your rifle arrives in a box delivered by Federal Express.

What a great country!

It says a lot about the relationship of trust between the federal government and its citizens that Americans can buy surplus military firearms from the government. That relationship puts the lie to the belief that governments should fear their people.

The recent movie, V for Vendetta played on the fears of leftwing hysterics who believe America and England are rushing into fascism. (America's fascists must not be very good at it, what with that pesky free election voting in the Democrats just the other day. But we digress.) Mister Americano has to admit that he liked the movie even if he doesn't agree with its premise.

The movie's promotional tagline was "People should not be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people." (Here.) First of all, we don't belong to the government, so we aren't "their people." But more important than that, in a free society the people and their government trust each other. Although as President Reagan was always saying about the Russkies, "trust but verify."

-tdr

Reposted once to fix grammatically mangled sentence.

Technorati: Guns, Second Amendment, Politics, Disaster.