When an administration chooses to violate the constitution it shows, not only a troubling abuse of power, but a complete disrespect for the democratic method. The constitution was written by the founding fathers to protect the rights and liberties of the citizens that they represented. Immediately after the resolution of the constitution, it was ratified to include, among others, the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment and the right to bear arms that it defends, exists to facilitate a right to self-defense, protect citizens from tyrannical governments and enable the organization of a people’s militia in extreme cases of government oppression.

Obama’s administration is seeking not only to conduct itself in a matter contrary to the democratic method but also in a matter contrary to the fundamental principles that our founding fathers helped to establish. Congress has repeatedly made it clear to the president that the general public does not want their right to bear arms interfered with, and Mr. Obama’s repeated attempts to remove guns from the hands of American citizens despite this is an unacceptable abuse of office.

The problem isn’t with basic measures of control; the right to bear arms isn’t also the right to be reckless with them. Background checks and government sponsored training programs for individual citizens are a logical progression in terms of gun safety. Hundreds, if not thousands of deaths, each year, could be prevented by responsible gun ownership and training in their proper handling.

The problem that exists is in the methods that authority figures like Obama are using to instill greater measures of control. His repeated attempts to violate the Bill of Rights are exactly the type of abuse the founding fathers warned against. Executive orders like the ones our current administration are considering are exactly the reason we have constitutional protections in the first place.

One of the first steps to a malevolent dictatorship is the disarmament of citizens. Vulnerability of the populace and propagation of fear are the methods by which fascist regimes are formed. Hitler, the leader of, arguably, the most destructive dictatorship in civilized history, said in 1942 that “…History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.”

His removal of firearms from the German people resulted in the greatest tragedy that the first world has ever known. Millions of people were executed, largely because of an inability to defend themselves.

Tyrannical civil rights abuse has happened already in continental America and those that suffered did not have reasonable weapons with which to protect themselves. Slavery was legal in the United States for more than two hundred years and African-American victims were treated barbarically by both their fellow citizens and their government. If every black family prior to the civil rights movement had, in their possession, a firearm, the KKK wouldn’t have been able to lynch innocent people of color without consequence and the Thirteenth Amendment, and the abolition of slavery may have come about years, if not decades sooner.

Our current administration continues to undermine the safety of American citizens. The first steps to total government control began with The Patriot Act, and Obama has continually implored congress to further the motion by disarming the public. Despite congress’s consistent rejections of his appeals, he seems intent on illegally pushing through an executive decision that will take guns out of the hands of even the most capable American firearm owners. The opinion of the public is the prime factor in a functional democracy and I am running as an independent because I don’t believe that either party promises to preserve that. Voting for Art Drew is voting for a free and safe America.