Barack Obama, during one of his speeches urging the American public to support the state’s efforts to disarm them, tried to argue against the idea that the people need firearms to protect themselves from the government:
You hear some of these quotes: “I need a gun to protect myself from the government.” “We can’t do background checks because the government is going to come take my guns away.”
Well, the government is us. These officials are elected by you. (Applause.) They are elected by you. I am elected by you. I am constrained, as they are constrained, by a system that our Founders put in place. It’s a government of and by and for the people.
It’s interesting to hear a man that has personally ordered the murder of hundreds of people claim he is constrained. I also like how he tries to say that the government is legitimate because it was elected by “us.” I’m not entirely sure who he’s talking about but I certainly didn’t elect him or any of the other politicians currently occupying the country’s large marble buildings. They don’t represent me, my views, or my desires. Quite the opposite is true. They stand against everything I believe in. I am not the government, regardless of what Obama claims. If I was the government things would be different because my first and only act would be to entirely abolish the government. Interestingly enough that option isn’t available on any ballot so my views can’t be represented at the voting booth.
Obama can’t even claim the support of the majority of voters. During the 2012 presidential election Obama received 65,909,451 votes. According to the United States Census Bureau the number of eligible votes in 2010 (the most recent year data is available) there are approximately 229,700,000 [PDF] potential voters. That means Obama only enjoys the support of roughly 29% of potential voters. In other words the majority of eligible voters don’t support Obama and he therefore cannot claim to be elected by “us.”
Considering the majority of potential voters didn’t support Obama, the state accomplishes all of its goals by initiating violence against the general populace, and Obama has personally ordering hundreds of murders it’s pretty easy to understand why people feel the need to have some measure of protection against the government. It’s also easy to see why the government wants to ensure those measures are removed from the table. An entity that acquires wealth by stealing it from others has a vested interest in ensuring their victims are unarmed. This is true of muggers, burglars, scam artists, and the state.
Well, if we are the government then shouldn’t we get the same exemptions to these laws as the government and shouldn’t we be allowed to carry any arm that the government does?