What all of these news reports of police being excused from the consequences of their violent, criminal acts overlooks is this: the state is defined as an institution that enjoys a monopoly on the use of force within a given area. If the state’s functionaries are subject to externally-derived limitations on their authority (e.g., natural law principles) this erodes their monopolistic claim, does it not? How can the state be a monopolist in the use of violence while, at the same time, being subject to limitations on its power that it is not in a position to limit? What we see in such cases as those being discussed is the fundamental nature of the state. Did a schoolyard bully ever acknowledge a limitation on his power to inflict harm on his victims? Only a higher authority could do that (e.g., a school principal, or a police officer) each of whom represented the higher authority of the state, which did not approve of the bully’s competition with its monopolistic status.
The only solution to this dilemma lies within the victims, who resolve – and with enough defensive force to make it effective – to deny and resist such claims to state monopolies on violence. It is the purpose of the Second Amendment to provide people with the effective means of protecting themselves against criminals of all sorts, be they private or political in nature.
9:15 am on May 23, 2009
