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L. Neil Smith at The Libertarian Enterprise - a few words on the death of the Bill of Rights at the hands of the safety nazis, using as an example, the death of the single-action revolver (well, not quite, you can still buy the traditional design) at the hands of Ruger's "Ralph Nader Safety Revolver". [tle]
The rights that the Founders chose to enumerate were meant never to be decreed, legislated, adjudicated--or voted--away. They had been placed (or at least the Founders believed) beyond the reach of politicians, bureaucrats, and the people, themselves. While they were inclined to celebrate the mind and spirit of the individual human being, the Founders knew that our species doesn't play particularly well in groups, and that the collective intelligence of a mob is that of its brightest member--divided by the number of people in the group.
So how did we get from a society in which individuals were free, and the Bill of Rights was unassailable, to a society in which nothing is allowable unless you have begged specifically for the government's permission?
There are many answers to that question--my first novel, The Probability Broach, for example, is primarily about the unfortunate influence that the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion had on American history--but my purpose here is to consider the role of two more fundamental phenomena: an irrational obsession to make the whole world "safe" for idiots, and an insatiable desire to extract big bucks from deep pockets.
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Freedom first, safety second--or maybe third.
