This week I learned that there is an actual conservative running for Governor of California. This guy McClintock put together the best, most clearly articulated defense of the conservative view of the Second Amendment I have ever read:

At issue was a measure, SB 52, which will require a state-issued license to own a firearm for self-defense. To receive a license, you would have to meet a series of tests, costs and standards set by the state.

We have seen many bills considered and adopted that would infringe upon the right of a free people to bear arms. But this was the most brazen attempt in this legislature to claim that the very right of self-defense is not an inalienable natural right at all, but is rather a right that is licensed from government; a right that no longer belongs to you, but to your betters, who will license you to exercise that right at their discretion.

During the debate on this measure, which passed the Senate 25 to 15, I raised these issues. And I would like to quote to you the response of Senator Sheila Kuehl, to the approving nods of the Senators whose duty is to protect the liberty of the citizens.

She said, “There is only one constitutional right in the United States which is absolute and that is your right to believe anything you want."...

Now, compare that to the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

What rights have a slave? There is only one: a slave can think anything he wants: as long as he doesn’t utter it or act on it – he may think what he wants. He has no right to the fruit of his labor; no right to self-defense, no right to raise his children, no right to contract with others for his betterment, no right to worship – except as his master allows. He has only the right to his own thoughts. All other rights are at the sufferance of his master – whether that master is a state or an owner.

I think I need to go learn how to shoot. The elected officials who can sit down and defend their beliefs like this, even supposedly solid conservatives, are few and far between. I am sick and tired of the haughty utilitarianism that has become America's ultimate First Principle in politics.

I've always been very ambivalent about gun ownership. I've kind of gone along with conservatives opposing gun control, but half-heartedly, because gun ownership and being in personal relationship with Jesus Christ just don't seem to go together. The scene in the movie Witness, in which the Amish father instructs his young boy never to use a gun, because we cannot see into the heart of any man, very much resonated in me. I have always believed in just wars, while also wanting to maintain that an army of nonviolent Christians could accomplish similar ends as war seeks, without moral compromise. I've never fired a weapon.

Then you have the example of America's Founding Fathers. Owning a gun and using it regularly was like owning a watch or a phone today -- a tool you needed to accomplish daily tasks. But private gun ownership was absolutely a pillar of colonial culture. As was Christianity. More to follow.