Some paranoia is justified.  Are American gun owners paranoid?  Yes.  Is someone out to get them?  Yes.  Personal liberty and guns go hand in hand. I know that a lot of people will disagree with this, but look at the world around you. We are the freest country in the world and the most armed. 
The government tells us that more guns cause more crime. The facts are just the opposite. When Kennesaw, Ga., in 1982 passed a law requiring the head of each household to own at least one firearm, crime plummeted 74 percent, according to www.ecclesia.org.
Here is an important statistic that the government failed to tell us: In the 52 years since the enactment of the National Firearms Act, there have been no documented instances of criminal misuse of any legally owned automatic firearm, according to www.catb.org. Yet, the government keeps trying to keep us from owning them. 
The worst case of the government trying to disarm America just took place. Normally, gun shops are at the forefront of preventing automatic weapons from getting into the wrong hands. They are supposed to report unusual attempts to buy such weapons. According to a story by CBS News, as part of “Project Gunwalker,” guns shops have been allowed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to sell weapons to suspicious customers. The shop owners were told that ATF would follow the trails and arrest the bad guys. Instead, 1,800 weapons got into the hands of drug cartels and gangs, both in Mexico and the United States. 
Now that this fiasco has been exposed, Attorney General Eric Holder is trying to cover it up and hamper Congress’ attempt to find out who knew of this debacle and why it happened. 
I believe it happened because the government was hoping to track those weapons back to the gun dealers and claim that the dealers were part of the criminal trafficking network — that they were illegally selling to the bad guys. Then the government would use the opportunity  to ban automatic weapons. 
Because of the second amendment, our gun rights have been protected, but now the government is using another section of the Constitution to circumvent the second amendment. Article 2 of the Constitution gives Congress the right to enter into international treaties.  In 1829, Chief Justice Marshall said, “In the United States, a different principle is established. Our constitution declares a treaty to be the law of the land. It is, consequently, to be regarded in courts of justice as equivalent to an act of the legislature, whenever it operates of itself, without the aid of any legislative provision.”
What exactly does this mean? An international treaty would be a globally binding instrument for all parties to the treaty and, in the United States, the government would use this treaty to constitutionally regulate the import, export and transfer of conventional arms. Such a treaty would eliminate gun dealers and prevent manufacturers, such as Glock, Beretta and other popular brands from importing into the United States. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is negotiating such a treaty with the U.N.
The government tells us that we do not need a weapon for protection because the police are only minutes away, but when you only have seconds, the police are useless in protecting us.
Yes, I am paranoid. Why is the government trying to take our guns away unless their agenda is to disarm us so that they can control our liberty?

Calderone is a conservative who lives in Midway. He is a professional salesperson and for 30 years has written articles for trade publications in various fields.