They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

I ask, Sir, what is the militia?  It is the whole people.  To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them. – George Mason, co-author of 2^nd amendment at Virginia’s Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788

Earlier today, I came across another article from someone associated with the Brady Campaign that is complete nonsense.  I guess I can give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they mean well, they’re just indescribably stupid when it comes to guns.  They wrote this piece reflecting upon the recent Ohio school tragedy.  Yes, it was a bad thing and nobody ever wants that kind of atrocity to happen.  Yet, they do happen because evil exists, along with crazy people.  Is it the guns’ fault?  A beautiful, wonderfully crafted instrument for sport, hunting, and self defense . . . did the gun slap itself in the troubled kids’ hands and yank its own trigger?  The Brady Campaign would say so.  They want to strip this kid, and every other troubled and crazy criminal, of any personal responsibility, and blame it on an inanimate object.  I’ve had interactions with people, relatively recently, that tell me they are for banning guns.  I assure you, guns are not the enemy.  Our gun ownership is the only thing keeping things relatively safe, not to mention holding our freedom under this government a little more securely.  You ban guns, or enforce any type of gun control, all you do is make it easier for the criminals who are always armed and never obey the law.  Gun control also turns a country’s citizens into slaves to the government.  Let’s play the game for a moment, though.  If we blame guns for injuring and killing people, they must be banned, of course (according to liberals and anti-gun people), but what else should be banned?

Lynchings used to be somewhat common in part of our dark history.  However, I’ve never heard of anyone calling for rope to be banned.  Certainly, evil rope must have tied itself into a knot and created itself into a good noose, then jumped around the necks of African-Americans, and the white folk who stood up for them.  Rope is evil.  Let’s ban it.

Cars kill people every day!  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been driving my car and I have to fight . . . I literally fight it . . . . to keep control of the wheel so my evil car doesn’t careen me into another car or a wall and kill me.  The worst, though, is when it tries to throw me into oncoming traffic and kill somebody else with me.  So far, I’ve succeeded in beating my car’s urges, but many others have failed and have been killed by their cars.  Let’s ban cars.

What about knives?  What about ice picks, hammers, nail guns?  You know what . . . one day, I had to change a flat on my car.  As soon as I opened the trunk the crowbar jumped out and tried pummeling me to a bloody pulp!  That heavy piece of steel is so evil and murderous!   We must ban all crow bars, tire wrenches, screw drivers  . .  . anything with metal, really.

Baseball bats?  Axes?  Box cutters?  2 x 4s?  Chains?  Water?  Water drowns people, but we still take showers and baths every day.  Chairs have been used as weapons.  Yet, we still like those and sit on them every day.

I guarantee you, place a gun on a table, untouched.  Let a good law-abiding citizen, then a crazy person have access to it.  The law-abiding citizen will check it, to make sure it is unloaded, then possibly admire it.  After that, he’d put it back, or if it the situation is appropriate, he may holster it safely so no crazy person gets a hold of it.  Then, same gun on the same table, crazy person sees it . . . he’ll pick it up and shoot you with it.  You see, the problem isn’t the tool or object.  The problem is the “tool” who is using the object.  The person handling it decides if it is used for good or evil.  Therefore, the object is neither good nor bad.  It is the one who wields each object that is good or bad, using it for whatever intentions he has.

It seems like every time a tragedy happens, people who are against freedom yell for more gun control, as if the inanimate object did something.  Why doesn’t anyone hold the idiot criminals responsible?  It is their responsibility, not the gun’s or the gun manufacturers’.  Every time this happens, though, the 2^nd amendment comes under fire and they try to cry their way into acting like citizens don’t have a right to protect themselves.  Let’s walk through this, beginning with the 2^nd amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Nothing could be more simple.  Its detractors would argue that this was only meant for a formal “militia”, not private citizens.  That’s not accurate and I’ll explain that briefly in a moment.  First, I must go back to the great and, oh so simple, explanation by the always great Ted Nugent.  I have heard him say this on a couple of occasions and it goes something like this:

Keep.  That means I get to keep and use firearms and you cannot take them away.

Bear.  That means I bear them – I have them on me at all times.

To use another of “Uncle Ted’s” phrases, “It’s so simple, it’s stupid.”  Yet, the left and the unexposed remain a thorn in all of our sides, threatening freedom for everyone.

From what I can gather, the idea that the founders intended the right to bear arms for a “militia” is accurate in concept, but it’s the definition of militia that gets us to the dividing line.  Of course, liberal, gun hating people define militia as an actual federal or state run military group and they believe that there is no need, or right, for private citizens to own guns.  My gut says bullcrap.  What was the context in which the founders wrote the 2^nd amendment and what did they mean?

As we discussed in the “separation of church and state” entry, our founders knew about oppression and they were trying to get away from it!  They were all too familiar with government forcing its way into things it shouldn’t be.  In the discussions of terminology in the 2^nd amendment, they seemed to go back and forth to determine if there should be a state run militia, apart from the federal military?  They thought this may help secure every area, despite any intruder or attack they may face. However, they were hesitant to set up such a framework because their experience taught them that any entity controlled by any form of government could backfire on the people.  They saw, in Europe, how “central governments are prone to use armies to oppress the people” (Heritage Guide to the Constitution, pg. 319).  The bottom line is that they feared that the very thing they expected to protect them would be the very thing that would enslave them.  So, long story short, they all agreed on “the people” holding their already exercised right to protect themselves and their families.  If there should ever need to be a “militia,” the people would rise up and defend their land.

I’m no expert, but in looking at terminology, I know that in the areas the founders talked about “regulating” commerce, they did not mean “regulating” it as Obama and his cronies do – as in controlling every minute detail.  They meant it as a way of making sure inter-state commerce took place – period.  I would think that the idea of a “well regulated militia” is the same idea from the founders.  If they defined “regulated” that way once, wouldn’t that hold true the next time?  So, they just wanted to make it clear that everyone can, and should, arm themselves for protection (and hunting provision).  Notice, too, it says the “right of the people”.  How the left defines the “people” as militia is beyond me.  Does the preamble of the Constitution begin with “We the Militia”?  Of course, not, because it was meant for all of the people.  The same is true for gun ownership and usage.

Here are a few quotes from our founders that may have been lost among some of our anti-gun folks:

The peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defence.  The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property.  The balance of power is the scale of peace. – Thomas Paine

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. – Thomas Jefferson

A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves . . . “ – Richard Henry Lee

And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the Press, or the rights of Conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms” – Samuel Adams

To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them. – Richard Henry Lee

Those who hammer their guns into plowshares will plow for those who do not. – Thomas Jefferson

Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?  Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction and having them under the management of Congress?  If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands? – Patrick Henry

According to The Second Amendment Primer by Les Adams, several statements or columns were written in newspapers in the late 1700s, encouraging the 2^nd amendment.  I’ll share one.  According to this book, an anonymous author, writing under the name “the Republican” wrote in the January 7, 1788 edition of the “Connecticut Courant”:

In countries under arbitrary government, the people oppressed and dispirited neither possess arms nor know how to use them.  Tyrants never feel secure until they have disarmed the people.  They can rely upon nothing but standing armies of mercenary troops for the support of their power.  But the people of this country have arms in their hands; they are not destitute of military knowledge; every citizen is required by law to be a soldier; we are marshaled into companies, regiments, and brigades for the defence of our country.  This is a circumstance which increases the power and consequence of the people; and enables them to defend their rights and privileges against every invader.”

So, what happens when the anti-gun people win and try to enforce freedom killing gun laws?  Ask the British.  In 1996, there was a tragic high school shooting in Dunblane that ended up with 16 students and one teacher dead.  That unfortunate disaster led to the 1997 ban of all handguns in England and Wales.  I have read in a couple of resources that from 1998 to 2005, after handguns were banned, crimes involving handguns increased by 340%!!!  But wait . . . I thought the guns were outlawed?!  Right.  Outlawed for law abiding citizens to protect themselves and help maintain peace.  Unfortunately, the sources cited the same article from London’s Times Daily and I could never find a working link to the original story.  You can look and find that figure used, but I have yet to find a working link to the original story.  My apologies.  I will offer this story from BBC News.  It’s not quite as crazy, but you see the trend that, within 2 years after the ban, crimes using handguns already increased by 40%.  Watch the following video to hear comments from the British themselves.  Gun control doesn’t work for anyone except criminals, people.

Lastly, check this link out from Just Facts.  This is a long page and, admittedly, I have not been able to read it all, so I’m not sure where it all goes.  However, what interests me are some graphs.  Look at the trend of crimes in areas of the States after laws were passed in favor of citizens carrying guns.

To bring this all home, gun laws affect no one except law-abiding citizens.  When you strip away our natural, God-given right to defend ourselves and our families, you empower criminals and cripple the nation.  The basic right of self preservation is the foundation of all other rights.  If government tries to grow so huge that it forces its citizens into slavery by stripping them of their defenses, that can very easily snowball into them taking all other rights.  It may seem odd that, throughout this thing, I’ve made it a freedom issue as much as anything else.  It is.  It’s not just about self defense, hunting, or sport.  It is about freedom, in general.  Thomas Jefferson seems to have believed that, as an absolute last resort, the armed citizenry can keep the government in check, too.  If it grows so far out of control so as to oppress its people, the people can protect themselves from the tyrannical government.  Knowing that the citizens are armed holds the government at bay a little more, as well.  Why do you think they always want to disarm the public?  Once they disarm the people, they can do what they want without worry of a violent response . . . thus, oppression.  To give Jefferson’s words on this issue:

What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms, the remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them.  What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?  The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.  It is nature’s manure.” – Thomas Jefferson

We must guard this freedom.  If you don’t like guns and don’t want to learn about them, fine.  That is your choice.  Stay away and don’t worry about it.  But do NOT try to deprive and rob me of defending myself.  I’ll defend myself and those around me if that unfortunate time ever comes around.  If I know you’re anti-gun, I won’t bother using it around you.  Good luck to you, anti-gun people.  Let me know how talking it out goes, or waving a bat at a guy holding a .45.