Tom Givens
Member
As we celebrate this important national holiday, I would ask that each of you pause a moment to reflect upon what the 4th of July represents. The colonists broke with England over a number of issues, taxation without adequate representation in Parliament being one of the chief causes. Actual hostilities, however, began over gun control. A detachment of British troops were sent to seize the colonists’ small arms at Concord and Lexington, as the first step in oppression is always disarmament of those one would oppress. The locals decided that rather than give up their arms, they would take on the mightiest empire in the world. Thus was fired, “the shot heard ‘round the worldâ€.
The Founding Fathers were quite clear in their speeches, letters, and pamphlets that the defining quality of a free man was the right to bear arms. In one of his writings, Thomas Jefferson quoted Cesare Beccaria as follows “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.â€
The founders of this great nation pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to give us a republic in which the individual and his rights were paramount. Let us not have it taken from us piece by piece.
The Founding Fathers were quite clear in their speeches, letters, and pamphlets that the defining quality of a free man was the right to bear arms. In one of his writings, Thomas Jefferson quoted Cesare Beccaria as follows “Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes… Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.â€
The founders of this great nation pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to give us a republic in which the individual and his rights were paramount. Let us not have it taken from us piece by piece.