ngnrd
Member
This debate is not about guns. Nor is it about crime. Nor is it even about self defense. It is about whether free men should allow themselves to be coerced by scared, weak individuals to relinquish our natural rights in the name of their perceived safety.
The founders of this great nation understood that the right to defend one’s self, one’s community, and one’s country, is just that: a natural right. Having had just shed blood to forcibly separate our society from an oppressive government (our government, mind you - let’s not forget that we were indeed British colonies; British subjects), our forefathers made it a point to affirm this natural right for the free people of this new nation by acknowledging it in our newly forged Constitution. As such, it is important to understand that the Constitution does not provide the right to keep and bear arms. It is merely a tool with which to protect that right, the same as it protects other enumerated rights.
Therefore, as the current national debate rages on as to how, or even if, individuals should be able to posses firearms of their choosing, we should not get caught up in the minutia, like how many bullets is enough, or whether certain features of a particular weapon are inherently bad, or how an individual may defend himself. Rather, we should always focus on the fact that even in this free democracy, tyranny and oppression are still our society’s greatest threats, and we should assert our right to arm ourselves accordingly.
And while today is certainly not the day we need to pick up those arms - that day may not come in the next 50 years, or 100, or more - one day we will undoubtedly face such tyranny again. But if we as a free society are so short-sighted as to surrender our right to defend ourselves, or to neuter the tools with which we would provide that defense, simply because there currently exists a vocal cadre that fears the random actions of a few individual criminals and lunatics, and who believe that it is better to feel safe in the immediate short term than it is to be safe in the long term, then we will most assuredly succumb to real tyranny and oppression when it does finally come.
To that end, some would say that our government, and its military, should provide for our common protection. Clearly, if such a threat were to come from outside our borders, there is little doubt that we as a nation would demand that our government do everything in its power to protect us. However, if the threat were to come from within our borders, or – God forbid - from within our own government, as history shows is not only possible, but even likely, who then will we turn to if we have already laid down our arms? Once we have relinquished our natural rights, who will listen when we meekly ask that those rights be returned?
No, this debate is not about guns, or crime, or self defense. It's about freedom - ours, our children's, and all the generations that follow. And that is what we should be focusing on.
The founders of this great nation understood that the right to defend one’s self, one’s community, and one’s country, is just that: a natural right. Having had just shed blood to forcibly separate our society from an oppressive government (our government, mind you - let’s not forget that we were indeed British colonies; British subjects), our forefathers made it a point to affirm this natural right for the free people of this new nation by acknowledging it in our newly forged Constitution. As such, it is important to understand that the Constitution does not provide the right to keep and bear arms. It is merely a tool with which to protect that right, the same as it protects other enumerated rights.
Therefore, as the current national debate rages on as to how, or even if, individuals should be able to posses firearms of their choosing, we should not get caught up in the minutia, like how many bullets is enough, or whether certain features of a particular weapon are inherently bad, or how an individual may defend himself. Rather, we should always focus on the fact that even in this free democracy, tyranny and oppression are still our society’s greatest threats, and we should assert our right to arm ourselves accordingly.
And while today is certainly not the day we need to pick up those arms - that day may not come in the next 50 years, or 100, or more - one day we will undoubtedly face such tyranny again. But if we as a free society are so short-sighted as to surrender our right to defend ourselves, or to neuter the tools with which we would provide that defense, simply because there currently exists a vocal cadre that fears the random actions of a few individual criminals and lunatics, and who believe that it is better to feel safe in the immediate short term than it is to be safe in the long term, then we will most assuredly succumb to real tyranny and oppression when it does finally come.
To that end, some would say that our government, and its military, should provide for our common protection. Clearly, if such a threat were to come from outside our borders, there is little doubt that we as a nation would demand that our government do everything in its power to protect us. However, if the threat were to come from within our borders, or – God forbid - from within our own government, as history shows is not only possible, but even likely, who then will we turn to if we have already laid down our arms? Once we have relinquished our natural rights, who will listen when we meekly ask that those rights be returned?
No, this debate is not about guns, or crime, or self defense. It's about freedom - ours, our children's, and all the generations that follow. And that is what we should be focusing on.
