The Virginia Tech Massacre & "Gun Control": The Unasked Question
Now Playing: The instrumental "Captain Nemo," from Michael Schenker - Live in Tokyo '97, via DVD.
There's something I've been waiting to hear from commentators - in vain, so far - from conservatives like Prager, Limbaugh and Hewitt to the leftists (not likely) at places like CNN and MSNBC...
Thirty-two individual lives were snuffed out a week ago, right in the middle of an institution of higher education, right in the middle of what is supposed to be the most civilized nation on Earth - in large part because they were ordered by their employees in government to accept the role of defenseless sheep.
Keep in mind that that death toll was the destructive action of a single murderer, blissfully unconcerned with the possibility of any kind of armed opposition.
Q: What if a group of ten or fifteen armed terrorists were to infiltrate a crowded campus, mall, airport or the like? A single murderer snuffed out thirty-two lives before anyone "officially" armed was able to arrive and do battle with him; extrapolate the death toll if a highly-trained, coordinated squad of several murderers were to mount a similar attack. How many hundreds would be slaughtered?
We, the American populace, remain defenseless as sheep thanks to a combination of sheer complacency and the government's unjust and unjustifiable constraints on our Constitutional rights.
The instant demands from the countercultural left for yet more of such constraints are now a matter of record. They are also unconscionable. They bring to mind something rocker and Constitutional rights activist Ted Nugent said a couple years ago in a speech at FreedomFest [paraphrased]: How dare these people tell us to our faces that we must remain defenseless as babies before deadly predators, that we must forfeit our Constitutional rights and indeed our very lives, for the sake of their corrupt ideology?
I will repeat the call for action that I made in a September 2005 post on the illegal post-Katrina gun confiscation in New Orleans: Contact your elected representation and demand a restoration of the "bear" portion of our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, then go out and shop for a firearm, learn to use and maintain it, and urge everyone you care about to do the same.
We Americans need to start thinking like the Israelis. The people of that nation have, through the necessity imposed on them by perennial attacks from surrounding regimes, gotten into the habit of doing what America's Founders admonished us to do: Consider the ownership and bearing of arms to be a matter of personal and civic responsibility. We should do so not out of a kind of siege mentality - though given the intellectual state of our political "leaders" we should expect a coming escalation of terrorist attacks on American soil - but because we ought never to have abandoned that responsibility. To suggest it in today's context only sounds like advocacy of a "siege mentality" because we have spent so many years living as complacent sheep while corrupt elected officials gut our Bill of Rights. That's "Bill of Rights," guys, not Bill of "Privileges," which "privileges" can be taken from us at whim. That we have allowed the corrupt likes of the Bradys, Feinkensteins, Waxmans to get away with this - and the McCains, Feingolds, Shayses and Meehans to wipe their backsides with our priceless First Amendment - is shameful and must be reversed if America is to survive as a nation of free individuals.
Again, the mechanism at work here is so obvious as to preclude the possibility that the anti-gun leftists are merely mistaken: Unarmed people are largely helpless against an armed assailant, while even a single armed civilian can stop such a murderer dead in his tracks; several armed civilians can reduce exponentially an armed murderer's odds of killing before he himself is put down. The left's knee-jerk demands for yet more Second Amendment violations are motivated by something entirely other than "public safety." The vicious irony of that premise ought to be crystal clear just now.
By way of a refresher, what are some of the relevant attitudes expressed by our Founders? A sample:
Finally, I urge you to put your money where your ideals are and become a member of one or more of the organizations that are fighting to restore our confiscated Second Amendment rights:
* The Second Amendment Foundation - the organization that brought a successful lawsuit against New Orleans city officials for their post-Katrina gun confiscations, and which is at work on several others;
* The Liberty Belles;
* Ted Nugent Kamp For Kids
* Gun Owners of America;
* and of course the National Rifle Association.
There's something I've been waiting to hear from commentators - in vain, so far - from conservatives like Prager, Limbaugh and Hewitt to the leftists (not likely) at places like CNN and MSNBC...
Thirty-two individual lives were snuffed out a week ago, right in the middle of an institution of higher education, right in the middle of what is supposed to be the most civilized nation on Earth - in large part because they were ordered by their employees in government to accept the role of defenseless sheep.
Keep in mind that that death toll was the destructive action of a single murderer, blissfully unconcerned with the possibility of any kind of armed opposition.
Q: What if a group of ten or fifteen armed terrorists were to infiltrate a crowded campus, mall, airport or the like? A single murderer snuffed out thirty-two lives before anyone "officially" armed was able to arrive and do battle with him; extrapolate the death toll if a highly-trained, coordinated squad of several murderers were to mount a similar attack. How many hundreds would be slaughtered?
We, the American populace, remain defenseless as sheep thanks to a combination of sheer complacency and the government's unjust and unjustifiable constraints on our Constitutional rights.
The instant demands from the countercultural left for yet more of such constraints are now a matter of record. They are also unconscionable. They bring to mind something rocker and Constitutional rights activist Ted Nugent said a couple years ago in a speech at FreedomFest [paraphrased]: How dare these people tell us to our faces that we must remain defenseless as babies before deadly predators, that we must forfeit our Constitutional rights and indeed our very lives, for the sake of their corrupt ideology?
I will repeat the call for action that I made in a September 2005 post on the illegal post-Katrina gun confiscation in New Orleans: Contact your elected representation and demand a restoration of the "bear" portion of our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, then go out and shop for a firearm, learn to use and maintain it, and urge everyone you care about to do the same.
We Americans need to start thinking like the Israelis. The people of that nation have, through the necessity imposed on them by perennial attacks from surrounding regimes, gotten into the habit of doing what America's Founders admonished us to do: Consider the ownership and bearing of arms to be a matter of personal and civic responsibility. We should do so not out of a kind of siege mentality - though given the intellectual state of our political "leaders" we should expect a coming escalation of terrorist attacks on American soil - but because we ought never to have abandoned that responsibility. To suggest it in today's context only sounds like advocacy of a "siege mentality" because we have spent so many years living as complacent sheep while corrupt elected officials gut our Bill of Rights. That's "Bill of Rights," guys, not Bill of "Privileges," which "privileges" can be taken from us at whim. That we have allowed the corrupt likes of the Bradys, Feinkensteins, Waxmans to get away with this - and the McCains, Feingolds, Shayses and Meehans to wipe their backsides with our priceless First Amendment - is shameful and must be reversed if America is to survive as a nation of free individuals.
Again, the mechanism at work here is so obvious as to preclude the possibility that the anti-gun leftists are merely mistaken: Unarmed people are largely helpless against an armed assailant, while even a single armed civilian can stop such a murderer dead in his tracks; several armed civilians can reduce exponentially an armed murderer's odds of killing before he himself is put down. The left's knee-jerk demands for yet more Second Amendment violations are motivated by something entirely other than "public safety." The vicious irony of that premise ought to be crystal clear just now.
By way of a refresher, what are some of the relevant attitudes expressed by our Founders? A sample:
"The Constitution of most of our states, and the United States, assert that all power is inherent in the people, that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of prosperity, and freedom of the press."
- Thomas Jefferson, proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson, proposed Virginia constitution, June 1776
"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can."
- Samuel Adams, "The Rights of the Colonists," Nov. 1772
"Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at the individual discretion, in private self-defense."
- John Adams, "A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America" 1787-88
"To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
- Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer #53, 1788.
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. The great object is that every man be armed. Every man who is able may have a gun."
- Patrick Henry, Virginia ratification convention for the U.S. Constitution.
"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived the use of them."
- Thomas Paine, "Thoughts on Defensive War" 1775
"To ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that is good."
- George Washington, The Federalist #53.
"A free people ought to be armed. When firearms go, all goes, we need them by the hour. Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence."
- George Washington, Boston Independence Chronicle, January 14, 1790.
Finally, I urge you to put your money where your ideals are and become a member of one or more of the organizations that are fighting to restore our confiscated Second Amendment rights:
* The Second Amendment Foundation - the organization that brought a successful lawsuit against New Orleans city officials for their post-Katrina gun confiscations, and which is at work on several others;
* The Liberty Belles;
* Ted Nugent Kamp For Kids
* Gun Owners of America;
* and of course the National Rifle Association.
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