Cruci
Vet
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2006
- Messages
- 1,569
Written by me. You don't like it? Blow me 
You know, you hear anti-gun politicians always talking about the second amendment and how “they aren’t sure what the founding fathers meant” by the right to keep and bear arms. They use this as an excuse to push their anti-firearm agenda and ban our constitutional right to have firearms. Now to the generally uneducated American public who do not know anything about American history this might seem like a decent argument. But anyone who actually studied what the founding fathers said knows different. You also hear people argue against “assault weapons” and how you don’t need one of those to protect your house or go hunting. This subject I will tackle in a bit.
The founding fathers lived in a time where the people of the American colonies had to rebel against a tyrannical English government. The only thing that allowed us to be free was our ability to keep firearms. Without possessing guns, we would still be waving the Union Jack over our heads and singing “God save the Queen.”
This is why that when the Bill of Rights was introduced, they made sure that the right of the people to keep firearms was protected. Read the second amendment word for word.
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.
Now the first argument is that “that only applies to the militia” and you hear that this is supposedly referring to the National Guard and that the constitution doesn’t allow the people to keep guns. This argument is wrong. How do I know? Is this my opinion? Absolutely not, it is the opinion of the people who wrote the constitution.
Let them tell us in their own words what this means:
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of
other countries, whose people are afraid to trust them with arms."
-James Madison
"I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people."
George Mason
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined or determined to commit crimes. Such laws only make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assassins; they serve to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
-Thomas Jefferson
So that pretty much sums up the opinions of the people who built this country on what the second amendment means. You are free to say “I disagree with the people that built this country from the ground up about freedom.” But if you say that “it is unclear” about what the founding fathers meant by the second amendment, you are either a liar or ignorant.
So now we have the argument that “you don’t need assault rifles to hunt or protect your house.”
Well on this one, they are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. You do not need assault rifles to protect your family from a burglar or to hunt with. However, hunting and home protection were not the only reason that we were allowed to keep guns. Let us again ask the founding fathers why we should have guns, shall we?
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
-Thomas Jefferson
“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the
people's liberty teeth”
-George Washington
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
-Thomas Jefferson
But wait, what do I mean? Protect ourselves from tyranny in government? It means exactly what is says. The founders of this great nation knew what would happen if the government were to get too powerful. They knew that if the government were to start to oppress the people, the people must have arms to fight back and retain their freedom. So am I stating that we should rebel against the government? Hell no. However the people need the ability to do so, just in case. Look what happened when the people were not able to fight back. Take a look at Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, or any other dictatorship that banned free law abiding citizens to keep arms. What happened? Oh yeah, mass murder, fear, and no freedom. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
Now of course, some jackass is always going to say “well with your argument you would say that civilians should be able to own surface to air missiles and tanks.” Not even close to being true and quite a pathetic comparison. If you look at the Iraqis, they are able to put up a hell of a resistance using little more than IEDs and assault rifles against the most powerful military in the world and have been doing so for years. Side note for the slow people reading this, I am not supporting the Iraqi terrorists; I am simply making a comparison. The founding fathers wanted us to have firearms, but if that previous statement (the one about missiles and tanks) was true, they would have included Cannons in the second amendment. They didn’t, so shut your mouth. Life is about checks and balances, things keeping other things in their place. That is why there are three branches of the government, that is why congress can veto a presidential bill, and that is why the people can keep guns, to keep the government in check.
Yes guns kill people, and that is a horrible thing. But when the only people who have arms are the government, things get worse. Not to mention of course that by placing restrictions on legal gun ownership it does nothing to stop criminals from getting them. I hate to break the news to you knuckleheads, but criminals don’t obey the law. Therefore, making laws that prevent law abiding people from owning them does nothing to stop them from getting them. Of course, if a criminal does manage to pass a background check (because he hasn’t broken the law yet) and uses those guns in a crime, anti-gun politicians use that as an excuse to make a bunch of legislation. What sense does that make? If a criminal can’t get one in a shop, he can get one on the street illegally. Take a look at Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York City and Chicago. All of them have very strict gun laws, and yet, very high rates of gun crime. Where are these criminals getting firearms? They certainly aren’t buying them at Wal-Mart. Maybe they are buying them illegally? Gee who would of thought that criminals would break the law.
There will always be crime, there will always be death. This is an inescapable part of life unfortunately. But more people died under Stalin (well over ten million, but it depending on the historian the numbers go much higher) from not being able to protect themselves than will ever die of murder from guns in the US if we live to see another 500 years.
The US Constitution does not guarantee that people will be safe; it guarantees that they will be free. And isn’t freedom what our ancestors died for? Have we become so complacent about freedom that we don’t care about it anymore? I believe we have, and that will be our undoing. And quite frankly, if you think that you can take my constitutional rights away and come get my guns, you can have them, bullets first. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that I liked, it said something like “I am willing to die for my constitutional right to keep my firearms, are you willing to die to take them?”
Here is one final quote that I leave you with as food for thought:
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Ben Franklin
You know, you hear anti-gun politicians always talking about the second amendment and how “they aren’t sure what the founding fathers meant” by the right to keep and bear arms. They use this as an excuse to push their anti-firearm agenda and ban our constitutional right to have firearms. Now to the generally uneducated American public who do not know anything about American history this might seem like a decent argument. But anyone who actually studied what the founding fathers said knows different. You also hear people argue against “assault weapons” and how you don’t need one of those to protect your house or go hunting. This subject I will tackle in a bit.
The founding fathers lived in a time where the people of the American colonies had to rebel against a tyrannical English government. The only thing that allowed us to be free was our ability to keep firearms. Without possessing guns, we would still be waving the Union Jack over our heads and singing “God save the Queen.”
This is why that when the Bill of Rights was introduced, they made sure that the right of the people to keep firearms was protected. Read the second amendment word for word.
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.
Now the first argument is that “that only applies to the militia” and you hear that this is supposedly referring to the National Guard and that the constitution doesn’t allow the people to keep guns. This argument is wrong. How do I know? Is this my opinion? Absolutely not, it is the opinion of the people who wrote the constitution.
Let them tell us in their own words what this means:
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed, unlike the people of
other countries, whose people are afraid to trust them with arms."
-James Madison
"I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people."
George Mason
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined or determined to commit crimes. Such laws only make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assassins; they serve to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
-Thomas Jefferson
So that pretty much sums up the opinions of the people who built this country on what the second amendment means. You are free to say “I disagree with the people that built this country from the ground up about freedom.” But if you say that “it is unclear” about what the founding fathers meant by the second amendment, you are either a liar or ignorant.
So now we have the argument that “you don’t need assault rifles to hunt or protect your house.”
Well on this one, they are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. You do not need assault rifles to protect your family from a burglar or to hunt with. However, hunting and home protection were not the only reason that we were allowed to keep guns. Let us again ask the founding fathers why we should have guns, shall we?
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
-Thomas Jefferson
“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the
people's liberty teeth”
-George Washington
“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
-Thomas Jefferson
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”
-Thomas Jefferson
But wait, what do I mean? Protect ourselves from tyranny in government? It means exactly what is says. The founders of this great nation knew what would happen if the government were to get too powerful. They knew that if the government were to start to oppress the people, the people must have arms to fight back and retain their freedom. So am I stating that we should rebel against the government? Hell no. However the people need the ability to do so, just in case. Look what happened when the people were not able to fight back. Take a look at Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, or any other dictatorship that banned free law abiding citizens to keep arms. What happened? Oh yeah, mass murder, fear, and no freedom. Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.
Now of course, some jackass is always going to say “well with your argument you would say that civilians should be able to own surface to air missiles and tanks.” Not even close to being true and quite a pathetic comparison. If you look at the Iraqis, they are able to put up a hell of a resistance using little more than IEDs and assault rifles against the most powerful military in the world and have been doing so for years. Side note for the slow people reading this, I am not supporting the Iraqi terrorists; I am simply making a comparison. The founding fathers wanted us to have firearms, but if that previous statement (the one about missiles and tanks) was true, they would have included Cannons in the second amendment. They didn’t, so shut your mouth. Life is about checks and balances, things keeping other things in their place. That is why there are three branches of the government, that is why congress can veto a presidential bill, and that is why the people can keep guns, to keep the government in check.
Yes guns kill people, and that is a horrible thing. But when the only people who have arms are the government, things get worse. Not to mention of course that by placing restrictions on legal gun ownership it does nothing to stop criminals from getting them. I hate to break the news to you knuckleheads, but criminals don’t obey the law. Therefore, making laws that prevent law abiding people from owning them does nothing to stop them from getting them. Of course, if a criminal does manage to pass a background check (because he hasn’t broken the law yet) and uses those guns in a crime, anti-gun politicians use that as an excuse to make a bunch of legislation. What sense does that make? If a criminal can’t get one in a shop, he can get one on the street illegally. Take a look at Los Angeles, Washington DC, New York City and Chicago. All of them have very strict gun laws, and yet, very high rates of gun crime. Where are these criminals getting firearms? They certainly aren’t buying them at Wal-Mart. Maybe they are buying them illegally? Gee who would of thought that criminals would break the law.
There will always be crime, there will always be death. This is an inescapable part of life unfortunately. But more people died under Stalin (well over ten million, but it depending on the historian the numbers go much higher) from not being able to protect themselves than will ever die of murder from guns in the US if we live to see another 500 years.
The US Constitution does not guarantee that people will be safe; it guarantees that they will be free. And isn’t freedom what our ancestors died for? Have we become so complacent about freedom that we don’t care about it anymore? I believe we have, and that will be our undoing. And quite frankly, if you think that you can take my constitutional rights away and come get my guns, you can have them, bullets first. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that I liked, it said something like “I am willing to die for my constitutional right to keep my firearms, are you willing to die to take them?”
Here is one final quote that I leave you with as food for thought:
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Ben Franklin
