The United States has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world. Has anybody ever stopped to think about why guns are such an integral part of American culture?
Why is America different than most other countries in the world? This shouldn’t be a hard question, but since the revisionists have seized control of history, it apparently is. Let’s look at history as it was before the revisionists had a chance to rewrite it.
America was founded by revolutionaries in a rebellion against the world’s greatest superpower of its time.
In 1776, the British Empire covered almost all the known world. At its height, it was the largest empire in history, ruling over a quarter of the earth’s land mass and a fifth of the world’s population.
The American colonials had no standing army. Each colony had its own local militia made up of volunteers armed with fowling pieces, muskets and other personal weapons.
An unarmed citizen was of no use to the colonial militias.
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At the outset of war, the militias came together with the new federal army raised and led by George Washington. The United States government had no military arsenal. Each soldier supplied his own rifle, knife, tomahawk, powderhorn and hunting pouch.
It wasn’t until 1778 that the revolutionary government was able to procure some weapons and uniforms from France. But the French were reluctant to involve themselves until they were reasonably sure the revolution had a chance.
That wouldn’t have happened without the prior existence of the militiaman.
The Founders recognized the necessity of a well-armed citizen-soldier to their successful pursuit of liberty, which is why they listed it second in importance in the Bill of Rights, after freedom of religion, speech, the press and assembly, and before such legal protections as the rights protecting one’s home from illegal searches and one’s right against self-incrimination.
The Founders recognized that those rights weren’t worth anything to an unarmed citizenry facing an armed government. The Second Amendment, as ratified by the States, reads as follows;
“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.”
Those on the Left have adopted the ridiculous interpretation that the Founders thought it necessary to give the government the right to bear arms. Why is that ridiculous?
The Bill of Rights is so-called because it enumerates the negative rights of the state.
By definition, every right not specifically granted to its citizens is automatically reserved to the state. That is the only reason for HAVING a “Bill of Rights” — to protect the rights of the people — not to protect the rights of the government.
The government didn’t need to give itself the right to bear arms. It already had that right by virtue of its independence. The 2nd Amendment was a restriction on government rights and an affirmation of citizens rights.
The original purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure the liberty of the people by assuring them of the means to prevent the rise of a tyrannical government.
In a letter to William Stephens Smith, then a member of Genera Lafayette’s staff in Paris, Thomas Jefferson explained why gun control was antithetical to the spirit and intent of the new American republic:
“The people can not be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13 states independent 11 years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s 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 and 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 and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
And so, the answer to the question, “why does America have the highest rate of gun ownership in the world?” is not that complicated. America was founded on the principle that individual liberty is more important than government-sponsored security.
Would-be tyrants would therefore have to defeat and disarm every American in order to be successful.
It is no accident that every attempt to disarm Americans is predicated on the premise that Americans need to trade some of that individual liberty for some government-sponsored security.
Have you ever noticed how desperate the effort to disarm America is? Having taken notice of the desperation, allow me to now direct your attention to the worldview of those so desperate to trade your liberty for their security.
What else do the gun-grabbers want? They want to enslave the population via entitlements, in effect, buying the votes of the poor by promising them free stuff if they vote the right way and threatening to take stuff away if they don’t.
This latest wrinkle is to somehow equate that with racism. Forty-seven percent of the country is on some form of government dole. Only 12% of the country is black.
Assuming every black America is on welfare, (don’t tell Obama, Eric Holder, Colin Powell, Susan Rice, Al Sharpton, Jessie Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, Jamie Foxx, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Kanye West . . . I could go on, but why?).
12% is a far cry from 47%, so how does the “racist” part work? The ones crying racism the loudest are the racists — mainly, rich white liberals and black racists (see partial list above.)
The ones that want to grab your guns also want to grab your children. They want your children to inform on you should you deviate (interesting word) from the politically correct views on all manner of issues of sex and morality.
They are the ones seeking to impose their morals on your children whether you agree or not. They ridicule the idea of abstinence as a form of birth control, while supporting abortion on demand as an alternative.
They ridicule the traditional family unit, while teaching alternative lifestyles from single parenthood to same-sex parenting.
They are the ones that expect the most from government while personally giving the least to charity, hence Margaret Thatcher’s observation that “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”
They favor confiscating wealth from others to redistribute according to their own worldview, justifying it by claiming that is “what Jesus would do.” (I notice that those who claim to know the most about “what Jesus would do” seem to know the least about Jesus.)
They claim that they only want to take away your guns to keep YOU safe.
So how is that working out?
Assessment:
“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.” (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12)
I noted with interest that one of America’s most liberal cities with the most restrictive gun laws in the entire nation set a milestone in 2012. Chicago, home of Barack Hussein Obama and led by Obamanite Rahm Emmanuel, marked its FIVE HUNDREDTH homicide of the year.
In 1982 Chicago outlawed the sale and possession of handguns by anybody. Chicago police confiscate on average, some 10,000 guns a year. (And Chicago still leads the nation in firearms homicides.)
The only city in America with more restrictive gun laws than Chicago is the nation’s capital. According to the Washington Times, restricting guns hasn’t had much of a positive effect on DC’s crime rate.
Another thing worth noticing is how little attention gun crimes in Chicago and DC actually get from the mainstream media.
Whenever one DOES read of gun crimes in Chicago or Washington, it is usually from the Right and within the context of demonstrating the failure of gun control laws to prevent gun crimes.
Washington’s gun laws are so ridiculously restrictive that NBC’s David Gregory committed a felony by holding an empty 30-round magazine up in front of a camera. No gun. No bullets. Just an empty magazine.
Don’t worry, though. The liberals take care of their own. Even though Gregory first sought and was refused permission to violate DC law and did it anyway, he won’t have to worry about prosecution. Liberals shouldn’t be held to such a ridiculous legal standard.
But look at the desperation of the gun control lobby to find reasons to disarm the law-abiding public every time a criminal commits a gun crime.
Wayne LaPierre set the liberals on fire with his indisputably true observation that “the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.”
It freaked the Left out because it left them without a credible response.
For example, you won’t read this column, or even an excerpt of it on Facebook. Facebook has threatened to delete the accounts of anyone not toeing the Marxist line when it comes to the gun control issue.Thought Police
Facebook is an American company, but it is run by liberals. Liberals believe that freedom of speech is reserved for the “correct” kind of speech — as they define it. Non-approved thought is ‘intolerant’.
The liberals love to point to England as a example of gun control in action.
In 1987, Michael Ryan went on a shooting spree in his small town of Hungerford, England, killing 16 people (including his mother) and wounding another 14 before shooting himself. Since the public was unarmed—as were the police—Ryan wandered the streets for eight hours with two semiautomatic rifles and a handgun before anyone with a firearm was able to come to the rescue.
Within a decade of the handgun ban and the confiscation of handguns from registered owners, crime with handguns had doubled according to British government crime reports. Gun crime, not a serious problem in the past, now is. Armed street gangs have some British police carrying guns for the first time. Moreover, another massacre occurred in June 2010. Derrick Bird, a taxi driver in Cumbria, shot his brother and a colleague then drove off through rural villages killing 12 people and injuring 11 more before killing himself.
Fox News’ Rupert Murdoch tweeted after the Connecticut massacre that America should adopt gun control laws like they have in Australia.
“Six weeks after the Dunblane massacre in 1996, Martin Bryant, an Australian with a lifelong history of violence, attacked tourists at a Port Arthur prison site in Tasmania with two semiautomatic rifles. He killed 35 people and wounded 21 others.
At the time, Australia’s guns laws were stricter than the United Kingdom’s. In lieu of the requirement in Britain that an applicant for permission to purchase a gun have a “good reason,” Australia required a “genuine reason.” Hunting and protecting crops from feral animals were genuine reasons – personal protection was not. . . .
In 2008, the Australian Institute of Criminology reported a decrease of 9% in homicides and a one-third decrease in armed robbery since the 1990s, but an increase of over 40% in assaults and 20% in sexual assaults.”
The issue here isn’t really gun control. At least, not in the context in which it is being presented. The issue here is the power of delusion.
Millions upon millions of people have been convinced by constant propaganda, to ignore the evidence of their eyes, discount the evidence of their experience, and to embrace the notion that guns are responsible for gun violence.
Where guns are prohibited, people use other weapons; knives, baseball bats, chains, broken glass, chair legs, sticks, rocks, sharp sticks . . do we ban them all? What about other inanimate objects that can kill?
Millions of Americans believe that the police can protect them from violence. Try calling the police before you are assaulted and see what they tell you. (Hint: “Call us back after a crime has been committed.”)
Police cannot protect you from criminal assault. At best, they can avenge you. The only one that can protect you is you. (Unless you can afford a bodyguard.)
But there are literally millions who are so brainwashed that they cannot figure this out for themselves. They are easy prey for the Marxists that now control five-sixths of the federal government and almost all of the mainstream media.
As ABC’s Sam Donaldson pointed out last weekend concerning the Obamanation of America:
“It’s the Tea Party and thinking of the Tea Party and people like that that are driving the Republicans out of contention as a national party. You cannot win nationally if you don’t know something about the way the country’s changed, and the Tea Party seems to think the country can go back 25 or 30 years. The greatest slogan that I hated during this last campaign was “We want to take back our country.” Guys, it’s not your country anymore – it’s our country and you’re part of it, but that thinking is going to defeat Republicans nationally if they don’t get rid of it.”
I’m inclined to believe that Donaldson is right – perhaps for the first time ever. It isn’t your country anymore. It took them a generation, but if 2012 is any indication at all, the Marxists have won.
2013 should be a very interesting year.
By Jack Kinsella
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