Armed Men are Citizens , unarmed Men are subjects.
What many citizens and legislators do not understand is that the federal government has no right to prevent any law-abiding citizen from owning or possessing any firearm. The entire argument for gun control is built upon a false premise. The Second Amendment is not about self-defense from criminals.
As unpleasant as it may be for this modern society to say out loud, historically and constitutionally speaking, the right of the people to keep and bear arms has always been a right to protect yourself from those in power who want to enslave you. If America wants to engage in a real factual debate on the right to keep and bear arms, then it must be approached from the proper perspective.
The Constitution and its history is unequivocally clear on this. Here is a little Second Amendment history lesson so we can defend our Rights from becoming government bestowed privileges.
Why are our politicians and media talking heads bent on disseminating miseducation and lies? Perhaps they repeat the lies because they intend on disarming the people, because they know, as our founders did, that an armed citizenry is the last line of defense against absolute tyranny.
A proper debate on one’s right to keep and bear arms is not one that is framed in the terms of whether you can feel safe from wicked and depraved people, full of hate and malice, who want to hurt you. You will never feel safe from those people and those people will not cease to exist just because you are not allowed to legally own a gun. Why? Because those people do not care about laws and they will always find a way to hurt and destroy, with or without gun laws.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. 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, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
The amendment reads: “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.” For most of the republic’s lifespan, from 1791 to 2008, those commas and clauses were debated by attorneys, senators, judges, governors and lobbyists. For the most part, the supreme court stayed out it.
In 2008, the supreme court decided the District of Columbia v Heller, 5-4 , overturning a handgun ban in the city. The conservative justice Antonin Scalia wrote the opinion in narrow but unprecedented terms: for the first time in the country’s history, the supreme court explicitly affirmed an individual’s right to keep a weapon at home for self-defense. The court would rule on the issue again two years later as part of McDonald v. City of Chicago, which challenged the city's ban on private handgun ownership. In a similar 5-to-4 ruling, the court affirmed its decision in the Heller case, saying the Second Amendment "applies equally to the federal government and the states." In 2016, the Supreme Court again ruled on a right-to-bear-arms case, Caetano v. Massachusetts. The case involved a woman who was in possession of a stun gun for self-defense against an abusive ex-boyfriend. Because stun guns were illegal under Massachusetts law, the woman was arrested and convicted for possessing the weapon. The case made its way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that stun guns and, indeed "all instruments that constitute bearable arms," are protected under the Second Amendment.
Every person on the planet has the right to defend themselves from those who would oppress them, exploit them, harm them, or kill them.
Far fewer women would be raped, far fewer children would be killed, far fewer towns would be destroyed, and far fewer dictators would survive if people everywhere on the planet had this God-given right to bear arms recognized. Mass killings and rapes like those that took place in Darfur might have been prevented if the people had the right and the means to defend themselves. When citizens have the power to defend themselves against a violent and tyrannical regime, governments think twice about trampling the lives and liberty of the people.
The United Nations has an extensive Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to join a labor union and the right to social services and security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood or old age. Nowhere does it provide for the right to keep and bear arms that in many places around the world is so critical to self-defense.
It is critical not just for those living under oppressive regimes, but for the many people who live in conditions in which the government cannot secure their safety. From dangerous neighborhoods even here in the United States to lawless regions of the world run by gangs and warlords, firearms are often the only means of personal security. When criminals have weapons, taking away the right to bear arms is nothing less than eliminating the right to self-defense. Only the elites, who’ve never had to live in a dangerous place or fear for their own lives, could be so confident that denying ordinary citizens the right to bear arms would make everyone safer.
If society is honest and historically accurate, the only question that has any relevance to the gun control debate is:
“Do you trust those in government, now and forever in the future, to not take your life, liberty, or property through the force of government?”
If the answer to that question is “no,” the gun control debate is over.
