The Connecticut Massacre
What happened in Connecticut was
evil, horrible, and monstrous but blaming firearm ownership, high capacity
magazines, or assault weapons for the tragedy makes as much sense as blaming a
fork or food for obesity! It is true
that, if there were no firearms these children (and adults) would not have been
shot but would it have made any real difference if this evil malignancy
disguised as a human being used a baseball bat to bludgeon his victims to
death? Would we now be calling for a new,
national “debate” on anti-baseball bat legislation as the liberal-left,
anti-gun advocates, progressives, and anti-constitutionalists are calling for over
gun control? Before you answer, let’s
getting something straight, there . . . will . . . be . . . NO . . .
“discussions” nor “debates”. When these
groups cynically use these terms what they are actually saying is that they are
going to put on a public theater to placate the unthinking masses but the
bottom line is that they intend to erode or take away yet another of YOUR
constitutional rights. If the American
people allow this farce to be played out on a stage of their choice and according
to their script, then this generation will have presided over the demise of the
American Republic and the constitution.
Just as the first amendment is the voice and soul of the Constitution
it is the second amendment that is its teeth. It was not created to insure that Americans would always have the ability to plink, target shoot nor hunt as the liberal-left would have you believe. The framers of the constitution and the architects of our federalist
system had a deep and abiding distrust of central national governments, even to
that central national government that they themselves had so carefully crafted as to avoid
the pitfalls common to all previous forms of government. They recognized the temptations of absolute power that future regimes would be exposed to so it was their intent to provide the people
eternally and irrevocably with an uninfringeable last resort to resist any
despotic attempts to destroy the Republic and nullify the Constitution, that last resort available to free people . . . the resort to arms.
Did the founding architects mean without
limits when they penned “. . . shall not be infringed.”? I don’t know, but I personally believe that when they took pen to paper and wrote “. . . the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” they didn't contemplate individuals owning personal cannons but were referencing personal
small arms of the highest technology contemporary with the “people” and that intent is
testified to by a roughly contemporary, and second amendment supporting, document . . . the Militia Acts of 1792. The Acts make it clear what the term "militia" meant and what was required “. . . That every citizen . . . . provide himself
with a good musket or fire-lock a sufficient bayonet and belt, two spare
flints, and a knapsack, a pouch, with a box therein, to contain not less than
twenty four cartridges, suited to the bore of his musket or fire-lock each
cartridge to contain a proper quantity of power and ball; or with a good rifle,
knapsack, shot-pouch, and powder-horn, twenty balls suited to the bore of his rifle,
and a quarter of a pound of powder; . . .”; it should be noted that the “rifle” was the assault weapon
of the 18th century, the most technically advanced small arm available to both the military and the people. If and when
we actually discuss the second amendment, and contemplated limitation on
it, that discussion must be framed
within the context of these facts, using the terms as understood contemporary with the original discussion and in view of the history of the events leading up to the
ratification of the second amendment and the adoption of the Acts and devoid of transient
emotions of the present moment.
Should the
people be permitted to possess nuclear weapons, tanks, or rocket launchers
today? In my opinion, “No!” but beyond
those logical and credible peace-time limitations I don’t think that the people should be
denied the most technically advanced small arms available to them as were clearly the original intent of the Second Amendment and indicated in the Acts of 1792. In the
words of President Obama “We cannot continue to rely only
on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian
national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as
well-funded.”. I would
give you that “civilian national security force” is today, as it has been for
more than the 237 years of this nation’s existence, a militia of the whole of the people themselves; well
armed and well schooled in the use of arms with the moral strength to discern
when the resort of arms is necessary.
In my view
the problem today is not with the “proliferation” of firearms among the people,
nor the types of firearms, nor with the capacity of magazines for those arms
but is with the loss of this nation’s moral compass as a result of a drastic
shift to the liberal left, the abandonment of personal responsibility, and the
adoption of a state religion of secularism which expelled God from the national
conscience. During the coverage of the
Connecticut tragedy I heard one “talking head” ask “How can a loving God allow
something like this?”. When I heard this I thought my mind would explode " What a
ridiculous statement! You've banned God
from our schools, from our courts, from our seats of government and confounded
morality in our daily lives and yet you seek to blame God for such a tragedy” .
. . if God deemed to answer this puppet of the present liberal-left regime I think He would probably say “I would have helped
but I wasn't allowed in your schools.”.
If we are to have a serious “debate” on the causes of tragedies like the
one in Connecticut this is where the debate must begin with a discussion of the
loss of traditional American values not with the kind of firearm used nor the
capacity of a magazine.
If however the “debate” is forced by the left as a smoke screen to disarm the people then we need to look to King Leonidas of ancient Sparta. When King Leonidas and the 500 Spartans were
confronted by the demands of an overwhelming force of Persians to surrender
their weapons at the battle of Thermopylae, and when surrender would have been
the easy course, they responded “Molon Labe”. . . “Come and take them”. Perhaps in this “debate” over the blunting of the Constitution's teeth and fate of our
other rights we should adopt that same motto, Molon
Labe . . . “Come and take them!”.
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