The Right to Bear Arms

Self preservation is a right shared by all law-abiding Americans. Whether or not you choose to personally exercise that right should not be contingent on another’s decision of whether or not they exercise that right.

The second amendment clearly states, “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.”

There is much debate over the line “a well regulated militia.” The debate over “a well regulated militia” is often skewed by the gun control crowd as meaning the second amendment only guarantees firearm rights to military, law enforcement, and security.

George Mason, one of the framers of the Constitution, when asked what the militia is, responded, “What is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.” Mason is also on record defending the right to self-preservation, “To disarm the people is the best and most effective way to enslave them.”

The notion that only the military, law enforcement, and security should possess firearms could not be further from the truth. The political left takes the stance that only law enforcement should have the necessity to possess firearms only when a tragedy occurs, such as what happened in Parkland, FL last week.

Once the news cycle leaves Parkland, the left will resume their police brutality talking point. So which is it? Are police not to be trusted due to the aforementioned perception of brutality, or should they be the only people in possession of firearms? You can’t have it both ways.

The left will also debate that in the late 1700s, the second amendment was written with only muskets in mind. This is also asinine. The Puckle Gun was around as early as 1720, and is considered one of the first machine guns. The gun could fire nine rounds per minute. Muskets of that time could fire between two and five rounds per minute. The founding fathers were big fans of the Puckle Gun.

Another tremendous firearm of the time was the Girandoni Air Rifle. This rifle could fire 22 shots in a minute. Thomas Jefferson owned two, and Lewis and Clark carried these firearms throughout their expedition. Finally the Continental Congress was introduced to the Belton Flintlock, which could fire up to 20 rounds with one pull of the trigger. The Belton Flintlock was the first adventure into automatic firearms.

The Puckle Gun, Girandoni Air Rifle, and Belton Flintlock are far from the muskets that fire two to five rounds per minute that the left wants you to believe was all that existed.

The point is not how cool firearms of our history and why the framers of the Constitution felt it compelling enough for the right to bear arms to be the second law they wrote for their new country, but to understand the reasoning behind our right to self-preservation.

Evil has always existed and will always exist. If we ignore this fact, we are prone to attacks being inflicted on our innocent and law-abiding citizens whether by firearm, knife, vehicle, explosive, or whatever other evil act that evil people conjure.

The villainous, disgusting murderers who commit heinous acts such as Parkland, FL, Sandy Hook, the Texas Church, the South Carolina church, Aurora movie theater amongst far too many other mass murdering sprees are already breaking the law against murder in this country.

To think that regulating and restricting access to firearms from law abiding individuals is going to prevent these monsters from murdering is not a logical thinking process. This only allows for the great citizens of the nation to become sheep awaiting slaughter.

Common sense policy proposals would not include rounding up firearms from law abiding citizens and restricting their access to the ambiguously labeled “assault weapons.” Harsher penalties for straw purchasers is a place to start, as the ATF has found that nearly half of all illegally trafficked firearms originate with straw purchasers. If caught, straw purchasers only face five years in prison.

Background checks are often suggested, and they are already required by federally licensed firearm dealers and do stop many individuals from purchasing a firearm when they shouldn’t be allowed to. Recent news suggest that President Trump rolled back Obama-era regulation which was intended to prevent the mentally ill from purchasing firearms. This is just false. The Trump administration rolled back a regulation that prevented older citizens collecting social security from purchasing firearms if they requested assistance with their finances.

In the case of the Parkland tragedy, the shooter passed a background check because nothing was done to flag his background check. Local deputies and social services were called to the home because of violent behavior 39 times in the last seven years, and the FBI had the possibility of a shooter carrying out a school shooting tipped to them twice. Nothing was done to prevent him failing a background check when it very easily could have been.

We need to allow our citizens to protect themselves and their families. We need to protect our innocent from a tragedy like this from ever happening again. It has been suggested that teachers should be armed to protect their students. While I do believe there are good intentions in this suggestion, it is not the appropriate measure.

We protect government buildings, airports, and stadiums with armed law enforcement and security. We need to seriously consider protecting innocent children this way as well. Schools should only have one ingress and egress point as to avoid a potential threat from entering at many different entrances.

Gun control, regulation, and restriction is not our answer to stopping evil people from committing evil acts. Common sense, morality, and guaranteeing our citizens their right to self-preservation is the answer.

It’s with a heavy heart over this past week that we grieve with the teachers, classmates, parents, friends and family members over the loss of 17 victims. I pray that my parents, my siblings, my girlfriend, and my friends never have to experience a tragedy similar to what happened in Parkland. Let us not tear out each other’s throats in the victim’s memory, but rather find the common ground to allow ourselves to prevent evil from committing evil again.

- A son, a brother, a boyfriend, a gun owner, and a proud member of the NRA.