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Free Liberal: Coordinating towards higher values

Free Liberal

Coordinating towards higher values

Gun Control: Protecting Terrorists and Despots

by Ron Paul

Tragically, over the Thanksgiving holiday, the world was reminded how evil and cruel people can be. According to emerging accounts of the events in India, about a dozen well-armed and devastatingly well-trained terrorists laid siege on the city of Mumbai, killing almost two hundred people, and terrorizing thousands.

Regardless of the reasons, the indiscriminate shooting on masses of unarmed and defenseless people is chilling and reprehensible. How were these terrorists able to continue so long, relatively unchallenged, killing so many?

India’s gun laws are her business, of course. However, once the shock of these events and the initial reaction of fear passes, Americans should take away a valuable lesson about real homeland security and gun control from this tragedy.

Gun control advocates tell us that removing guns from society makes us safer. If that were the case why do the worst shootings happen in gun free zones, like schools? And while accidents do happen, aggressive, terroristic shootings like this are unheard of at gun and knife shows, or military bases. It bears repeating that an armed society truly is a polite society.

The fact is that firearm technology exists. It cannot be uninvented. As long as there is metalworking and welding capability, it matters not what gun laws are imposed upon law-abiding people. Those that wish to have guns, and disregard the law, will have guns. Gun control makes violence safer and more effective for the aggressive, whether the aggressor is a terrorist or a government.

History shows us that another tragedy of gun laws is genocide. Hitler, for example, knew well that in order to enact his “final solution,” disarmament was a necessary precursor. While it is not always the case that an unarmed populace WILL be killed by their government, if a government is going to kill its own people, it MUST disarm them first so they cannot fight back. Disarmament must happen at a time when overall trust in government is high, and under the guise of safety for the people, or perhaps the children. Knowing that any government, no matter how idealistically started, can become despotic, the Founding Fathers enabled the future freedom of Americans by enacting the second amendment.

In our own country, we should be ever vigilant against any attempts to disarm the people, especially in this economic downturn. I expect violent crime to rise sharply in the coming days, and as states and municipalities are even more financially strained, the police will be even less able or willing to respond to crime. In many areas, local police could become more and more absorbed with revenue generating activities, like minor traffic violations and the asset forfeiture opportunities of non-violent drug offenses. Your safety has always, ultimately been your own responsibility, but never more so than now. People have a natural right to defend themselves. Governments that take that away from their people should be highly suspect.

Dr. Paul is a Republican congressman from Texas.


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Comments

Just because governments who have disarmed the slaves under their dominion might not commit genocide, history would indicate that this is the norm. In the 20th century, somewhere between 160-200 million people were slaughtered by "their" governments . . The Ottoman Turks, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Uganda . . all of these "governments" removed military smallarms (can you say "assault weapons?") from the civilian population prior to commiting mass murder. A favored saying among those who suffered under this brutality and lived to talk about it is "never again." That will be the case in the U.S., because it stops here. We will keep our arms.

# posted at by Straight Shooter

I 'ran' away from Rhodesia in 1979 to the hoots of laughter from the 'It can't happen here' crowd. Well it did, and they are retired on full salary(Zimbabwe $) and reduced to begging on the streets.Please don't say it can't happen here, as a U.S citizen I have nowhere else to run
Zimbabwe took away the guns from whites, including toys, and criminals are running the place which was once the breadbasket of Central Africa.So much for 'God Save the Queen' and the rights of free men, are we next?

# posted at by Ron Armstrong

If a government takes the firearms away from it's people and that government starts to kill it's own, then the people need to get them back by taking them from their police and military. I'll leave the methods of doing this to your imagination. I'd rather die fighting than turn into a sheep who just gets beat to death by government thugs. Kill the thugs and those who would do harm to you and your loved ones!

# posted at by Gomas

What our founding fathers and others, had to say about gun control and freedom...

"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 Papers (C.J. Boyd, Ed. 1950)


"They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania..


"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as they are injurious to others." -Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia (1781-1785).

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." -George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426.


"The Constitutions of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed." -Thomas Jefferson.

"(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." -James Madison.


"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria.

"Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual discretion...in private self defense..." -John Adams, A defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471 (1788).

"...arms...discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. ...Horrid mischief would ensue were (the law-abiding) deprived the use of them." -Thomas Paine.

"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." -Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, June 12, 1823, The Complete Jefferson, p322.

"Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny." -Thomas Jefferson, Bill for the More General diffusion of Knowledge (1778).

"To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them..." -George Mason, 3 Elliot, Debates at 380.

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." -Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-8.

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined...The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun. -Patrick Henry.

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" -Patrick Henry

"To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..." -Richard Henry Lee writing in Letters from the Federal Farmer to the Republic (1787-1788).

"The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." -Samuel Adams, debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87.

"...the people have a right to keep and bear arms." -Patrick Henry and George Mason, Elliot, Debates at 185.

"The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country..." -James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).

"A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms." -Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer (1788) at 169.

"The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age..." -Title 10, Section 311 of the U.S. Code. (see http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/)

"The people are nor to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them." -Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646.

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950).

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government..."-Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist (#28).

"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." -Tench Coxe, Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution, under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1989

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these States...Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America." -gazette of the United States, October 14, 1789.

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. the supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States." -Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the federal Constitution (1787) in Pamphlets to the Constitution of the United States (P. Ford, 1888).

"If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live." -Martin Luther King Jr., June 23, 1963. Speech in Detroit.

Statements of The Enemies of Liberty:

"Government begins at the end of the gun barrel." - Chairman Mao

"One man with a gun can control 100 without one. ... Make mass searches and hold executions for found arms." --V.I. Lenin.

"If the opposition disarms, well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves." --Joseph Stalin.

"We are taking the law and bending it as far as we can to capture a whole new class of guns." - Jose Cerada, (White House official who specializes in gun control policy), The Los Angeles Times

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ..." Bill Clinton (USA TODAY, 11 March 1993, page 2A)

"Gun registration is not enough. Waiting periods are only a step. Registration is only a step. The prohibition of private firearms is the goal." - Janet Reno

Can anyone tell me what part of "Shall Not Be Infringed" they don't understand?

I thought so...........


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