Nationally syndicated columnist and retired professor of economics Walter E. Williams stated Wednesday that the people who support gun control are the very ones who wish to control and dictate our lives, according to Townhall.
Williams was incensed that U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., had called for significant restrictions on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, stating, "The British are not coming. We don't need all these guns to kill people."
But the rationale of the Founders in insisting on an amendment within the Bill of Rights to protect the right of the ordinary citizens to own and keep firearms, according to Williams, had nothing to do with the British. The War of Independence against Britain had already been won prior to the approval of the Bill of Rights.
The Founders told us precisely why they believed that the right of the individual citizens to own, keep, and bear guns is of utmost importance, namely, to help protect the homeland in the event of an attack from outside our borders, and to fight off any tyranny embraced by our own government in Washington.
Critics have often stated that the Founders could not have envisioned the destructive power of weapons today. But the statement is moot. At the time the Second Amendment was ratified, the individual citizens possessed the very same weapons that armies possessed, which were the most powerful and state-of-the-art available at the time.
In short, the citizens had to have weapons that were just as powerful as armies in order to have a fighting chance to stave off the forces of oppression.
Williams quotes the words of the Founders themselves as proof.
Thomas Jefferson stated, "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms."
James Madison said, "...the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
And George Mason, who was the author of Virginia's Bill of Rights prior to the approval of the Constitution's Bill of Rights, stated, "To disarm the people -- that was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
Williams thus implies that those who would disarm ordinary citizens today based on what a few criminals do are intent on enslaving the population. This would make politicians such as John Lewis, Dianne Feinstein, and other anti-gun activists the worst offenders.
Detractors often laughingly refer to the notion of armed citizens with low-powered firearms fighting off large armies with tanks as fanciful exercises in wishful thinking. However, Williams notes that Americans own and keep at least 300 million guns of various kinds.
"Nothing to sneeze at," Williams quipped.
History shows that millions of armed Americans have, indeed, prevented invasion by powerful foreign armies. The Japanese army during World War II was one of the most powerful on earth. Yet the one thing that prevented the Japanese from invading the American mainland was the fact that Japanese leaders knew that "behind every blade of grass" is an American with guns.
ALERT! BRAND NEW!!
A brand new entry is now available in my regular series Musings After Midnight, which is now posted at my blog, The Liberty Sphere. The very latest is "A war-less, bloodless coup is still a coup, and we have been seized."
Visit my ministry site at Martin Christian Ministries.
Comments