The Great American Disarmament Alexander Massa Over the last few decades, a remarkable trend has been seen in American politics. For the first time in American history, almost half of all Americans believe that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which establishes a right to bear arms, is an antiquated notion from the colonial frontier days and that it should be eliminated. This trend must be stopped at all costs. We cannot allow our fellow citizens to willingly surrender our collective rights to an ever-growing federal government intoxicated by it's own power. If we willingly allow the government to disarm us, we will have effectively surrendered all of our rights. How is that, you say? It is quite simple - if the Second Amendment falls, the others will follow suit; the flimsy house of cards will come crashing down upon us. The Second Amendment allows us, as citizens of the United States, to protect ourselves against our own government, which has become tyrannical and has shredded the Constitution. The Second Amendment will only be the first Amendment to fall in a Marxist war against liberty. The right to bear arms will become the first casualty in the opening salvo of this war if we do not act quickly and decisively. The government, drunk with power and a sense of invincibility, will inevitably set it's sights on the First Amendment once the Second has perished. What will we Americans do if the government decides to rescind the First Amendment? We will do nothing. The American people, disarmed, would only be able to lodge a protest with their voices. Tell me, which would send a stronger message to the tyrants in Washington, bullets, or angry words? This is precisely why we cannot allow the irrational antigun simpletons in our midst to revoke our God-given right to self-defense, the right to bear arms. We must look to the past for answers. History, unfortunately, often repeats itself, and it is repeating itself as we speak. Throughout history, mass murdering autocrats and totalitarian dictators have disarmed their populaces, in order to quell any possible rebellions or dissent. Adolf Hitler, upon attaining power in Germany, forbade Jews and other "suspect races" from privately owning firearms, as per the German Weapons Act of 1938¹. Of course, he had his excuse: they were a "threat" to the Reich, and therefore were not worthy of the right to bear arms. By the time 1945 rolled around, six million Jews had been massacred in a bloody war of extermination carried out by the Third Reich, which, before killing the aforementioned "undesirables", disarmed them. If the Jews and other minorities had been armed, they would have been able to resist. However, unarmed and weak, they were powerless to resist their totalitarian masters, and were killed as a result. This same pattern can be seen in Soviet Russia, which was turned into a virtual prison camp during Stalin's regime. Stalin disarmed his population² to avoid armed rebellions, which would inevitably had happened had the people remained armed. As you can see, gun control is simply a means for totalitarians to maintain their grip on power - by all but crushing any chance of opposition. Guns are what scare dictators, not words, and that is why totalitarians see them as such a threat. As Mao Tse-tung correctly pointed out, "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". The Communists and their National-Socialist cousins were all too aware of the power of firearms, and how the people would use them in a revolution if they were being oppressed, and they promptly did away with them. All arguments in favor of gun control, upon close inspection, have been found to be fallacies, half-truths, or outright lies, concocted by the enemies of liberty and disseminated among the masses. This Marxist propaganda has done a stunningly good job, as almost half of Americans don't see the Second Amendment as necessary anymore. I believe that this is as good a time as any to dispel a few pervasive myths about firearms: Myth #1: Gun Control Saves Lives This is one of the most blatant lies I have ever come across. Gun control not only does not save lives, it takes them. Each time gun control statutes are enacted, crime skyrockets and innocent defenseless individuals lose their lives to the hordes of gun-wielding criminals roaming the streets. According to an article in the Daily Telegraph, after Great Britain banned handguns, criminal use of firearms doubled³. In addition, from 1977 to 1992, states which allowed concealed carrying of firearms saw a reduction in murder by 31%, robbery by 16%, aggravated assault by 26%, and violent crime in general by 27% (4). Finally, in August 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that states which had implemented waiting periods and background checks on gun owners did not experience reductions in homicide rates or overall suicide rates (5). The statistics don't lie - gun control makes the world a more dangerous place, as all it does is disarm the law-abiding civilians. This gives the gun-toting criminals free reign to terrorize the population. Myth #2: Guns have no place in modern society. This is one of the more ludicrous assertions the antigun movement has made. They claim that guns are antiquated and that they have no place in "modern" society. I beg to differ - guns are the most useful tool the everyday American has to protect himself against criminals. On average, every year in America, guns are employed in self-defense at least 764,000 times (6). Do you really want to disarm the law-abiding citizens and leave them defenseless? Also, guns played a critical role in the Rodney King riots of 1992, in which roving crowds set stores and residences ablaze and destroyed millions of dollars worth of private and public property. Korean storeowners, who were numerous in the area, successfully defended their property against the rioters by using so-called "assault weapons" to deter them (7). Few, if any, were fired in self-defense, as their very presence was enough to deter the would-be criminals from committing arson, robbery, and a host of other criminal acts. Myth #3: Guns threaten our children’s' safety; Gun Control is for the children! The statement above is typical leftist propaganda. It is a classic Marxist tactic to masquerade as a crusader for children’s' rights and safety, while all the while doing nothing to help children. This is a perfect example of this. It is a documented fact that more or just as many children each year are killed playing football than are killed as a result of the discharge of a firearm (8). So if they really wanted to keep children alive, why not target sports? Because it has nothing to do with children; they are just being used as pawns in a grand chess game between the totalitarians of the left and the libertarians of the right. It is sad and unfortunate that our very children are being used as an excuse to usher in tyranny. Myth #4: The Constitution does not allow individuals to own firearms, it only allows the "militia" to be armed. None of us today know what the Founding Fathers were thinking when they drew up the Constitution. However, they did leave behind writings and speeches which we can scrutinize to try to find out their beliefs about private ownership of firearms. Here are some quotes from the Founding Fathers; does it sound like they believe only the military should be armed? • "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed... 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." - Noah Webster, of Webster's Dictionary fame, in a pamphlet from 1787. (9) • "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, President of the United States. (9) • "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides." - Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. (9) • "Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion [for] private self-defense." - John Adams, President of the United States, in 1788. (9) • 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 citizens) deprived the use of them." - Thomas Paine, author of Common Sense. (9) • "The Constitution of most of our states assert that all power is inherent in the people; that the may exercise it by themselves; that is is their right and duty to be at all times armed." - Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States. (9) • "(The Constitution provides) 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, President of the United States. (9) It should be abundantly clear that the authors of the Constitution supported private ownership of firearms and did not believe that only the "militia", as liberal revisionists claim, should be armed. The militia, by the way, is every able-bodied male between 16 and 45, so even if the Second Amendment did only apply to the militia, most Americans would still be able to own firearms. Now that we have heard from the Founding Fathers, let's hear what the opposition has to say. Notice the eerie similarity between what Lenin, Stalin, and Janet Reno have to say. • "One man with a gun can control 100 without one." - Vladimir Illyich Lenin, Founder of the Soviet Union. (9) • "If the opposition disarms, [that is] well and good. If it refuses to disarm, we shall disarm it ourselves." - Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator and sadistic mass murderer. (9) • "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans." - President William Jefferson Clinton, quoted in USA Today, on March 11, 1993, on page 2a. (9) • "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, Attorney General during the Clinton Administration; responsible for the Waco massacre. (9) • "Our main agenda is to have all guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn't matter if you have to distort the facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed." - Sara Brady of the Brady Center, quoted in the January 1994 edition of The National Educator on page 3 (emphasis added). (9) Perhaps you should read that last quote again. It is quite possibly the most damning piece of evidence I've ever come across to prove that gun control is designed to disarm anticommunists who would rebel against a socialist government in Washington. It is astonishing and also quite disheartening to see a President of the United States echo the sentiments of Stalin. How can a President of the United States not think that our civil liberties are important? Is there anything more un-American than that? And yet, this man was allowed to occupy the highest office in the land, the Presidency? When I see things like this, I wonder; who really won the Cold War? Did we, as many say? I think not. Instead of destroying Communism in Russia, which is still wildly popular there, we have simply imported it here, and allowed it to take root in Washington. The American people need to wake up and see gun control for what it is: a disarmament of the people in anticipation of the implementation of a totalitarian government. It is imperative that we demand our right to bear arms remain intact, and announce that we will oust any politician who begs to differ. We must remember that an unconstitutional law does not have to be obeyed, and that if push comes to shove, and gun collections begin, it is our duty to our country to resist the autocratic government fanatically. We cannot, we will not, and we shall not allow the disarmament of the American people to continue any further. It is better to be dead than to be enslaved to the almighty State; disarmament is death. If we relinquish our firearms, the United States as we know it will cease to exist. Do we really want that? A powerful quotation comes to mind: "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, during a speech in Detroit, Michigan. (9) So I ask you, would you be willing to give your life for liberty? Anyone who does not answer in the affirmative does not truly understand what it means to be free. He does not understand how much blood and treasure has been lost to gain these freedoms that we are now planning on just giving away with the stroke of a pen. We must never allow anyone, or any government, to relinquish our liberty. If we do, then all those who died in defense of this country over the past 250 years have all died in vain. Do you still want to disarm the population? I hope not, for gun control is the first step towards tyranny. Do you want to be responsible for the death of America? If not, support the Second Amendment and help put a halt to the disarmament of America. Works Cited - The Great American Disarmament 1.) "Nazi Gun Control." Income Tax is Unconstitutional. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. . 2.) Lindsey, Hal. "Where gun control leads." WorldNetDaily. 21 Apr. 2007. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. . 3.) Whitehead, Tom. "Gun crime doubles in a decade - Telegraph." Telegraph.co.uk. 27 Oct. 2009. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. . 4.) Amrhein, Jim. "Bias Against Guns." The Daily Reckoning. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. .\ 5.) Ludwig, Jens, and Phillip J. Cook. "Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated With Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act." Journal of the American Medical Association. American Medical Association, 2 Aug. 2000. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. . 6.) Agresti, James D. "Gun Control Facts." JustFacts.com. 10 June 1999. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. . 7.) Kang, Hyungwon. "Hyungwon's L.A. Riot photos." Kang.org. Hyungwon Kang. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. . 8.) "Guns don't kill people, football kills people." Everything2.com. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. . 9.) "What our founding fathers and others, had to say about gun control and freedom." Kysrpa.org. Kentucky State Rifle and Pistol Association. Web. 23 Jan. 2010. .