Thank you Rich, thank you Mayor Donaldson. Good citizens of Butler County and of the great State of Pennsylvania, thank you for coming out on a cold Saturday morning to support your right to bear arms.
I find it ironic that we have to come out to support our right to bear arms because firearms have been pervasive in our society since before we became a self governing, free, and independent nation. As a matter of fact, we would not have become the self governing, free, and independent nation when we did had it not been for a well armed population.
When our founders got together, in the Continental Congress, to draft the letter of interposition, known as the Declaration of Independence, they listed the various grievances from all the colonies and sent it to the King of England. After King George III read the document, he did not say, “You are right, I have overstepped the limits of my authority and I am sorry, I will not do it again.” NO! He instead sent armed troops to our shores who stuck bayonets in the faces of our citizens. One of the only reasons we were successful in defending ourselves against such tyranny is because we had a well armed populace.
Firearms were so pervasive in our society during the founding era that Benjamin Franklin, who is not known for his marshal exploits, described the difference between a democracy and a republic by using an analogy involving firearms. He said, “A democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what is for lunch, and a republic is a well armed sheep contesting the vote.”[1]
Since Mr. Franklin spoke those words, our nation has drifted closer and closer to the democracy Franklin warned us against. In the election of 1824, sixteen out of twenty-six States tampered with the way the Electoral College works. Prior to 1824, the State legislatures, which are a fair representation of the constituencies from each State, appointed the electors based on the electors’ ability to evaluate the presidential candidates and cast their votes for the two candidates they thought would best uphold the Constitution.
In the election of 1824, those sixteen States awarded all the Electoral College votes to the candidate that won the majority of the popular vote in their State. Today, forty-eight out of fifty States award their Electoral College votes by using what is now known as the general ticket method, which has moved us closer to the democracy Franklin warned us against.
Another example happened during the Wilson administration when Congress passed the Seventeenth Amendment, which changed the way we get US Senators. Prior to the Seventeenth Amendment, Senators were appointed by State legislatures and were accountable to that legislative body. After the Seventeenth Amendment, US Senators are elected by the majority of people in each State and are only accountable to the irrational exuberance of the majority of the population in each State, which has moved us closer to the democracy Franklin warned us against.
While our nation has drifted closer and closer to the democracy Franklin warned us against, the wolves have been busy disarming the sheep. If you want to buy a firearm in Pennsylvania, you will have to pay between fifty and seventy-five dollars to get a background check for the privilege of exercising your God-given right to possess firearms. If you buy more than one firearm at the same time, you will have to pay for separate background checks for each firearm you purchase, which begs the question, is it the person or the firearm whose background is being checked?
If you want to exercise your God-given right to bear arms, you will have to go to the Sheriff’s office and pay for a permit, which comes in the form of a photo ID, for the privilege of exercising your right to bear arms.
The right to bear arms is second on the Bill of Rights because most of the States refused to ratify the US Constitution unless it included a bill of rights. Therefore, the first agenda item of the first session of Congress was to pass a bill of rights. Congress consolidated lists of rights from each of the States and assembled them in order of precedence. That is why the right to bear arms is second only after the freedom of religion and the freedom of speech.
You can search the entire Bill of Rights and you will not find the “right to vote” in it because according to the definition given in our Declaration of Independence, voting is not a right. Rights are endowed by our Creator and nowhere in Scripture has God said people have a right to cast ballots in political elections. But, He did say we must honor life and in order to honor life we must defend it, not only the lives of others, but our own and that is how we derive our right to bear arms.
I bring this up because, recently, Pennsylvania has been involved in a dispute as to whether we should or should not require people to have a photo ID to vote. We even provided free photo IDs for those who did not possess one, but many people said that voting was a fundamental right and that requiring them to have a photo ID was too much of an imposition on a fundamental right.
I find this to be an odd argument because, when we first became a nation, the States determined who was eligible to vote. Universal suffrage did not become a semi-universal concept until the Jacksonian revolution of 1828, it did not become semi-codified until the Fourteenth Amendment, and it was not complete until the Nineteenth Amendment. So now, many people get up in arms about citizens being required to obtain a free photo ID to cast a ballot, which is an assumed right, but these same people think nothing about requiring citizens to pay for a photo ID to exercise their God-given to bear arms; I hope I am not the only one who sees a disparity in this!
Citizens of the great State of Pennsylvania, I implore you, if you are lovers of liberty, if you care anything for the freedoms this nation has promised, then you must uphold the right to bear arms. Upon the right to bear arms depends all our other rights, because it is irrational to believe we can make a successful appeal to justice in the absence of the ability to protect what is rightfully ours.
[1] Although this quote is accurate in its sentiment, it is not something that Benjamin Franklin or any of our other founders said. I apologize for not researching and verifying this quote before I used it and I am leaving it in as a warning to all others who may also have been or would have been fooled by it.
Reblogged this on Justplainbill's Weblog and commented:
Well said. And, if the citizens of Baltimore had been allowed their 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms, the looting and rioting would have been much less if not non-existent. During the Ferguson Riots, a former LEO and USMC buddy, noted that those store owners who went to their stores armed, did not get looted or burned. Several of the Korean store owners, simply made sure that the looters saw them on the roof top of their stores, and on the street in front of their windows. Those stores were passed by whereas the QuikTrip and the locally owned by minority stores were destroyed.
The 2nd Amendment, not only a God given Constitutional Right, but a survival necessity in the XXIst Century!
Yupper. I reposted and commented.
Fantastic speech. Unshakable logic. Lars told be about your website, and I’m glad he did. Looking forward to reading more.
Fantastic speech. Bombproof logic. Lars told me about your blog, and I’m glad he did. Thanks for the good content. We need every bit of it in this upside-down world.
Most people are just fine with felons and other members of society not being able to arm themselves, what happens when writing or even reading a blog like this becomes felonious behavior?
If your point is that the government can arbitrarily deem who is a felon and who is not, you are absolutely correct. No one should lose their right to bear arms unless they have specifically abused that right, i.e., if someone commits armed robbery, then they should no longer be able to exercise the right to bear arms. But, if someone commits a “felony” that is non-violent in its nature, then they should retain the right to bear arms.
I understand the want to take away certain rights if they are violated, but I can’t agree with it. By that logic, if the day comes when ‘hate speach’ becomes felonious behavior, should you lose your first amendment? I’m not sure if I’m smart enough to make my point accurately but I’m trying to establish the difference between rights and privileges. If it is a right to bear arms, not a privilege, then how can it be taken away after you have served your debt to society by a disciplinary action. That felon is still expected to work, pay his taxes, and carry on as a law abiding citizen without all the rights of citizenship. Would just like any clarification you might have on the subject. Thanks
To start with, rights, according to The Declaration of Independence, are endowed by our Creator, therefore, a right is something that is given to us by God and cannot be arbitrarily taken away. Rights, however, are not absolute and a person can lose their rights through their conduct.
I understand your point about a person who commits armed robbery, gets indicted, found guilty, sentenced, complete’s his sentence, and he is released back into society. Why should he not have his right restored to him? To answer that question let us take it to a personal level. This person was a tenant in your house and committed armed robbery against you and, by the Grace of God, did not kill you the first time. Once he is finished his sentence, the state makes it mandatory that he lives with you once more. Would you prefer that he be unarmed the second time around?
There is no stopping a criminal, even those who have served their time, from obtaining a firearm, but neither should society make it easy for them to possess a firearm. Perhaps you believe that serving one’s sentence is equivalent to being rehabilitated? If this is the case, you are mistaken. Our criminal “justice” system is un-Biblical. A Biblical justice system is restorative, i.e., if a person takes something from someone else, he must restore what he has taken plus interest for the time he deprived the other person of their property. If a person takes another person’s life, then his life should be forfeited, based on the testimony of two eye-witnesses. If a person commits armed robbery, they must restore what they have taken and they have forfeited their right to bear arms, because they have demonstrated their inability to use that right for its intended purpose.
In order for the Biblical justice system to work, legislatures and legal systems must uphold God’s Law as laid out in the Bible. If legislator’s arbitrarily define certain actions, such as “hate speech,” to be felony offenses, and then use that as a pretext to confiscate a person’s rights, then they are operating outside of the law.
If all of what I said above where just based on my opinion alone, then no one should heed what I have to say, but neither should they heed the mere opinion of any other human, including Supreme Court justices. In matters of law, legislature’s only have the authority to “make law” that corresponds with what the Bible has defined within the jurisdiction that it granted it, and a judge’s opinion should only be binding as far as what they say correspond’s with Biblical truth. If the Bible is not the standard, then the capriciousness of man is and law becomes arbitrary at that point.
The bottom line is that God granted us rights, that is why they are rights not privileges (see the Origin of Rights under my contents tab), and He defined the limitations of those rights, therefore, a person can lose their rights based on their conduct according to the original foundation of American jurisprudence; the Bible.