T he Second Amendment — in many ways — is what assures all the others. Without the right to “keep and bear arms,” one is hard- pressed to see what counterweight prevents an armed government from gradually or precipitously consol- idating power, taking control, and suppressing individual liberties. If this sounds like hyperbole, perish the thought. As assistant secretary of state to Colin Powell, managing global hot spots, I saw governments all over the world intentionally, illegit- imately — some faster, some slower — consolidating power, taking control, and suppressing individual liberties. It happens; it is not hypothetical. Power has done that for as long as humans have organized. First for security, then advantage, at times moving beyond fair, predictable, and necessary to abuse, misuse, and domination. If free citizens are to remain free, if the rule of law is to mean anything like order with honor and respect in a self-governing republic, thought-
ful, educated, armed citizens are the counterweight. That is common sense. The right to self-defense and to protect third parties appears in our Constitution and Article 10 of the Universal Decla- ration of Human Rights. The right to defend yourself and those you love is a moral imperative, God-given; it does not come from any government but stands by itself, independent of government, at times against it. This is why George Washington wrote, “A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but . . . should have sufficient arms and ammuni- tion to maintain a status of indepen- dence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.” That is why Thomas Jefferson wrote beyond our Declaration of Indepen- dence — a recitation of moral imper- atives: “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” He knew of what he spoke, having not only put
freedom into words but had his home ransacked by the British. Even the pacifist and modern man of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, wrote, “Among the many misdeeds of the British misrule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.” So, we come to today, when a former Supreme Court Justice, John Paul Stevens — of the left-leaning persua- sion — argued that Democrats should aim to “get rid of the Second Amendment.” We have a president pushing regula- tions emasculating the amendment’s text, spirit, and prevailing Supreme Court rulings, trying to ban whole classes of commonly owned semi-au- tomatic arms, equipment making them effective as a protection tool, and ammunition. At the state level, we have laws that are — on their face — incontrovertibly unconstitutional, wearing down resis- tance to defending the right, putting citizens in fear, and palpably at risk of continued on page 34
32 • AMAC Magazine
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