The liberal (and I use that term politely - not with malice) segment of our populace is vehemently decrying the right which the Second Amendment affords to all legal law abiding American citizens to bear arms. I can't help but feel our educational system should take the brunt of the responsibility for failing to teach and impress upon these countrymen the cause and reason for each right endowed by our founding fathers in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These were highly intelligent men - judged so not just during their time but also through the ages. Did these men envision machine guns and assault rifles? No. Did they foresee a day when children and mentally challenged citizens would wantonly kill their families, their neighbors or strangers? I dare say they did not. But our learned founding fathers did know tyranny. They knew what liberty was, what freedom meant. They knew once they achieved liberty and freedom that those ideals must be protected at all costs. That protection is the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and to take away those liberties and freedoms would be the first plunge into a crevasse so deep and dark that the price to escape would be far greater than any nation has ever endured.
There was a time not so very long ago when the general populace owning an assault rifle or machine gun was generally relegated to collectors. But it was also a time when parents took a more active role in their children's lives and for children who were interested in guns were taught how to use and more importantly when to use them. When I was in high school the guys all had gun racks in their trucks and rifles in the gun racks. No one ever threatened another, no one ever pointed a gun at another. As far as our right to bear arms we were ALL taught about our history, the tyranny our founding fathers escaped from (the pilgrims and early settlers) and later the lengths they went to and the personal sacrifices they endured to assure the inviolability of those freedoms and rights they secured. It is shameful to see and hear of my countrymen who would spit on those freedoms and rights and the men who secured them 200+ years ago but also the men and women of our armed forces who stand at the ready to die to secure them today.
Our right to bear arms in these United States of America are never to be taken lightly and my liberal friends (and a few conservatives as well) would do well to stop and reflect on what it would be like to live in a nation-state where they have no control of the government and that same government bullies its citizenry. Ask any survivor of the Night of the Long Knives or the later Holocaust or the many thousands of people in any number of African countries facing annihilation by their government what tyranny is like. Yes, it can even happen in America and to think it couldn't is the equivalent of a pig being led to the slaughter.
