ANNIE GET YOUR GUN

 Very few national and international events in my life have captured my attention enough to justify my interrupting my schedule to sit down in front of the TV to watch events unfold in real time. So few that I can remember most of them. The assassinations of the Kennedys would have been the earliest in my memory. More recently, the storming of the Koresh compound in Texas in 1993, the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building by Tim McVeigh in 1995, and of course 9/11. Sandwiched in between the Kennedy murders and Waco were the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles in 1992. Watching the complete disintegration of law and order was unnerving and instructive at the same time.

I think of those riots often and have had a nagging feeling that I should write down my thoughts on what I learned by watching the news coverage of the mob violence. The convictions I have in favor of an armed citizenry were solidified during the Rodney King riots. As usual life gets in the way of chronicling until something else occurs that washes over me like ice cold water. That something was the terrifying events in London this past week. Watching England’s complete breakdown of law and order brought me back to the L.A. riots. Now I have to formulate my argument.

We all know that if the United States Government wanted to send troops and tanks into our streets to subdue the population, suspend the Constitution, and establish a tyranny, it could. Most of us were around when the ATF decided it had no other option than to invade David Koresh’s compound in Texas for the purpose of releasing women and children who the Attorney General believed were being abused at the hands of the Koresh cult. It doesn’t matter how many shotguns, rifles, and handguns you own, they are no match for the power of the federal government, assuming the feds could convince the military to go along with the plan.

No president, left or right wants to be the One who dispenses with the most profound document on human rights ever written by men for the sake of every individual created in the image of God. No one wants that historical legacy. So, if you were of the persuasion that citizens don’t seem to be as capable of self-government as our founders believed they could be, and therefore you believed the citizenry needed greater control by a massive central government, you would want the consolidation of that control to be the result not of a bold power grab, but a benevolent response to the citizenry’s cry for help due to desperate circumstances.

Now if the citizens are individually well-armed, such an outcry for a suspension of rights would be a long time coming. The illustration of this is exactly the vivid memory I have of watching one news report of the Rodney King riots in L.A. The video clip showed a business owner (if my memory serves me right, he was the owner of a gas station) being brutally beaten on the street by a gang of thugs. As this was happening, a police car drove past the gang and victim, but the officers DID NOT STOP to assist the man. The police car was not traveling at a high rate of speed and the officers were well aware of what was happening.

Why didn’t the police stop? Maybe they were overwhelmed by all of the violence and were required to proceed to another more desperate situation. I don’t know for sure, but anyone who remembers those days of rage remembers that the L.A. police were overwhelmed and unable to defend the citizens.

The only people who avoided a violent beating and the loss of their property were those who WERE armed and willing to shoot at the barbarians. Contrast the above scene with the more rewarding scene of the Korean gun shop owners who were loaded for bear and ready to shoot to kill. And they did. And they survived. And if I remember correctly, they were dragged into court for their actions. Ultimately, I believe they were exonerated of any wrongdoing, but the mere fact that they were considered lawbreakers at all is a travesty.

Who would be more likely to beg for military intervention in our neighborhoods during an uprising of the “feral” children as they have been called by British journalists? The well armed and trained self-governing citizens or the disarmed and neutered citizens, trained only in dependency on the paternal government, the creator of the “feral” underclass to begin with. Freedom comes with responsibility and responsibility preserves freedom. I may have come to the end of my trust in the ability or even the intention of the local, state, and federal authorities to protect me and my family.

England’s recent riots were more disturbing than any so far in the Western world. The people of England are indeed neutered, impotent, and therefore, at the mercy of the feral youth on one side and the dazed and confused authorities on the other. The politicians in England are already talking about being more concerned for these poor youths and the frustration that caused all this violence. After several generations of government chasing God from the public square, promoting sexual libertinism, purposely eroding the institution of marriage and then funding the consequences through social programs, the members of the Ruling Class in England seem to want to throw more fuel on the fire by throwing more money at the same social programs that have created this permanent underclass.

Here at home it is only a matter of time before the political propaganda of the Obama Administration, the Democrat Party, and the liberal media has its intended effect on the underclass in America. Constantly beating the drum of how the Tea Party Terrorists want to take from the poor to give to the rich will eventually foment violence toward, not the truly rich , but the middle class business owners, who in comparison to the average unemployed welfare recipient, look to be wealthy. When it comes to coveting your neighbor’s goods, everything is relative.

In conclusion, when push comes to shove, and the pot boils over onto the streets, and the already lawless juveniles just down the road from my middle class neighborhood decide to help themselves to my “wealth,” I intend to be prepared so I won’t have to depend on an overwhelmed police force and forfeit my rights for peace and safety.