To the Editor: Ownership of weapons is historic hallmark of free men
Written by John Randall   
Wednesday, 20 March 2013 09:25
The impulse to micromanage other people's lives is alive and well. The ownership of weapons is an historic hallmark of free men. Those denied weapons were slaves and serfs forced to live in humiliating dependence on those who dominated them. Our forefathers acknowledged the reality that the only truly free people are armed people, and they enshrined that natural law in the Second Amendment. Gun owners resist registration and other forms of "reasonable" gun laws because those calling for them have an unbroken history of dishonesty. Every time it's been implemented, gun registration becomes confiscation, oppression, and tyranny.
Many Americans still believe in self-determination. They cherish their liberty and want no part of a nanny state--no matter how well-intentioned or benign on the surface. The idea that gun-control does anything to reduce crime has been debunked so often, so completely, and so irrefutably that those who call for more of it should be embarrassed by their ignorance or ashamed of their mendacity.
Pushing for a ban on scary-looking guns appeals to the same mental vacuum as the illogical fear of spiders and clowns. It is superstition without substance and the negative consequences far outweigh any supposed benefit.
Gun control is an absolutely terrible idea for many reasons, not least of which is that it distracts us from dealing with the real basis for crime--demographics and a debased moral climate. John Adams wrote: "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
Gun owners, Constitutionalists and Christians are the good guys; I fervently pray for more of each.
John Randall
Bowling Green
 

Comments  

 
# 2013-03-20 12:34
John, I couldn't agree more! Finally, someone with the courage to state the TRUTH! In keeping with the thinking of your letter, I would like to add Claymore mines, Scud missiles, and grenade launchers to my ordnance collection. Who's the government to tell me I can't! I have a large field behind my house and it'd be perfect for a tank. When Uncle Sam comes marching up to my house to take away my guns, I want to be armed and ready. And another thing, what's with law enforcement telling me how fast I can drive? I'm tired of this nanny state telling me what to do!
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# 2013-03-20 21:32
Yeah! Exactly, Russ!
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# 2013-03-21 10:16
Russ, current Laws do not support your radical left viewpoint and"sarcasm"!
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# 2013-03-21 14:39
The notion that our founders thought the only free people were "armed people" is a rather twisted interpretation, though, don't you think?

There sometimes seems to be very little tolerance in this town for people to be UNarmed or to enjoy work and study places without the presence of armaments.
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# 2013-03-21 15:33
OK, I give? How do your comments tie into my response to Russ's sarcastic and rather absurd reaction to this LTE?

Most of the absurd examples that Russ cited are NOT legal and are NOT what this issue is all about!
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# 2013-03-21 18:19
Sorry, RG. My response was more to the letter itself than to your own response.
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# 2013-03-21 22:15
Mr. Williams: No I don't think it's twisted or I wouldn't have written what I wrote. Exactly how is wanting to be left alone intolerant? Is anyone forcing you to buy a gun, or excluding you from anything because you choose not to? Color me confused.
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# 2013-03-22 08:11
To be clear: wanting to be left alone is not intolerant. But that is not all you are saying here. Your letter comes across (at least to me, perhaps to many others) as saying that the good guys are those with the guns, the Christians, the conservatives. And it leaves one asking--"so...if you don't have a gun, are not a Christian or are a progressive Christian, or are not conservative then where does one fit in?" My complaint, in this case, is not with gun rights. It's with gun-righteousness.
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# 2013-03-21 22:11
Russ: Sarcasm, mockery, and exaggerated imagery are the tools of those who don't have logic or truth on their side so they argue from their feelings. This is the hallmark of progressive politics. You didn't address any of the points I made factually, because the facts are against you. Instead, you strengthened my argument.
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# 2013-03-21 10:00
Great letter!
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# 2013-03-21 14:42
I wonder how Mr. Randall feels about the Muslim-American citizens who live in this peaceful town of Bowling Green.

And, does he think non-gun owners are NOT the good guys?

Lastly, why are self-described "Constitutionali sts" often thought by credentialed historians of American history to be mistaken about many of their assumptions about the constitution (especially the notion that it and the promise of citizenship pertain more to Christians than to others)?
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# 2013-03-21 22:21
Mr. williams: I don't feel anything about the Muslims living in Bowling Green. Why should I? I didn't say that gun owners are the only good guys, but they are the ones who are being assailed by anti-gun people. I don't know what a "credentialed" historian is. I do know that what the founding fathers themselves said in their private correspondece. There are good and bad historians. Some report history, some interpret it, and some manipulate it to further an agenda. Your parenthetical comment is nonsense.
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# 2013-03-22 07:17
A credential historian is someone who publishes research that is then checked out by other professional historians. Most but not all are on university faculties. What they bring to the table is a vast pool of knowledge, including of the context and history, and how, for instance, private correspondence plays off against those things. There is on the other hand, a history enthusiast--David Barton--who has no credibility among other historians, because he cherry picks and reads things out of historical context, but who has a lot of followers, many of whom believe that the Constitution applies more to Christians than to others, and is itself "inspired by God" and thus can't be interpreted against changing times. (These people often have the same attitude to the Bible).
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# 2013-03-21 15:07
John, thanks for the nice letter. I agree with you. A point well taken.
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# 2013-03-21 15:53
Does this go for Iran being able to have a nuclear weapon?
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# 2013-03-21 22:24
Brutus: I have no idea what you're getting at. Iran and the United States are two entirely different countries with different cultures, different histories, different constitutions, and different bases for their laws. What that has to do with what I wrote escapes me.
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# 2013-03-21 22:25
Brutus: I have no idea what you're getting at. Iran and the United States are two entirely different countries with different cultures, different histories, different constitutions, and different bases for their laws. What that has to do with what I wrote escapes me.
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# 2013-03-22 08:15
Mr. Randall, I believe he is asking if you are arguing for "American exceptionalism" in the sense that individuals in the U.S. have an absolute right to own whatever guns they want, but that maybe you do not feel that other sovereign nations should have the same rights as the US. Put another way: where is the coherence between protecting the individual's rights to take arms against his own (duly, democratically elected) government) while worrying about a potential rogue nation getting weaponry that would make its neighbors uncomfortable.
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# 2013-03-22 03:19
what a good letter, and I notice that some of the respondents to this letter are good at reading but not so good at comprehension. Perhaps Mr Williams could see that more American History is not only taught but taught correctly and well? He might do well to attend,remember that constitution has served us well for a long time, and was written by a bunch of rebels ,who had they lost the war would have also lost their lives.
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# 2013-03-22 07:22
It's funny how when anybody points out that conservatives often have a rather rigid, fixed, and unhistorical notion of the Constitution, especially when it comes to religious freedoms and gun rights, they are attacked as somehow not having understanding of the truth. It's an attitude transplanted directly from religious fundamentalism.

I know darned well what the founders were risking, and I know my colonial history quite well, thank you. History is my profession and I grew up in New England, at the heart of it all in that period. My point is that Mr. Randall's letter presumes attitudes and priorities in the founders that they did NOT have (at least most of them). Conservatives do not have a monopoly on truth, and what is going on here is the real revisionism.
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