Recently, there was a news story about Senator Harry Reid scoffing at the concept behind the Second Amendment. This illustrates not only how unhinged Reid has become, but also how the mass media, liberal think tanks, and political parties all underestimate and mischaracterize the right to keep and bear arms. It is is our well-armed bedrock culture that under-girds our society, and keep both criminals and tyrants at bay. The Second Amendment is not some obscure an archaic code. It is in actuality the strongest guarantor of our individual liberty. This was made abundantly clear in the 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision, District of Columbia v. Heller. In the first major Second Amendment case since the 1939 U.S. v. Miller decision. Clearly, the courts have affirmed that the right to keep in bear arms is both a collective right and and individual right.
Just the knowledge that Americans are well-armed is a natural deterrent to invasion. This is what the Swiss call: Das Geistige Landesverteidigung. (“the intellectual defense of the homeland”). It has worked for the Swiss since 1291 and it has worked for these United States since 1781, or should I say at least since 1814. (Some folks can’t learn a lesson the first time. The British came back for a second helpin’ of whoopin’ in 1812. Thankfully, the two nations have been on friendly terms, since then.)
For those of us that are preparedness minded, the Second Amendment is our guarantee that we have the unfettered right to own firearms, to keep them in our homes and to carry them on our hips or in our vehicles. No matter what the Nanny Staters want, the fact of the matter is that we have the right to defend ourselves with privately owned guns. Our right to own arms is a gift from God, not a privilege dispensed by the State.
If and when there is a large scale natural disaster or some other source of societal disruption, we will at least have one assurance: We will know that we have the option to employ lethal and less-than-lethal force, to defend lives and property. Even though our world might get Schumeresque, we can at least stop the bad guys within a 300 meter radius. This will give us the chance to re-establish law and order, one neighborhood at a time.