Gun Rights

History of Gun
Control

The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in their possession any swords, short swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of arms. The possession of unnecessary implements makes difficult the collection of taxes and dues and tends to foment uprisings.
-Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun, 1588

1775 - Battle of Lexington and
Concord
● The British set out to seize a store of gunpowder from colonials. This move, though unsuccessful, sparked
America's Revolutionary War.

Late 1800's - Reconstruction and Jim Crow Laws
● After the Civil War, gun laws were enacted in many Southern states that essentially prevented newly freed slaves from possessing firearms.
● These laws prohibited cheaper firearms to allow only certain firearms possession. This indirectly keep firearms out of the hands of blacks.

1911 - The Ottoman Empire implements full gun control
● Beginning in 1915 and lasting until
1917, some 1.5 million Armenians (out of a total of 2.5 million) living within the empire were rounded up and murdered by the "Young Turks" of the ruling class.

1929 - Private Gun Ownership
Is Abolished in the Soviet
Union
● Joseph Stalin proceeded to lead one of the world's most repressive regimes.
● Tens of millions of Soviet people that the country's leadership believed were a threat, were rounded up and either murdered or placed in labor camps and forced to work, sometimes to their deaths. 1938 Adolf Hitler's Nazi
Germany established gun control ● By the end of Hitler's holocaust, 13 million
Jews and other perceived lesser races were killed by Hitler and his Nazi Party.
● "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. " -Adolf Hitler

1956 - Cambodia issues total gun control
● In 1961 Pol Pot, who served as the
General Secretary of the Communist
Party of Kampuchea (which was a communist party in Cambodia) murdered as many as 1 million
"educated" people in "killing fields"
● He believed these people represented a threat to his power.

There is one common theme with all atrocities committed against man, the people are disarmed first However, the 2nd amendment stands in the way of this

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."
-- John F. Kennedy
"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
-- George Mason, speech of June 14, 1788

Personal Protection

The question isn't whether we “need” guns. It’s whether the government should have a monopoly on force.
-Ann Coulter

Castle Doctrine
The Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Beard v. U.S. (1895) that a man who was "on his premises" when he came under attack and "...did not provoke the assault, and had at the time reasonable grounds to believe, and in good faith believed, that the deceased intended to take his life, or do him great bodily harm...was not obliged to retreat, nor to consider whether he could safely retreat, but was entitled to stand his ground."

"God made men, but Sam Colt made them equal."

1992 Los Angeles Riots
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Widespread looting, assault, arson and murder occurred during the riots, and estimates of property damages topped one billion dollars.

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