I wrote this when the things being said--and legislated--in the current environment got to me. Please feel free to quote it or use it in any way that you can think might be helpful to saving our freedom, and serving the Republic.
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From a Well-Wisher
America, we need to talk.
I mean, I love you. It’s kind of amazing, when I think about it, how much I love you. I love your story, your origins and achievements—sure, there’s the bad stuff, but there’s so much more good. I love your heroes—they’re my heroes, they’ve inspired me all my life. In fact, they’re inspiring me now. It’d be easy to let go on the way you’ve been going on without putting us both through this necessary—and at times unsettling--conversation. But I do love you. I volunteered to fight—maybe even die for you. You wouldn’t let me, my eyes were bad—but I tried. I’m trying now.
I’ve been doing you a favor for a long time, a favor I was glad to do—and I won’t deny it’s a favor that benefits me, too. But that’s how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it? From the economy down to shoveling my neighbor’s walk when she’s sick… I do something good for me, and it’s good for you, too. It’s all good. Except that you’re saying things about me and the favor a whole bunch of us have been doing for you that are cruel. That hurt. And much worse, they’re not true.
You see, I own guns. I own guns that your Congress once said I shouldn’t be able to buy again, or that I shouldn’t carry with me—some of you have said that you should tell other people—with guns--to kick down my door, take those guns, and destroy them. Some of you have even said you’re fine with taking me away, too, if I don’t like that. That’s not a kind thing to say or think about doing to someone who’s been doing you so big a favor.
The favor? Clear as a bell, if you think about it. America, there have always been people who want to kill you. There are now. Once it was the Indians, and they had their reasons, other nations who felt the land you wanted or had was theirs—then there were people who hated what you stood for, or who wanted to kill some of you for what they were or what they believed, still believe, still are… There are people who want to kill you because of things that happened centuries before you existed, who believe that they need to kill anyone who gets in their way. And that’s just some of them.
Then there are people who want to kill you for a good bad reason—they want what you have, your property (your guns, too)—or maybe they want to do things to your children that you would die to stop them from doing. Things like sex. Things like killing them to watch them die, to show you how they feel that you or someone never appreciated them. To be noticed and powerful. It’s true, it’s also too horrible for words. I’m sorry to make you think of such things. But you can’t turn your back on a bad situation and expect that things will work out. They don’t.
So, my favor—I’m a reason those people hesitate to kill you, to harm you or those you love. Nations that hated us—that have attacked us—have always had to reckon with the fact that there are people like me around. People who aren’t afraid of guns, at least no more than they are of a chainsaw. Both are kind of vital when you need them, dangerous as they can be if you’re careless. People like me have been your army, bad eyes and all, when you’ve needed us. You’ve never wanted to pay for an army bigger than all the other armies in the world. But if you’ve been attacked, you’ve had people—going all the way back to Bunker Hill and further—who knew how to shoot, and who would shoot at the people who wanted to hurt you. They wanted to hurt us, they wanted to hurt you—so we fought, and so many of us died. I’m so grateful for them and they left a legacy that still matters.
Then, there’s the people who want to take your house, your car, your money. I’m the reason it’s not as common here as it is in other places in the world. Because of me—and the favor I’m doing you—wicked people at least hesitate—they at least pause—to wonder if the person they want to rob or hurt might be able to stop them. In Britain and Australia, thugs are kicking down doors, robbing, hurting, raping, killing the people who thought they were safe behind them. That happens here, too, but… The people who want to hurt you have to wonder if when they kick that door open they’re going to be met with a hail of buckshot, or bullets—from people like me.
It works when you’re not home. That person ‘checking you out’ on the street might hesitate because he wonders if you’re me. I have a gun I know how to use loaded and ready in a holster under my coat. It’s all legal—I followed the letter and spirit of the laws. If I’m attacked—and maybe if I see YOU being attacked—I will take my gun and try to stop the dangerous person doing it from hurting me or anyone else, maybe forever. It’s self defense for me, and because I love you.
I love children, I want them innocent, full of wonder, amazed at the joy and beauty of the world, and I want them safe. Your laws, such as the Assault Weapons ban, or gun-free schools, haven’t kept them safe. You know that, but it makes you crazy. You say that people who want to kill children will be stopped by laws, or by not being able to do it with a gun. You’re acting like there’s no such thing as a can of gasoline and a match, or any of the other things people have used when they want to kill people. Have you forgotten Tim McVeigh, or 9-1-1? People like me use guns to stop murderous people, if we can. Why do you say that I don’t care if your children are hurt?
I mean, at my own expense, I’ve bought my guns, I’ve practiced with my guns, I’ve learned how to use them and thought long and hard about what I’d do if something or someone bad happened. Long before Aurora, I was checking out the exits of the movie theaters, and running over what I’d do if something bad did happen. And I really have to ask you—how could anything I would have done with my gun in that theater—or the schools—have made things WORSE than someone with as much time as he needed killing all he wanted to? I would have tried to stop those killers. To protect myself. To protect you. For the children.
Please don’t call me a killer. I’ve never killed anyone. I don’t want to, any more than I’d want to shoot my neighbor’s dog if he went rabid and attacked a child. I’d do it—but I don’t want to, or to have to. Please don’t say I don’t care. I care enough to do all the things I’ve done to prevent having to hurt anyone. I’m very careful. There’s even a reason some of my guns look so frightening. I want to frighten into surrender—not kill.
Some of you have said that you should pass a law to stop this or that bad thing, and then you’re willing to let other people enforce it so you don’t have to worry. It’s easy to think like that. You don’t own a gun, you don’t think anyone needs a gun, or a certain kind of gun, or the ability to shoot a gun more than an arbitrary number of times. You’re giving up a right YOU aren’t using. But you know, you really do, it won’t stop some really horrible things. It didn’t stop what happened in Norway. It didn’t stop what happened in Mumbai.
I need to talk to you about things like what happened in Mumbai in 2008. Remember how I said there are people who want to kill you, right now? There were trained killers in Pakistan who wanted to kill people in India. They got into that country through an unprotected border. Then they walked down the streets, into hotels—into a Jewish community center—and started and kept on shooting. There weren’t people like me around. The Indian police couldn’t shoot very well. They didn’t own their own guns. The people the terrorists killed couldn’t shoot back. Ten men killed 156 people, they used bombs too, and injured 308 more. They started on Wednesday, and weren’t stopped ‘til that Saturday.
I probably couldn’t have stopped all of them, but I couldn’t have made things worse. I mean, when Charles Whitman, who used guns you say you don’t want to ban, started shooting people in 1966—he killed fourteen people before he got pinned down, by people like me, with guns. The police, with guns, got him later. The studies and the history are pretty clear. When bullets start coming at the killers, they have a much harder time killing. I’d try to do you the favor of shooting at a killer in such a crisis, even if just to save myself.
You’ve been saying things that are as hurtful as they are wrong. ‘No one needs a large capacity magazine clip unless they want to kill children.’ It’s either a magazine or a clip, and you can’t really believe that! The bodyguards of our politicians carry such large clips. They think they need them to protect the politicians. Our soldiers and marines carry such large clips. They don’t slaughter children in schools!
The reason anybody needs a large magazine is because sometimes you shoot and miss, or are fighting more than one person. A killer, a terrorist—he can stop at any time, reload, start again—unless there’s someone like me around. I might not have the time to put in another magazine. I’d be trying to save my life. I’d be trying to save yours. I’d be stressed, scared, even desperate—so I might miss. I’d try as if my life depended on it not to.
And now we’re getting to the last thing we need to talk about, America. You’ve probably heard what I’ve said already from other people. They say it because it’s true. But I can say something now that I haven’t heard other people say. Here’s why you should listen. I’m more than that quiet fellow who smiles at you, shovels your walk, loves you even if I don’t know much about you, and tries to do what good he can. I’m also a Professor of Military History—originally Ancient History—and a life-long scholar of American history. I’m published, my books are well-regarded. America, your dislike of people like me, people doing you the favor of knowing how to use a gun—is taking you to a very bad place.
The dislike that some of you have for us—well, on one level it’s silly. If you really believed the people who own and shoot guns were murderous killers who didn’t care, who wanted to kill—you wouldn’t say such things about us. You’d be afraid of us. But you’re really not. You have no reason to be, and you know it. You can be afraid of someone who wants to kill you. I know I am. But I’m doing something about it, and those of you who are not are doing anything yourselves… What are you doing? You’re expecting people who have and know how to shoot guns to save you. If they can get there in time. If they are as brave and as tough and as selfless as they’ve always been in the past… What if they aren’t there? What if they aren’t selfless?
New York State just told everybody—even the guards of their politicians, although they’re saying that was a mistake—that they can’t have a magazine that holds more than seven rounds. The Henry rifle used in the Civil War held sixteen rounds. What suddenly made more than seven rounds too much? Anyway, when a man with a grudge last year shot a former co-worker in front of the Empire State building, he was shot by police. They fired sixteen shots. They hit him, and eight people around him. They did their best, but they didn’t do very well. Did you know that the National Rifle Association was founded, in New York, because a group of Civil War generals felt that their recruits couldn’t shoot very well? It was—and is—all about training good people how to shoot bad people without what happens when you miss.
It seems those police needed their large magazines to hit the one criminal—but they can’t have them now. Every soldier, every member of our armed forces who’s ever carried a weapon in combat—was told that person needed to carry a weapon with a large magazine. They know why. What New York State just told them, me, is that, even if they need all those shots to protect their lives—they can’t have them. Their lives aren’t worth that much protection any longer. Their ability to defend themselves and their family has to be limited the moment they quit protecting other people than those they love the most.
America, I’ve learned what happens in more than one society when the people don’t trust, or don’t identify with, the ones who are armed and supposed to protect them. The Founding Fathers knew all about that, too. They’d read about what happened when the soldiers of the Roman Republic became more loyal to their generals than to the people back home. The Roman word for ‘Emperor’ actually means, ‘Supreme General.’ The Greeks went through the same thing. They voted to weaken their armies, and when those armies lost their battles—some of them died to the last man—the people behind them were helpless before conquerors—or tyrants—or groups of criminals. The Founders knew all about that. They didn’t want it to happen to you.
If you ban the kind of guns you say you want to, you’re making several bad mistakes. Even the President has said that weapons such as the AR-15 ‘are designed for the theater of war.’ They are not. The United States Army hasn’t used a semi-automatic rifle since 1957. In 1887 a Mexican general patented the world’s first semi-automatic rifle. They’re not new. No nation uses semi-automatics as their first choice in war, these days. Something has changed, perhaps. We now have incredibly violent movies and video games. Sometimes the new drugs we give the mentally ill don’t work. It’s not like suddenly there were guns such as the AR-15. They’ve been around for a long time.
What are they good for? Well, a lot of things. Because they resemble and work, mostly, like the current military rifle, the AR-15’s are good to train people who might need to use the real thing. That’s a big reason why the NRA supports them, why the big shooting competitions are held with them. They fire a weak round designed to wound. You heard me correctly. At the least it takes three men to care for a wounded man. You WANT to wound the enemy in war. That’s why the killers have to fire so many times to kill their victims. You can use an AR-15 inside your house and hope that the weak round won’t go through the walls and kill your next door neighbor when you shoot an attacker. You tell us that these weapons are useless except for mass slaughter. Why do we have so many of them, then, and want to keep them so much? Why have we wanted and had them long before Columbine, Aurora, and Sandy Hook?
But say, you ban them, and you take away the large clips our military says our defenders need. We get back to the scary thing about which I need to warn you. When that brave soldier, that heroic marine or airman finishes their service—suddenly you tell that person that they can’t be trusted with a weapon INFERIOR to the one that person used to fight for you. You tell the policeman at home that when he’s protecting YOU, he can use a large magazine—but not when he’s protecting his wife and children at home. You’re opening up a gulf between those armed, and those not. Right now you can trust our protectors, I’m pretty sure—but you’re saying that you can’t. You’re saying that you can’t trust me. But you are in truth trusting the same people to protect you with weapons you say they don’t need and shouldn’t have. Do you see the paradox?
Large magazines are needed to preserve lives—the Secret Service, the Military, the Police all think so, and use them. If you make exceptions for them, you’re saying that some lives are more worthy of protection than others. You are creating a military caste. It happened in Rome. It happened in Feudal Japan. The results are always bad. Sooner or later, the military caste—mistrusted and despised by the people they’re supposed to protect—take steps to make that job easier. They restrict what the unarmed can do. They stop caring. They become worse than criminals. They turn on, they rule, enslave, exploit—and sometimes exterminate—the people they were supposed to protect. It always ends badly.
Well, America, I am sorry this is the way the world is. Mine is probably not the kind of love letter you’re used to receiving. I wish I could be more reassuring. I am trying to protect you—and to keep you from making some bad mistakes. As long as you let me, I’ll keep doing us both the favor of being ready and equipped to protect myself and others. I’ll try not to brood about some of the things said about me, or about the growing dangers. Maybe it will work out. I could be more optimistic.
Thanks for listening.
Cri de Couer on the 2nd Amendment
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