Charlie Kirk assassinated, school shooting in CO, Russian drones entered NATO airspace

You simply cannot be free without the right to bear arms. Freedom was never free of risk, and always had a price.

Today was a truly tragic day in the US.

Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a campus event in Utah, a school shooting occurred in Colorado this afternoon, leaving 3 children injured — including the shooter, and Russia flew drones into NATO/Polish airspace in what is being called significant escalation in the conflict between NATO Allies and Russia, prompting Poland to call a NATO meeting.

In times like this, emotions running high, a sense of helplessness and fear driving people to question the very rights enshrined in the bill of rights, I think it’s important to discuss what’s at stake.

You can’t be free without a right to own guns.

Consider this…

Trump’s administration deploying the equivalent of “federal standing armies” into various cities is the exact scenario that the framers wanted you to be equipped to deal with, if needed.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

What did James Madison say in the Federalist Papers #46 (1778)?

Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached… forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition.

What was meant by this?

“Advantage of being armed…”

In the U.S., ordinary citizens commonly kept arms and served in the militia; unlike Europe, where governments were “afraid to trust the people with arms.” In context, Madison has just contrasted a hypothetical 25–30k federal standing army with “near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands,” i.e., the citizen militia. The “advantage” is that an armed populace—organized through their militia—could resist federal usurpation.

“Subordinate governments … by which the militia officers are appointed…”

Subordinate governments means the state governments. Under the Constitution, Congress may organize/arm/discipline the militia, but the states retain the appointment of militia officers and the authority to train them. Madison’s point is that federal ambitions would run into a structure where the people are attached to their states and where militia leadership comes from those states—forming an extra barrier to central overreach.

Now this entry is not to be interpreted to, at face value, suggest private gun ownership for every citizen.

However, it’s implied. How can a State call upon its citizenry to form a “well regulated militia” if they are not armed and trained in the use of said arms?

You cannot overlook the need for an armed citizenry, being fundamental to a State’s ability to form a militia to counterbalance federal standing armies, being fundamental to the security of free state.

It is without a doubt in my mind, that the 2nd amendment was specifically intended to empower all of us to reject the very “standing armies” Trump is deploying on the populace today. (I know, I’m sure you’re shocked I would say such a thing!)

If there was ever a more pertinent, real-world example of what the framers feared, it would be this.

This text from the constitution.congress.gov website can help illustrate the point:

Following the Revolutionary War, several states codified constitutional arms-bearing rights in contexts that echoed these concerns—for instance, Article XIII of the Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights of 1776 read:

“That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”

Similarly, as another example, Massachusetts’s Declaration of Rights from 1780 provided:

“The people have a right to keep and to bear arms for the common defence. And as, in time of peace, armies are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be maintained without the consent of the legislature; and the military power shall always be held in an exact subordination to the civil authority, and be governed by it.”

In the Federalist, James Madison argued that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be more than adequate to counterbalance a federally controlled regular army, even one fully equal to the resources of the country.

In Madison’s view, the advantage of being armed, together with the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.

There is no worse time to start undoing the restrictions placed on the federal government than right now, no matter how bad we all want this shit to stop.

Excuse my language… it’s been a day.