The national debate about gun control is becoming frightening to watch as it unfolds every day in the news. Both sides are beyond passionate on the issue and it is hard to see a “compromise” in the future because there really is no compromise to be had. Either the Second Amendment trumps the inevitable mass shootings by the mentally unstable, or it does not.
A recent letter written respectfully to Dianne Feinstein by former Marine Joshua Boston quickly became 2013′s viral phenomenon as it spread like wildfire over internet and media venues. Boston expressed what many Americans wanted to say about gun control, simply and from his heart, without a lot of political hype. He has since been interviewed on Fox News and other media outlets.
In a similar submission to CNN’s iReport by evanderwerff (user name) , a father from Post Falls, Idaho touched on a universal sentiment felt by parents, particularly Dads, that explained to lawmakers why politics has nothing to do with the debate. He asked, “how can you say that I don’t have the right to use the same equipment that our elected officials use to protect themselves?”
The posting, headlined These guns protect my children, described a universal sentiment among men with children, and it struck a chord with those who read it.
These are my children. My daughter is 6 and my son is 4. Those of you who have small kids know how fantastic it is to watch them learn and grow every single day. You also know how much you want to protect your little ones from harm. I protect them from choking, drowning, running in front of traffic, sharp objects, and the list goes on. I also protect them from anyone who would do them harm. There has been violence and killing since the beginning of time. World peace sounds like a great idea but let’s face reality – we are NEVER going to rid the world of violence. All we can do is try to mitigate it’s effect on us.
These are the guns that protect my family. My rifle holds 30 rounds. My pistol holds 13 rounds. I carry an extra 30 round magazine in my car just in case I ever have to give ammo to a police officer who may have run out. I am a concealed pistol license holder, I am an avid hunter and fisherman and I DO NOT own these weapons to hunt or fish with. I own them to protect my precious, innocent little ones. The 2nd amendment doesn’t have a “sporting” or “target shooter” clause. The 2nd amendment was written to allow me – a free American Citizen – the right to choose what “arms” I choose to bear.
Senator Feinstein, Mayor Bloomberg, Congresswoman Pelosi, Vice President Biden, WHAT GUNS protect you?? Please share with us, I don’t think it is a national security breach to share what equipment your protectors use to keep you safe every day. Is your safety more important than my little ones? Are your lives worth more? Please state this for the record for everyone to know that the life and safety of a public figure is more valuable than the lives and safety of everyday American children.
These are the tools that I choose to protect my household with. What gives you the right to decide what equipment I use to do this? If your protectors carry guns with less than 10 rounds, then I will gladly follow your example. If you feel that your security and safety would be well served with small capacity handguns and rifles, then please share this with the country so we can follow your personal lead in this matter.
You are elected SERVANTS of the public, not reigning royalty. “I am not your subject,” wrote Joshua Boston in a recent iReport letter that has received a ton of publicity. You aren’t the lords and we are not your vassals.
I hope more Dads speak up with me. We are the protectors of not only our families, but our communities also. I’m fed up with the same old emotional response to a tragedy, “Ban them all,” you cry. But HOW and WHY are you able to do this when right outside your door are armed guards keeping you safe with the EXACT same equipment that I use to keep mine safe?
I’m not a professional writer, save your negative comments on my grammar or punctuation. How can you say that I don’t have the right to use the same equipment that our elected officials use to protect themselves?
About Michele Kirk
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Amen
I could not have said it better myself!!
mossad not muslims did 9/11/01 http://www.911missinglinks.com
What did this letter have to do with 09/11/01?
Mark have you seen who has constantly gone after guns?
Take a look at just the names and realize who they are.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d3b_1359851463
Take the time to watch and research those bills.
The strangest thing though is why would a group that suffered so immensely would want the same for Americans by disarming all of us? Sounds crazy doesn’t it.
Mark, I agree with the other fellow- you are definitely an “IDIOT!”
ITS worst then americans think,LAST summer the anti-christ obama and hillary the whore SOLD america and all the PEOPLE IN AMERICA to china,they collected haft the money(and you thought china would loan money to a pack of dumb asses they hate),BUT part of the deal was they have to disarm everyone to get the rest of the money,THEN CHINA WALKS IN AND TAKES OVER,all your property and everything you own is lost and you can’t do shit about it,GO AHEAD GIVE YOUR FEARLESS LEADER YOUR GUNS,BUT before you do, talk to your children and listen to the dreams their having about living in chinese slave labor camps in china,YEA its going to happen to a lot of unarmed dumb asses,BUT IT DON’T HAVE TO HAPPEN TO YOU………..
First off….Mark you are an idiot….most likely a liberal, 2nd…..that letter gets right to the point. Excellent job Mr. Boston……The folks here in the mid-west will not give up our guns unconditionally at all. Try and break into a home in the mid-west and south west, and you’ll be greated, and with not a handshake. Great letter!
The man has some common sense.
Liberals have murdered 50+ million unborn babies, do you really think they care about the lives of children. They are fully aware that we have these guns to protect ourselves, that’s why they want them. They have plans for us and they cannot carry them out as long as we are armed and capable of resisting them.
YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT ROBERT.
U are so right !
Very well spoken and written!
It would be good to note though, our words fall on deaf ears. A criminal doesn’t care about your right to life- so goes these people in office.
How many bills and executive orders were pasted in the past few years clearly against the will of the people?
A criminal can be defined as one who breaks mans laws- Evil, on the other hand has it’s own category, as it cares for no one living Gods laws.
I hope they listen to him, but if they do not, what Joshua had to say is encouragement to us all. It has not fallen on deaf ears. Thankyou Joshua and God bless you and yours. Dee CDA
The School District of New Town had an obligation to protect those children that were murdered. There were a number of ways they could have done it. They choose to do nothing. Instead they told everyone it was a gun free zone and invited nut cases to come in and murder their students. Now they want to take our ability to defend our children away from us. Sounds to me like the Liberals that were paid to do their jobs did not do it. Don’t balme others for what you failed at doing. Unfortunately we live in a very violent and hostile world. You don’t have to like it and even I as a gun enthusiast don’t particularly enjoy carrying a gun, but it is necessary to protect my loved ones. So what wil it be liberals? You being uncomfortable around guns or more dead children. Looks like you are choosing the wrong answer again.
With the Supreme Court ruling that the police have no duty to protect individuals, coupled with the stark reality that they couldn’t anyway–they generally show up at crime scenes after-the-fact, it is obvious that we the people are always our own first responders. It’s insane to think that disarming us (even if it didn’t infringe our rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution’s Bill of Rights) will make us safer. We have got to stop responding to heinous acts by madmen with emotion, and recognize that one day we really will need to fight off enemies foreign or domestic. It eventually has happened to EVERY nation in the history of the world.
I completely support what Mr. Boston says. I too stand to protect my family and I will not let any p-o-I-I-t-I-c-I-a-n stand in my way.
OK, how about this? You all can keep your guns just like you keep your cars. You can rest easy that your children will never get access to them in the house, that you will never become severely depressed for any reason and have the urge to harm someone, that your wife and children will also be permanently healthy and sane and that there never will be an accidental shooting in your house. All you have to do is 1) take a written and operational test on each class of weapon 2) register each 3) keep a license up-to-date 4) register all ammunition purchases 5) surrender all weapons if you ever need psychiatric counseling or convicted of a felony 6) learn the difference between a “well regulated militia” and millions of random people of varying degrees of intelligence, sanity, and anger.
Seazen, you’re pretty misinformed. You’re comparing apples to oranges since there is no Constitutional right to a car whereas there is to a firearm. YOU don’t get to frame the argument as to how WE can keep and bear arms. The Constitution affirms that this right shall not be infringed, period.
Regulated in terms of the second amendment in the vernacular of the day it was written didn’t mean to regulate, it meant to make regular. The difference is pretty clear.
For what it’s worth, section 313 Title 32 of the US Code defines the unorganized militia as all able-bodied men between 17 and 45 years old who are not members of the National Guard or Naval Militia. Former members of the military up to age 65 are also considered part of the unorganized militia.
Have you ever read what the founding fathers had in mind when they affirmed our right to keep and bear arms in the Constitution? Their writing are very clear also.
Reply to Seazan:
You are not only mis-informed, but straight up Stupid. Are you a mother? Would you not protect your child from an intruder? If a person chooses not to own guns, or have them in the house, it’s their business. As far as someone getting depressed and doing something in the house, then you need to remove all knives, bats, blunt objects, pills, pillows( you could suffocate someone with a pillow) that argument is so over used and is as DUMB now as the first 1,000 times it’s been said. So in your perfect little world you may never need a gun ( hopefully you don’t) do you understand that some aren’t so lucky. Some of us are single mothers who live in the country where don’t bother calling the law, it will be about an hour before they show up. Also, Seazan I can guarantee we who believe in our GOD GIVEN RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, we still would try to avoid ever taking a life by firing a warning shot.
Where was it that some God suggested anyone had the “right” to bear arms. Besides, I said nothing about banning guns. I only suggested that we might to exercise a little bit more adult supervision over their distribution and use. You want a gun in your house, fine. You want everyone running around with as much weaponry as they can carry then tell me exactly who that makes safer. We have seat belt laws and helmet laws to protect humans since the cars and motorcycles don’e cause accidents, driver’s do. Automatic weapons designed for the military that have massive, rapid killing power are everywhere in places like Somalia. And if you think folks holding a gun and facing a perceived threat would be so cool as to fire a warning shot – to say nothing of actually hitting what they are aiming at – you are deluding yourself.
What kind of weapon do you think Jesus would have carried? And the founder were talking about a reality where “arms” were musket loaders. Maybe that is what we should be allowed to own if you want to get all Constitutional.
Seazen, what weapon would Jesus carry?
He armed the angel outside of the garden of Eden with a flaming sword, so I suppose He’d carry something stronger than what the current military wielded at the time.
Jesus destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah with fire and brimstone, so He would carry missiles, rockets, and bombs.
Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple with a whip, so He would carry a long-range repeating weapon.
Jesus told his disciples to sell their cloaks to buy swords, so He would carry the same weapon as the soldiers.
Jesus returns with a sword coming out of His mouth, so He would carry a weapon so powerful it requires no more than a breath to kill.
I’m sure others can help fill in what I’ve neglected…
Seazen,
I will let the men who founded the USA answer your question as to which God. They tell you specifically in the Declaration of Independence, which alongside the Constitution, the Articles of Confederation and the Northwest territorial ordinance, comprise the organic law of the United States of America.
“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”
From here, the founders wrote the constitution describing how the new Government of this country would be instituted in order to secure the unalienable Rights endowed by our Creator aka Nature’s God. And they further found the need to add the “Bill of Rights” to emphasize the limitations placed on the newly formed Government by specifying the most important rights that every citizen has by virtue of simply existing in a human body, including the right to self defense.
I noticed you made no acknowledgement as to your mistaken idea of what a “well regulated militia” means, after “Anon” set you straight regarding the definition of regulated and the US code defining the unorganized militia. Unorganized meaning not Federally organized as the National Guard and Naval Militia. They certainly regularly organize themselves by their free will and initiative locally, at gun ranges, barbecues, and outdoor training exercises, when they are not being infiltrated and provoked by federal agents that is.
You said: “I only suggested that we might to exercise a little bit more adult supervision over their distribution and use.”
Your suggestions 1-5 are matters to be decided locally, and yes if the authorities of some locality are FOUND TO BE irresponsible they should be held accountable to a reasonable standard of oversight by the county, and then the state, and if the state govt fails, by the federal government who is there to protect the rights of neighboring states to not be subjected to rogue states that allow felons and psychopaths to own firearms unabated. NOT that the federal government comes in and conducts and maintains the registration/records, issues a federal test or federal license. EVER.
You said “You want everyone running around with as much weaponry as they can carry then tell me exactly who that makes safer.”
What nonsense hyperbole you employ, by conflating the simple request that the federal government not overstep its limited powers, with wanting “everyone” “running around”, etc. Assigning such extreme exaggerations where none exist is the sign of a person without a good argument to stand on. You who are worried about the level of intelligence and sanity should show us yours first.
You said: “Automatic weapons designed for the military that have massive, rapid killing power”
If the bearer of the arms is qualified and found to be upstanding according to reasonable standards of the local community and acknowledged by the federal government, it should not matter what they bear. Automatic weapons are already banned, and most serious minded men don’t want one anyway as they are not ideal for defense, personally or militarily.
You said: “And if you think folks holding a gun and facing a perceived threat would be so cool as to fire a warning shot – to say nothing of actually hitting what they are aiming at – you are deluding yourself.”
Here you lack discrimination, lumping all gun owners into a category of absolute moron. Look in the mirror. Warning shot? Who made you the arbiter of procedures for defending oneself against a crack addled rapist looking for his next score? Hit what they are aiming at? You should found your own utopian planet where no-one ever gets hurt and let us know how it goes.
You said: “What kind of weapon do you think Jesus would have carried?”
What a juvenile, facetious question, not worthy of a direct response. By the way, Jesus allowed his disciples to carry the preferred assault weapon of the day, swords, and even allowed 2 of them to bear them at their sides during the last supper. Educate yourself.
You said: “And the founder were talking about a reality where “arms” were musket loaders. Maybe that is what we should be allowed to own if you want to get all Constitutional.”
More false equivalence. First of all there is no such thing as a musket loader, unless you are referring to the person who loads their musket. Second of all the point is that every man was encouraged and in some counties ordered by law to train with and bear the exact type of musket or rifle that the military used. To keep things equal, and keep the tyrants from getting too frisky.
If you want to get all constitutional, turn off the computer, go find a fine linen rag, make parchment out of it, harvest some berries to make some ink, grab your quill, write your next reply to me, get on your horse and deliver it to the web master so he can type it in.
Otherwise, if you really enjoy these trips to the woodshed, have at it and keep on typing.
My husband and I were the victims of a home-invastion robbery at gunpoint. The burglar held it to my husband’s head. In the aftermath, at no time were we afraid of the “gun”, it was the criminal’s intent that was of utmost concern.
Mis-informed again DUMB ASS, I see you really don’t pay close attention to motorcyclist (shame on you, you definitely need way more safety restrictions on YOUR DRIVERS LICENSE) because if you did pay closer attention many states, do not have helmet laws.
Seazen
First of all you should see the suggestion an iPad gives for your handle. Second you should reconsider giving advice too others when it is obvious you would rather dictate. It’s funny reading your reasoning because though you refer to the judge of all men you in reality want to judge those who exercise their unalienable to make decisions for themselves. You prefer dictates or something similar when the government is not to even infringe. The you denigrate your argument by the “musket” reference. Don’t you realize all weapons have the potential to kill at any time when used for that purpose? A rock in the sling of David, a club in the hand of Cain, a bow and arrow in the hands of The indians. Boats in the hands of pirates from the Barbary coast……. Where do you want me to stop? Everyone recognizes deception and you should stop following that path…..truth exposes lies!
What don’t you get about the wording of not “infringe”?
SEAZEN,HERES MY ANSWER,theres going to be a world wide war soon and when it comes, morons like you will no longer be with us,in the mean time you are more then welcome to move to china or one of the countries who have ban weapons and kill their citizans when ever they fell like it,and there really is no reason for a moron like you to want to live here anyway ,so why don’t you and your family leave,your not wanted here………………………….
Well, i love the letter, very eloquent and well spoken. I’m against having anyone know how much ammo i have or what kind and how many guns i own. If it pleases me to own 20 guns ,then it’s my choice. Keep them safely locked away to prevent use by unauthorized persons, fine not a problem, as long as i can have one ready to use when and if i need it most. What a lot of people fail to comprehend and in fact refuse to acknowledge is the fact that the 2nd amendment was not intended to be debated it had strong language for a reason. “Shall not be infringed”., not lets see this is not working lets change it, sorry but no go, you cannot change it, you cannot add to it, you cannot alter it from what it says. “Shall not be infringed”, look it up and tell me that people cannot own a gun.
I am looking for someone who supports the second amendment. They must be well versed with good arguments to come on my show. Any takers?
I don’t expect any representatives to respond. They will be the first ones to sell us out.
HAHAHA,RICH your way to late ,all your government officals have already sold america out,there ain’t a single one who ain’t guilty of treason,the best way to handle these traitors now would be to round them up and hang every one of them and that would solve the problem……………………………………..
Rich,
Go here: http://righttoreason.blogspot.com/
Greg,
Thanks for the site.
Try the comment just prior to yours on for size, it was my reply to Seazen.
I am really glad you think so highly of yourself. It is obvious to me that you are the one that everyone whispers about when family gathers during a holiday. Nobody needs to debate you but consider this, there is no right way to do that which is wrong. Take any argument and put the viewpoints of the debate in context of the statement I just said. Is there really a right way to kill a baby as abortionists would have you believe? Can I really dictate to you what you should do? Can governments really stop you from praying a certain way or to a certain god or from saying certain things? I for one am glad the bill of rights is a list of restrictions placed upon government. At the very least it exposes those who have designs to exploit the weak and for that I am thankful. Perhaps if you reject the premise of the second amendment you should look into why you would want a government with no checks or balances. I for one would like to know why.
Ted Nugent
People let their emotions overshadow their reasoning. Similar to religious beliefs, some people make up their minds what they want to believe or disbelieve about guns, and some become loud and outspoken about it. We continue to go around and around in circles while gun manufacturers make millions and loonies continue to kill.
John Henry,
I guess you don’t believe in individual liberty but rather collective liberties decided by the “reasonable”. Germany in the 30′s thought the same way. That for your information didn’t turn out too good for certain groups of people in the 40′s.
JEFF,trying to reason with COMMIES is not something I have any success with,how about you?? YOU HAVE to remember the don’t have a god they love hate ,death,and war and they are planning to spend their final days with their daddy LUCIFER….before going into the lake of fire…………………………..