![\"Why](\"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/2nd_Amendment_Freedom_01_325px.jpg\")
by Mark Almonte –\nThe two strongest reasons for civilians to own assault weapons are self-defense and defense against tyranny.<\/p>\n
by Mark Almonte –
\nThe two strongest reasons for civilians to own assault weapons are self-defense and defense against tyranny.<\/p>\n
One self-defense situation that comes to mind is the L.A. riots. Who can forget the nightly news’s live footage of thugs hurling rocks at passing cars, buildings on fire, and looters smashing storefront windows? Then there was the savage beating of truck driver Reginald Denny.<\/p>\n
What was stunningly absent from the video footage? There were no police or fire personnel.<\/p>\n
According to the Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/em>, police were ordered to stay out of the area for three hours.\u00a0 Numerous 911 calls for assault, murder, and fire-bombings went unanswered.\u00a0 But as the violence raged, one group of citizens refused to be victims — the Korean storeowners. <\/p>\n The Los Angeles Times<\/a><\/em> reported that Richard Rhee had a group on the rooftop of his store armed with shotguns and assault rifles.\u00a0 They scared off carloads of rioters by firing shots in the air.\u00a0 Rhee and his group watched a mini-mart a half-block away burn to the ground.\u00a0 “Jay Rhee … and other employees at a mini-mall at Santa Monica and Vermont … fought a back-and-fourth battle with several hundred looters who surged into the parking lot[.]”<\/p>\n Over fifty people died during the riots.\u00a0 Twenty-three homicides remain unsolved<\/a>.\u00a0 The business owners and the homicide victims relied on the police to respond.\u00a0 For many, the response never came.\u00a0 When there’s no law and order — only chaos — that’s when civilians need assault weapons.<\/p>\n The armed Korean storeowners successfully defended themselves because assault rifles are the pre-eminent self-defense weapons.\u00a0 Assault rifles look and sound intimidating.\u00a0 When you fire a 9mm handgun, it makes a popping noise.\u00a0 When you fire an AK-47, it sounds like thunder.\u00a0 Most assault rifles were designed to be effective up to 400 meters<\/a>.\u00a0 Most handguns are accurate only up to about twenty-five yards.\u00a0 Rifle rounds have twice the velocity and four times the muzzle energy of handgun rounds.\u00a0 Their accuracy and power make assault rifles very effective against multiple attackers. \u00a0In a riot situation, an assault rifle levels the playing field.<\/p>\n A second self-defense situation to consider is defending against a home invasion.\u00a0 In Cheshire, Connecticut<\/a>, the suspects in a home invasion raped two of the female victims and then murdered the entire family.\u00a0 The dad was the only survivor.<\/p>\n In 2011, in Houston, Texas<\/a>, there was a rash of home invasions by masked teams of attackers armed with guns.\u00a0 The attacks resulted in three victims being shot to death.<\/p>\n Home invasions, in the public definition, generally involve more than one attacker.\u00a0 Two facts can’t be ignored: one, assault rifles are the best weapon against multiple attackers, and two, eight<\/a> minutes is the average police response time for life-threatening calls in medium-size cities.\u00a0 A lot can happen in eight minutes.<\/p>\n In Harris County, Texas<\/a><\/a>, a fifteen-year-old boy was home alone with his twelve-year-old sister when two burglars broke into the house.\u00a0 The young boy got his father’s assault rifle and shot one of the burglars.\u00a0 The boy and his sister were unharmed, and the burglars were apprehended. \u00a0Assault rifles can take lives, but as shown in this case, they can also save lives.<\/p>\n There is a less relevant yet nonetheless interesting self-defense reason for owning an assault weapon: defense of country.\u00a0 One of the reasons that the Nazis did not invade Switzerland was the fact that every Swiss man had a rifle.\u00a0 According to scholar Stephen Halbrook<\/a>, “… we have no better record than the Nazi invasion plans, which stated that, because of the Swiss shooting skills, Switzerland would be difficult to conquer and pacify.”\u00a0 Collectively defending a nation from invasion is the ultimate form of self-defense.\u00a0 The Swiss have a high gun ownership<\/a> rate, but the U.S. has the highest in the world.<\/p>\n Our Founding Fathers gave us the most profound justification for civilians owning assault rifles: protection from tyranny.\u00a0 Many people believe that the United States could never become despotic, but it is not implausible for a democracy to turn tyrannical.\u00a0 In 1925, Italy<\/a> went from a parliamentary democracy to a dictatorship under Mussolini.\u00a0 In 1933, Germany went from a parliamentary democracy to a totalitarian regime under Hitler<\/a>.\u00a0 In 1939, Spain went from a republic to a dictatorship under Franco<\/a>.\u00a0 As Ronald Reagan once said, “[f]reedom<\/a> is never more than one generation away from extinction.”<\/p>\n Once tyranny usurps power over the people, unconscionable brutality soon becomes the norm.\u00a0 In 1938, Hitler<\/a> banned Jews from possessing firearms.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter, weapons were confiscated, followed by genocide of the Jewish population.\u00a0 Six million<\/a> Jews were killed throughout Europe and the Soviet area.\u00a0 In 1915, the Ottoman Empire put forth a decree disarming<\/a> all Armenians.\u00a0 Shortly thereafter, weapons were confiscated, followed by genocide of the Armenian population.\u00a0 Approximately one million<\/a> were killed.\u00a0 In 1918, the Soviet Union introduced firearm registration followed by confiscation.\u00a0 Communist Party members were exempt from the confiscation order.\u00a0 From 1929 to 1945, Stalin committed genocide against “Kulaks” and Communist dissidents. \u00a0An estimated twenty million<\/a> were killed.\u00a0 For additional reading, see Lethal Laws<\/em> or Gun Control: Gateway to Tyranny<\/em>.<\/p>\n Assault weapons are necessary for defense against tyranny because they are the weapons of the common soldier — just as the flintlock musket was during the Revolutionary War era. \u00a0In Federalist<\/a> #46, one of our Founding Fathers, James Madison, argued for an armed citizenry.\u00a0 At the time, there was a fear that if the United States had a standing army, it could one day be used against American citizens.\u00a0 Madison believed that a United States standing army would consist of no more than “twenty-five or thirty thousand men.”\u00a0 If the citizens were armed, they would consist of a militia of almost “half a million citizens.”\u00a0 He argued that it was doubtful that a standing army of thirty thousand could conquer a half million armed citizens.\u00a0 Surely the Founding Fathers didn’t expect the citizens to arm themselves with sticks.\u00a0 To repel a standing army, the citizens must possess the weapon of the common soldier.\u00a0 Today, the common soldier’s weapon is an assault rifle.<\/p>\n Critics mock the tyranny argument as silly and outdated, but a new Rasmussen poll<\/a> shows that 65 percent of Americans believe that the Second Amendment’s purpose is to protect them from tyranny.<\/p>\n Tyranny doesn’t announce itself by wearing a sign.\u00a0 Tyranny can start as a homeless painter<\/a> exploiting social frustrations like Hitler or a newspaper journalist<\/a> promising unity like Mussolini.\u00a0 The cost of tyranny is high.\u00a0 It’s your freedom. \u00a0Having an assault rifle tells a despot that the cost to take your freedom will also be high.<\/p>\n Civilian-owned assault rifles could defend against rioters or a home invasion, or provide the last barrier in a long list of checks and balances to prevent tyranny.\u00a0 Assault rifles can mean the difference between life and death, between liberty and tyranny.\u00a0 In the hands of law-abiding citizens, assault rifles are a symbol of self-reliance.\u00a0 It’s an American value that has defined this country and made it great.<\/p>\n HT: American Thinker<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Mark Almonte – The two strongest reasons for civilians to own assault weapons are self-defense and defense against tyranny. One self-defense situation that comes to mind is the L.A. riots. Who can forget the nightly news’s live footage of thugs hurling rocks at passing cars, buildings on fire, and looters smashing storefront windows? Then … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":497,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[84,79,142],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-of-innocence","category-freedom","category-leftist-tyranny"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/497"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.orthodoxytoday.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}