As South Dakota Board of Regents recommend banning guns on postsecondary campuses, Judge Roy Moore explains how wrong that would be:
The right to keep and bear arms was considered by our Founding Fathers to be one of the most crucial of all liberties. St. George Tucker, an attorney and a military officer who was wounded twice in the American Revolution and later served as a Virginia Supreme Court justice and a federal judge, once commented:
The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever … the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. (Emphasis added.)
Similarly, Zechariah Johnston, another Revolutionary soldier who also served in the Virginia legislature and Constitutional Ratification Convention, said:
The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them. … This is a principle which secures religious liberty most firmly.
It could be said that a fight over gun ownership sparked our fight for America's independence. In the months leading up to our war for independence, the British tried to disarm the American "rebels." But in April 1775, when British forces on their way to capture a colonial stockpile of arms at Concord, Mass., encountered resistance on the public green at Lexington, the famous "shot heard round the world" was fired by the Minute Men who stood up to the British.
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The right to own guns is not just for the hunter, sportsman or police officer. The right to own weapons for self-defense – whether against criminals or tyrants – belongs to every American and is secured for every American by the Second Amendment. Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration, once said, "To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." (Emphasis added.)
