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by Tom Sullivan

Gun control advocates would have us believe that outlawing guns will disarm drug dealers and criminals. Get Real! Outlawing guns will keep drug dealers--the world's experts in international smuggling--from also running guns to criminals? It is clearly impossible to disarm criminals by fiat. Further, if private gun ownership is outlawed, who will then defend citizens from criminals? We would need to have literally a policeman at every street corner and farmhouse. This is known as a "police state." And who will pay for it?

The alternative is old fashioned individual responsibility. The Second Amendment to the Constitution was not written merely for sportsmen, but that citizens might be armed to defend themselves against criminals, tyrants, and invaders. God sent the flood because of sin; especially because of violence. But God knew that men were still wicked after the flood, so He commanded, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man" (Gen. 9:6). Our Founding Fathers drew upon millennia of biblical teaching when giving us the right to keep and bear arms for self defense.

Let citizens, armed as they see fit, be our first defense against crime. Abolish unconstitutional firearms laws, such as "concealed carry" laws that only put honest citizens at a disadvantage with respect to hoodlums. If only one in twenty adults carried a gun, an outlaw who wanted to shoot up a railroad car or restaurant would claim few victims and die in vain.

Would this work? We need only note that burglars rarely enter occupied houses for fear of being shot, even though they know that not all home-owners are armed. Thus, unarmed homeowners are protected to a surprising degree by those who are armed.

But wouldn't this result in an increase in accidental shootings and "crimes of passion"? Let's face it, the answer is yes, a few. Is it worth it? Why do we put up with traffic deaths instead of outlawing automobiles? Because it is a tremendous freedom to be able to get in your car and go anywhere on two continents. Yet, the fear of crime limits this and other freedoms. The price of freedom from pervasive crime by means of an armed citizenry will be a small increase in accidents and impulsive shootings.

We can continue to harass gun owners and lose more freedom, or we can obey God and the Constitution, and, by individual responsibility, reclaim our nation from evildoers. The choice is ours.

Tom Sullivan is an electrical engineer from Pine Village, IN, and a founding member of the American Covenanter Institute.

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