Tucson: Second Amendment the solution, not the problem

By Bryan Fischer

Following the tragic shooting last Saturday in Tucson, the left has been in full cry calling for stricter gun control laws and advocating for everything up to and including repeal of the Second Amendment.

Not only is Sarah Palin the problem, in their fevered imaginations, guns are the problem. James Clyburn is openly blaming the tragedy on the Second Amendment, which means that Rep. Clyburn believes the Constitution itself is to blame for what happened. So much for his solemn and sacred oath to uphold and defend the supreme legal document of the United States.

Would it be too much to ask to expect members of Congress to actually believe in the Constitution they are sworn to follow?

Sen. Patrick Leahy remarked that Vermont has very little in the way of gun control laws and yet is the safest state in the nation. But he says, he wouldn't want Vermont's liberty to be replicated in urban settings. Parsing that, he wants Vermonters to be able to defend themselves against criminals, but not the folks in New York City. If you live in a big city, Sen. Leahy wants you to be a sitting duck, open prey for any whacko with a gun that comes along.

And he never seems to have paused to consider the possibility that Vermont is as safe as it is because the bad guys never knew who might be packing heat and thus might be in a position to blow them away if they try something nefarious.

The stark reality is that the Second Amendment was not the problem on Saturday, it was the solution.

The problem was not that there were too many guns in the parking lot of that Safeway but that there were too few.

If somebody besides this lunatic had been packing that morning, everybody might be alive today. If just one person around Rep. Giffords had been exercising his constitutional right to bear arms, it is entirely possible that Jared Loughner could have been sent to his particular circle of hell before he'd had a chance to fire a second shot.

Rep. Giffords is alive today, and given a "101 percent" chance of survival by her doctors. The families of the six dead people are not so fortunate.

These families are all in a position today to wish that more people, not fewer, had been armed and dangerous last weekend — dangerous to nutjobs like Loughner.

St. George Tucker, a federal judge under James Madison, said, "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."

Loughner's six victims tell us that Tucker was right. If we want to see more senseless tragedies like this, then let's listen to the nattering nabobs on the left. If we want fewer senseless tragedies like this, let's listen to the Founders. Patrick Henry, for instance, said quite explicitly, "The great object is that every man be armed ... Everyone who is able may have a gun."

Added Richard Henry Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and a framer of the Second Amendment, "[T]o 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."

Sharron Angle was exactly right. There are certain circumstances under which the only remedies that work are "Second Amendment remedies." Saturday in Tucson was one of those circumstances. She is reflecting the Founders' vision of America, a land in which its citizens are armed, dangerous (for bad guys and tyrants), and safe.

(Unless otherwise noted, the opinions expressed are the author's and do not necessarily reflect the views of the American Family Association or American Family Radio.)

© Bryan Fischer