The most important right owned by man by the very nature of being man is the right to life. It is a “human right” if you will. All other rights require a belief in the right to life in order to have any validity. For example one may have a right to free speech but that right is meaningless without an attendant right to life. If one has no right to life then their right of free speech can be silenced by simply ending that life.

If one has an inviolate right to life then it follows that one also has an inviolate right to defend that life when threatened. What right to life do I have if I am unable to stop someone from taking it? Ordinarily, as a civilized society, we in modern terms “outsource” our protection to the military and the police. However, what happens when either of those two entities is unable or unwilling to engage in our defense? In the early 1970’s the District Court in Washington DC ruled that the police do not have an obligation to protect any individual from harm. If the police have no obligation to protect us who does? Are we not then permitted to engage in our own self defense in pursuit of maintaining our right to life?

Many today would deprive us of a method of engaging in self defense. Many today clamor for gun control, even though all statistics show that guns in the hands of private law abiding citizens decrease the amount of crime. Every state that has enacted Right to Carry laws since 1990 has seen a reduction in the amount of violent crime. The highest crime rates are in cities and states which limit the availability of weapons for ordinary citizens.

To paraphrase Patrick Henry; When guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns. This has been driven home time and time again. Washington DC allows no legal gun ownership yet has the highest murder rate in the country. Chicago does not allow its citizens to own guns; gun crime has risen dramatically in the past few years. England and Australia have completely banned both handguns and long guns and have both seen skyrocketing murder rates. Yet the cry to ban guns continues.

The right to life includes the right to protect that right. The availability of handguns and rifles insures that the ordinary citizen has the means to engage in self defense whenever necessary. Anything less is a violation of our civil and human rights.

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Its better to have fussed and crabbed then never to have fussed at all - Lucy