January 19th, 2013, Boston –
This past Monday I decided to visit the Lexington Green to pay my tribute to Captain John Parker. As I was walking on the Green, I thought to myself, ‘you know what? The Founding Fathers of the United States and Chairman Mao have one thing in common. They all thought guns are very important political instruments.’ However, their similarities ended there.
Chairman Mao wrote in one time, he said ‘political power grew out of the barrel of a gun.’ And he also wrote ‘the Party shall command the guns.’ However, in 1791 James Madison and his compatriots, believing that the power of the government is derived from the consent of the governed. And they wrote, ‘the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.’
23 years ago I was in my freshman year at college in China and I was exercising my freedom of speech and assembly in Tiananmen Square, much like we’re doing today. We grew frustrated by the governmental of corruption, we grew frustrated by the limitation of personal freedom. So, we demonstrated peacefully. However, the young and passionate patriotism were crushed by hails of full metal jackets by the AK 47s. Or, some of you would say, that’s technically Type 56. We could not fight back because we did not have an inch of iron in our hands, to borrow a Chinese expression. We were not armed.
Gun owners like us often say the Second Amendment is the protector against a tyrannical government. Some would argue that a man with a rifle has no standing against the military technology and machines of today. However, I would say that 20 million citizens in Beijing sure wish they had some rifles at their dispense in those days.
Freedom is not free. Liberty has costs. We recognize that in this free society, criminals or mentally deranged can get weapons and murder the innocents. The answer, however, is not to disarm the law abiding citizens. Not only criminals and the deranged will violate the laws anyway, but more importantly, because when a government turns criminal, when a government turns deranged, the body count will not be five, ten or even twenty. They will be in the hundreds like in Tiananmen Square. They will be in the millions as proved by the 90-year rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
Our constitutional republic may look fuzzy and loving today. Well, if you think so, I’ve got a TSA agent that I’d like you to meet. But, keep in mind, that absolute power corrupts absolutely. And when a government has a monopoly on guns, they have absolute power.
Do you know that the Chinese Constitution guarantees almost all the nice things we have here? It is written in the Chinese Constitution that Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of speech and religion, they have human rights and property rights, and such rights cannot be taken away without the due process of the law. And do you know what? Chinese people do not have the right to keep and bear arms. I assure you all those nice things written on the Chinese Constitution are not worth the weight of the paper they are printed on. Because, when the government has all the guns, they have all the rights.
I was not born a U.S. citizen, I was naturalized in 2007. In 2008, I became a proud gun owner. To me, a rifle is not for sporting or hunting, it is an instrument of freedom. It guarantees that I cannot be coerced, that I have free will, that I am a free man.
Now suppose the 20 million Beijing citizens had a couple million rifles on hand in 1989. How many rounds should they have been allowed to load into their magazines? 10 rounds? 7 rounds? How about 3 rounds?
Do not give up the fight, my friends. It may be a small step that you give up your rifle, or a 30-round magazine, but it will be a giant leap in the destruction of this great republic.
In closing I will quote the words of Captain John Parker. “Stand your ground. Do not fire until fired upon. But if they want a war, let it start here!”
Video courtesy of ItsTime2A.
