A Speech by Lt. Harry Thomas, Cincinnati Police Division, Fountain
Square, Cincinnati, Ohio. Delivered February 27, 1994.

Welcome to the People’s Republic of Cincinnati!

As usual, since I am speaking publicly, I must make the following
disclaimer: I am not speaking to you as an official spokesman or
representative of the Cincinnati Police Division. If I don’t say that,
I’m liable to have visitors waiting for me when I get back to work.

For the past 21 years, I have been a member of the Cincinnati Police
Division. On three occasions, I have sworn a solemn oath; once when I
was promoted from cadet to patrolman, once when I was promoted from
patrolman to sergeant, and yet again when I was promoted from sergeant
to lieutenant. That oath was to support the Constitution of The United
States of America.

I have buried almost a dozen of my fellow police officers who died
defending that oath. The last one died right before my eyes in the major
trauma room of University Hospital. I signed the receipt for his body so
that he could be transported to the morgue. I think about those men
often, and I think about what they died for. And that is why I become
furiously angry when I see our Constitution, the most remarkable
document ever written in the course of human existence, being used as
toilet paper at every level of government.

The Brady Bill is now a reality. For the first time in the history of
our country, American citizens must request the government’s permission
to exercise a constitutional right. And if the government sees its way
clear to grant permission, we must wait 5 days to exercise the right.

But even this is not enough to please our keepers in
Sodom-By-The-Potomac. Gun laws are not being passed quickly enough to
suit our federal law enforcement agencies, so they have formulated their
own plan to discourage gun ownership.

In Ruby Ridge, Idaho, Sammy Weaver, age 14, the son of Randy Weaver, a
man who had taken his family to the mountains to escape the tyranny of a
government run amok, was hunting in the forest near the Weaver cabin
with his dog. He wasn’t the only person hunting in that forest that day.
Sammy Weaver was ambushed and fatally shot in the back by two United
States Marshals. And lest anyone accuse the US Marshals of not being
thorough in the performance of their assigned tasks, I would point out
that they also shot the dog, also in the back.

Later, Vicki Weaver, Randy’s wife and the mother of the Weaver children,
opened the door of the Weaver cabin to admit her husband, who had been
in a nearby shed to visit the body of his son. Vicki Weaver was holding
her 10 month old infant daughter in her arms. That proved to be only a
slight inconvenience to FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi, as he shot Vicki Weaver
through the head. She fell dead to the floor, her skull exploded, still
clutching her daughter in her lifeless arms. It would appear that it is
now a capital offense to be the son, wife, or dog of a gun owner.

Waco. “Waco” is a word which, among American patriots, engenders the
same anguished feelings of outrage as the word “Alamo.” Last year, at
the NRA Convention in Nashville, my wife and I returned to our hotel
room and flipped on CNN to see the latest developments in Waco. The
Branch Davidian compound was burning. My wife cried. She knew that there
were many children in that compound. She asked me why. Why are they
burning the compound? I told her the simple truth: They have to burn it.
Has anyone here seen and read the Waco search warrant affidavit? It’s
crap. It didn’t establish enough probable cause to even knock on the
Branch Davidian’s door.

When the FBI took over from the BATF (which some people say actually
stands for Burn All Toddlers First) they knew that they would find no
illegal weapons in the Branch Davidian compound. They were between a
rock and a hard place. 4 ATF men dead, and an unknown number of Branch
Davidians dead, the FBI had only one choice: destroy the compound, so
that no one could ever prove whether illegal weapons were present or
not.

For hours, the FBI pumped supposedly non-lethal CS gas into the
compound. Those of us in law enforcement and the military know
differently. CS gas, in high concentrations in an enclosed area, is
lethal. The first ones to be affected, by vomiting, convulsions,
unconsciousness and death, would be the children. The same children that
the feds claimed they were trying to rescue from the evil cultists. The
same children that local Texas authorities found to be happy and healthy
under the care of the Branch Davidians.

The FBI did not pump CS gas into the Branch Davidian compound to force
its occupants to come out. They pumped that gas in to make sure the
occupants couldn’t come out. Dead gun owners, and dead gun owners’
children, tell no tales.

The time has come for us to openly discuss something that up to this
time we have mainly whispered about. The purpose of the 2nd amendment is
to threaten the government. The framers of our Constitution knew that
government is a necessary evil, which, as in the case of the British
government, could easily become more evil than necessary. The Founding
Fathers wanted to ensure that should that situation again come to pass,
the American people would have the capability to reclaim their country
by force of arms.

I believe that we are dangerously close to that day when we will have to
use the 2nd Amendment in exactly the manner that our forefathers
anticipated. When I was a boy, my father could buy firearms through the
mail. It was rightly believed at that time that such a transaction was
the business of the buyer, the gun dealer, and no one else. I lost that
right with the passage of the GCA 68 [Gun Control Act of 1968]. In my
lifetime, I have been able to walk into a gun store, select a handgun,
and walk out of that store with that gun in my hand. My children lost
that right with the passage of the Brady Bill. I’m not giving up any
more rights.

I sincerely hope that a political solution to this problem is still
possible, and I will continue to work on the NRA Board of Directors to
try to find that solution. But if that solution cannot be found, I say
this to the megalomaniacs in Washington:

Pass your gun laws. I will not beg the government for a license to
continue to be a handgun owner. I will not submit to being
fingerprinted, or photographed, or interrogated like a criminal for
claiming my birthright as a free American. I will not register a single
gun that I own. I will not surrender a single gun that I own. I will not
apply for an “arsenal” license because I own more than 20 guns or more
than a thousand rounds of ammunition. I will not attend mandatory safety
training, nor will I submit to a test to prove that I’m fit to be a gun
owner.

And Miss Reno, I have this to say to you: If you send your jack-booted,
baby-burning bushwhackers to confiscate my guns, pack them a lunch; it
will be a damned long day. The Branch Davidians were amateurs; I’m a
professional.

Patrick Henry, while addressing the Virginia House of Burgesses on March
23, 1775, put these concepts into words in a manner far better than I
can ever hope to:

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course
others may take, but as for me, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH!”

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Reprinted from Aid & Abet Police Newsletter, 4/94, Volume II, Number 6,
pages 12-13. Address: P.O. Box 8787, Phoenix, AZ 85066.ph