FW: Let Americans Provide their own security.

Can you believe good stuff like this is making the paper? Normally we can
count on liberal media editorial board censorship, but somehow this one got
through. Pancho V.

—–Original Message—–
From: Jim Dexter [[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, September 01, 2004 11:06 AM
To: K-Talk Forum
Cc: NiteOut
Subject: FW: Let Americans Provide their own security.

>From the Miami Herald
Posted on Sat, Aug. 28, 2004

Let Americans provide their own security

BY BENEDICT D. LAROSA

www.fff.org

Gun-control laws, like all ill-advised measures, have unintended, often
unfortunate, consequences. This is especially true in the post-Sept. 11
environment.

Recently, Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge upgraded the nation’s
alert status because of credible intelligence that several financial
buildings in New York City, Newark, N.J., and Washington, D.C., are intended
terrorist targets. Immediately, heavily armed, submachine-gun-toting
government agents surrounded the buildings — five in all — and tightened
security in the area.

Our founders’ wisdom

What about other potential targets? While federal, state and local police
were guarding these buildings, who was guarding the thousands of other
potential targets nationwide? How long can this level of security be
maintained at these five buildings? What if the terrorists wait until the
extra security is removed and then act? What if they strike at unguarded
buildings somewhere else?

This is where the wisdom of our founders comes into play. They advocated a
nation-at-arms where everyone who wished would be armed. They went so far as
to guarantee this right in the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. As
men of wisdom, intelligence and education, they knew that no one can always
predict the type of threat that the nation might face. So they prepared for
every eventuality by providing not only for national and state military (and
naval) forces but also for an armed populace.

Why? Beyond the obvious need to counterbalance government gone awry, they
understood that point defense is better than area defense. That is, a
building, farm house, home, bridge or road intersection is easier to defend
with few people than is a collection of buildings, farm houses, homes or a
wider geographic area. Since national and state forces are, by their very
nature and numbers, insufficient to provide point defense of all such
structures and places, it stands to reason that the owners or inhabitants of
these structures and places would be in a better position to guard and
defend them. Besides, they would have a vested interest in doing so.

Cornering the enemy

The national and state forces would then be free to conduct offensive
operations to subdue any hostile force rather than scatter its limited
resources throughout the country attempting to defend inadequately
everyone’s home or business. A potential enemy would also be faced with
defeating several layers of defenders and suffering the continued resistance
of the populace if the organized forces were defeated, as in Iraq today.

However, gun control has made point defense of every possible target
difficult if not impossible. If citizens were free to procure whatever
firearms they desired without interference from government, as they should
be, then the owners and occupiers of homes and businesses could provide
their own high level of security using whatever weapons they considered
appropriate, such as submachine guns. Government forces could then
concentrate their limited resources in manpower, funds and equipment to seek
out and destroy the terrorists without having to worry about guarding every
possible static structure that a terrorist might attack.

We have ample evidence of how successful point defense by owners and
inhabitants can be. During the Los Angeles riots of 1992, following the
acquittal of the policemen charged with beating Rodney King, the National
Guard and police refused to engage the looters and rioters. But several
merchants — mostly Korean — used semiautomatic ”assault rifles” with
highcapacity magazines to successfully fend off the looters and save their
businesses.

Arm, train the public

Also, in 1999, a man armed with a handgun took three hostages at a shooting
range in San Mateo, Calif. An employee took a gun from the range and shot
the gunman, freeing the hostages. According to the National Survey on
Private Ownership and Use of Firearms funded by the Justice Department under
President Clinton, between 1.5 and three million people in the United States
use a firearm to defend themselves and others every year. Point defense by
armed citizens works very well.

Instead of hamstringing people with myriad gun-control measures, governments
at all levels should encourage them to arm and train themselves. Funds for
homeland security would thus be better spent, American military and security
forces relieved of an impossible task and homeland security enhanced.

Benedict LaRosa, a historian and writer, serves as a policy advisor to The
Future of Freedom Foundation.

THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS HOMELAND SECURITY!