Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 10, 1991 TAG: 9103110286
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: D-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The function of protecting the Union has been taken over by a standing federal army. But does that make the Second Amendment superfluous? Only if you overlook the wisdom of the original system.
Most agree that freedom carries a heavy price and responsibility. But some think this price and responsibility can be successfully transferred to someone else: that an elite group of people can bear all the fear, danger and bloodshed while the rest of us live in safety and security. This is a dangerous illusion. As Benjamin Franklin warned, people seem willing to exchange their liberty for security. It is a bad bargain, he said; they end up with neither.
Kuwait's illusion was shattered by a swift and devastating invasion, China's by a massacre that resulted from a peaceful demonstration. Freely armed citizens are the best and often the only deterrent to power-hungry tyrants, both foreign and domestic, as well as to common thieves and the like. Our guns protect in a universal as well as personal way.
As Mr. Stumpp says, this is a "democracy in which intelligent people vote to govern themselves." Self-government is the best way to secure the blessings of liberty. Fortunately, the American people can vote to govern themselves. But they can also vote to have others govern them.
To quote another famous American, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. As a democracy we can, out of fear, elect to allow further infringement on our right to arms and start giving up control of our guns. But if the time comes when we need them back, it will be too late to ask. ANDREW AKERS SALEM
by CNB