PROVIDENCE JOURNAL-BULLETIN (RHODE ISLAND)
Alfred Barna

Warwick
July 8, 2008 Tuesday

LETTERS
Guns vs. tyranny

History has proven again and again that to deny citizens the
protections of any part of the Bill of Rights favors not the citizen,
but tyranny.

Very rarely do people fear their neighbors. But people have every
right to fear the government s attempts to disarm citizens. Just
ask the Armenians slaughtered by the Turks in 1915-1923, the Jews of
Europe during Hitler s reign of terror, the people murdered by Lenin
and Stalin and Mao and Pol Pot. Consider Saddam Hussein s murder of
Shiites and Kurds. These tyrants killed 255 million people. Compare
that with the handful killed by deranged shooters in the United States.

Because of private gun ownership, people in the United States are
ultimately safer than in other countries. I would much prefer the
government s living in fear of the people than the people living in
fear of the government. When government no longer fears its people
s power to resist tyranny, tyranny is certainly around the corner.

One need only to read the writings of Thomas Jefferson, or any of
the other Founding Fathers, to know that they considered the right
to keep and bear arms a fundamental right. That right remains so,
for man s very nature has not changed.

If we stuck with Jeffersonian ideas, we would have a trained citizenry
at arms should the need arise.