[Badger52]

Thought this would be an appropriate location for Patrick Henry Society's letter RE their upcoming event on 7 February.

When you woke up this morning, the last thing on your mind was probably the state of your gun rights. Maybe you own a gun, maybe you’ve never even held one. Maybe you use your gun to feed your family, shoot skeet on the weekends, or just keep in the closet for a time when you think you might need it. Some of you train with it, carry it daily, and it is simply another thing you grab in the morning along with your wallet and your keys. Whatever your familiarity with guns is does not matter. You don’t even have to like guns, don’t have to want them in your home. There are two facts that anyone familiar with history knows:

1) Before a regime commits horrific acts against its people, it first ensures the people have no guns to fight back with.

2) The freedom that you live under was paid for by a group of colonists who used their guns.

The Ottomans murdered over 1 million people between 1915-1917, after passing laws disarming the people. In 1918, Russia passed the first of its own gun control laws, demanding licensing of gun owners and later banning possession of them at all. From 1929-1945, the government murdered 20 million people. In 1928, Germany passed the Law on Firearms and Ammunition, followed by other gun laws in 1938.

Once the people were disarmed, they passed the Regulations Against Jews, opening the door for the barbaric slaughter of the Holocaust.

In 1927, Nationalist China passed a law demanding government permits for gun ownership, later banning privately owned guns entirely. Between 1927 and 1949, 10 million people died. In 1951, as Communist China, more laws were passed, and once the people were disarmed completely between 20-35 million people were murdered.

Guatemala, 1960-1981: over 100,000 people killed. Uganda, 300,000. Cambodia, 2 million. Rwanda, 800,000. The list goes on and on.

The one thing that all of these events have in common is that the government disarmed the people first. They had to. Guns allow people to refuse slavery, and stand up to tyranny. To this day, genocide and terror exist in every nation where the people are unarmed and defenseless. Perhaps you think that it would just be easier and safer if the only people who had guns were the cops and the military. Maybe you believe in the Second Amendment as an abstract concept, but really don’t see how it affects you.

Now think about how the Constitution came to be. How it is that you are an American, born under liberty. Think of the men who founded this nation. They signed their names—and in doing so, pledged their lives—to a document that in those times equaled treason. Some of them were tortured and killed for it. Joseph Warren never even lived long enough to see the freedom he gave his life to secure for you. Nathan Hale died proudly, wishing he had more than one life to give in liberty’s defense. Other men stood at Lexington, staring down a superior force without blinking. They fought with knives, and their hands…and they fought with guns.

The idea that men with guns purchased our freedom is not a debatable point; it is certain fact. Our liberty came at the cost of blood.

Why should you care about the Second Amendment? The reason is simple. Without a means of defense, you cannot say no to tyranny. What if the Jews had been armed? What if they had risen up as one, and defied the Nazis? Would the world still be seared by the remembrance of one of the greatest evils mankind has ever committed? Or would we instead talk about the brave people who stood against evil? What if the Russian people had been armed? Would 20 million of them have perished under Stalin?

What if people in this nation were not armed? What if there was no one in this country willing to stand against evil? Can you honestly believe that the horrors of Auschwitz cannot happen here? Do you honestly think that a government should be able to do whatever it wishes to the people who elected it into power? If you believe at all that you have a right to be free, then whether you know it or not, you support the right of the citizens to own guns—because a citizen with a gun is literally the only thing that stands between your children and tyranny.

Right now in several states across this nation, citizens are being stripped of their right to defense. They are being told how many guns they can own, what kind they can own, how much ammunition they can have. You don’t need that much. You don’t need that many guns. The government says this, knowing all along that they have every kind of arms imaginable, in nearly unlimited quantities. We have already seen what happens when the government are the only people with guns. Are you willing to bet the freedom of your children on the idea that this government would not do what every other government has done once it disarms its citizens?

As you read this, there is a group of patriots in Washington who are standing up. On February 7th, they will stand for a third time in as many months against unjust laws meant to strip them of their right to defense. In fact, on the 7th they will stand against a state legislature that has said the people are not allowed to openly carry a firearm while viewing the proceedings of their own government. Think about that. The very people we elected, do not want their armed constituents to watch them at work, to see the things they do and say. The real question is what are they doing that they have to be afraid of the people?

These patriots will be arrested on the 7th, because some of them will choose while there to defy the unjust and tyrannical laws being forced on them. What awful thing will they be doing? Walking into a public gallery with a rifle slung over their shoulder. They are not monsters, or crazy gun nuts. They are Americans like you, who love their families and go to work and pay bills. They are Americans who value liberty more than anything else.

They are choosing liberty over peaceful slavery, and they are doing it because someone has to. But they are not standing for just Washington, they stand for all of you. Whether you live in Iowa or California, Maine or Wyoming, it is YOUR right to self-defense that patriots will defend on February 7th. They are being arrested to show that the right of you and your family to refuse to be a slave, is more important than their own comfort.

It no longer matters if you’re a gun owner or not, or if you hunt, or if you think guns are scary and don’t want one. Your continued liberty depends on someone other the government having all the guns, and if it’s not you, then someone else needs to stand. Right now patriots who don’t know you, don’t know your story, don’t even know if you support them or not, are getting ready to stand up for you and your babies. In fact, they’ll be standing to defend your right to call them extremists and ammosexuals.

Those of us fighting this fight appeal to you for help. We ask that if you pray, you pray for us. If you can afford it, consider donating to help pay their bail so they can go home to their families, or get legal help for the case that will come as a result of their stand. If you can make it up here, by all means come. Bring a firearm or don’t, whichever you prefer. But we need you on the line. We need to show our government that we will not allow our rights to be taken. We need to show those who gave their lives for us that their sacrifice meant something, that their struggle and their torture and their deaths were not wasted on a populace too self-absorbed and lazy to bother hanging on to what they paid so dearly to win for us. Let us show the government and the world what freedom looks like, and let us remember the gift that we have been given.

We are standing for your liberty, no matter the cost. We call upon the patriots of this state and this nation to stand with us before it’s too late.



Place: WA State Capitol, Olympia, WA

Date: 7 February 2015

Time: 10am

Other information here.