“When you all go home and you’re talking to your buddies and you say, ah ‘He wants to take my gun away.’ You’ve heard it here, I’m on television so everybody knows it. I believe in the Second Amendment. I believe in people’s lawful right to bear arms. I will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won’t take your handgun away.” —Barack Obama

This was Obama speaking in 2008 at a campaign event in Virginia. But as I write this, Mr. Obama is threatening to use executive order or legislation to gut the Second Amendment by outlawing hundreds of types of firearms. Make no mistake, the list wont stop with semi-automatic rifles and handguns.

When Mr. Obama said he “believes in the Second Amendment,” it was pure fiction for popular consumption. The first thing dictators do is to get the people to relinquish their inherent God-given right of self-defense. If they can get them to do this willingly, all the better. Divide, conquer and never waste a crisis. Hitler, Stalin, Mao... the list goes on and on. History is replete with examples of tyrants and dictators who disarmed the people to remove the last firewall that protects life and liberty.

Our first and greatest president recognized the right and need of the people to bear arms to restrain evil. Washington said, “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference... they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.” But Thomas Jefferson was even more blunt, “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

The abuse of a right as an act of pure evil does not diminish my right or anyone’s right under the Constitution. The issue of the Second Amendment is not about the “sporting use” of arms anymore than freedom of speech and the press are enshrined in the Constitution for maintaining the privilege and power of politicians.

It the darkest days of WWII, when Hitler was knocking on Britain’s doorstep, American citizens mobilized and sent thousands of surplus arms to protect that country from invasion. The British had no Second Amendment and no arms with which to defend themselves. When our own government talks of arming the resistance in Syria, where 60,000 have died and Assad’s assassins are committing mass genocide even as I write this, would our government act by sending them just a few rusty bolt action rifles and revolvers?

Is there any reason to think that our representatives in Montana will actually support and defend the Second Amendment, or, do they, like Obama, simply “believe” in the Second Amendment? Last I checked, they all took a vow to support and defend the Constitution when taking office. But if you are still waiting for Neville Chamberlain and Miss America to usher in world peace, it makes perfect sense to believe that politicians will actually do what they say.

Firearm registration is the camel nose in the tent of gun confiscation. The 1911 Sullivan law in New York has not stopped one violent crime from occurring.  On the contrary, it has emboldened criminals by making it harder for citizens to defend themselves. But now, thanks to that law, thousands of gun owners have had their names posted in a 446 page list and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is calling for even more draconian gun legislation. The thing about tyranny is that it can never be appeased... enough.

Freedom is only as good as your right and ability to defend it. If Obama succeeds with his agenda to destroy the Constitution, we will no longer be free men and free women. You will be a vassal and a pawn with privileges issued only by the State, which can be taken away faster than you can say, “Kristallnacht.”

On Nov. 11, 1938, the German Minister of the Interior passed ”Regulations Against Jews’ Possession of Weapons.” This regulation effectively deprived all Jews of the right to possess firearms or other weapons and paved the way for the wholesale slaughter of millions of defenseless men, women and children.

So before you go quietly into the night and follow the knee-jerk hysteria of the media and the demagogues of dependency into the pit of destruction, understand first that all the freedoms we take for granted today as Americans were bought with a very high price.

Had the British gun grabbers at Lexington and Concord succeeded, America would not exist.

What is America worth to you?

Seymour is a Kalispell area resident.