“I always thought that fighting for freedom was something that happened overseas, but today … we are having to fight for our freedom in our own country.” (U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt, at a conservative panel meeting with ‘Joe the Plumber’ in Topeka, Friday, January 29, 2010).

Congressman Tiahrt could not have been more accurate.

Since the revolutionary war, our battles for freedom have been overseas against enemies whose goal was our destruction. Today, our enemy is not a specific foreign nation, although there are some who would love to see our destruction. Our enemy is not actually “terrorism,” which is often held up as our enemy but is not always an identifiable nation or people. Yes, there are some countries that actively sponsor terrorism, and these countries want our destruction. But terrorism is not the enemy.

“Terrorism” is a concept, or a tactic, not in itself an enemy. So who is the enemy that is challenging our freedom?

The enemy is a burgeoning federal government moving at full speed to strip us of our liberty and freedom. Its motive is to exercise control of every person. The only reason that the United States is not already a totalitarian police state is the fact that Americans love freedom and liberty, and Americans are armed. The people of these United States represent a well regulated and armed militia.

According to the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, this well regulated militia is necessary to preserve the security of a free state. People are free only as long as freedom can be defended, and our founders knew quite well that a central government would gradually expand its power until people were no longer free. Thus, our Second Amendment is a powerful counter-balance.

The colonists secured freedom from British tyranny for one, and only one reason … they not only loved freedom and liberty, they were armed. They were a well regulated, armed, militia. Without arms, the battle for freedom would have been futile and the colonists would have been defeated quickly. The struggle began when General Gage of the British occupying force began disbanding public meetings and randomly confiscating firearms. Storehouses were raided and powder was confiscated under orders of the British Crown. Roadblocks were set up and citizens were stripped of their arms. Door-to-door searches were conducted and firearms were confiscated. British soldiers regularly set up housekeeping in colonists’ homes to control and intimidate the colonists.

The colonists at first did not necessarily want to be a sovereign nation; they only wanted the rights that British citizens enjoyed. Instead of receiving these rights, more oppression, such as the Stamp Act, was imposed. Like all tyrants, the British Crown was maintaining control through police-state tactics. The British Crown had grown deaf to the colonists’ demands---and blind to what was really happening---and the first battle for independence was at Concord, Massachusetts.

Today, our federal government is growing increasingly deaf to the people it serves, and that is due in part because the federal government is no longer our servant but has become our master. Fact is, the fed is acting a lot like the British Crown acted, only worse. Our federal government has grown so corrupt and tyrannical that our leaders have as much reason to fear we the people as did the British Crown some 230 years ago. That is why the fed today is doing what the British occupiers did to the colonists.

The fed is making constant attempts to “regulate” firearms out of existence, and making owning a firearm more and more a privilege and a cumbersome one at that. There is constant talk of making ammunition almost impossible to purchase due to outrageous attempts at micro-stamping bullets and excessive taxes. The federal government is running roughshod over state laws and declaring that the federal government is the sole arbiter of all laws concerning firearms, and that federal laws supersede state laws.

All these attempts at making firearm ownership as difficult as possible have nothing to do with crime control, which is often touted as the motive. Every discussion about “safety” as a pretext for banning some firearms or confiscating all firearms is only cover for the real goal of disarming law-abiding citizens and denying us the most basic right of defending ourselves. The fear is that Americans will defend their homes and their persons against a tyrannical central government that is bent on taking control over every citizen’s life. The only safety concern is for the safety of those who wish to place us under bondage.

Don’t fall for any of this. Do not believe that “gun control” is about safety or reducing crime. We can’t say it too many times: The fed wants our guns, pure and simple. The fed must remove the threat that we the people will resist with all means giving up our liberty and freedom. A well regulated (and armed) general militia is a real problem for an aggressive federal government that wants to control us. That is exactly what our founders envisioned and intended with the Second Amendment.

As President Ronald Reagan said, ‘The federal government did not create the states, the states created the federal government.’ True freedom and control over tyranny begins in the states. A strong state government will recognize that the Second Amendment is the cornerstone of all other freedoms … if the Second Amendment goes away---as many in the federal government desperately hope---all the other rights will disappear. Each state has the right under the Tenth Amendment to tell the federal government “No!” when it comes to unconstitutional intrusions. One of the most flagrant intrusions is federal laws usurping state laws concerning firearms purchasing and ownership.

Kansas is taking action to preserve our liberty. SCR 1615, which is more popularly known as the “Tenth Amendment State Sovereignty Resolution,” was recently released from the Senate Judiciary Committee with a vote of 10-1 approval. HB 2620, the “Firearms Freedom Act,” was introduced in the Kansas House of Representatives. These two pieces of legislation are much more than mere symbolic gestures, they are evidence that “we the people” know what is going on and we are saying “enough!”

Let us be vigilant and preserve our liberty. We can do this by supporting legislators who recognize the threat to our liberty and are seeing to it that Kansas safeguards our rights while a run-away federal government continues to contrive ways to take our freedom from us.

Our freedom and liberty begins and ends with the Second Amendment. Let’s persevere and strengthen our rights under the Second Amendment and not surrender our freedom and liberty.

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Royce Bounds began his career as a police officer for Leawood, Kansas, last serving as a Detective Sergeant and Field Sergeant. He resigned to return to school, and continued his education at Sterling College, majoring in Church History. Then he completed seminary and was ordained in the Christian Church (DOC). He is now semi-retired but still preaches an occasional sermon. He is also a reserve Deputy Sheriff for the Wyandotte County Sheriff’s Office.

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