In our Constitution, there is a right held by all that is the “black sheep” of the Bill of Rights. Many of you may think I am talking about the Third Amendment, because when is the last time you have ever heard someone advocate why soldiers should not be quartered in our homes? Well you’re one off if you guessed that one, because I’m actually talking about the Second Amendment.

Yes, we don’t really have to fend off an imminent invasion anytime soon (knock on wood) but that is not the sole reason for it. The Second Amendment is the safety valve for liberty against oppression: It ensures that we, as law-abiding and liberty-loving citizens, have the ability to press the “reset” button if our government gets out of control.

Some of you might think the Second Amendment’s use of the word “people” only applies to the government and that we should only be allowed to own Revolutionary War style/Basic Functioning weapons. Based upon that logic, the First Amendment would only apply to government press officers and ban these new “full-automatic presses,” which can be used to assault the masses by putting out hundreds of lies and stories full of misinformation when used maliciously. Instead, we should only use the technology available to Ben Franklin, since that’s what the framers meant when they wrote the First Amendment.

Some of you out there are thinking that the Second Amendment’s time has come and passed and that you, as a law-abiding citizen, do not need firearms. If that truly is the case, you would not need the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments, since those are meant for criminals – and you’re not a criminal, right? So then you have nothing to worry about. I mean, why else would one need the guarantee of criminal protection under the law unless he or she is a criminal?

Then I get to hear the great argument saying only the police and military need guns. That’s a funny statement since the active duty military can’t act upon U.S. soil in a police or quasi-governmental function (see the Posse Comitatus Act). Then we get into the police and the government and the fact that they cannot be everywhere at once, coupled with the case Warren v. District of Columbia that explains that we are on our own.

So now we have established that the government in any form, at any level, is powerless to help you. Also, nine out of 10 totalitarian dictators agree: It’s far easier to conduct a coup d’etat when nobody has guns except their own forces. We can also look at examples of police brutality and civil rights abuse cases that have occurred.

Do you really want the guys like the NYPD, who just recently shot a man 20 times because his hairbrush was mistaken for a firearm, to be the only ones allowed to bear arms? Would many of you feel truly safe in areas where racism and discrimination are still rampant, if the only people allowed to own firearms were those who were the racists? So, either you believe in the good nature of the police or you are scared of the racist and crooked cops out there: Which is it?

Firearms control cost at least 30 million people their lives between 1933 and 1953, so the argument of being able to save a few lives is horrific. The two brutal men responsible for this realized that no firearms meant easy pickings for the execution squads. I fully believe one thing that many of the murdered would have wished for were weapons, since I doubt they were happy about being on the short end of the genocide stick.

Maybe some of you out there think I am wrong. You may think, “How could anyone wish to inflict violence upon people in any situation?” But in reality you are not living in a walled ghetto and being ethnically cleansed, so your ideas are a little different.

I am not telling people that they should go and buy firearms. What I am telling you is that just because you don’t believe I should own a firearm does not mean you should automatically get your way. If this is the case, you should be silenced whenever you say something that I don’t want to hear or I deem offensive. Whatever you think about firearms is your own opinion; just don’t force it upon me.

Guns protect society from the barbarian rule of the young, the strong and the many by giving everyone equal footing to protect all that is dear to them. Then again, I might be wrong, and some of you might actually like to be subjugated because you can’t fight back, but in truth, most of us like living as free men and not as slaves.