WHAT I THINK.....TIM BOYLE

Every individual having a natural right to life, liberty, and property, in turn, has a natural right to defend them.

Any law meant to deprive an individual from obtaining the means necessary to defend these rights is an infringement on his liberty and is unjust.

If I wish to own a hand gun, I have that right.

If I wish to own a hunting rifle, I have that right.

If I wish to own an assault rifle — as outrageous as that may sound to you — I have that right and it can not legitimately be taken from me.

Those who wish to deny individuals their natural rights, even when done for apparent humanitarian reasons, are acting as tyrants. The gun control advocates' goal of disarming every individual destroys his/her right to self-defense and, in turn, puts every other one of his/her natural rights in greater danger. Gun control laws are morally wrong, constitutionally illegal, and detrimental to the safety of many peaceful citizens.

As Thomas Paine once asked, —¦If a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to 'bind me in all cases whatsoever' to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?" To say one must allow such destruction of one's life, liberty and property, and to not allow for the means to protect such rights, is to say that the individual does not hold these natural rights, and that whoever holds the power shall decide what "rights" will be granted. Such an idea is preposterous.

The Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights does not grant but acknowledges the individual's natural right to defend him or herself with whatever means he deems necessary. Our founders understood that this right must be protected in order to allow the protection of their other natural rights.

But protection from whom? As Thomas Jefferson explained, it wasn't just from other individuals, but in fact "the strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government." Our founders understood that government is and always has been the greatest enemy of the people and that any government which disarms their citizenry should never be trusted since it makes it only that much easier to take the rest of their rights. As George Washington once said, "A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."

Gun control advocates often argue that we would be safer with more gun laws. The truth is the exact opposite. As Thomas Jefferson explains, "laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Gun control advocates always point out how many gun-related deaths there are per year (11,628 in 2004, says the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control), but what should also be looked at is how much good firearms do. As Dr. Jeremy D. Blanks writes, "The numbers have varied from a low of around 100,000 crimes prevented every year by armed citizens to a high of over six million crimes per year." The accurate number probably falls somewhere in between, but even if it were just the low of 100,000 crimes prevented does that not show that more good comes from gun ownership than bad? And what if it is 6 million crimes prevented? Knowing this, how can you honestly argue for the disarming of peaceful American citizens?

The truth is that you cannot disarm the people without becoming a tyrant.

And you can't disarm the people without making the criminals and the government even more powerful and more of a threat to our individual liberties than they already are. The gun control advocates' intentions matter little if the means is immoral and the end undesirable.

If you care about your natural rights as a human being, if you wish not to be controlled as if a slave to the government, than there is only one candidate to vote for: Congressman Ron Paul. Dr. Paul is the last man in Washington that understands the principles of liberty that this country was founded upon and the only politician left who is fighting for your rights as an individual.