Posted: 12/11/2008 8:24:50 AM EDT
Ron Paul Talks About Gun Control Published 12/08/2008 - 1:50 p.m. EST (PressMediaWire) December 8, 2008 - Congressman Ron Paul's statement in his Texas Straight Talk Express this week. He said; Tragically, over the Thanksgiving holiday, the world was reminded how evil and cruel people can be. According to emerging accounts of the events in India, about a dozen well-armed and devastatingly well-trained terrorists laid siege on the city of Mumbai, killing almost two hundred people, and terrorizing thousands. Regardless of the reasons, the indiscriminate shooting on masses of unarmed and defenseless people is chilling and reprehensible. How were these terrorists able to continue so long, relatively unchallenged, killing so many? India’s gun laws are her business, of course. However, once the shock of these events and the initial reaction of fear passes, Americans should take away a valuable lesson about real homeland security and gun control from this tragedy. Gun control advocates tell us that removing guns from society makes us safer. If that were the case why do the worst shootings happen in gun free zones, like schools? And while accidents do happen, aggressive, terroristic shootings like this are unheard of at gun and knife shows, or military bases. It bears repeating that an armed society truly is a polite society. The fact is that firearm technology exists. It cannot be uninvented. As long as there is metalworking and welding capability, it matters not what gun laws are imposed upon law-abiding people. Those that wish to have guns, and disregard the law, will have guns. Gun control makes violence safer and more effective for the aggressive, whether the aggressor is a terrorist or a government. History shows us that another tragedy of gun laws is genocide. Hitler, for example, knew well that in order to enact his “final solution,” disarmament was a necessary precursor. While it is not always the case that an unarmed populace WILL be killed by their government, if a government is going to kill its own people, it MUST disarm them first so they cannot fight back. Disarmament must happen at a time when overall trust in government is high, and under the guise of safety for the people, or perhaps the children. Knowing that any government, no matter how idealistically started, can become despotic, the Founding Fathers enabled the future freedom of Americans by enacting the second amendment. In our own country, we should be ever vigilant against any attempts to disarm the people, especially in this economic downturn. I expect violent crime to rise sharply in the coming days, and as states and municipalities are even more financially strained, the police will be even less able or willing to respond to crime. In many areas, local police could become more and more absorbed with revenue generating activities, like minor traffic violations and the asset forfeiture opportunities of non-violent drug offenses. Your safety has always, ultimately been your own responsibility, but never more so than now. People have a natural right to defend themselves. Governments that take that away from their people should be highly suspect. Source: House.gov/Paul |
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of course I agree %100 with what Ron Paul said in that article. However Ron Paul also says that radical Islam wouldn't be a problem if we just left them alone... kind of like saying that we brought 9/11 on to ourselves... kinda rubs me the wrong way That is a simplification of Paul's adherence to a well established tradition among conservatives and libertarians rooted in Washington's advice to not get involved unnecessarily in the affairs of other nations. It is also a cheap attack concocted by neo-cons who despise Paul's traditional conservative views. As Paul never tires of pointing out, his foreign policy views are the views of Robert Taft aka "Mr. Republican" and numerous other conservatives who fought relentlessly against the expansion of government (at home and abroad) under Roosevelt and Truman. Paul's foreign policy views are neither pacifist nor pro-radical Islam and in fact he is a patriot who believes in a strong defense. He simply holds that crazy attempts at nation building and enforced democratization abroad simply result in blowback against America. Would Paul's policies result in fewer Muslims attacking us? Maybe, athough the Bin Laden's are fanatical and will always come after us and they must be killed (Paul supports that). At bottom nation building is rooted in a leftist, liberal mindset which believes in manipulating foreign cultures and transforming them to our way of life. True conservatives believe that one can no more impose long term democracy and the western way of life on a foreign capital by throwing blood and treasure at it than one can do so with a city like Camden. |
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Paul's policies summarized: Put America First.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– October 22, 2001 U.S. Armed Forces Should Protect American Soil The tragic events of the past month have forced both President Bush and Congress to reassess the priorities of our federal government. The obvious consensus is that we have to do a better job of protecting Americans against future acts of war here on our own soil. Indeed, the President has promised that his administration will use every available resource to fight the war on terrorism. Yet our most potent resource, the U.S. military, is spread far too thin around the world to adequately protect us from growing terrorist hostilities and the possibility of a full-scale war. The sober reality is that on September 11th millions of foreigners abroad were better protected by American armed forces than were our own citizens at home. In fact, on that fateful morning we had tens of thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars in weapons deployed worldwide- all standing by helplessly while our citizens were savagely attacked in New York and Washington. It is beyond frustrating to consider that there are literally dozens of places around the globe where an unauthorized commercial jet straying off course would have been confronted by American fighters, yet the New York skyline and even the Pentagon were left almost completely unprotected. The American people have a right to know, for example, why the Iraq-Kuwait border, the DMZ between North and South Korea, and the skies over Serbia were better defended that morning than our own cities, borders, and skies. We must understand that U.S. troops currently are permanently or semi-permanently stationed in more than one hundred countries. As one prominent columnist recently noted, the 15 years since the collapse of the Soviet empire and the end of the Cold War have hardly been peaceful for the United States. Our armed forces have been engaged in dozens of conflicts, including Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, and Kosovo. We currently maintain active military commitments throughout the Middle East, Colombia and Central America, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, central Asia, and the Taiwan Strait. We undoubtedly are involved in more regional conflicts than any other time in our history; in fact, our present obligations make the east vs.west Cold War seem relatively manageable! Yet our military is only half the size it was during the Reagan era. This imbalance between our shrinking armed forces and our ever-growing military role in foreign disputes leaves our own borders woefully unprotected. Examples of the ill effects of our misguided policies are not hard to find. Consider the Coast Guard, whose seemingly obvious mission is to secure America's coastlines. So why are Coast Guard vessels busy patrolling Mediterranean waters and the shoreline of Colombia? Similarly, why do we need the help of German NATO AWACS planes to patrol American skies when we have 33 of our own? Are all 33 being used overseas? The simple solution is not huge increases in defense spending. The federal budget is not unlimited; taxpayers cannot be expected to pay infinite amounts of money for national defense. While non-defense spending certainly should be cut drastically, the most realistic approach is to reassign most of our troops currently overseas to stateside duty defending our borders. Clearly our efforts in playing policeman to the world have failed to make us more secure. This does not mean that we are in any way responsible for the barbaric acts of Bin Laden or any other fanatical murders who hate the U.S. Yet we have no choice but to honestly assess the threats we now face here at home in the wake of these terrorist attacks. The most basic and important function of our government must be to provide national defense, and our overseas commitments directly interfere with the government's ability to defend you and your family. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=223 |
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of course I agree %100 with what Ron Paul said in that article. However Ron Paul also says that radical Islam wouldn't be a problem if we just left them alone... kind of like saying that we brought 9/11 on to ourselves... kinda rubs me the wrong way That is a simplification of Paul's adherence to a well established tradition among conservatives and libertarians rooted in Washington's advice to not get involved unnecessarily in the affairs of other nations. It is also a cheap attack concocted by neo-cons who despise Paul's traditional conservative views. I see where your coming from and it sounds good when you put it that way. I think Ron Paul is the only Politician with a spine. He stands his ground whether people like what he has to say or not. he never tries to hide his views or dance around an issue. I greatly respect him for that. I also like what he has to say about the economy. going back to the gold standard and getting rid of the fed reserve. I just wish he supported the Fair Tax |