The Right to Self-Defense

Written by Andrew Napolitano for LewRockwell.com.

In all the noise caused by the Obama administration’s direct assault on the right of every person to keep and bear arms, the essence of the issue has been drowned out. The president and his big-government colleagues want you to believe that only the government can keep you free and safe, so to them, the essence of this debate is about obedience to law.

To those who have killed innocents among us, obedience to law is the last of their thoughts. And to those who believe that the Constitution means what it says, the essence of this debate is not about the law; it is about personal liberty in a free society. It is the exercise of this particular personal liberty – the freedom to defend yourself when the police cannot or will not and the freedom to use weapons to repel tyrants if they take over the government – that the big-government crowd fears the most.
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