Citizen, Arm Thyself!

Had we a standing army, when the British invaded our peaceful shores? Was it a standing army that gained the battles of Lexington, and Bunker’s Hill, and took the ill fated Burgoyne? Is not a well-regulated militia sufficient for every purpose of internal defence? And which of you, my fellow citizens, is afraid of any invasion from foreign powers, that our brave militia would not be able immediately to repel?

– “A Democratic Federalist,” Pennsylvania Herald [October 17, 1787]

I ask, Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.

– George Mason, at the Virginia Ratifying Convention [1788]

A month ago a radical Muslim attacked and beheaded a coworker in Moore, Oklahoma.

At the beginning of the week a radical Muslim intentionally ran down two soldiers in Quebec, killing one of them and seriously injuring the other.

On Wednesday a gunman shot a soldier at a Canadian war memorial in Ottawa, Ontario. He is a recent convert to Islam, and possibly a Libyan citizen.

Yesterday a maniac armed with a hatchet attacked four police officers in Queens, New York, injuring two of them before being gunned down. It is possible he has ties to a radical Islamic leader.

ISIS and other well-armed, well-financed, highly trained, and thoroughly radicalized organizations are growing in popularity, and have called on their followers to commit acts of violence against westerners, in their own countries whenever possible. These groups are drawing recruits from even within the countries and nationalities of those they wish to attack.

This is blowback, on steroids.

For half a century the United States government has been violently intervening in Middle Eastern affairs, overthrowing governments, and installing and financing brutal dictatorships. Invading and attacking people with no regard for international law or common decency, just the brute force of high-tech military power – something this administration has boasted that it is “really good at.” Destroying cities and destroying entire civilizations, killing hundreds of thousands of peaceful people – something a previous administration callously said was “worth it.” Taking sides in the Arab-Israeli conflict has made us some very nasty enemies as well.

From time to time the smaller, weaker enemy will strike back. With every increase in our brutality, they seek even greater revenge.

Armed with weapons and training provided by the very western governments they seek to annihilate, Islamic terrorists’ capabilities are only growing, and largely remain beyond the scope of a modern military solution. Airstrikes and commando raids regularly kill innocent civilians in Arab and Muslim countries, feeding the terrorist-manufacturing machine, breeding more of those radicals who wish to engage in the kind of warfare that a nuclear superpower – even an “indispensable” one, as the Neo-Cons call ours – is ill-equipped to counter.

The kind of fight these radicals want to bring to America will involve close-up, vicious attacks on any random target, using hatchets, automobiles, guns, knives, homemade explosives, or anything at their disposal.

Ours is still largely an open society, but that could quickly change once everyone is constantly looking over his shoulder. Let’s hope Americans keep their heads, and refrain from attacks against the many peaceful Muslims living in our communities.

The Surveillance State will only expand, if Americans choose to surrender their remaining freedoms for the illusion of security provided by increasing government power.

Those here at home who crave power over others, they will profit from the fear. Expect to see them at the forefront of those championing new laws that restrict personal liberty, new invasions of our privacy, new calls for war, new demands for American men and women to go abroad and “fight them over there, so we don’t have to fight them here” – except we already are fighting them here. That plan didn’t work out so well.

The cycle has been repeating itself for decades, and growing more atrocious along the way.

The kinds of suicidal attacks that people have come to take for granted in many other places around the world may become more common here. The land of the free will become the land of the herded. The home of the brave will tremble in fear.

The saddest part is, it wasn’t so long ago that people from that part of the world had a radically different view. As Sheldon Richman wrote in a recent essay, “The Middle East Harvests Bitter Imperialist Fruit,” after World War I “the Arabs – Muslim, Christian, and secular – looked to the United States as a beacon of liberty and independence.”

This is no longer the case. Plenty of people there see Americans as the enemy.

Jacob Hornberger recently pointed out that a much different environment exists in Switzerland, a small country that has maintained its independence for almost two hundred years without a large, professional military or an interventionist foreign policy, and in spite of being smack in the middle of two world wars.

In a recent blog, he wrote

One of the big things that distinguishes Switzerland from the United States is its foreign policy. Unlike the US government, the Swiss government does not maintain military bases in foreign countries. It doesn’t meddle in or intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. It doesn’t engage in bombing campaigns against foreigners. It doesn’t commit kidnappings, coups, torture, assassinations, and indefinite military detention of foreigners. It doesn’t partner with brutal foreign dictatorships. It doesn’t get involved in civil wars or conflicts between nations.

The Swiss government, unlike the US government, minds its own business.

“And it’s not as though Switzerland is a nation of pacifists,” he continues.

On the contrary, the Swiss people are among the fiercest and most competent fighters in history. Swiss citizens maintain assault rifles in their homes and most every one of them are trained to use them. In fact, shooting is a national pastime in Switzerland.

The difference is that the Swiss military, which relies in large part on well-trained citizen soldiers, is entirely oriented toward genuine defense — that is, the defense of Switzerland from an attack or invasion.

While the damage of an interventionist foreign policy is already done, we can at least recognize a strength that we still share with the Swiss: the value of being well-armed.

Like Switzerland, gun ownership is widespread in the US.

Almost forty states have “shall issue” concealed carry laws, which means the issuing authority must grant a license to carry a handgun to all qualified applicants (compared to a “may issue” regime, in which bureaucrats can arbitarily deny a license). In four states – Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, and Vermont – any US citizen who can legally own a handgun, can also carry concealed or openly – no license required. In Wyoming, this freedom is recognized for residents of that state. Oklahoma law protects the right of anyone from these five states to also carry a handgun in the Sooner State.

If ISIS or any other terrorist group wishes to incite random, violent attacks against soldiers, police, and civilians here, let’s meet this challenge head on, with the greatest strength we have: our freedom.

Rather than cower in fear, Americans should take personal responsibility for their safety, now – for the safety of their families and loved ones, for the safety of their fellow citizens, on the streets of our cities and all other public places where such attacks are likely to take place – for the sake of our way of life.

Who knows, we may also be able to stop some of these acts of violence.

Citizen, arm thyself.