Now, this is perhaps a difficult subject so, let's start this discussion easy. How many of you have had to kill your pet dog, cat or any of your livestock? Taking them to a vet to give them an injection doesn't count. You have to have squeezed a trigger of your own firearm - rifle or pistol for this to count.
Many of you hunt, and yes kill - for food. Hopefully those of you who do hunt for food also clean and butcher your kill. Cleaning a deer is pretty much the same as cleaning a fish if you fish, it just takes a little longer.
Now, how many of you have ever killed a human being? Not so many of you.
OldGrump brought this subject up, and rightfully so, under the topic of the woman who shot an intruder while hiding in a closet with her children. OldGrump made his comment because of some of the comments that were posted. OldGrump made a very good point.
He is very right in what he said. He spelled it out clearly.
Many of you here in this forum have never had to kill a person. You have not had to reconcile your action for doing so between right and wrong in your own mind. Yet, so many of you who have never killed at all, possibly not even a fish and cleaned it yourself, are happy to say 'that person should have killed that person'. How would you or your children feel about you having killed someone in your own home? Would your children still want to live or sleep in that home or would they now think their home was cursed? Who is willing to clean up all the blood (there is a great deal of blood in a human being)? What would that do to your children later in their lives? These are questions you have not asked.
Every time my son and I killed a fish, we said a prayer for the soul of the fish and thanked that fish for giving his or her life to us so we could eat. We then gutted and cleaned the fish together. We started fishing together when my son was 4 years old and did so together his entire life until he grew up to be a young man. We also hunted together for moose. We don't eat other human beings though.
I have killed, to eat and to protect our Freedom. I have shot my own pets and my own livestock when they were so ill they could not live anymore. I have looked these in the eyes, stroked them, loved them then had to squeeze the trigger. Do not shoot animals between the eyes - I made that mistake ONE time. Fortunately, I never had to kill a person in my home.
We now find ourselves in a very real potential for civil uprising if not outright civil war. Everyone here in this forum must search in their own minds and souls; 'Are you willing to sacrifice your own life and possibly even the lives of your family so that the people will be free'? Are you ready to kill to keep Freedom? If you are not willing to kill for Freedom or potentially sacrifice your life and/or the lives of your family, then the 2nd Amendment really doesn't apply to you to have a right to keep and bear arms. The 2nd Amendment means that you and your firearms are available to protect the Constitution. So, if you own a gun, you need to be willing to protect Freedom with your own life or you should give up your guns. This is what the 2nd Amendment is, and yes, the firearms should be the best technology available because that is what our own government has.
That is what Freedom is people. Freedom costs lives because it is never free. Freedom does have a cost and that cost is high.
Those of you who make the silly statement "come pry them from my cold, dead hands", well, that is exactly what the enemy can do. You may never even get a shot off. They have the helicopter gunships and bombers.
The people are the militia so the people will need to be smarter than the tyrant and his very well armed minions.
What so many folks who have never served do not understand is that those of us who have served and risked our lives made the following oath: "...to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic...". For us, this was akin to a marriage 'till death do us part'. Us veterans who love our country are going to keep this oath till the day we die because when we made our oath it was a blank check that included our life. We were willing to die if need be to protect our Constitution so that future generations would grow up free and no matter how old we get, we are still willing to die. We are also willing to kill and many of us have done so. Those of us who understood the necessity, had the moral conviction that what was necessary was necessary, and had the fortitude of mind, did what needed to be done. We do not have a problem playing with children, loving our family, respecting different religions and looking at ourselves in the mirror each day. We don't have nightmares (well, some of us once in a while). We don't wake up screaming at night (well, some of us once in a while).
So folks. unless you really have squeezed a trigger and actually killed a person and it was right to do so, well, OldGrump has a legitimate complaint. That person you killed had a family. If you kill a person in your own home, do you and your wife or children still want to live in that home? Killing is NEVER frivolous. Killing does have consequences and, for protecting our Constitution, our Country and our Families, may very well cost us our lives too.
William Smith
US Navy vet - Sonar Tech 3rd class.
