Bearing arms

August 13, 2007
By Scott McPherson

Scott McPherson - The men who founded our nation understood that government was necessary to preserve the people's freedoms. But they also knew that government agents could not always be trusted to use their authority justly, and that government remains the single greatest threat to the rights and liberties of the people.

America's Founding Fathers knew that freedom required that the people always retain the ability to take government out of the hands of abusive officials, "to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security." This was far from just some lofty theory to the Founders. They had witnessed oppressive government firsthand and had seen this principle unfold in dramatic practice as thousands of armed citizens took up their muskets and drove the king's soldiers — their government's soldiers — back to Boston on April 19, 1775. The United States was born out of the fight against tyranny.

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