I have read several letters in the Deseret News informing us that it is only a well-armed citizenry that stands between us and a government that, absent these firearms, would almost certainly be taking unreasonable advantage of its constituents. In fact, several have reasoned that this was the sole intent of the founding fathers when they included the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights.
I can't help but wonder what the government hasn't done or isn't doing to us because of this phenomena. Maybe without these guns in the hands of the people, the government would be taxing us at an extremely high rate. Perhaps they would, from time to time, be involuntarily conscripting us into military service to fight and die on foreign soil. Is it possible that they would be requiring all citizens to register with the federal government and get a nine-digit registration number? I wouldn't even be surprised if they would be paying private-sector contractors up to a thousand dollars for a toilet seat. Wait a minute, they are already doing all of those things to us. What is it then that they are not doing?I'll just bet that any number of our presidents have sat around the White House and thought to themselves that if it was not for those darned armed citizens I would . . . (fill in the blanks). I'll also bet that more than one of the dictators in the old USSR were constrained from launching their nuclear weapons knowing that all of those rifles and shotguns were in the hands of the American citizens.
I don't know about you, but I will certainly be sleeping better at night knowing that all of those armed citizens are keeping the government at bay.
Albert G. Smith
Pleasant Grove