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When God
created man, the need to defend himself started. As early as
the dawn of time you had to protect your possessions from
someone else: your life, food, shelter, animals, children, a
woman. At first it was done with fists, then sticks, clubs,
a stone attached to a club, a piece of metal attached to a
club, a wooden arrow, and an arrow with a metal tip…. On and
on it went until one day we have a nuclear bomb- all in the
name of self defense. We have come along way haven't we? How
did we get where we are today in the name of self defense?
With the increasing rate of crime
especially burglaries and home invasions, why wouldn't you
be interested one month of
free home security? You'll sleep better tonight knowing
you have that protection.
Have you considered an upgrade on your
television viewing? Coming out of the dark ages maybe? There
is a
better way!
As long as it was a fair fight between two rivals the
stronger would always prevail. The weaker by human nature
would search for a way to overcome the stronger. He would
invent weapons to give him the edge to survive for self
defense. Farmers would use their tools to overcome warlords;
peasants would do the same to overcome tyrannical royalty.
And so it went from the beginning of time. God made it so.
It was a combination of survival: killing to eat, killing to
continue living, to defend oneself, to survive, overcoming
one's enemies; and the need to conquer: conquer another's
lands, to impose your will over another-survival of the
fittest. As man became more sophisticated so did his self
defense weaponry.
War only complicated things and speeded up the weapon
development process. Instead of an individual defending
himself now it was a community, a tribe, a nation trying to
survive. At the root of almost all war are ideological
differences; religion perhaps the biggest culprit. The
proliferation of war and the development of self defense
weapons are intertwined. The development of the atomic bomb
at Los Alamos National Lab was in the interest of stopping
the war and defending our country.
We cannot detail the extensive history of war but to see how
self defense weapons developed over the years we need to
take a peek at an overview of that history. At the root are
two types of self defense weapons: lethal and non-lethal.
Let's briefly look at lethal self defense weapons.
No one knows for sure when warfare actually began. The first
known use of weapons was around 35,000 BC when weaponry
consisted of clubs and spears. Around 12,000 BC with the
development of the bow groups of people started having armed
conflict because there was actually less risk than in hand
to hand conflicts. Warfare had begun. There are cave
paintings showing bows and maces being used as the weapons
of the day.
Around 5,000 BC on the Nile River in Egypt there appear to
be the first archeological record of an armed conflict
between two groups. As agriculture advanced and animals
became more domesticated it appears that armed conflict
increased.
There are records of warfare and self defense in the Old
Testament. As a matter of fact the Torah calls for self
defense. The Old Testament is filled with bloodshed, war and
self defense.
When Abram's nephew was captured, he ordered his army to
rescue Lot and his companions. They attacked at night
without warning and succeeded in the rescue. This was the
first mention of armies in the bible Old Testament of
organized state violence-warfare.
Interestingly Rabbienu Bachya, a fourteenth-century author
who wrote on Jewish ethics, uses the story of the escape
from Egypt as an illustration of the appropriate Jewish
attitude toward weapons: people must fight and defend
themselves before expecting a miracle. Throughout the
history of man a slave is characterized by not having any
weapons, a free man as bearing arms.
"The
possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman
and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs
to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is,
and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own
master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have
arms to defend himself, and what he possesses; else he
lives precariously, and at discretion." - James Burgh
Wikipedia has
a list of wars that is as long as your arm, from wars
starting in prehistoric times 35,000 BC to the famous
mythological Trojan wars in 1200 BC, from 2300 BC -
conquests of
Sargon of Akkad up to the
present where regrettably there are now 24 wars going on in
the world. Wars of course, like any other conflict, have two
sides and one side is inevitably defending themselves. Self
defense has a long standing tradition in the wonderful world
of wars.
In 1232 the
Chinese who invented gunpowder used it first in a weapon-a
rocket. The development of firearms over the next 700 years
is well documented from the Gatling gun to the Kalashnikov
rifle, the Colt 45, to the first automatic rifle in 1903,
the Winchester.
Today in the United States, the second amendment to the
Constitution gives citizens the right to bear arms. The NRA
and its four million members are ardent supporters of that
right. Our closest ally in the world Great Britain recently
passed a law prohibiting most people from possessing
firearms.
"When the
world is at peace, a gentleman keeps his sword by his side."
- Ho Yen-hsi
The liberals
finally got their way in Great Britain. Since the law was
passed in 2001, the US Department of Justice reports that
English citizens are twice as likely to be robbed,
assaulted, or have your car stolen than Americans.
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Robberies-rose 81% in GB, fell28% in the US |
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Assaults-rose 53% in GB, fell 27% in the US |
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Burglaries-doubled in GB, cut in half in the US |
By the age of
40 one in three men in Great Britain has a criminal record.
Great Britain has now become a land of opportunity for
criminals all thanks to the ban on firearms. Day burglaries
are commonplace because criminals know they won't get shot.
In the US most burglaries occur at night and when homeowners
are away. Why? Criminals don't want to risk getting shot.
Self Defense is a God given right. The right to bear arms is
a sign of a free society.
"The first
right of every human being is the right of self-defense.
Without that right, all other rights are meaningless. The
right of self-defense is not something the government
bestows upon its citizens. It is an inalienable right, older
than the Constitution itself. It existed prior to government
and prior to the social contract of our Constitution." -
Larry Craig, Senator (R-Idaho), 2000
What does the
future hold for self-defense weapons? Maybe Captain Kirk of
the "Starship Enterprise" in the TV show "Star Trek" wasn't
so far off
There are still some
legal issues one must
consider in using self defense.
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