I’ve been a member of the National Rifle Association for decades, and despite some recent “family bickering” within that group, I’ve always been proud to be a member. Founded by two Union Generals in 1871 to promote civilian marksmanship training and improvement (following the dismal record of shooting abilities by Northern soldiers during The War For Southern Independence), the NRA became, in the 1970’s, the nation’s foremost advocate of maintaining the INDIVIDUAL’S right to keep and bear arms, a Second Amendment Freedom which is usually attacked by liberals, firearms haters, freedom despising socialist “progressives” and Marxists, and mentally confused moonbats who love to parrot the left wing line that our Second Amendment is NOT an individual right, as are ALL other rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights, but applies only to the collective right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms as part of a State militia. Balderdash! I also belong to Gun Owners of America, an organization that many 2nd Amendment supporters believe is even more effective than the N.R.A. If those facts make me “persona non grata” in your mind, perhaps you need to vacuum out some of the inaccurate “trash” therein and begin reloading it with TRUTH!
But this article isn’t about the NRA or GOA, which can adequately defend themselves. Back in February, 2018 in Parkland, Florida, Americans experienced another traumatic occurrence of the massacre of innocent people at a Florida high school. Seventeen were murdered by a mentally deranged former student of that school, and around the same number were seriously injured. Heroes sacrificed themselves to save others, which is one of the more noble characteristics of Americans. Leftist organizations with “anti-firearm” agendas quickly mobilized the students of that high school, who were understandably distraught and emotionally ravaged. Unfortunately, as so many of them demonstrated, (a far too common malady in 21st century America) they were also woefully unaware of the real purposes of our precious 2nd Amendment and how a constitutional republic functions (subjects seemingly no longer taught in America’s centers of socialist indoctrination loosely called public/government schools). It was quite obvious at the time that they were being used for the usual anti-firearm agendas of Marxist progressive organizations, which are financed by multi-billionaire leftists like the despicable and evil ex-Nazi George Soros, Michael Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, and others of their ilk, and aided and abetted by the willing support of “our” main stream media, which respond to the shadowy “puppet masters” pulling the strings of these young people as they dance to the anti-NRA/anti-GOA/anti-2nd Amendment hatred and anti-firearm lies and propaganda that these sinister anti-Americans spew forth.
Dana Loesch, a former spokesperson for the NRA and one of my heroes, gave an impassioned talk at the CPAC gathering following that terrible massacre. As she explained, she had participated in a supposed “town hall” meeting sponsored by CNN the evening before, where the usual anti-firearm activists mobbed her and did their best to prevent her from speaking in defense of the NRA and our freedoms. What really set these progressive loons off was when she looked right at the group of reporters covering the event and said, “Many in legacy media love mass shootings. You guys love it. Now, I’m not saying that you ‘love’ the tragedy. But I am saying that you love the ratings. Crying white mothers are ratings gold to you and many in the legacy media…. And notice I said crying WHITE mothers, because there are thousands of grieving black mothers in Chicago every weekend, and you don’t see town halls for them, do you? Where’s the CNN town hall for Chicago?... If it bleeds, it leads. Doesn’t it?... But it has to be the right people from the right communities at the right time.”
Loesch said that she feared for her life after this phony “town hall” because these violence-loving “peaceful” activists rushed the stage and advocated violence against a patriot trying to tell the truth. We all watched the news reports as these activists cheered loudly to the proposals to confiscate firearms. So I ask: Is it the prevalence of firearms in our nation that causes all of this violence—all of these shootings and burnings and lootings and general lawlessness? Or could it be that over the past several generations our society has changed—has DETERIORATED so much that our people, particularly our younger citizens, no longer relate to the world and to the mostly law-abiding society and the humane culture that their grandparents knew? That I knew? Perhaps that many of you knew. Firearms have always been abundant within American culture, and except for the somewhat lawless 1920’s when armed “gangsters” were prevalent, they have never been a problem. What, it is reasonable to ask, has changed?
Many of us who have been blessed with the “experience” of age can barely recognize our American society any longer, compared to how it was “once upon a time”. We remember talking with our parents and our grandparents about “the way it was” in their time. We might as well be speaking about life on some other planet, because there is no longer any cultural continuity from generation to generation, let alone from four or five generations past to the present one. For example, can’t many of us recall when on Sundays almost all stores and businesses were closed, and a significant portion of our people attended church? I can, but those days seem to be long gone. Too bad, because they were good days.
Can’t most of us remember the time when sexual immorality, while it did occur, was kept under wraps and as private as possible, because it was NOT socially acceptable? I can. What about Christian observances
in the schools we attended? Didn’t it mean a time of Christmas pageants, where Bible verses were read, and Easter observances where our Savior’s miraculous resurrection was celebrated, and our teachers and our parents rejoiced that the schools reinforced what many of us were taught at home? Yes, it did. But alas, those wonderful days are now only poignant memories, stripped away from our people by sinister and anti-American organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union, the far, far left anti-Christian, anti-American, anti-conservative, extremist organization called the Southern Poverty Law Center (both of which are partly funded by organizations financially supported by the despicable former Nazi, George Soros), and by leftist judges and “justices” with anti-Christian agendas in their Marxist hearts.
In those halcyon years, the tragedy of divorce was fairly uncommon among our people, and it was a social stigma, for sure. We did have single parent families, of course, but this was not culturally the norm. And our kids mostly lived with both of their birth parents, and families were strengthened because of it. And all races pretty much followed these societal safeguards. Can’t you remember? I can. Firearms were easily obtainable in those days, and there was very little abuse of that freedom by the vast majority of our people. There were no such things as “gun free zones” in schools, because many teens took their rifles to school, and left them in the principle’s office to be retrieved after school for target practice with the SCHOOL’S shooting club. Americans then didn’t need background checks or official federal approval to own a weapon, for we had the 2nd Amendment. We went to the department or hardware store if we were old enough (that varied by location), paid for the firearm, and took it home. Do you remember those wonderful, FREE times? I do.
Another societal degenerating factor that virtually didn’t exist in those days were the vast array of drugs, especially the “psychotropic” drugs that have been prescribed in endemic volumes today, and including the “opioid” pain killing drugs that until recently were purposely OVERPRESCRIBED by uncaring or unscrupulous physicians. The only “drug” I ever knew when I grew up in the late 1930‘s through the 1950’s was aspirin. Young people didn’t need these extremely dangerous medications, because we spent all of our time in the OUTDOORS, playing and exercising and communicating with our peers, and—thank God—we DIDN’T have cell phones and “social media networks” with which to contaminate our minds and turn us into thought-controlled, America-hating, self-centered and lazy WIMPS!
It’s sad to admit, but barring miracles from God, the cultural mores from the days of my youth, and the days of our parents’ and our grandparents’ youths, are likely gone forever. My mother never worked at an “outside” job when I was growing up, and neither did ANY of the mothers of my friends. She was always there for guidance, support, discipline, and relatively nutritious cooking--always there to get me off to school (which was a neighborhood school to which I usually walked, or later to which I rode my bike.) “Bussing” to school was unknown to us, although in bad weather I sometimes took the “streetcar” to school, about 6 blocks, and all on my own, even in primary school, and it cost 5 cents. Can you remember that? I can. I’m truly sorry if you can’t.
Is it our present-day American culture that is at fault for the violence all around us—for the hardened hearts and distrust and/or fear of our fellows that is contaminating the society of 21st century America? I’m convinced that it IS our cultural degradation that allows some of our clueless younger fellow citizens or brain damaged older people to callously walk into a school or some establishment and “open fire” on those therein, with barely a second thought over the emotional and physical devastation that they are causing.
But all is not lost. Americans today still have the old and faithful “roadmaps” to follow to get us through our earthly journey--we still have God’s Word, our Holy Bible, now increasingly ignored and ridiculed. We still have (at least for now) our U.S. Constitution, more and more castigated as an outmoded remnant of an earlier era that was written by “old, white men”, all of whom were “racists” and “misogynists”. Some of us still have and use common sense, which tells us what modern “panaceas” to accept and which to ignore. And we STILL possess our firearms and our 2nd Amendment freedom, although if the devils who compose The Klan of New Bolsheviks—formerly called Democrats—have their way our firearms will AGAIN be targets for their evil and deplorable attempts at confiscation. (Notice that I said “attempts”).
There are those in this increasingly ravaged land who still RESIST the progressive socialist monsters who “lurk” in the dark, who still determine to “keep on keeping on”, who still honor the OLD WAYS. Rejoice, because our Heavenly Father is still and forever in control. One way or another, HE will see us through to our goal if we stay faithful to HIS Word and to the principles of the wonderful Constitutional Republic bequeathed to us by our Founders, a Republic which is in serious danger of being sent to the junkyard of collectivist confusion! The choice to live in the darkness of Marxist progressivism and socialist mediocrity vs. the light of constitutional liberty is now upon us. I pray that we all will make the right choices, and I do what I can, along with millions of other Christian patriots, to try to preserve our civilization for future generations. YOU should do likewise, WHILE YOU STILL CAN!