Mike Gain: We keep our guns for fear of any government

A fundamental concept with the right of the people “to keep and bear arms” is often overlooked. Our founding fathers did not have terrorists or criminals or even hunting in mind when this was included in the Bill of Rights. We had just come out of the Revolutionary War. They realized the only reason we won the war was because the common person owned a weapon. Yes, the French helped at the end but it was the wide dispersion of weapons among the common man that won the war.

I suspect that distrust and fear of a federal government underlies the thinking of many people. Consider for a moment what is being proposed against Muslim Americans and what happened to Japanese Americans in the 1940s. That could just as easily happen to Catholics, Irish or anyone else the government dislikes.

Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892-1984) wrote of Nazi Germany: “... then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”

We must maintain the sacred the right of the common person to keep and bear arms.

This story was originally published December 9, 2015 at 11:39 AM with the headline "Mike Gain: We keep our guns for fear of any government."