 "To Arms! To Arms!" An essay on security by Tony Rollo "This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins." - Benjamin Franklin Our Founding Fathers did what they had to do so we would not have to. The arms we bear today as average American citizens in the service to the nation is the arm attached to our shoulder. On the end of this arm is the finger that pulls the lever in a voting booth. After kicking tyranny out of our new nation, firearms became a simple tool of survival once again. They are today still a tool for the competent American Citizen. I grew up with a rack of guns at the ready over the head of my bed. The lower shelves were full of ammunition for each. My two favorites up there on the rack were a single shot .22 rifle and a 16 guage double barrel shotgun. I never knew a time without a rack of guns over the head of my bed. Even as a very small child. It was a normal part of any bedroom. I knew what firearms did and what they were for from a very early age. They were never a mystery to me. They were never an object of fear but a tool to be used properly. It was standard responsibility to go practice marksmanship at least once a month. Upon returning from the range, the evening was spent cleaning all our firearms thoroughly along with the sharpening of any blades that needed attention. On my seventh birthday I received my own Daisy BB gun. It was the generic model with the solid wooden stock and a cock like a Winchester. I always thought the "Red Rider" was for posers and the plastic stock versions were for sissies. I was only allowed to take that Daisy into the woods to hunt with my trusty beagle companion, Klondyke. At that Christmas, I received the first knife of my own. A Barlow of course! What else for a growing boy? By eight years old I had already taken the air rifle course at the city community center. The instructor was a mom with several boys of her own. She used my rifle as an example because I already knew how to care of it. It was always properly oiled and ready. I had already become a first class shot and could pick off a match stick at ten feet or so without using the sights. When I would exit the back door of my house to go hunting in the woods with my trusty Daisy, Klondyke, my faithful beagle would freak out with joy. We would spend every opportunity in the woods plinking away responsibly. One of the rules of hunting is you have to eat the critter you take down. That was quite logical to my young boy brain. Who would want to eat a sparrow anyway? When it came to varmits such as a rat or mouse, the dog or a cat would be allowed to eat the prize so it was a win-win for all. However, one must have the firepower depending on what game you were after. You don't hunt deer with a 22. That would be inhumane! Once I was guilty of attempting to bag a squirrel with my Daisy. I hit him dead on the ribs at the heart, but the squirrel simply looked at me in disgust and continued to munch on his pecan. I learned a lesson that day. More firepower needed. My buddy up the road had more firepower, because he was eleven years old and could handle it responsibly. His 760 pump could do BBs or single Pellets. We ate a lot of squirrel that summer. I'd flush 'em out with my Daisy and he'd nail them with a pellet pumped to the max of ten pumps. We would then retire to a fort area to skin the game and cook it on a stick over a fire. Skinning a squirrel was tricky. If the hair touched the flesh it wouldn't come off until you picked it out of your teeth later. My buddy could skin a squirrel with one cut and pull. At the time I had no idea of the blessing of where I spent my childhood in the 1960s. It was an disused military training base next to a disused air base. It was where Chinese men were brought into America to train to be pilots to then return to fight the Japanese. To this day they still find crashed trainer planes in the surrounding swamps and lakes when the weather gets dry. The area was hundreds of acres of open land. Down the street, the only remnant was a Marine tank training base. The tanks would drive by in single file from time to time on our street to their training grounds. What a treat for a young American boy! Today we live in a more civilized place but my daughter still gets training with a 760. She was quite a first class marksman at seven years old and now at eight needs only supervision during target practice. She looks forward to the day that she can get training on some bigger firepower. Lately I have encountered city raised folks who are proud to have bought their first home defence piece. It's about time! I'm a bit taken aback when I am told they plan to take a shooting course sometime in the future. Isn't that a bit backwards? I'm glad to see someone coming around to the needs of defending the home, but some thought, reading and training need to come first to the inexperienced. For example, I met a Conservative fellow who proudly exclaimed new ownership of a shiny new pump shotgun for home defence. His very first firearm and he had never pulled a trigger in his life as yet. I asked out of sheer curiosity what kind of shot he loaded it with. "Double-O" he said with a smile. I kindly suggested that number nine bird shot would be best. "Why such a small shot?" he asked. I explained that the smaller shot would take out the bad guy just fine and then stop in the first wall it found. The big stuff could penetrate the wall and hit his family or some other innocent. He had no previous thought or consideration of that possibility. I am also taken aback at those who run out and buy a high powered semi-automatic rifle for home defence. They have no forsight that the bullet will travel through their house and through a neighbor's house or two. Possibly through a family member and neighbor before slowing down enough to loose its inertia. Don't argue with me about the 2nd ammendment. It's simple common sense and responsibility to your family and neighbors. Take your .223 or 7.62X39mm to the range. Pull out your shotgun with number nines on the bad guy and spread him all over a wall with it while your loved ones stay out of harm's way. If you are a wimp and think noone should own a firearm of any kind, that's your perogotive. You're free to think so. I bet you will change your mind when the bad guy busts down your door. And it doesn't happen like those alarm company ads on television claim. The bad guys aren't scared of noise and a phone call when they kick in your door. They know the police will take a while to respond. They can do quite a lot in just a few minutes. They call it "smash and grab". The only time a bad guy understands is when he's staring down the barrel of a twelve guage wielded by a confident, competent, freedom and Liberty loving American. President Eisenhower made a final speech when he was leaving office upon his final term. He explained that the United States needed a full time military production industry. This was because of the initial time and lives wasted in improvisation of equipment needed to answer an attack on our nation. I understand why. We americans do not love war. We all love peace. We think the normal status of the world is peace. It is not. The normal state of the world is war and aggression. The first thing we do after a conflict is to disarm and dismantle. This has always proven disasterous. When we inevitably are attacked because an enemy knows we have made ourselves vulnerable, we rush to tool up our industries of plowshares into sword makers so to say. Standing strength is a deterrent to evil. It's only logical. Strength is the path to peace. We are the home of the free BECAUSE of the brave. So can you tell the bad guy who kicks in a door to your home to wait while you run down the street to buy a shotgun and shells? I think not. It's our American responsibility to be responsible. - Tony Rollo / 2009 ALL CONTENTS © Tony Rollo - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED |