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The
wisdom of the Founding Fathers' decision to include the right to
bear arms in our constitution has been demonstrated again in the
wake of last week's terrorist attack. This nation's founders
saw the second amendment as a way for the common people to
resist a tyrannical government and also as a way for besieged
ethnic or religious minorities to defend themselves.
At the moment, the principal beneficiaries
of the right to bear arms are American Muslims, who have come
under attack by those who somehow hold them responsible for last
week's horrific events. Over the past week Muslims have been the
victims of dozens of despicable hate-crimes. Gas station
attendants have been shot at, punched, and attacked with
machetes. Mosques, temples, and Islamic centers have been fired
upon, vandalized, firebombed, and attacked with Molotov
cocktails. Businesses have been burned down and fire-bombed.
Muslim girls have been beaten, a Pakistani woman was almost run
over by a car, and a Sudanese man was attacked with a knife. At
least two victims of these hate-crimes are dead. Muslim-owned
businesses have closed and many parents have held their children
out of school because they fear harassment and violence. Small
groups of Muslims in isolated, rural areas have been threatened
and fear assaults upon their communities.
There are many instances in American history
of besieged ethnic or religious groups successfully using the
second amendment right of armed self-defense. During the 1992
Los Angeles riots, for example, armed Korean merchants and
residents brandished weapons to defend their homes and
businesses from the angry mobs who had specifically targeted
them.
In the late 1950s, Civil Rights leader Robert
F. Williams led the black community of Monroe, North Carolina in
its struggle to defend itself against the Ku Klux Klan and other
racist groups. Inspired by armed Native Americans who had
recently repelled a white supremacist attack on their
reservation, Williams organized armed self-defense patrols which
successfully defended the black community against marauding
racist vigilantes.
One hundred and fifty years ago this month
besieged free blacks, escaped slaves, and abolitionists also
made good use of the right of armed self-defense. After the
passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, which gave Southerners the
right to send slave catchers into the North to capture and
re-enslave escaped slaves, the legendary abolitionist Frederick
Douglass recommended that fugitive slaves and their allies
organize armed self-defense. There followed many instances,
including the famous Battle of Christiana, Pennsylvania in
September of 1851, where white abolitionists, free blacks, and
escaped slaves united, took up arms, and fought off slave
catchers.
Of course, the last thing anyone wants to see
is more violence, and these examples are a little distant from
our present time. However, in the coming weeks, months, or even
years, as the US takes military action abroad and terrorists
possibly strike again on our shores, they may become very
relevant.
What
opponents of the second amendment have never understood is that
the
prime benefit of the right to bear arms is now and always has
been reaped without a shot being fired. The main benefit does
not lie in the occasional person who shoots an attacker in
self-defense. It doesn't lie in the many attacks that are
stopped by warning shots or the brandishing of a weapon. The
main value of the second amendment is that anybody who considers
attacking a home, a business, or a community, has to fear one
thing above all--the people there may be armed.
And
in the post-September 11 era it is again true: every sham
"patriot" who seeks to vent his frustration on the Muslim owner
of the local market, the Muslim community a few miles away, or
the Muslim mosque across town, has to keep one thing in mind
above all--his intended victims may be armed.
This column first appeared in the Pasadena Star-News &
Affiliated Papers (9/19/01).
Glenn
Sacks' columns on men's and fathers' issues have appeared in dozens of America's
largest newspapers. Glenn can be reached via his website at
www.GlennSacks.com or
via email at Glenn@GlennSacks.com.
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