"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
It underpins two essential concepts of American Constitutional Liberty - Freedom and The Common Defense (of Freedom) - concepts which must be well defined for its essence to prevail as truth in the will of the people.
(I recall to mind the US Army motto: "This we shall defend".)
For the bearing of those arms - in and by itself - does not guarantee the life of liberty. Indeed, it might prove to be the death of it.
(On the Bearing of Arms)
Do I believe in the necessity of guns? Yes.
Furthermore,
I believe that the loftiest vision of weaponry
and its development in our world is to make itself obsolete -
in time.
I believe the necessity of bearing arms
provide the means to finally and eventually surrender their utility -
in time.
(In the last great age of war
that culminated in the Cold War,
the nations built and developed weapons
without an ultimate purpose in mind and heart
and therefore, mindlessly submitted themselves
to the truth which is implicit in the nature
of all weaponry - destruction.
Weapons were developed
and refined to such a fine degree
so as to make it - entirely possible -
to make our humanity utterly obsolete.
Weaponry were made to be the ultimate means
to our own final and complete destruction
and not the other way around.)
- selah -
Do I love guns? No.
Do I love what guns defend? Yes -
Most certainly.
I believe the means and the resources - to develop -
as well as - the will to wield - weaponry is entrusted to the nations
because the dream in making these weapons is to make safe our world -
not to undo it.
And that only its virtuous use (in the defense)
will lead all Mankind to this greatest of all desired (temporal) ends -
a world where (short of the appointed time, known to God alone,
when heaven and earth are made into one), God-helping,
peace is the rule and - not anymore -
the exception.
- selah -
I believe in a local defense industry
infused with this ethos and professing this motto:
"Filipino arms for the primary defense of the one Filipino nation".
---<--@
Bedevil the gun!
Let us fear it,
let us make it a thing of mystery,
let us pour all our blame on it -
let us not understand it,
that we may lay ourselves prone
to higher forms of slavery.
"The gun has played a critical role in history. An Invention which has been praised and denounced, served hero and villain alike...
and carries with it moral responsibility.
To understand the gun is to better understand history."
- Tales of the Gun, a History Channel series
