Arise 4 Freedoms

The Right to Bear Arms - The Last Line of Defense

• Tobin Griffeth • Season 1 • Episode 6

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This episode convincingly demonstrates that the right to bear arms is fundamental, rooted in history and law, and essential for safeguarding liberty. Responsible ownership, education, and a clear understanding of the costs and benefits are crucial. Disarming people has historically led to greater oppression and violence—underlining the importance of maintaining this right.

The Right to Bear Arms – The Last Line of Defense

The Right to Bear Arms: Defending Freedom and Preventing Tyranny. In this episode, we explore the historical, legal, and moral foundations of the Second Amendment. Colonel Griffith Retired guides us through key examples from history—like Esther and the laws governing disarmament—and how the right to bear arms has been a crucial safeguard against tyranny, crime, and oppression. This discussion emphasizes responsible ownership, legal context, and the importance of an armed citizenry for a free society.

Key topics:

  • The historical origins of the right to bear arms, from English protections to the US Bill of Rights
  • How disarmament has historically preceded tyranny, including examples from Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and other regimes
  • The legal evolution of the Second Amendment, culminating in landmark Supreme Court cases like District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago
  • The role of an armed population in responding to active shooters and mass violence
  • The real numbers: defensive gun use vs media portrayal, and the importance of responsible ownership
  • Cultural misconceptions and the importance of responsible firearm training
  • The connection between disarmament and genocides or large-scale atrocities in history

Timestamps:

00:00 - The quick response that stopped a Texas church shooting in 6 seconds
 02:50 - Origins of the right to keep and bear arms in history
 05:00 - How regimes throughout history disarmed populations to consolidate power
 06:50 - The story of Esther and the Jewish defense decree in Persia
 08:14 - The significance of the Feast of Purim and self-defense rights
 10:01 - The story of Captain Moroni and the sacred standard of liberty
 12:30 - The Supreme Court's decisions affirming individual gun rights
 15:00 - The true costs of firearm rights: suicides, mass shootings, and self-defense
 17:15 - The question: Punishing good vs addressing evil directly
 20:34 - The underreported instances where guns save lives
 22:02 - The real scale of defensive gun use—up to 2.5 million cases yearly
 26:33 - Comparing mass shootings: Orlando vs South Carolina
 28:49 - Disarmament leading to atrocity: Holocaust, Armenian Genocide, Mao’s campaigns
 32:56 - Global examples of disarmed populations facing tyranny
 36:22 - The English origins of the right to self-defense and the influence on American rights
 39:04 - The legal protections for individual rights since 1791
 44:37 - How disarmament laws increase violence over time in Brazil and beyond
 48:37 - The responsibilities of firearm ownership: training, secure storage, law awareness
 50:21 - Final call: why the right to bear arms is about power and liberty

Connect with Colonel Griffeth (Retired):

Resources & Links:

Additional notes:

This episode underscores that gun rights are deeply rooted in the desire to prevent tyranny and protect personal freedom. Responsible ownership, proper training, and understanding the historical and legal context transform this right from a relic into a vital safeguard for liberty. Remember, history demonstrates that disarming populations often precedes atrocities. Keep informed, responsible, and prepared—because freedom is kept by those willing to defend it.

  • Armed Citizens Stop Mass Shooters
  • Defensive Gun Use: Underreported Truth
  • Gun Bans Fail to Deter Crime
  • Responsible Gun Ownership: 4 Action Steps
  • Freedom's Muscle: Train or Lose It

 The Right to Bear Arms: The Last Line of Defense

This episode dives deeply into the historical roots, legal protections, and moral debates surrounding the Second Amendment. It emphasizes why an armed citizenry is essential for personal liberty and the prevention of tyranny, with a focus on factual insights over rhetoric. In this episode:

  • The historical origins of the right to bear arms, including key milestones in English and American history
  • How disarmament has historically paved the way for tyranny and genocide
  • The legal affirmations of individual rights to gun ownership through Supreme Court cases like District of Columbia v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago
  • Real-world examples of firearm defense, including police responses and civilian intervention in active shooter situations
  • The costs and benefits of gun ownership, including the impact on suicides, homicides, and self-defense
  • How disarmament laws in other countries correlate with increases in violence and government abuses
  • Practical steps for responsible gun ownership and civil engagement

Don't just survive, live for freedom, properly prepare, and thrive!

The Right to Bear Arms

Colonel G (Retired)

On a Sunday morning, a deranged gunman rose from a pew in Texas and opened fire on a congregation of 260 people who are only seeking to worship. Six seconds later, he was down, stopped by a volunteer with a legally carried handgun. Today we're asking the question our nation argues almost more than any other, is the right to bear arms a danger to society? Or is it a freedom that protects everything else we hold dear? This is your freedom, your family, your future.

Intro Music

"Arise 4 Freedoms"

Co-Host

Welcome to Arise for Freedoms, where we learn about the things that threaten your freedoms, physical and spiritual, and transform our lives to be productive, prepared, and prosperous in a troubled world. We don't just survive. Together we thrive. Welcome.

Colonel G (Retired)

I'm Colonel Griffeth, retired. Not only am I a retired senior military officer, but I'm a former judge, attorney, entrepreneur, JROTC instructor, seminary graduate, a religious minister, and a father and husband. And together we'll change the world. Welcome to the only show that helps prepare you to be free and prosper, not only in this world, but in the world to come. Friends of Freedom, today we're diving into one of the most controversial and contested rights in American history, the right to keep and bear arms. Where it came from, why tyrants throughout history have feared it, and what happens to people when it's taken away. Arise for freedom, we always discuss the four pillars. Number one, freedoms. Number two, preparedness. Number three, increased productivity as us as a people, and four prosperity. In short, we try to teach that freedoms help us prosper to be more productive and prepared for this life and the life to come. In our show today, first we'll talk about the history, the evidence, and the honest cost of having armed citizens. Second, we'll apply what we've learned, helping you protect your family, train responsibly, and stand for freedom without apology. We always wrap up the show with some specific practical steps of what to do to help you, your family, and those you love to survive and thrive in a troubled world. Like, subscribe, and receive our free newsletter and join our community as we promote freedom and preparedness and prosperity across the world. Now let's get into it. So throughout history, the first act of every regime that's intended to dominate people was to disarm them. And throughout history, the citizens who kept the ability to defend themselves were citizens who kept everything else, their faith, their family, and their freedom. Let's

Biblical Example of the Right to Bear Arms

Colonel G (Retired)

go back approximately 3,000 years ago to a story most of us know from our Sunday school, but few have ever really heard it preached as a story about the right to bear arms. In the Book of Esther, a wicked official named Haman convinced the king to sign a decree to annihilate the Jewish people on a single appointed day throughout the entire Persian Empire. Now you gotta remember too that the Jewish people were a people that were subject to oppression because they had already been conquered and taken into Babylon, Persia, and so forth. So this looked like a death sentence with the full force of law behind it. But Esther, a very honest, beautiful, and good, righteous woman, had become queen, and she risked her life by approaching the king uninvited and exposed the plot. The king cannot undo his decree, but he could issue a second one. And in Esther 811 we learn, the king allowed the Jews who were in every city to gather and defend their lives, to destroy, to kill, and annihilate any armed force of any people or province that might attack them. So in other words, he gave them the right to bear arms and protect themselves. So if we read it again, the king's decree did not send an army to protect the Jewish people. It gave them the right to arm and to defend their own lives. That single right, that right to bear arms in their own defense, is what turned the scheduled massacre into a day of deliverance. The feast of Purim exists today because a government decree of self-defense. That's what saved a nation. Now let's fast forward to another scripture. This one is for those who are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, and is taken from the Book of Mormon. It tells about when a wicked man by the name of Malachi sought to tear down the liberty of the free people. Their leader, Captain Moroni, didn't respond with a petition or whining or crying. Instead, he went forth, he tore his coat, and wrote on it, and raised the pole up as if a standard. And the pole says In the memory of our God, our religion and our freedom and our peace, our wives and our children, he fastened on his headplate, and his breastplate, and his shield, and girded on his armor about his loins. The title of liberty wasn't a metaphor, it was a call to arm the people, to physically defend their God, their families, their freedoms together. Now, the scripture doesn't treat self-defense as a unfortunate necessity. It treats it as if because they were defending their freedom, their faith, and their beliefs, that it was a sacred stewardship. Now,

The Individual Right of Every Citizen

Colonel G (Retired)

the American right to bear arms is an individual thing and not an institutional thing, as some argue. According to the courts, the Second Amendment says, let me first tell you what it says. It says, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. That phrase, the right of the people, is the same language that is in the First and Fourth Amendments, both of which talk about protecting individual liberties, not government institutions. And a militia at the founding didn't mean a professional army like some of us think today. It meant citizenry itself. So in other words, this was a right to individuals, individual citizens, to form a militia to defend themselves if needed. The federal law still defines a militia today as the most abled-bodied Americans aged 17 to 45. When this whole issue came before the Supreme Court, they settled the debate in a case called the District of Columbia versus Heller. This was in, I believe, 2008, holding that the Second Amendment protects individual rights to keep firearms, especially for self-defense on home. And that includes modern day firearms. Two years later, in McDonald versus Chicago, it applied the right against the state and local governments because Chicago was doing things to try to impede or to restrict that right to bear arms. This case closed the door on blanket or nationwide bans, like some politicians say they're going to be going to do. It's just not legal. It has to go through much more than just the president saying that he or she is going to do that. And then finally, in uh Katiano or Caetano, I'm not sure how to say the name, versus Massachusetts, the court confirmed this protection isn't frozen in the 18th century. It extends to modern defense tools. So semi-automatic weapons and those types of things. So that's where legally that the right to bear arms stands. Now

Rights have a cost

Colonel G (Retired)

let's talk a little bit about why this matters. I'm not going to sit here, friends of freedom, and tell you or pretend that this right has absolutely no cost, because it does. Freedoms always have a cost. Freedoms are not free. Freedoms always cost something. That's what makes it a freedom and not a guarantee. So let's talk about some of those because that's the right way to approach this. You've got to understand that approximately 58% of all deaths in the United States were suicides. As sad as that sounds. And the firearm makes suicide attempts very, very lethal compared to all other methods. I believe about 80 plus percent of those suicide attempts with firearms are by men. And also, the U.S. has recorded since

The Actual Numbers and Stats of Mass Shootings

Colonel G (Retired)

1966. Since 1966, there have been 515 different, what they call mass shootings. A mass shooting is four or more individuals. So in those mass shootings, those 515 mass shootings since 1966 to today that have been recorded in American history of four or more people that have been shot, there's been a total of 1,737 people killed, 4,465 that have been injured. If you average that out over the entire time that they've been keeping a record of that, that means about 30 people a year die from mass shootings. 30 people. Those numbers are real and they're

Don't Rob Freedoms Because of a Few Evil Actors

Colonel G (Retired)

tragic. Here's the question we have to ask honestly. Is the answer to evil the punishment of good? When a small number of people misuse a right, do we take the right from millions who use it responsibly or who do not do anything wrongly? Is that freedom? We don't ask the question about anything else in American life. That's that's an amazing thing about this. Is it's become a political hot button because of the way politicians sell it and push it. Let's look into some real numbers today. And remember, yes, approximately 30 people every year. And I would imagine if you asked any of the mothers or fathers or relatives of any of those 30, they would tell you it was a horrible thing. And like I said, one is too many. However, back to we don't ask this question about anything else in American life. Motor vehicles kill roughly 40,000 plus Americans a year. Prior to seatbelts and some other rules to make us more responsible, it killed approximately 50,000 plus a year. So this 40,000 that I'm talking about includes thousands of teenagers, yet we don't ban cars. We build better roads, we require training, we require licenses, and we hold reckless drivers accountable, and they can even lose their license. We treat the misuse as a problem, not the tool itself. The same principle applies here. The answer to evil is not punishing the good, it's addressing the evil directly through mental health care, through accountability, through responsible ownership, and losing that right if any of those things don't line up, while preserving the right for the law-abiding many. Even a knife kills 1,800 Americans or stabbed to death each and every year. 60 die each year by accidental cuts. So, in other words, double the number of mass shootings on average. And 60 times more than

Under Reported Defensive Uses of Guns

Colonel G (Retired)

mass shootings on average. So one of the arguments is that's out there is that there is never a good man with a gun. And that's just fairy tales, is what they say. Well, I don't think that's the only reason to have a gun. But let's go over that. The underreported truth of guns that save lives. Here's what almost never makes the evening news defensive gun use. The federal government owns a crime survey that counts only about, I think it's 65,000 gun uses a year. But that survey only counts defensive use if a crime has already been confirmed to have occurred. Think about that. A crime has already been confirmed to have occurred. Independent criminology research, and most famously Cleck and Gert study, estimates that the number may be as high as 2.5 million versus 65,000 defensive gun uses each year. Now, I mean, but even those numbers, whether it's 65,000 or 2.5 million times a year, that number is amazing. That a firearm has stopped a crime, most often without a single shot being fired. If you want to see several examples of this, go out on YouTube and watch, especially in third world countries where they circle around with a motorbike or something like that, and the guy realizes or the gal, but usually it's the guy, that they're closing in on him and they're going to do something, and also he brandishes the firearm and they're out there. That would not count. But yet his life may have been saved and definitely him being robbed, he was saved from that. The gap exists because most defensive gun uses leave no police report. So that's where you get two point five million versus sixty five thousand. No shots fired, no injuries, an attacker who simply flees. This has happened three times in my own life, and one when I was a young child that my dad pulled out of the closet a musket thinking it was the rifle, and just because by them seeing the weapon, they booted out of the house. There was two times in which we've had our door assaulted, and I was very thankful to know we had a firearm in the house. Another time a neighbor lady was being assaulted by her son. I brought her over to the house. I was glad I had a gun in the house where I could then keep us safe while we waited for the police to come. So Rand Corporation reviews the research of literature and confirms the definition and data and collection methods that create the enormous swings in these two estimates. And it officially reported justifiable homicides are believed to be quote unquote underreported and represents only a tiny slice of the total defensive uses of firearms. So, in other words, what the federal government is tracking is way underreported. And Rand, who is the government uses all the time for research, confirms it. So my argument is this the safest home in America is rarely the one on the evening news. Rarely the one that is reported in a police

The Constitution

Colonel G (Retired)

report. It's the one where nothing happened because someone was prepared or was able to defend themselves. And whether you like guns or not, shouldn't everybody have that right? Isn't that part of what the Constitution itself stands for? But when does it make the news? The pattern repeats. So in 2019, let's give you some examples. In 2019, a volunteer security member from a West Freeway Church, which we kind of talked about in the opening, the Church of Christ here in Texas in White Settlement, stopped an active shooter within six seconds, saving a congregation of some 260 people. They don't count the number of people who were saved because can you really argue how many were saved? You just will never know. All you know is that gunman went in there with the intent to hurt as many and kill as many as he could, and he was stopped within seconds. Unfortunately, three were still shot, but the gunman was stopped. In 2022, a legally armed twenty two year old in Greenwood Park Mall in Indiana neutralized a mass shooter within 15 seconds from forty yards away. Police called it nothing short of heroic, yet you'll never know how many lives he saved in that mall that day. There are similar reports in Colorado Springs, Oregon, Virginia, and Mississippi, and the patterns are the same. An armed citizen within seconds stopped what could have been a massacre. But they don't get much of a headline. Here's two extremes to help you understand the difference. This is back in 2016. The Pulse Night Club in Orlando, Florida, on June twelfth of twenty sixteen, forty nine people were killed by the armed gunman that went in there, a terrorist. He killed some forty nine and injured fifty-eight others. No one was armed, no one had the ability to stop him. They had to wait for the tactical team to arrive, and eventually they neutralized him. Now, just four days later, or just a little bit later, I can't remember the exact day, but it was also in June of 2016, and you can find it in the New American Report. A bystander with a concealed carry permit in another nightclub, a nightclub in South Carolina. Once again, a gunman opened up fire and he was almost immediately stopped. He was shot in the leg, and after one hit, he fell to the ground and he was neutralized, if you will, or he was stopped. Three people were injured. This gunman had over 125 other rounds on his body. Yet no one really talked about how many were saved, and it hardly made the news at all. It wasn't a story. It didn't cater to politicians' angle on what they're wanting to tell. What I'm trying to help you understand is that we don't really understand, and you can never quantify how many were saved, number one. Number two, it's not even properly tracked or recorded. And number three, it just doesn't make the headline news. It doesn't, it's not the political

Examples in History of Disarming the People

Colonel G (Retired)

story that feeds the motives of those who are seeking it. So there are some historical warnings that we should look at, or some historical examples of when people were disarmed and what happened because of it. And this for me is really the deeper argument. The deeper argument for this right isn't really about crime statistics at all. It's about what happens to people once they are no longer able to defend themselves against a tyrant, an outside force, or their own government. The Nazis and Hitler in 1938 had the Weapons Act, which barred Jewish citizens from owning firearms. Shortly thereafter, he then used the registration records to identify who to disarm. And we know what happened after that. Nearly six million Jews were put to death. If you were to take that 30 and divide it into six million, I believe it comes out at 200,000. It would take 200,000 years of our mass shootings to equal those poor Jews who are rounded up like cattle and shot and killed because they had no ability anymore to defend themselves. Now clearly there was more, there's more to the whole Holocaust than just that. But their right was literally taken away. And this is a common theme among governments. Even in the post-Civil War, black codes across the Reconstruction South barred free black Americans, free black Americans from owning firearms. And then enabled a terror campaign against them by the Ku Klux Klan and others who were not happy about the results of the Civil War. They did not like what Lincoln and the Republican Party did to free them. 1890, I believe it was, wounded knee massacre. It's one that we don't really talk about much in history, but once again, the U.S. forces disarmed the Lakota people before moving them. Right? And finally, in 1915, another one that isn't really talked about a lot, but the Ottoman government ordered the Armenians to surrender their weapons. And those who refused were executed. After that, once again, was a horrible, horrible situation. They were rounded up in some estimates as high as 1.5 million, and I've seen others around 750,000. But rather 750,000 or 1.5 million people, Christians, primarily Armenians, were massacred. What happened first? They were disarmed. Finally, the one that really takes the cake on all of this is Mao Zedong. The private firearms of the Chinese people were confiscated nationwide before his campaign killed tens of millions. He disarmed them and then he starved them in what was called the Great Leap Forward. It is estimated throughout the starvation and the shootings that as many as 60 to 70 million people were killed. Once again, divide that 30 into 60 million and figure out how many hundreds of thousands or millions of years it would take to equal that. So what is worse? But 30 or 60 million? Or could we really add all these? And these are only a handful of examples. And the only reason why I use them is because they're popular enough that it helps you understand. But you can even look in today's world and you can look at Iran. Iran killed some 40,000 plus people that were disarmed.

Current Governments that Disarm Citizens

Colonel G (Retired)

Today, Iran, North Korea, and China all hold a near Total prohibition on civil firearms ownership. And unless you're totally ignorant or don't understand the world around you, you cannot argue that those governments do not abuse the people who do not see or believe or speak the way they want them to speak, believe, or see or act. This is not a coincidence. This is not a historian's overlook. It is a pattern documented again and again and again. A government that fears an armed populace has to answer to that populace. A government that has disarmed populace has to answer to no one and it can abuse its powers. Now I am not saying that the United States is even close to that, but I don't want to get close to that. It was a right that our founding fathers understood because their rights and their privileges had been abused as had their fathers and their forefathers. When this right has been taken away, even in free nations, the promised safety hasn't followed. After the United Kingdom and 1997 handgun ban, violent crime rose 77% the following decade. After Australia's 1996 buyback ban, armed robberies rose 69%, and home invasions of occupied houses climbed roughly 60% of all burglaries, compared to 13% in the United States. Where an occupied home is a home a burglar has no reason to fear, then they'll go in. It's not the good people keep on to their handguns. They obey the law and they turn them in. It's the criminals. Chicago's 1982 handgun ban was followed by a 41% rise in homicides over the next decade, while in the suburbs without the ban saw homicides fall. The lesson isn't that the gun eliminates evil. It's that criminals do not obey gun bans. Only law-abiding citizens do. Every one of these bands disarmed

The History of the American Right

Colonel G (Retired)

victims while leaving the criminal, by definition, still willing to break the law. So there's history behind this, behind the right. Americans' right to bear arms grew from English protections for Protestants. There was colonial distrust, standing distrust of standing armies and tyrants in the past. And the founders believed that as citizen militias were essential for liberty against enemies both foreign and domestic. It was codified in the Second Amendment in 1791 and later interpreted by our Supreme Court to protect individual rights, not a group, not a not an army, but individual rights. It was an individual freedom that was guaranteed by our Constitution. There were some key milestones in English origins in 1689. There was the English Bill of Rights that declared that Protestants could have arms for their own defense, and defense that everybody had the inherent right to protect themselves. No one could take that away. No one should be able to take that away. It was a reaction to the King James II attempt to disarm his political opponents and then empower a standing army. This tradition has and past tyranny have heavily influenced American political thought in the colonies and it impacts us today. They were also, you've got to remember, when they also came here, they were far away from the king. And they were free and independent. They relied on each other's freedom more than the king that taxed them, but not that did not allow them proper representation within the government in which they lived. The colonial experience relied heavily on localized militias rather than professional armies. Standing armies were viewed with suspicion, to be honest with you, which only increased as the king seized their weapons and quartered it as soldiers at their homes without justification or their consent. So the Declaration of Independence originally listed grievances that King George III kept standing armies in the colonies without consent. In early state constitutions in 1776 through 1780 in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, it gave people explicit right for the common defense and defense of themselves in the state. This reflected a fear that a centralized military power could threaten the very essence of liberty. And we've seen it happen. Throughout Asia, throughout Africa, throughout South America. The Second Amendment was finally, like I said, in 1791, ratified as part of our Bill of Rights for a well-regulated militia, for the security of the state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. Its purpose was to ensure that the citizens could serve in militias along with the checks and balances of the three-tiered government. They didn't trust government, so there were these checks and balances. And we had the three tiers of government, judicial, executive, and congressional, which helped prevent federal overreach. We already discussed about Columbia versus Heller 2008 and the individual right, McDonald versus Chicago, that state and local governments couldn't overreach. In 2022, there was a case that said the right for individuals to carry firearms in public with some limits. So why does this history matter? Because the right to bear arms is just not about firearms. It's tied to distrust of military power and centralized military power. It actually helps preserve our freedoms. We might not see it day to day, but it's an outgrowing consequence of it. Belief in its citizens also that they have a responsibility for their own defense. So in other words, we have a right, and not only that, a responsibility to defend ourselves. Owning a firearm was and is viewed by law today as an individual liberty. If you don't want a firearm, that's fine. Don't buy a firearm. If you don't want to speak, then don't speak. But you shouldn't be able to take away the right of somebody else's free speech or the right of somebody else's right to have a firearm. Now there are some misconceptions, and I want to point this out too, is like, for example, I believe there was an article in the they traced it back to 2000, where they tried to argue that, oh, the Japanese didn't attack America because of the firearms, and that there was an Admiral Yamamoto who said something to the effect of you cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every grass. This was determined not necessarily to have any basis. However, I have no doubt whatsoever that it was one

Other Countries Gun Laws and Failures

Colonel G (Retired)

of many things that was taken into consideration on whether or not you invade mainland United States. Other countries also who have passed laws to restrict the amount of firearms, I will say this, they have seen suicides go down. But almost always after an initial bump down with the homicides and violent crimes, they have a tendency to go up. I know what I want to protect my family against. How about you? Now in Brazil, here's a good example. In 2003, they had a disarmament statute, this statuto de disarmamento. It produced a mix and highly contested outcomes. Immediately after this law was passed, there was a really short peer-reviewed economic research in 2003. And it said, hey, homicides and things went down. There's a problem with this. It completely contradicts a longer-term 20-year study that showed that the law failed, noting that total homicides, especially firearm homicides, greatly increased over the 20 years. So the 2003 study that said, hey, it's a great thing, was primarily a local study in Sampalo. And it was for a very short period. It was from 2000 and began in 2003, but really was a 2004 to 2007 study. And it estimated that approximately 2,000 to 2,750 Brazilian lives were saved. That's great. There was strong evidence, according to this limited study, that reducing guns or the availability of guns helped reduce homicides. However, when they looked over the next 20 years, the CEPE DES Sapetes study showed that firearms or homicides, especially firearm homicides throughout Brazil, had increased sharply. So here's the numbers. Pre-law, there was approximately 684,762 homicides between the years of 1984 to 2003. But then if you look at the 20 years after the law, from 2004 to 2023, there was 1,034,629 homicides, right? And of those, 740,507 were firearms. Prior to the law, there was only about 400,000 that were done by firearms. There was a 71.6% of all deaths were because of firearms or firearm homicides, excuse me. And the number of total homicides almost doubled. And this is just one of many examples. So suicides go down, but violence goes up. What does a free people really want? What do you want? It's takeaway. The right to bear arms was never really about the gun. It's about who holds the power to say no to evil. A free people or a government that answers to nobody. If you love freedom and want to see this world prosper, like, subscribe, receive our free newsletter, and join our community as we promote freedom, preparedness, and prosperity across this world. Now let's get back to the show. Let's see how we can apply

Application of What Has Been Learned

Colonel G (Retired)

what we've learned and make a transformation not only for ourselves, but for the world. The shift to using what we've learned to be a free, more productive, properly prepared, and prosperous people. This week's focus is on responsible ownership and acts of stewardship over all four of the pillars. Not just a hobby, not just a political position. Number one, freedoms. Know the history behind this right and know the numbers that we discuss today and the dangers when freedom or free law abiding citizens are denied the right to defend themselves. Who then keeps the firearms? Who then prevails? And once the tyrants get in office, it's almost impossible to get them out. It exists because a free people have always needed the means to defend what tyrants and criminals alike would take from them, their faith, their family, and their future. Pillar number two, preparedness. The right without training, or this right, the right to bear arms, quite frankly, without the proper training can be a liability. There can be accidental shootings. And I forget, I think the number is around 300 and something youth are shot every year because of accidental shootings. Once again, though, thousands of youth are killed every year because of automobiles. So a right without training can be a liability. You wouldn't put a child in a car and say drive. So preparedness turns a legal right into a genuine capability that makes the world a better place. Number three, productivity. Channel any strong feelings about this issue into a constructive conversation and action. Education, civic engagement, mentoring the next generation about responsible ownership, not fear or division. You can agree on how to disagree. If both sides are truly informed, so be it. But let's know the facts, let's know the real numbers. Share this episode. Share this episode with someone to help them understand the facts, the numbers, the history, what's happened in countries that this right has been taken away, and the history behind their freedoms and why our forefathers included this right to gun ownership. And finally, prosperity. No country has prospered more than the United States in the history of the world. Why oh why so many seek to take away those things that have made us so great? A free and responsible and prepared citizenry deters both crime and tyranny, protecting the economic and spiritual flourishing that every free family depends upon and deserves. So what are your action steps for today? Your action steps. Number one, get trained. Enroll in some sort of certified firearm safety or self-defense course this month. Even if you've owned a firearm for years, training and education, not just ownership, is what makes the right effective. Number two, secure your home and how you store your firearms. You should be responsible. Any freedom in which we have requires responsibility. Especially if you have children or grandchildren or those who struggle mentally in the house. Number three, know your state's law. Carry storage and self-defense laws very widely. But whatever it may be, obey those laws, know those laws. Don't get yourself in trouble because you're not obeying the law. And number four, engage civilly. Share this episode and know why the actual numbers behind that right. Not just the emotional rhetoric. When there's facts, when there's figures, um help share those when there's these tragic but rare shootings that make the news for weeks. So what's your freedom tip for the week? Freedom's a muscle. A right that's never trained or understood will be lost when it matters most. So for a quick recap, before we close, today we learned the right to bear arms is not a relic 18th century right. It's been a right since the foundation of our country, and it was a right that the citizens had to defend themselves, their families, their freedom, their faith, their property rights. It's a living safeguard against tyranny, a proven deterrent to crime, and yes, a right that carries a real and honest cost. But the answer to evil has never been to punish the good, nor should it be. And history shows again and again that disarmed people have always paid a far higher price than a free society or a free people. More importantly, because we are doers of the word, your next steps are to get trained, to know the law, to talk with your family and to engage civilly and to share the knowledge in which you have. So until next time, don't just survive. Learn to thrive in a troubled world. Now go make the world a better place. Be productive, be prepared, and prosper in freedom's life. Now arise for freedoms and go make the world a better place. Good day. Please join us. Subscribe. Join the free newsletter and support the movement of a rise for freedoms and make this world a better place. Good day.

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Colonel Tobin C. Griffeth (Retired)

Host