Chuck Norris Shares Founding Fathers’ Thoughts on Gun Control
By Movieguide® Contributor
To shed light on the founding fathers’ thoughts about gun rights, Chuck Norris researched the Declaration to Bear Arms, a document from Thomas Jefferson written before the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson wrote the Declaration to Bear Arms in 1775 as tensions between the colonies and England were on the rise. The Declaration begins:
“If it was possible for men, who exercise their reason to believe, that the divine Author of our existence intended a part of the human race to hold an absolute property in, and an unbounded power over others, marked out by his infinite goodness and wisdom, as the objects of a legal domination never rightfully resistible, however severe and oppressive, the inhabitants of these colonies might at least require from the parliament of Great-Britain some evidence, that this dreadful authority over them, has been granted to that body. But a reverence for our Creator, principles of humanity, and the dictates of common sense, must convince all those who reflect upon the subject, that government was instituted to promote the welfare of mankind, and ought to be administered for the attainment of that end.”
Norris points out how similar this opening is to the Declaration of Independence, which Jefferson wrote a year later. In both documents, Jefferson notes that humans have inalienable rights given to them by God, that no man has the right to infringe upon.
Earlier in the year that the Declaration to Bear Arms was written, Norris explains, the British had stripped the colonies of their weapons so the empire could enforce unwanted changes upon the colonies without fear of rebellion. The colonists at first obliged, attempting to peacefully negotiate with the crown.
However, Norris writes, “the consequences were dire: ‘By this perfidy wives are separated from their husbands, children from their parents, the aged and the sick from their relations and friends, who wish to attend and comfort them; and those who have been used to live in plenty and even elegance, are reduced to deplorable distress.’”
By giving up their weapons, the colonists gave England the means to do with them what they desired, leaving them stripped of their dignity.
Jefferson goes on to say that England treated the colonists as slaves, leaving them the options of continuing into slavery under the crown or resistance by force. Jefferson clearly believes in freedom as an inalienable right, and therefore, the means to fight for freedom must be inalienable as well.
The Declaration concludes with a “simple and succinct 27 word [that] could not be any clearer,” Norris states. “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.”
Concluding the piece, Norris shares his lament that rights baked into the foundation of our country are being attacked. Although the importance of the right to bear arms was obvious to the founding fathers and of the utmost importance to preserve, politicians are fighting harder every year to strip Americans of this inherent right.
“Tragically, more and more, constitutional pillars of American life and liberty are being attacked and abandoned, not only out of sheer bias but ignorance of America’s founders, the Revolutionary period, and our U.S. Constitution,” he says.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been as thankful for American freedoms as I am today,” he continues. “I’m also appallingly alarmed by the onslaught of assaults that grow every year to strip us of them. Like a sunset dropping over the horizon of our founders’ dreams, so our freedoms are vanishing from view. But that is what we must not let happen.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Norris’ essays on the founding fathers:
He shared Washington’s devotion to praying every day, and Dr. George Tsakiridis, Ph.D, professor of religion at South Dakota State University, even said that Washington did “personal devotions” every morning and evening.
Norris then encouraged his readers to pray the prayer Washington wrote for our country and that Americans still read every day at Mount Vernon’s public wreath-laying ceremony at his tomb:
I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have the United States in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation. Amen.
“Washington’s heart and passion still pours out for his country as ours does even now as we pray what he penned 240 years ago,” Norris concluded.
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