The following letter, signed by 1100 Army special forces troops (not pictured above), was originally posted at professionalsoldiers.com and is reprinted here with permission:
Protecting the Second Amendment – Why all Americans Should Be Concerned
We are current or former Army Reserve, National Guard, and active duty US Army Special Forces soldiers (Green Berets). We have all taken an oath to “…support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.…” The Constitution of the United States is without a doubt the single greatest document in the history of mankind, codifying the fundamental principle of governmental power and authority being derived from and granted through the consent of the governed . . .
Our Constitution established a system of governance that preserves, protects, and holds sacrosanct the individual rights and primacy of the governed as well as providing for the explicit protection of the governed from governmental tyranny and/or oppression. We have witnessed the insidious and iniquitous effects of tyranny and oppression on people all over the world. We and our forebears have embodied and personified our organizational motto, De Oppresso Liber [To Free the Oppressed], for more than a half century as we have fought, shed blood, and died in the pursuit of freedom for the oppressed.
Like you, we are also loving and caring fathers and grandfathers. Like you, we have been stunned, horrified, and angered by the tragedies of Columbine, Virginia Tech, Aurora, Fort Hood, and Sandy Hook; and like you, we are searching for solutions to the problem of gun-related crimes in our society. Many of us are educators in our second careers and have a special interest to find a solution to this problem. However, unlike much of the current vox populi reactions to this tragedy, we offer a different perspective.
First, we need to set the record straight on a few things. The current debate is over so-called “assault weapons” and high capacity magazines. The terms “assault weapon” and “assault rifle” are often confused. According to Bruce H. Kobayashi and Joseph E. Olson, writing in the Stanford Law and Policy Review, “Prior to 1989, the term ‘assault weapon’ did not exist in the lexicon of firearms. It is a political term [underline added for emphasis], developed by anti-gun publicists to expand the category of assault rifles.”
The M4A1 carbine is a U.S. military service rifle – it is an assault rifle. The AR-15 is not an assault rifle. The “AR” in its name does not stand for “Assault Rifle” – it is the designation from the first two letters of the manufacturer’s name – ArmaLite Corporation. The AR-15 is designed so that it cosmetically looks like the M4A1 carbine assault rifle, but it is impossible to configure the AR-15 to be a fully automatic assault rifle. It is a single shot semi-automatic rifle that can fire between 45 and 60 rounds per minute depending on the skill of the operator. The M4A1 can fire up to 950 rounds per minute. In 1986, the federal government banned the import or manufacture of new fully automatic firearms for sale to civilians. Therefore, the sale of assault rifles are already banned or heavily restricted!
The second part of the current debate is over “high capacity magazines” capable of holding more than 10 rounds in the magazine. As experts in military weapons of all types, it is our considered opinion that reducing magazine capacity from 30 rounds to 10 rounds will only require an additional 6 -8 seconds to change two empty 10 round magazines with full magazines. Would an increase of 6 –8 seconds make any real difference to the outcome in a mass shooting incident? In our opinion it would not. Outlawing such “high capacity magazines” would, however, outlaw a class of firearms that are “in common use”. As such this would be in contravention to the opinion expressed by the U.S. Supreme Court recent decisions.
Moreover, when the Federal Assault Weapons Ban became law in 1994, manufacturers began retooling to produce firearms and magazines that were compliant. One of those ban-compliant firearms was the Hi-Point 995, which was sold with ten-round magazines. In 1999, five years into the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, the Columbine High School massacre occurred. One of the perpetrators, Eric Harris, was armed with a Hi-Point 995. Undeterred by the ten-round capacity of his magazines, Harris simply brought more of them: thirteen magazines would be found in the massacre’s aftermath. Harris fired 96 rounds before killing himself.
Now that we have those facts straight, in our opinion, it is too easy to conclude that the problem is guns and that the solution to the problem is more and stricter gun control laws. For politicians, it is politically expedient to take that position and pass more gun control laws and then claim to constituents that they have done the right thing in the interest of protecting our children. Who can argue with that? Of course we all want to find a solution. But, is the problem really guns? Would increasing gun regulation solve the problem? Did we outlaw cars to combat drunk driving?
What can we learn from experiences with this issue elsewhere? We cite the experience in Great Britain. Despite the absence of a “gun culture”, Great Britain, with one-fifth the population of the U.S., has experienced mass shootings that are eerily similar to those we have experienced in recent years. In 1987 a lone gunman killed 18 people in Hungerford. What followed was the Firearms Act of 1988 making registration mandatory and banning semi-automatic guns and pump-action shotguns. Despite this ban, on March 13, 1996 a disturbed 43-year old former scout leader, Thomas Hamilton, murdered 16 school children aged five and six and a teacher at a primary school in Dunblane, Scotland.
Within a year and a half the Firearms Act was amended to ban all private ownership of hand guns. After both shootings there were amnesty periods resulting in the surrender of thousands of firearms and ammunition. Despite having the toughest gun control laws in the world, gun related crimes increased in 2003 by 35% over the previous year with firearms used in 9,974 recorded crimes in the preceding 12 months. Gun related homicides were up 32% over the same period. Overall, gun related crime had increased 65% since the Dunblane massacre and implementation of the toughest gun control laws in the developed world. In contrast, in 2009 (5 years after the Federal Assault Weapons Ban expired) total firearm related homicides in the U.S. declined by 9% from the 2005 high (Source: “FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Master File, Table 310, Murder Victims – Circumstances and Weapons Used or Cause of Death: 2000-2009”).
Are there unintended consequences to stricter gun control laws and the politically expedient path that we have started down?
In a recent op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, Brett Joshpe stated that “Gun advocates will be hard-pressed to explain why the average American citizen needs an assault weapon with a high-capacity magazine other than for recreational purposes.”We agree with Kevin D. Williamson (National Review Online, December 28, 2012): “The problem with this argument is that there is no legitimate exception to the Second Amendment right that excludes military-style weapons, because military-style weapons are precisely what the Second Amendment guarantees our right to keep and bear.”
“The purpose of the Second Amendment is to secure our ability to oppose enemies foreign and domestic, a guarantee against disorder and tyranny. Consider the words of Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story”: ‘The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers.
It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.’
The Second Amendment has been ruled to specifically extend to firearms “in common use” by the military by the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v Miller (1939). In Printz v U.S. (1997) Justice Thomas wrote: “In Miller we determined that the Second Amendment did not guarantee a citizen’s right to possess a sawed-off shot gun because that weapon had not been shown to be “ordinary military equipment” that could “could contribute to the common defense”.
A citizen’s right to keep and bear arms for personal defense unconnected with service in a militia has been reaffirmed in the U.S. Supreme Court decision (District of Columbia, et al. v Heller, 2008). The Court Justice Scalia wrote in the majority opinion: “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.“. Justice Scalia went on to define a militia as “… comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense ….”
“The Anti-Federalists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.” he explained.
On September 13, 1994, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban went into effect. A Washington Post editorial published two days later was candid about the ban’s real purpose:“[N]o one should have any illusions about what was accomplished [by the ban]. Assault weapons play a part in only a small percentage of crime. The provision is mainly symbolic; its virtue will be if it turns out to be, as hoped, a stepping stone to broader gun control.”
In a challenge to the authority of the Federal government to require State and Local Law Enforcement to enforce Federal Law (Printz v United States) the U.S. Supreme Court rendered a decision in 1997. For the majority opinion Justice Scalia wrote: “…. this Court never has sanctioned explicitly a federal command to the States to promulgate and enforce laws and regulations When we were at last confronted squarely with a federal statute that unambiguously required the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program, our decision should have come as no surprise….. It is an essential attribute of the States’ retained sovereignty that they remain independent and autonomous within their proper sphere of authority.”
So why should non-gun owners, a majority of Americans, care about maintaining the 2nd Amendment right for citizens to bear arms of any kind?
The answer is “The Battle of Athens, TN”. The Cantrell family had controlled the economy and politics of McMinn County, Tennessee since the 1930s. Paul Cantrell had been Sheriff from 1936 -1940 and in 1942 was elected to the State Senate. His chief deputy, Paul Mansfield, was subsequently elected to two terms as Sheriff. In 1946 returning WWII veterans put up a popular candidate for Sheriff. On August 1 Sheriff Mansfield and 200 “deputies” stormed the post office polling place to take control of the ballot boxes wounding an objecting observer in the process.
The veterans bearing military style weapons, laid siege to the Sheriff’s office demanding return of the ballot boxes for public counting of the votes as prescribed in Tennessee law. After exchange of gun fire and blowing open the locked doors, the veterans secured the ballot boxes thereby protecting the integrity of the election. And this is precisely why all Americans should be concerned about protecting all of our right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment!
Throughout history, disarming the populace has always preceded tyrants’ accession of power. Hitler, Stalin, and Mao all disarmed their citizens prior to installing their murderous regimes. At the beginning of our own nation’s revolution, one of the first moves made by the British government was an attempt to disarm our citizens. When our Founding Fathers ensured that the 2nd Amendment was made a part of our Constitution, they were not just wasting ink. They were acting to ensure our present security was never forcibly endangered by tyrants, foreign or domestic.
If there is a staggering legal precedent to protect our 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms and if stricter gun control laws are not likely to reduce gun related crime, why are we having this debate? Other than making us and our elected representatives feel better because we think that we are doing something to protect our children, these actions will have no effect and will only provide us with a false sense of security.
So, what do we believe will be effective? First, it is important that we recognize that this is not a gun control problem; it is a complex sociological problem. No single course of action will solve the problem. Therefore, it is our recommendation that a series of diverse steps be undertaken, the implementation of which will require patience and diligence to realize an effect. These are as follows:
1. First and foremost we support our Second Amendment right in that “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”.
2. We support State and Local School Boards in their efforts to establish security protocols in whatever manner and form that they deem necessary and adequate. One of the great strengths of our Republic is that State and Local governments can be creative in solving problems. Things that work can be shared. Our point is that no one knows what will work and there is no one single solution, so let’s allow the State and Local governments with the input of the citizens to make the decisions. Most recently the Cleburne Independent School District will become the first district in North Texas to consider allowing some teachers to carry concealed guns. We do not opine as to the appropriateness of this decision, but we do support their right to make this decision for themselves.
3. We recommend that Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) laws be passed in every State. AOT is formerly known as Involuntary Outpatient Commitment (IOC) and allows the courts to order certain individuals with mental disorders to comply with treatment while living in the community. In each of the mass shooting incidents the perpetrator was mentally unstable. We also believe that people who have been adjudicated as incompetent should be simultaneously examined to determine whether they should be allowed the right to retain/purchase firearms.
4. We support the return of firearm safety programs to schools along the lines of the successful “Eddie the Eagle” program, which can be taught in schools by Peace Officers or other trained professionals.
5. Recent social psychology research clearly indicates that there is a direct relationship between gratuitously violent movies/video games and desensitization to real violence and increased aggressive behavior particularly in children and young adults (See Nicholas L. Carnagey, et al. 2007. “The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence” and the references therein. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 43:489-496). Therefore, we strongly recommend that gratuitous violence in movies and video games be discouraged. War and war-like behavior should not be glorified. Hollywood and video game producers are exploiting something they know nothing about. General Sherman famously said “War is Hell!” Leave war to the Professionals. War is not a game and should not be “sold” as entertainment to our children.
6. We support repeal of the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990. This may sound counter-intuitive, but it obviously isn’t working. It is our opinion that “Gun-Free Zones” anywhere are too tempting of an environment for the mentally disturbed individual to inflict their brand of horror with little fear of interference. While governmental and non-governmental organizations, businesses, and individuals should be free to implement a Gun-Free Zone if they so choose, they should also assume Tort liability for that decision.
7. We believe that border states should take responsibility for implementation of border control laws to prevent illegal shipments of firearms and drugs. Drugs have been illegal in this country for a long, long time yet the Federal Government manages to seize only an estimated 10% of this contraband at our borders. Given this dismal performance record that is misguided and inept (“Fast and Furious”), we believe that border States will be far more competent at this mission.
8. This is our country, these are our rights. We believe that it is time that we take personal responsibility for our choices and actions rather than abdicate that responsibility to someone else under the illusion that we have done something that will make us all safer. We have a responsibility to stand by our principles and act in accordance with them. Our children are watching and they will follow the example we set.
The undersigned Quiet Professionals hereby humbly stand ever present, ever ready, and ever vigilant.
1100 Green Berets Signed this Letter
We have a list of all their names and unlike any MSM outlets we can confirm that over 1100 Green Berets did sign. The list includes Special Forces Major Generals & Special Forces Command Sergeants Major down to the lowest ranking “Green Beret”.
The letter stands for itself.
Read it and send it everywhere.
Team Sergeant
The anti 2A groups say that the 2nd Amendment is outdated because citizens could never fight against our modern military. This letter makes it quite clear that the men and women serving in our military will not follow an order to disarm the American people. It will be us, the armed citizenry, standing beside our men and women in uniform protecting this country from the tyranny and oppression of our current government.
Well said Matt. We’ve got their backs, and apparently, and more importantly, they have ours.
Thank you to those continued efforts by the men and women fighting for our rights.
I couldn’t agree more with all of this. The letter and you guys have stated how I feel better than I can, so I’ll leave it at that.
obama would do well to read your post. Sometimes not everything is as it appears, Randy
Throw in Sheriffs, and local police who come around. The Chiefs might be kvetching about guns in peoples hands but they are not the beat cops. Many in the Marines won’t take this standing down either. I know many in the reserves who also won’t simply comply.
So if some sort of social break down and attempt at full control were to be attempted, I could see the national guard armories being taken over by oath keepers and patriots. Sheriffs and local PD would rally up citizens and folks would mobilize.
Places like this, FaceBook, Radio would be a rallying call. The government couldn’t move fast enough.
+1…whoever the military stands behind in revolutionary situations always prevails, always. thanks for printing this.
Look up the McMinn county war, it sums that up pretty well.
you know why they made that assertion matt? because THEY TRAIN CIVILIANS INTO GUERRILLAS! that is the bread and butter of the 18 series.
youre absolutely correct. it just makes me laugh when some dolt like mikey numbers makes that assertion when more experienced people in that subject matter say otherwise. Like I have said before, unless you have the experience fighting guerrillas with the specialized units that do, you really dont understand asymmetric warfare.
Matt, it doesn’t make that clear at all. Why did so few sign the thing then? There are 4,500 active Green Berets alone. Add the former ones and the active and retired special forces guys from other branches, what’s it add up to? I’d say 20,000 or 30,000. 1,100 signed. Does that mean the other 96% don’t agree with the ranting letter?
mikeb, the answer to your question about the number of signatories is answered down near the bottom of the page, here.
All it means is that you’re grasping at straws Mikeyb.
Mike: DoD prohibits service members on active duty (including reservists on active duty) from engaging in political activity in an active role (as opposed to as a spectator.) That they did so openly as members of the military doesn’t help one bit.
These service members can be said to have violated DoD rules, and had I been their SJA and had I known, I would have advised them to not publish a mass letter taking a stance on a political issue.
So, it is possible that other may have recognized the issue and declined. Search the internet for “DoD political activity”.
“Troops”? So they’re all in the Airborne or Cavalry?
[/grammarnazi]
Still a good piece.
@jkp – What’s your point?
I get sick of hearing airmen, soldiers, sailors, and marines referred to as “troops”. The word actually has a meaning.
I suggest you get over it.
I think troops is acceptable vernacular interchangeable with “soldiers”. If we kept it as it was originally intended it would only be used with Cavalry companies and Cavalry would only be horses, not choppers. Cheers.
JKP, all SF are airborne rated. Along with SEALS, Delta and Force Marine Recon.
Well then, it’s all cool. I stand down from the grammar nazi podium.
troop is a flock of mammals.
No, it’s an aggregation of scouts. Boy, girl, Eagle….
Thanks, guys, for your support of our Constitution. We’re in the fight of our lives, or at least we’re about to be.
First off, Paratroopers is a compound word derived from Parachute and Troopers – see definition of the root word troop.
Secondly, I have never know any Spec Fors that didn’t have jump wings and/or an air assault badge.
So double FAIL.
Go Green Berets! Nicely written response.
This is the best, most well-reasoned argument I’ve seen in a long, long time. All pro-2A folks should notice how they use logical, well reasoned arguments in a civic-toned letter. Notice how they don’t attack or libel their opponents, or shooting victims who are advocating well meaning, but ineffective, counter productive policies.
I don’t know if I agree with the video game element.. but its supported by some studies…
They also use peer-reviewed research journals, which is not as common of a practice as it should be, in my opinon.
As for the video game thing, I’m not sure how that could be enforced. It is supported by research, but it’s debatable how to enforce regulations on video games and how far those regulations should go. A sticky subject, for sure.
The video game element was sticky for me too, but this line:
“War is not a game and should not be “sold” as entertainment to our children.”
Could be taken to mean that the current AGE RESTRICTION guidelines that the video game industry has self-imposed need to be followed. As a teacher, you’d be surprised at the conversations I have with families about how they would would never take their child to a “R” rated movie, yet think it’s OK to give their children M-rated video games like Call of Duty or Gears of War. Parents need to be parents and supervise what entertainment their children are mature enough to handle.
As to the video game issue, I believe the onus is PARENTS. The first line of defense as to what directs and influences a child’s mind and spirit is the responsibility of the Parents, is it not?
Amen!!! These great men need to be our new group of politicians!! Every damn one of them should be in office starting Monday morning!!!
Then this great country would be back to what she once was!! The Best Damn Country In The World!!!!
They could never make it…they are far to honest to work in D.C.
The SF men are tough enough to make it in DC and still be honest!!! Havin worked with them, attended classes with them and having went through SF Assessment myself I can Guarentee they would survive!!!!
amen. if the goverment is retarded enough not to listen to these fine troops (or any anti gun nut ) they must not care of what the people think.
You really ARE underestimating them. BIG MISTAKE. Aside from your basic Useful Idiots, they know EXACTLY what they’re doing.
to jkp,
That is old usage–for modern usage, from :
Definition of TROOP
1
a : a group of soldiers
b : a cavalry unit corresponding to an infantry company
c plural : armed forces, soldiers
Oops, that should have read “from Merriam Webster”. However, the link (the colon) does work.
Just so I learn, let me try again (twice, actually):
.
Awesome. Here’s to hoping that the big media outlets pick this up and run with it as a counterbalance to the Feinstein/McCarthy fear-mongers.
Wow.
Good news for the pro 2A battles. These guys are the very definition of “trained professionals” so listen well Senators, Congressmen and women. These are the experts, not Joe Biden, Caroline McCarthy, Dianne Feinstein, Kathy Giffords or Mark Kelly who have very little to offer in the way of experience knowledge (shoulder thingy that goes up or we need more gun laws because we can’t enforce the ones we have now).
But we know they won’t, because logic and reasoned debate doesn’t equate into votes. Knee jerk reactions and “doing something” does.
I am blown away. This is very well articulated and the best compilation of pro-2a arguments I’ve seen. Being from soldiers also helps its credibility.
My one gripe is the attack of video games. I already am required to show my ID to prove I am above 17 to purchase violent video games (this includes call of duty). Im 27 years old and gamestop is better at carding me than bars, they are very strict about enforcig the ratings. You can’t start oppressing the rights of adults on what type of entertainment to indulge in. Parents do still buy the games for their under aged kids, but if a parent feels it is okay for his child there’s not really anything you can do. You may disagree with the decisions, but you can’t regulate parenting decisions.
I agree, no matter what detrimental effects playing violent video games might have (and as someone who played violent games as a teen I find that doubtful), we can’t attack video games without violating the first amendment. The emphasis always should have been and still should be an emphasis on proper parenting. Know what your children are playing, determine if it is right for them, and restrict or allow what is appropriate for them individually.
+1
The way the whole violence in video games thing is interpreted by a lot of people is utter bs. Murderers who also love video games usually play them obsessively for hours almost every single day while neglecting their friends and family. They have severe mental illnesses to boot. Average Joe with a normal brain is not going to go postal from playing violent video games every so often, especially if he also balances his life by hanging out with friends, family, etc.
I am blown away. This is very well articulated and the best compilation of pro-2a arguments I’ve seen. Being from soldiers also helps its credibility.
My one gripe is the attack of video games. I already am required to show my ID to prove I am above 17 to purchase violent video games (this includes call of duty). Im 27 years old and gamestop is better at carding me than bars, they are very strict about enforcing the ratings. You can’t start oppressing the rights of adults on what type of entertainment to indulge in. Parents do still buy the games for their under aged kids, but if a parent feels it is okay for his child there’s not really anything you can do. You may disagree with the decisions, but you can’t regulate parenting decisions.
That’s huge. These letters being drafted by soldiers, elected officials, and sheriffs should be THE most important parts of the dialogue, not whatever MSNBC edits tofit the loos parameters of “the gun control issue”.
As high on his horse as he might be, and while there’s many things Obama is, I honestly think “stupid” isn’t one of them. I think continued pressure like this will eventually steer him off, if for no other reason than to let him save face.
That letter is built with pure weapons grade awesome. Thank you Green Berets!!
A couple of the things that constantly strikes me when I’m talking to people:
1. How intelligent and well read our professional military is. I don’t mean “just the officer corps,” I mean the senior NCO’s as well. The SF community appears (to me) to be occupied by guys who are very smart indeed.
2. How utterly ignorant and indoctrinated the people coming out of ‘elite’ universities are about American history and government. Oh, they get the plum jobs in government and corporate management, but it isn’t by virtue of their intellect. It’s usually a result of who their mother slept with.
3. How the people in group 2 think they’re going to tell the people in group 1 to do “X,” and have them just act like a bunch of robots. I don’t think the people in group 2 have thought this through all the way…
but you can bet your life that the people in group 1 already have.
Precisely on point Dyspeptic. I very often hear the opposition scoff at the notion that the armed populous might defend themselves against the trained and equipped military. They seem to fail to realize that a lot of those who are trained and equipped are also nobody’s fool and won’t necessarily step all over the rights and liberties of their fellow Americans just because some politico tells them to.
Great comment. And totally spot on.
The posted letter is the best comprehensive overview of the current situation that I’ve read. Your comment, Dyspeptic, is a singularly perceptive brief assessment of the grand social illusion swept into the minds of the nation by the big-money-controlled MSM.
Mess with the best, die like the rest…De Oppresso Liber!
Somehow I don’t think anybody who has signed
will be invited to a beer summit anytime soon.
Hey ChuckN: we throw the beer summit and invite those 1100 Men as the guest’s of Honor!!
Problem solved and the Beer Summit is a go!!!
🙂
DE OPPRESSO LIBER
Got to love the Spec Ops men they know there weapons and can kick Di FI’s butt in a gun debate.
The oath you quote is as you say; but incomplete. In that oath you also swore to obey the orders of the President and the Officers appointed over you.
Sadly, your President no longer recognizes or honors the Constitution. He mocks it! He ignores it! And he refuses to listen to those that have served it.
The people “a group of ‘We the People'” that elected him – put him into power for just that purpose. This was what they intended. They have the right to ask that he do what he was elected to do. Will we stand against those people [of our own kind]?
A choice must be made: Will we follow what our forefathers wanted of our Constitution? or will be follow the letter of the law that allows “We the People” to cancel the Constitution in a warped and distorted attempt to prove their freedom by exercising their Right to disband the one document that gives them those Rights?
Many college professors teach just that argument in our institutions of Higher Learning. They teach young minds that they are not “Free” and do not have “Rights” because people like you refuse to allow them to gather together and exercise their rights to vote to take away their rights to gather together and exercise their rights; convoluted as it may appear, it is a powerful argument for these inexperienced minds. i.e. if God is so powerful then can he make a rock so big that even he cannot move it? The resulting possibilities of answers forces a Catch 22 analysis that spirals into insanity. If Yes, then he would not be all powerful. If No, then he is not all powerful.
Likewise, children are being taught that: if the Constitution allows us freedom, then can we exercise that right and give way our own freedom? If not, then we are not free. If yes, prove it by wiping out our freedom.
Having read this letter, it is pretty clear that the Foundin Fathers, and these Patriots by extension, have more allegiance to the Constituion than to an order that violates it. Unlawful and immoral orders have been issued before. These operators are pretty damn clear on how they would address orders that would conflict with the Constitution.
“In that oath you also swore to obey the orders of the President and the Officers appointed over you.”
Not so with the Officers Commissioning Oath. There is nothing in it about obeying orders.
Pardon me for saying so, Racer88, but the officer’s oath is to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office.
It seems rather disingeneous to me to say that this would not require carrying out the legal orders of superior officers and POTUS. See below full text.
As for enlisted, “I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice.” There is ample support, in regulation and the UCMJ, that you have the ability to refuse to obey illegal orders.
Officer’s oath: I, [name], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
Good. VERY good.
That letter is proof of why our Armed Forces will always protects us, from all enemies, foreign and domestic. So if that day shall ever come in which a tyrant attempts to deny Americans their Freedoms, these guys will be leading the charge. I can’t believe that it has come to this. Our own soldiers having to remind the Commander in Chief about the Constitution and explain it to him.
I do not know if letters like this are common with many causes, but it does make you step back and think. Why do our legislators and our President need reminding of this?. They are actually planning and wanting to take a way a right no one can legally take away. Clearly, if he ever to read this, I hope a slight chill ran down his back. A reminder that our Country defends the people, not one man or unconstitutional laws.
But he won’t. He believes he is God like, and he will dismiss their letter as childish and uneducated. But there is always hope that chill did run down his spineless back. And that he never forgets it.
This letter was drafted by Special Forces men who are members of ProfessionalSoldiers.com.
They sent it out to a couple of other SF websites that allow only previously vetted SF Soldiers as members.
They were onoly allowing themselves fortyeight hours to garner as many signatories as possible.
They were hoping for one hundred.
They got over eleven hundred in two days.
I was one of them.
Thank You!
I left this sitting all day without reading past the first couple paragraphs. I came back to read it just now, and I was curious if any of our anti-military usual suspects, those of the “military are just paid mercenaries” or “anti-standing army” or “instruments of oppression” ilk, would stick their head in. I’m gratified to see that they haven’t.
I haven’t been lectured about the eeevils of standing armies in while. I’m ok with that.
If you want to read such, cruise on over to DemocraticUnderground.com.
Plenty of vitriol there.
You would have to admit this article doesn’t lend itself to the usual anti-military usual rants about how we are all dying to come in and take your firearms and keep them for ourselves; I have dibs on the first Johnson rifle confiscated, by the way 😉
Greetings from downunder. A while ago in the wake of the Port Arthur incident some representatives from Australia’s elite units were asked if they would carry out a forced disarmament of Australian Citizens. To a man they said if ordered to do this they would turn and march on Parliament House. When asked to elaborate, they said for this to happen, Australia is no longer the country their fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers fought and died for. The members of the Australian military forces have a long history of what would be considered mutiny in the face of illegal, unethical, ambigious, or just plain reckless and foolhardy orders.
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