The East Oregonian editorial of Oct. 5, 2017, once again advanced the worn out anti-Second Amendment argument that the framers of our Constitution lacked the “foresight” and were “ill equipped to handle the technology and culture” of the present world. Even the EO editors had to admit why our forefathers in their wisdom established the Second Amendment: “But with each technological advance, there has always been someone — government or otherwise — who has found devious uses.”

Hitler used gun control and gun confiscation to murder tens of millions of innocent. In like manner Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Kim Jong Un and countless evil dictators have disarmed the populace to perpetrate unthinkable evil upon the world. Technology and culture may change but the essential nature of man does not. Evil was evil in the beginning and evil has never changed and never will.

When a disarmed populace fears their government, history is replete with instances of governments that “have found devious uses” of evil to institute tyranny, dictatorships and mass murders of innocent. When the government fears the people because they are armed, we will have liberty and freedom. That will never change no matter what technology or culture advances.

The framers of the constitution fully understood this principle. Thomas Jefferson coined it well: “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.” James Madison, the father of the Constitution, wrote, “[The Constitution] preserves the advantage of being armed which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation.” George Mason wrote, “To disarm the people — that was the best and most effectual was to enslave them.”

Madmen murder innocents. The use their hands, knives, guns, cars, bombs, poison and lies. You can not outlaw everything that kills, but we can restore our Godly Christian heritage to re-establish our moral compass. When we removed the Bible, prayer, Ten Commandments, and our Christian heritage from our American way of life, evil produced its offspring: murder, madness and misinformation.

Stuart Dick

Irrigon