"So, Mr. Martin, why do you write so often about guns and gun rights? What's with the guns?"

When I launched The Liberty Sphere in 2006 I had intended to write about a variety of issues from a conservative/libertarian perspective. I have stayed with that objective.

I write about politics, the Bill of Rights, free speech, free religion, free assembly, and a free press, along with commentary on the modern culture. I have done all of that and still do it, as you will note in my various posts on Gospel music, the Philadelphia Orchestra, conductor Eugene Ormandy, and such.

But I also stated at the outset I would write about guns and gun rights issues.

A reader took issue with the fact that I put so much emphasis on guns. She wanted to know why I do it. Of course, she is a gun control freak, not a rabid one, but enough of one to be considered on the other side of the issue. And she takes offense at my musings on the subject.

So here is my answer.

I am more convinced than ever that if we are to protect our rights as delineated in the Bill of Rights from the growing government tyranny, then gun rights are key. The Founders discovered that they had to have their firearms to shake off the grip of the oppressive British Empire and it's King.

Much discussion has ensued through the years about which was the first right to be embraced by the Founders. One would be hard pressed to prove that it was anything other than gun rights. It was the guns that secured for them all of the other rights.

This, then, is why you will find so much about guns here and in my Examiner columns. Collectivists in high offices throughout the land have launched a coordinated effort to roll back, then register, and then confiscate the guns of the citizens. They know that this is the key to their success...and the key to our demise.

As long as we, the citizens, have over 200 million guns at our ready disposal, it is downright dangerous for collectivists in our own government to subdue us, forcing us into submission to an ideology and lifestyle we deplore. Thus, the collectivist must first get rid of the guns, just as they always have in places where they have been successful -- Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, Communist China, Communist Cuba, etc, etc.

Not only that, but the collectivist believes that government and its oppressive arm, the military and law enforcement, should have a monopoly on firearms. This is another convenient way for them to force us into submission. If they have confiscated our guns and then send the regime military and law enforcement to force us into submission at the barrel end of a gun, then how on earth are we going to resist without being killed on the spot?

At least with our guns we would have a fighting chance. And more than likely we would have the upper hand because the Leviathans have no idea who or how many of us have guns, or how many guns we have, and they have no idea how many of us would actually go to war with them to protect the rights that are supposed to be protected in the Bill of Rights in the Constitution.

This uncertainty is exactly what we want. This is precisely where we want them -- so uncertain about the outcome of any government tyranny that they will hesitate about attacking us, and then so uncertain that they will conclude that attacking us is too great a risk to undertake.   

Unfortunately for the Jews of Eastern Europe prior to WW II, Hitler was able to round them up, put them in cattle cars on trains, and transport them directly to their deaths precisely because he had already disarmed them.

Had the Jews kept their firearms and been willing to use them against murderous thugs of their own government, then perhaps the death camps could have been avoided.

This is a valuable lesson for us today.