We are all aware of the unrest in Hong Kong. The world is watching wildly popular demonstrations being used to express the public's hostility toward their government, and we are seeing the government's reaction with police force. The escalating violence of the confrontation is quite disturbing, and the Chinese People's Liberation Army is lurking in the background awaiting the order of the government in Beijing to suppress demonstrators.

We all fear a repeat of the massacre in Tiananmen Square where tanks enforced dictators' wishes in 1989.

We respect the demonstrators' earnest expression of their desire for liberty. What could excite the passion of Americans more than that? It's a reflection of the same human desires that led to our forefathers revolution in 1776.

Would the government in Beijing or their lackeys in Hong Kong dare threaten the demonstrators if Hong Kong citizens were covered by the equivalent of our Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms?

The Second Amendment is widely questioned now due to the frightening frequency of mass shootings, most often carried out with particularly deadly guns. With good reason citizens ask, "Why do people need military style arms? They are only used to kill people, not game animals, so why should civilians have them?

The answer is that the Bill of Rights to our Constitution was drafted for a specific reason. Its purpose was to make explicit that the government's power did not extend to the abuses that King George had used to hold the colonies subjugated. The founding fathers knew exactly what outrages they had suffered and wanted it made unmistakably clear that those powers were outside the government's authority. Specific rights were called out, including the right to free speech, the right to assembly, the right to have grievances heard, the right to trial by jury and so on.

And the right of free citizens to bear arms.

The Second Amendment was not intended to preserve the right to harvest venison for dinner, though it does happen to do that. The intent was strictly political. It was intended to give the government the knowledge that in the extreme event, citizens would be able to resist government tyranny with violence, and the government's power could be met with equal force.

It's a blessing of our country's history that such a confrontation has never had to take place. Though it may be that the knowledge that it could take place may have served to restrain events in certain places.

So, while responsible citizens are wild with grief at mass shootings and other acts of extreme violence, demanding that political leaders do something, there is another side to the coin.

We weep and grieve for the victims of the mass shootings that happen in America, but we are fortified by knowing that a Tiananmen Square-style massacre will not.

John Stewart

Taunton

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Letter to the Editor: Hong Kong events fortify the value of the Second Amendment - Taunton Daily Gazette