As a single mother, I support the Second Amendment – Washington Examiner

As a group of House Democrats urges presidential action on gun control, others are pushing the Senate to vote on House-passed gun control bills. In either case, the result would make people more vulnerable. When the right to keep and bear arms is suppressed by a government, the doors to oppression and abuse are opened. I know because Ive seen it.

Hardwired, the global human rights organization I founded, fights against the oppression of religious communities of all faiths in countries around the world. Among these countries is Nigeria, where Fulani herdsmen have been waging a war against Christian farmers for the past decade, but in recent years, it's grown much worse. The Fulani herdsmen are attacking farmland throughout the region to force Christian farmers out of the area and take over their land. The attacks typically increase in the spring and are carried out with AK-47s and machetes.

In Nigeria, the law does not permit citizens to own firearms. As a result, the Christian farmers are sitting ducks. Not only will their government not protect them, but their government is also preventing them from protecting themselves. Herdsmen attack entire villages, burning churches, killing pastors and worshippers, kidnapping and forcibly converting young children, and destroying homes, businesses, and crops.

The Nigerian government is complicit. According to reporter Doug Burton, who has been covering Nigeria closely for many years, the Fulani have been buying weapons from illicit sellers as well as from Nigerias military. The government is not only to be condemned for its silence about attacks on Christians but also for its apparent complicity in arming the Fulani and leaving the Christians defenseless. As a result, the conflict in Nigerias Middle Belt states continues to worsen.

The situation in Nigeria is a perfect example of what happens when innocent civilians are unable to defend themselves and why our Founding Fathers made a point to secure the right to bear arms, second only to the freedom of speech and religion. You cannot have one without the other.

I have seen this happen elsewhere. When Islamic State militants stormed into northern Iraq, within hours, they decimated and took control of villages. The police fled, and the people could not defend themselves. As a result, hundreds of thousands of families were forcibly displaced overnight. Yazidi men were taken and shot to death, lining 18 mass graves with their bodies. And then, ISIS took the women to a large hall, where men raped and tortured them before selling them into sexual slavery.

After ISIS moved into northern Iraq, I met a woman named Aida, whose 4-year-old daughter was taken from her at gunpoint. She was told she could leave the child, or she could be shot. She cried and pleaded for help as she recounted the last moments with her daughter.

This is what happens when people cannot defend themselves and their families, when their government fails to protect them or, worse, is complicit by suppressing their rights. As a mother and person of faith, I cant imagine living in Nigeria, Iraq, or any other country where I do not have the right to arm and protect myself and my family against horrors like this.

It's so easy for those of us to take for granted the simple freedoms we enjoy by virtue of living in this great nation. I am amazed at how easily we will give up our freedoms without understanding the consequences. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has described herself as a Second Amendment absolutist. She explained that growing up in the late 1950s and early 1960s in Birmingham, Alabama, her father and his friends would deter the Ku Klux Klan members who came into her neighborhood by firing their guns in the air. Even in the United States, the Second Amendment has been crucial to the self-defense of those who have not always been protected by the government. Its astonishing that we would consider taking this away.

Even leaving aside the long history of governments disarming their citizenry as a means of oppression, the right to defend ourselves against any existential threat is among the most basic rights, which is why our founders fought so hard to protect it.

I am a single mother of a young daughter. I pray that my daughter and I are never in a situation where we need to use a gun to protect ourselves from an attacker or our own government. But having seen the repercussions firsthand, I will always stand against any move to force us into defenselessness.

Tina Ramirez is the Virginia chairwoman of Maggies List and was a candidate for Congress. She is the president of Hardwired Global, a human rights organization, and was the founding director of the bipartisan International Religious Freedom Caucus in Congress.

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As a single mother, I support the Second Amendment - Washington Examiner