Hong Kong Protests Prove Second Amendment’s Worth

Back in 1770, British colonialists were getting upset about being taxed without having a say in the how or why. One day in Boston, a group of colonialists and a group of British soldiers clashed. The colonialists didn’t want to pay tax laws imposed by the British Parliament an ocean away—especially when they didn’t have representation. The king sent armed soldiers to enforce tax collections and shoot down unarmed tax protestors.

Thus was born the First Amendment – the right to free speech and peaceful assembly. To affirm that right, though, our Founding Fathers correctly gave citizens the ability to protect themselves with firearms. Clearly, the Second Amendment is a critical component of the First Amendment. The two wholly complement one another.

Sadly, too many U.S. citizens forget the importance of either, and are willing to infringe upon both. Worse, many politicians want to do away with free speech under the guise of political correctness, and the Second Amendment due to a general hatred the type of people who own them. Events unfolding in Asia right now affirm why the Second Amendment is a vital necessity to any truly free nation – and to ensure free speech.

Two incidents in Hong Kong in successive months affirm why our nation’s Founding Fathers placed so much importance on the right to bear arms. Protestors in Hong Kong, where free speech and the right to bear arms do not exist, were shot by police in separate instances.

The protests in Hong Kong indicate a cultural clash occurring in the Far East. That is a clash of freedom-loving people versus a totalitarian government whose only recognized right is that afforded by might. Sadly, it echoes one going on right now in the United States.

Hong Kong, a former British colonial holding, has a population exposed to Western thought. While there is no free speech or right to bear arms in the UK or Hong Kong, many of its citizens remember the relative freedom afforded by the UK its sense of constitutional monarchy.Today, Hong Kong is suffering a cultural clash in which freedom of speech and the right to bear arms have no place.

The U.S., meanwhile, is undergoing a cultural clash in which many on the left deem free speech and the right to bear arms to be societal burdens. Use both at the same time, and you just might become an undesirable element in the eyes of government-loving totalitarians who hate firearms and free speech.

Back in 1770, the British government sent soldiers across the Atlantic Ocean to enforce tax laws opposed by colonialists. When those colonialists protested, some were shot down. Today, protestors in the United States do not get shot down by a police state. That is because protestors have the right to bear arms – and do. Anti-gunners hate the right to bear arms and refuse to recognize free speech when used to support the Second Amendment or any other cause they oppose.

Anti-gunners prefer a governmental system more akin to that in charge in Hong Kong. A society with no right to bear arms is a society that cannot protest without suffering casualties. It also is a society more willing to bend to authoritarian rule – and forgo individual rights. Thankfully, we have the Second Amendment, and it protects the First Amendment.

Well at least for now we do.