The 2nd Amendment IS Homeland Security
On Sept. 12 I had the privilege to attend an event held by Nashville’s local talk show host Ralph Bristol coined as “The 2nd Amendment IS Homeland Security”.
This was the 3rd stop on Ralph’s “truck stop” tour, which has been growing in crowd size. On this stop Ralph was able to boast a crowd of 125-150 freedom loving Americans to listen to his speech laying out the importance on the 2nd Amendment and how as gun owners we are in fact the 3rd line of defense in this ever growing scary and insecure world.
On this stop, Ralph was headlined by Adam Pope, where we had the honor of being some of the first to hear his new song “Ain’t Over Yet”, just released on this anniversary of 9/11, where Adam sings an emotional tribute to those that lost their lives on 9/11/01, the heroes that stepped up to help and freedom loving Americans who see it as our duty to help insure such acts of cowardice terrorists do not dictate our future.
Listening to Adam Pope was a great start to Ralph’s speech as it help place the audience in the right frame of mind to understand just what we are up against in this ever growing world of anti-American sentiment fueled by radical terrorism on one hand and emboldened by weak kneed anti-2nd Amendment propositionists on the other.
As the speech began Ralph described, how while the right “to keep and bear Arms” is certainly related to our direct safety in terms of protecting ourselves, and family, from criminal activity, the real and growing threat this right will in fact have, as its possible greatest relevance, is with dealing with lone wolf attacks that are being promoted by terrorist leaders from around the world. To highlight this fact The Brookings Project On U.S. Relations With The Islamic World March 2015 Analysis Paper “The ISIS Twitter Census” describes how ISIS supporter Twitter accounts may be as high as 90,000 with over 5.5 Million tweets sent. Further analysis showed how ISIS represented 40% of the top 100 hashtags.
Given that Twitter only represents one of the several popular social network outlets we can only surmise that the actual activity of ISIS in the social network realm in terms of recruiting activity is significantly more.
Through Ralph’s speech he referred to the growing threat that not just America but freedom around the world is under attack and highlighted the recent homeland attack on military recruitment centers in Chattanooga, TN by ISIS inspired Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez and the recent French train attack by Ayoub El Khazzani, thwarted by two US military servicemen and an American and British civilian.
As the speech continued Ralph expressed how the fear promoted by those against the 2nd Amendment was unrealistic given that recent statistics by the Crime Prevention Resource Center finds men and women who carry concealed weapons are much less likely to commit crimes than the general population and even the police.
In the end, we all have to make the personal choice as to whether to carry or not to carry is the right choice for us. In doing so, we should also consider the rising threat we face, the safety and security of our loved ones, slow response times from the police during such attacks and who we will depend upon in the unfortunate event of an attack while we are in public. We should all know by now we are vulnerable while at an event, a casual night on the town or even sitting in the pew during weekly worship. With Over 70 Terror Plots Exposed Since 9/11/01, this number is growing and no-dobut under-reported/realized and the rise of such activity at an ever-growing rate The decision to carry may be the most important one you have to make.