"The People," First & Foremost.

Amendment II - "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

Amendment IV - The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."

Amendment X - The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, not prohibited by it to the states, are served to the states respectively, or to the people."

Central to the above cited Bill of Rights amendments to our United States Constitution are the words "the people." Not the government, but to "the people" who themselves determine through free, open and unrestricted elections who shall be designated as their advocates in matters of promoting and safeguarding "the blessings of liberty" as illuminated in the Preamble of that august document. Unfortunately, through ignorance and apathy, "we the people" have abdicated our responsibility to hold our elected officials in check, allowing our government to bloat into a self-sustaining conglomerate that fiercely holds to the staunch belief that it and it alone is to be the final arbiter in all matters of defining and regulating our existence. Too many of our elected leaders hold to the premise that we the people are incapable of determining our own destinies, and we the people have sadly determined that our protest to the contrary shall continue to fall upon unresponsive ears; that we are, therefore, powerless prisoners to the agenda driven whims of our elected representatives. As we apathetically stand by our government encroaches further and deeper into usurping our rights as free and independent citizens. What lies ahead on the horizon, as we approach the 2008 national elections, is not a promise of better prospects to come, but the repackaging of the failed remedies of the past and present. We the people are at a crossroads.

Let it be known that I do not own a firearm. Once I met my obligation to serve our country through military service, I determined that I would never again possess a firearm of any description. In my younger more idealistic years I held to the belief that society as a whole would be far better served if all firearms were smelted into plowshares. That was then. But now as I helplessly observe the detrimental effects of millions of illegal immigrants pouring across our boarders under the tactic if not complicit approval of our government, wreaking havoc on whole communities' social order, I am of the revised opinion that if my government cannot or will not protect me and my family against those persons among the unchecked throngs who would without remorse inflict death and destruction, I have little choice but to rethink that position. Rather than seal the boarders from further incursion and to determine who among these multitudes represent ideological sociopaths, our Congress turns a blind eye to that reality and offers all unencumbered sanctuary; granting the benefits of driver licenses, enrollment in social security, free education and medical care, the cost of which is bankrupting the ability of local communities to sustain without imparting an additional levy of burdensome and oppressive taxes.

Individuals who are outspoken advocates to close the boarders and cease these government handouts are labeled racists at best or, at worse, enemies of the state. Underlying these assessments is a predominate belief among the more liberal members of Congress that the right of the American people to "keep and bear arms" has outlived its historical validity. Therefore, since we are a nation of laws, the need for individual citizens to own a personal firearm should be eliminated, leaving only duly authorized institutions to "serve and protect" its citizenry. Since it is now obvious that our present elected leaders are adamantly reticent to safeguard on the national level the security of our persons, houses, papers and effects, why would any citizen fore go their right to bear personal firearms to further protect their right to be free from the next invasion of freedom that might very well be determined by our federal government, the expectation to be free from opening their doors to unreasonable search and seizure? When the Federal government arbitrarily decides what is best for me without my influential input, then I will with a vengeance declare and protect my right to say "mind your own business and get out of mine!"

The redirection of our Federal leadership need not be at the point of a gun. The power of the voting booth still remains the best impetuous to affect a pendulum sway to placing more of the direction of this country's future back in we the people's hands. However, until our elected officials understand and we the people demand that they do our bidding, that they are our servants and not the other way around, the basic guarantees of our constitutional form of government must not be allowed to be water downed. The loss of any freedom is to the detriment to all of our freedoms. First and foremost, it must be "We The People" who preserve those freedoms.