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Michael D. McCubbins, Baptist Minister

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In the state of Virginia, Pastor John Leland persuaded the Baptist pastors of Orange County, Virginia to support the adoption of the Constitution of the United States after a meeting with James Madison the end of March, 1788. Madison had asked for the meeting because of the opposition of the Baptists to a constitution that might allow the establishment of an official state church. James Madison opposed the inclusion of a Bill of Rights, which the Virginia Baptists insisted be a part of the Constitution. Without the support of Leland the Baptists of Virginia would have opposed the ratification of the new Constitution and thrown their support behind Patrick Henry, then governor of the state. Madison's meeting with Leland brought about a compromise: Madison would support the Bill of Rights, and Leland and the Baptists would support him and the new Constitution.

We have already discussed why Baptists fought for the inclusion of the First Amendment in the Article, "Separation of Church and State." But why would peaceable, law-abiding citizens like Baptists support the inclusion of the Second Amendment? In Order to understand the wishes of these Baptists, we must first understand the amendment itself, the mindset of the present debate, the history of the time of the writing of the Second Amendment, and the Scriptures that were brought to bear on the subject.

The Second Amendment says:

How could such a short and direct statement cause such wrangling, fighting, name-calling and misunderstanding? It is obvious that it cannot be because of the wording, since the wording is very straightforward. In a politically charged atmosphere, such as we have today, everything can be misinterpreted to suit the agenda of the "Politically Correct."

For the most part liberals define the Second Amendment as an assertion of the Government's right to have a military, National Guard, or police force. They point to the phrases "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, . . ." Conservatives on the other hand point to the phrases ". . . the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The conservative says that the Second Amendment speaks of individual rights to carry a weapon.

Clearly the word "Militia" does not refer to the professional military, National Guard, or police. In fact in the "Bill of Rights" the word "Militia" is always distinguished from all references to the military, National Guard, or police.

What is the distinction made between "Soldier," "land or naval forces" and "Militia?" Look carefully at what the Second Amendment says again, and what the definition of Militia is:

The Second Amendment says that an armed citizenry is a Militia, and this right must not be infringed. Government's "land and naval forces" cannot take away every citizen's right and responsibility to "the security of a free State." It is assumed in the Second Amendment that every able-bodied man in the country would have weapons with which to defend his country, state, and home against "all enemies both domestic and foreign."

The problem of the present-day debate on the ownership of guns is really centered on two underlying philosophies: conservatives quote statistics and facts, and liberals appeal to people's emotions. This gives us the problem that people's hearts tell them to do one thing, while their heads tell them to do something else. It also leads to stereotyping by people who consider conservatives "heartless" and liberals "mindless" on the issue of "gun control."

One of the problems with the stereotyping is that liberals also think, and conservatives also have hearts. This problem of perceptions causes pro-gun advocates a tremendous propaganda disadvantage which could be expressed as "how I learned to love the bomb." No one finds a gun to be like a Teddy Bear. No one cries when someone looses his gun. Everyone feels outrage when an innocent person is shot dead. The conservative always loses on the battle of emotions, and an appeal to reason, statistics, or other facts only paint the conservative as heartless.

The definition of the problem cannot be reduced to "liberals do not think," nor "conservatives do not have a heart." Both of these generalizations are wrong. The real problem has to be defined as liberals have a different "mindset" (or thinking process with different "molds" for coming to a decision) than do conservatives. Their minds are made up more on personal, emotional and the intangibles of personality than on reason.

It cannot be stated that this is wrong, since God also makes some decisions on the basis of such intangible emotions as love, pity, mercy, and compassion. After all, John 3:16 says that the basis of the decision to give "His Only Begotten Son" was found in His "love." God has often showed "pity" for mankind, and been patient in His wrath because of "compassion." But God never makes a decision based purely on emotion. God's love for mankind was not the only factor that moved God to send His Son to Earth. God's reasoned justice demanded that "The soul that sinneth, it shall die" (Ezekiel 18:20). It was then, in the counsels of God, that the Son said, "I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God" (Hebrew 10:7). God's love for man met His hatred for sin. God's mercy met His wrath. God's emotions met His reason. God's forgiveness met his judgment. And when they met it was on Calvary, and it tore His Son apart.

When God created mankind, He created them in His image.

God says that in the day that mankind was created God created male and female, and both of them were called Adam. They both bore the image of God. That means that one of them bore God's image as the God of Armies (the Lord of Hosts), while the other bore the image of the God of all Peace. One demanded justice, while the other looked for mercy. The image of God was placed in man and woman. Is it any wonder that we have such a difficult time understanding each other?

God intended that the man would be the warrior, defender of faith, honor, country, and yes the defender of the lives of his family. The woman was to be the civilizer -- the passionate, caring, forgiving, loving and self-sacrificing side of His image. It is for this reason that women are often attracted to liberalism since it appeals to these emotions. But mankind cannot be governed by the emotional swings of liberalism, and sooner or later most women recognize that emotionally they cannot be satisfied while a man tries to act like a woman. The conservative must understand that to win the battle of philosophies, he must be able to show how guns can be defended emotionally, not just intellectually.

Anabaptists, Baptists, Waldenses, and other Bible-believing Christians were persecuted for more than one and one half millennia by hostile governments that would not give them the freedom of conscience that God granted to every man. Governments demanded that everyone bow down to the same golden image, or be cast into the fiery furnace. Nobel men and women through the ages had died at the hand of one government after another, simply because they would not submit to the official religion. The might of the emperor's sword, and later his gun, backed up his official religion. Bible-believers were not allowed to defend themselves. Historically they were stripped of their citizenship and were forced to witness the torture, rape, and murder of their family members before they were "mercifully" killed.

Some of these fled to the "New World" in the sixteenth century. One man in the middle of the sixteenth century was arrested in Asunción, Paraguay and taken to Panama for the heinous crime of being a Baptist. The official records of the Inquisition neither give us his name, nor his final fate, but circumstances were not better in the Americas than Europe for the Bible-believer.

By the dawn of the seventeenth century however, things were beginning to look better. The Lutheran Church already controlled much of modern-day Germany, and the Presbyterian Church controlled modern-day Switzerland. Neither of these governments nor churches, however were willing to recognize the right of Baptists to preach and believe the Scriptures. The Anglican Church and government of England also persecuted them.

Eventually Puritans (Congregationalists), Baptists, Jews, Quakers, and many others fled to the British Colonies to try to establish a place where they could live peaceably, and worship God with freedom. They knew from more than one and a half millennia of persecution that they would have to be able to defend their freedom of religion with arms, and if necessary, with their own blood. If they and their posterity were not willing and able to do this, they would be doomed to the same fate as their fathers in Europe. For that reason President John Adams said:

The one thing that precipitated the revolutionary war was the order that was given to the colonists by King George III and Lord Frederick North to surrender their arms. No colonist was to be armed. When the soldiers came to forcibly remove the arms, courageous men gathered with their illegal guns to fight. Around seventy colonial militiamen, known as "Minutemen" met more than seven hundred British troops under the command of General Thomas Gage. They were called Minutemen because they had promised to form themselves into a militia with a minute's notice to meet the enemy. Captain John Parker commanded the seventy colonial minutemen. Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith commanded the British soldiers who were headed to Concord, Massachusetts. Captain Parker said, "Stand your ground; don't fire unless fired upon, but if they mean to have a war, let it begin here." The British ordered the Americans to disperse, but they stubbornly refused, and the British soldiers then fired on the Americans killing eight of them. The Americans then retreated, and the British continued forward to the North Bridge of Concord. The date was April 19, 1775, more than a year before the founding fathers were to gather and sign the Declaration of Independence, and the shot was fired which was "heard round the world."

Concord, Battle of, first serious engagement of the American Revolution, which followed the American patriot Paul Revere's famous ride warning of British attack. The battle was fought at Concord, Massachusetts, on April 19, 1775. Large quantities of ammunition and military stores had been gathered by the colonists at Concord. The British general Thomas Gage sent about 700 British soldiers, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, to Concord; their orders were to capture or destroy the supplies. The colonial militia, or minutemen, had been warned of the British advance by the American patriots Paul Revere, William Dawes, and Samuel Prescott. A skirmish had occurred at Lexington, Massachusetts, that morning, arousing excitement throughout the countryside but causing no serious block to the advancing force, which reached Concord at 7:30 AM.

The minutemen, numbering between 300 and 400, took position on the farther side of the North Bridge over the Concord River and stubbornly resisted the British advance. Several men on both sides were killed or wounded. The British troops fell back and began a retreat toward Boston. They were constantly harassed on the way by irregular colonial militia, steadily increasing in number, who fired from every vantage point and prevented any concerted attack. The British troops, exhausted and demoralized, finally reached Lexington, where they were reinforced by troops commanded by Brigadier General Hugh Percy. The colonists pursued the British all the way to Charlestown, Massachusetts, until the retreat became little better than a rout. The battle was significant, not in terms of casualties-more than 270 British and fewer than 100 Americans-but in demonstrating the resolution and fighting power of the Americans. In 1837 a stone replica of North Bridge was dedicated on the battle site.

Before the first man signed the Declaration of Independence, colonists fired the first shots in defense of their right to bear arms. These were courageous men who knew that the defense of all civil liberties hinged on their ability to defend those liberties. They knew that tyrants would have no qualms about the use of force to take away their rights, and therefore they must use force to guarantee their rights.

The men who established the country knew that there would need to be armed vigilance by every citizen to guarantee these rights to themselves and their posterity. Patrick Henry would have feared the day that men would no longer understand his sentiment when he said:

He knew that these rights would be eroded and then eliminated altogether if we, his posterity, were not willing to die to keep our liberty. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson dated June 28, 1813, John Adams wrote:

John Adams wrote in another letter (to James Warren):

Benjamin Franklin said,

Some people think that we no longer need the Second Amendment because government grants us these rights, and we have nothing to fear from our government. Benjamin Franklin would not have been in agreement with such sentiment. He stated:

Patrick Henry summed up his understanding of the Second Amendment saying:

Thomas Jefferson believed that the right to be armed was not primarily for the benefit of hunting, or sport use, but for the protection of the citizen from tyranny in his own government. On March 17, 1814 Jefferson wrote Horatio G. Spafford saying,

One of the original framers of the Constitution of the United States was Gouverneur Morris. He served as ambassador to France, and a U.S. Senator from New York. In 1799 he wrote Observations on the American Revolution. Morris said that the primary reason for the existence of the Second Amendment was to protect the citizens from their own government.

Today many people blame guns for any increase in crime. It is reasoned that if we could just eliminate guns from the United States of America, murder would decrease and so would crime. We would not see any more heart-wrenching scenes such as those we witnessed at Columbine High School in Colorado. Yet I ask just a couple of questions.

Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was a physician and a psychiatrist. He was a member of the Continental Congress and later was the Treasurer of the United States from 1789 to 1813. Rush "prophesied" of the problem that we are facing today, saying:

For more than one hundred years our government never thought that they had anything to fear from an armed citizenry. George Washington easily proclaimed firearms to be "the people's liberty teeth," and Daniel Webster said:

At the time of the Revolution, Baptist were convinced that if their rights of worship, speech, the press, and assembly were to be guaranteed they would have to be constantly willing to defend those rights with their lives, and their blood. Little did they know that in the intervening years between them and us, activist courts, anti-human-rights legislatures and congresses would attempt to take away our rights. Again we have found ourselves with a government poised to take away our right to defend ourselves from them. As always there are some who think that surrender is the way to obtain peace. Although peace may come through surrender to tyranny, rights are only kept by victory over it.

It is necessary to define the Biblical defense of bearing arms since today many politicians only quote the Bible to talk about peace, and often quote verses that only have to do with the millennium as if they were dealing with their political office. One such misuse of Scripture is quoting Isaiah 2:4 as if it were dealing with today, and as if the politician quoting it is the Messiah:

Everyone that looks forward to the glorious reign of Messiah treasures this verse, but he also knows that many tyrants in history have tried to use this verse for their own benefit. We must be careful that we properly interpret the Scriptures, and not just try to make the Bible fit into our already preconceived ideas.

There are many passages in the Scriptures that implicitly and explicitly teach the need to bear arms. To present these systematically, we will look first at some passages that deal with personal resistance to government, then personal defense, and then last at individual participation in the defense of the country.

Some of our greatest Bible heroes were men and women who resisted government edicts. Certainly Amram and Jochebed are tremendous examples of people who were denied their right to defense, and still obeyed God.

Daniel is good example of a Bible hero who was denied his right to arms for self-defense. Daniel would not yield to the edict that demanded he pray to the emperor alone. He refused to obey this edict, and was thrown into the den of lions (Daniel 6).

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are more examples of Bible heroes who were denied their rights to bear arms in self-defense. These men courageously stood when commanded to kneel to Nebuchadnezzar's golden image. Their disobedience brought about swift punishment: all three of them were cast into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3).

These all seem to illustrate the idea that men and women of God do not carry arms. These people did not bear arms when they resisted these various governments. But was this a principle that was being taught in the Scriptures? In no way! All of these illustrations have one common factor: the heroes of these stories were enslaved by foreign governments. They had no rights as slaves and therefore had to be prepared to suffer the consequences of disobedience to the civil authorities without the ability to defend themselves.

We could further observe that in these cases their civil disobedience was obedience to God's mandates. The real persecution was not against their rights, but against God since He was the One Who had commanded them.

An illustration that is probably more apropos to the question at hand is found in the book of Esther. Mordecai was Queen Esther's uncle. Haman was a mortal enemy of Mordecai and wanted him dead, along with every other Jew whose worship so antagonized him. He had Artaxerxes, the emperor, sign a decree putting every Jew in the kingdom to death. When the emperor was informed by Esther that this evil plot would cost her and her people their lives, the emperor signed another decree.

Not only did the decree allow them to defend themselves, but to band together in a militia for their own self-defense. They were to arm themselves and protect their own lives and that of their families. They were to take a pre-emptive strike against those that were known to persecute them.

What kind of personal self-defense was permitted, or mandated in the Scriptures? There are actually too many passages in the Bible to properly treat all of them here. This will not prevent us from getting a proper definition from the Bible about personal self-defense, even though we treat only a representative number of verses.

The Bible talks about the use of an armed citizenry to defend the country. The size of the standing army was really rather small in Israel, but every able-bodied man was expected to be armed, and to defend his country in time of need. The major reason for the ill-advised national census that King David ordered was to find out exactly how many armed men there were in the country that could be counted on in the case of war or invasion.

The first thing that we see in these two passages is that David's sin consisted of not trusting God to protect Israel. David wanted to know how many people he could call on to make up his army in the time of need. A census in and of itself could have a good purpose, but David's census was disobedience to God.

Some people get so tied up on the seeming contradictions of the verses that they fail to see the clear teaching. The verses counted the men who were able to defend the country in the time of an emergency. That is the primary focus.

There were one million, one hundred thousand men in the northern tribes that could be counted on in the time of war. They were the right age, being neither too young nor too old. Women, children, handicapped, and those too young or too old to fight were not counted. Those who were left were the able-bodied men. But of the million, one hundred thousand, how many of these were trained in warfare? There were eight hundred thousand valiant men. The Hebrew word which is translated "valiant" is the word chayil. The most frequent translation of chayil is "army." David's army was a citizen army. They were men who knew that their country needed to be defended by all male citizens.

Even though David's census showed a lack of trust in God for their protection, David was right in believing that male citizens were expected to defend their country. How was a small country like Israel, with no large paid, professional, standing army going to protect itself against enemy countries which were all better equipped and greater numbers than Israel? Even this large citizen militia was unable to adequately protect the nation against the overwhelming odds that it had to face. That is why Israel needed to trust God. The country was to be like a hive of angry bees who could band together in a moment's notice to defend their hive. Their attack could rout a much greater size army of armed men. Moses wrote of that when he said:

During the time of the Judges, God raised up men who would be the leaders of the citizen militia. During the interval of time between Joshua and King Saul, God named twelve men. Their job was to defend Israel.

We must be careful to note that when a man defended his country, in Bible times, he was also defending his family and his own life. Nehemiah wrote of the danger to the nation. He said that the walls of Jerusalem needed to be rebuilt so that Israel could be a safer place to live. But the safety of the workers who were rebuilding the wall, as well as all the inhabitants of the city demanded that something be done immediately. In Nehemiah 4:17-21 he wrote:

Every man was expected to defend himself and defend his fellow workers. They were to work with one hand, and have their weapons in the other hand. They were to remain ever vigilant so they could remain ever free. The idea that a man was to always be prepared to defend his country, his family, his property and his life was further extended in that he was to defend his faith. Can you imagine how people would react today if you told people that while their mouths were filled with praise to God, their hands should be filled with weapons? Yet that is exactly what David wrote in Psalm 149:1-7

The right to carry a weapon was considered a necessity at all times. There could be an attack on an individual at any time, but his attacker was more likely to come at night when there was no one around to help, or when visibility was reduced. Therefore Solomon wrote:

Even the Levites and the Priests in Israel carried weapons in their worship of God. There was nothing considered incongruous about worshipping God and having weapons at the same time.

The Lord Jesus Christ told the apostles to buy arms. In Luke 22:36-38 He said:

Jesus Christ not only recommended that the apostles have a right to bear arms, but further commanded them to buy arms. God stated very clearly that a man had a responsibility to defend his country, his family, his life, his faith, and his property. Since the beginning of time tyrants have first sought to control or rule a free man's country, family, life, faith or property by disarming him. Once disarmed, all of these things could be easily taken. Jesus warned of that in Luke 11:21-23.

This same statement is found in Mark 3:27 and Matthew 12:29. In the Matthew passage, it clearly links together a man's property and his right to bear arms:

In order for a government to take away a man's rights to life, liberty, property, speech, religion, or the sovereignty of his nation, it must first undermine his ability to defend these things. The "strong man" was an "armed" man who kept his home. If government was allowed to be "stronger than he" then it could come and "take from him all his" arms. This enemy could then "spoil his goods" and "bind the strong man." This man would then face that this stronger than he would "spoil his house." This mans life was in danger. He was bound. His wife could be raped. His children could be taken as slaves -- even sex slaves. These were considered the spoils of the house. His property could be confiscated. The only protection that Jesus said a man had for any of these other rights was his right to bear arms. Jesus considered that there would always be a "stronger" one who wanted to remove our rights and freedom from us. The existence of this today should not surprise us. It should not surprise us either that they have formed together into groups and associations, even political parties.

From history we have seen how the struggle to bear arms has been one of the fundamental, God-given rights of man. We have seen how the Bible defines this right as our God-given responsibility to defend our country, our lives, our families, our faith, and our property.

Nevertheless the liberal, opposed to the exercise of our rights, appeals to people's emotions to strip these rights away. On the matter of reason, they lose every argument that is based on facts, but their emotional appeal remains. They stir us to tears with pictures of Littleton, Colorado. They tear at our hearts' strings to do something to protect our children, while attacking our children's rights to free speech and freedom of religion The Bible, the one thing with a proven record of decreasing crime and violence in our schools, has been the only book on their list of forbidden books. The problem that we face could be taken care of by turning this nation back to the one, true God -- the God of the forbidden Bible, and away from the false god of humanism.

The Liberal often says that "sensible" gun laws only restrict gun ownership for "felons and criminals." They often compare this to "sensible" laws that restrict the freedom of speech. But, is that actually true? They tell us that your right to free speech is limited since you cannot stand up in a crowded theatre and shout "Fire! Fire!" Of course you can. You can say, "Fire! Fire!" You may be arrested if there is no fire, and you caused a riot, or caused physical damage to the property of the theatre or to any of the people present in the theatre.

I am amazed that if someone says that homosexuality is sin, is unnatural, or that those who practice this should not be pastors, scout leaders or adoptive parents the liberal immediately tries to silence him. The liberal says that it is a violation of a person's rights to define marriage as existing only between a man and a woman. To say any of these things is not free speech by the liberal's definition. If you want the Liberal's definition of free speech, you find it when someone desecrates any religious or national symbol, such as throwing "elephant dung" on a painting, or burning the American flag. Why is it that the Liberal always defines "free speech" as the unfettered rejection of that which is wholesome, or the uncontrolled use of obscenities? Are these the same people we want defining our right to bear arms and defend ourselves?

Today's Liberal is not a civil libertarian. He wants to take away civil liberties. He wants to control what you can read, what you can print, what you can say, what you can believe, your ability to support the political candidate of your choice, and your ability to defend your faith, country, family, property, and life. The Liberal of today wants to define rights as the ability to destroy a baby in the womb. The Liberal's idea of rights violates the baby's right to life.

By the Liberal's ideas of rights, they would have the right to speak, but you would not. Their government religion of humanism with its theory of evolution and Freudian psychology will be taught in the schools, not the Bible. Their views will be expressed in who gets money to campaign for political office, not yours. Their agents will be able to carry every conceivable kind of weapon, but not you. The size of your family will be limited by their government regulations, and some government bureaucrat will decide whether you are able to live in your old age, not you. Someone in government will decide your healthcare, not you and someone else will choose your doctor. This is the Liberal's idea of rights.

This is not my idea of personal rights. This is not God's idea of personal rights. This was not the founding fathers' idea of personal rights. When they wrote the Constitution of the United States they tried to guarantee these rights to include even the "unborn." They called the "unborn" their "posterity."

Our God-given rights were insured to our "Posterity" in the Constitution. The word posterity means:

The baby in the womb is posterity, they are "future generations" and "a person's descendants." Abortion is the killing of a person's posterity. If we allow the Liberal to again define our freedom, we will have no freedom left to define. They say that I am a skeptic, and I suppose that they are right. I looked at the emperor's new clothes, but he, like Bill Clinton on a break in the Oval Office, had no clothes.

If the Liberal were to define the right to free speech as they do the right to bear arms, we would have laws like this:

At birth, every baby must have a "mouth lock" installed. You can obtain a "permit" to own a baby from the FBI, by applying at your doctor's office for a back-ground check and waiting three days while your past mental state is examined. Only after being approved you may exercise your reproductive rights. If you want to say something you must be careful. You are only going to be given enough words for hunting and target practice, ahem, I mean for saying things that are approved by us. Unpopular, right wing, religious, or anti-government speech is dangerous, and may cost lives. Allowing your speech to be left lying around where some innocent child could hear it and believe it is likewise illegal. When not being used for a permitted activity, your mouth lock must be in place, and your mouth must be out of reach of other people. Any illegal use of a minor's speech will cause the immediate incarceration of his parents.

You would say, "How absurd!" You are right. But if you can limit one liberty, you have limited all liberty. Ronald Reagan properly pointed out that "freedom is indivisible." It is not freedoms, but freedom. If you destroy one part, you destroy it all.

When Cain killed Abel, God did not blame the "club" which he used to beat him to death. There is no mention in the Bible of needing to keep your clubs locked-up. Instead God blamed Cain. It was immaterial what he used to murder his brother. There was no "class-action law suit" filed against the manufacturers of unsafe clubs.

I would like to propose an experiment. This experiment would be easy to verify. Let's put some anti-libertarian, Liberals in the same neighborhood for five years. We will place a sign in front of each house, which will read, "Gun-free house, because we care!" At all the entrances to this neighborhood we will put a big sign that will read, "Warning, you are now entering the Liberal sector. No guns allowed! This is a gun-free neighborhood." We will create another neighborhood in a similar area, equally close to gangs, crime, and drugs. This neighborhood will be made-up of similar houses, people with similar incomes, but will all be required to own at least one gun. Their houses will have a sign in the yard which will read, "The occupant of this house owns at least one deadly weapon, and is prepared to use it against any trespasser." At the entrance to his neighborhood the sign will read, "Warning, you are now entering the Freedom sector. Every inhabitant of this sector is armed and will defend his rights to life, liberty, faith, family, and property."

This experiment will last for five or ten years. At the conclusion of the time, let's find out which neighborhood has the highest crime rates for assault, murder, rape, drugs, property theft, or any other area of crime that you would like to compare. Would you care to guess which one it will be?

I would appreciate hearing from you about your opinion on this. You can write me at: opinions@truth4u.org

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Pastor Michael D. McCubbins is a Baptist minister in Arleta, California who clearly understands the God-given, natural right to self-defense and liberty.  You can visit his church's home page at http://www.truth4u.org to find out more about his ministry, his church, and to access his pastoral writings, as well.  It is an honor and a privilege to host this article for Brother McCubbins as it serves as a beacon for many other people of Christianity to guide their way into American Thinking from a biblical and spiritual perspective.