Molon Labe

Did you see the movie 300? It's a stylized telling of the Spartan warriors who stood against the Persian army in northeast Greece 2500 years ago. Xerxes' ambassador demanded of Spartan King Leonidas that he lay down his weapons and submit, and history tells us that Leonidas' reply was Molon Labe--"come and take them".

These days, it serves a similar function, though. It’s a more polite way to tell someone to “bring it on.”

You see, if someone like me says those two little words, we’re conveying a whole lot in a short period of time.

For one thing, we’re saying that we oppose any kind of gun control, that we won’t lay down our arms as a tyrant demanded of free people at Thermopylae. We’re saying that we’re committed to our cause, that we’re willing to die to protect our rights and the rights of our brothers and sisters.

More than that, though, it’s a warning.

When we say that, we’re warning lawmakers that if they push too far on gun control, they’re going to get a fight. It’s not a declaration of war, but it’s a warning that one will be coming if legislators decide they can take away our guns and ignore the Second Amendment. More than that, though, it’s a warning that the Second Amendment won’t go away quietly.

The truth of the matter is that gun owners tend to recognize that no people become enslaved unless they’re disarmed. No genocide happens unless people are disarmed. Atrocities which shock the world only happen to disarmed societies.

We Americans have decided that won’t be us.

I neither confirm nor deny possession of any firearms. And that's as it should be.