The Cost of FREEDOM

By JW Ross

I wish I could be more upset re: the deaths at Newtown School.

Every time I read (or listen) to the hand ringing and chest beating on the TV and in the newspapers about the "deaths of 20 children and six teachers", I think of the millions who stand with them as innocents butchered at the hands of those who wish to supress freedom in just the last century.

Whether it is those who were killed with purpose in the gas chambers, or those who simply were collateral damage when the Russian took Berlin, or the Germans lay siege to Stalingrad (for example). . .the numbers are numbing but demand a perspective and our reason, not our passion.

What is the lesson to be learned . . .?

In the face of this tragedy do we call for gun control or prohibition as the Progressives of the past (Nazi's, Communists, and Fascist) did? And as many Progressives do today?

Or do we accept that guns are "tools of freedom", as are words, our persons, and our lives. History shows clearly that the cost of disarmament is not hundreds of lives, or thousands, but millions.

Rather than victims, those of us who realize that FREEDOM cannot be compromised, must embrace "the children" of Newtown School as martyrs who gave their lives to a mad man who wished to take their, and our, FREEDOM away with a gun.

And we must gather strength and comfort from Thomas Jefferson's words. . ."The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

We can be sorry. . .but we must be resolute.