As a young boy I was shot by a man whose clear intent was to kill me as I had deliberately, by throwing broken bricks at him, interrupted his attempt to rape a young teen-aged girl, allowing her to escape. To this day I can still see the evil in his face and the sun glistening off the barrel of the pistol he aimed in my direction. As I turned and began to run away he fired hitting me in back. The bullet entering my chest felt as if someone had hit me with baseball bat followed immediately by an excruciating burning sensation as I fell to the ground from the impact.   Perhaps it was the adrenaline, but I was able scramble to my feet and run as far as I could until finally passing out from the shock and loss of blood.   Fortunately, someone came to my rescue and took me to a military hospital and the first step on my journey to the United States.

According to the current incarnation of the American left, who traffic constantly in victimhood and noble intentions, I should be in the vanguard of the mandatory gun control and confiscation movement.  That somehow it was the inanimate object this soldier was holding and not him that was responsible for the attempt on my life or to ignore the fact that his mindset was such he would have used any weapon at hand to accomplish the same goal.   

On the contrary, I own a handgun today because of the experience of coming face to face with the evil that permeates some men's souls. I and the girl I rescued were defenseless.  There were no police or armed citizens around and the death of another homeless and unknown boy and girl, buried in an unmarked mass grave, would have been just another easily ignored casualty of the post-War period.  I was determined that I would never again face a similar circumstance. I have had in my possession firearms for virtually my entire life, as I have been fortunate to live in the one nation on earth that has embedded in its founding document the right to bear arms.

Today, I am, along with a vast majority of my fellow citizens, being made the scapegoat for the failed policies of the so-called progressives -- whether it is the inability of society to deal with extreme psychopaths or the mentally deranged, because the left insists they are entitled to the same rights as other citizens, or the never-ending attempt to rehabilitate criminals incapable of rehabilitation. Consistent with their inability to ever admit a mistake, the left and much of the Democratic Party  instead focuses on symbolism over substance and the path of least resistance -- going after the law-abiding hard working people who are the backbone of America.

But the motivation is more insidious than that. Those that self-identify as progressives, leftists, socialists or Marxists, have one overwhelming trait in common:  they are narcissists who believe they are pre-ordained to rule the masses too ignorant to govern themselves. Over the past thirty years as these extremists fully infiltrated academia, the mainstream media, the entertainment industry and taken over the Democratic Party, the American people have lost many of their individual rights. They are now being told what they can eat, where they can live, who they must associate with, where and how their children must be educated, and soon what medical care they are allowed to access, as well as the type of car they can drive and the amount of energy they are permitted to use.

The last bastion of freedom is unfettered gun ownership, so that too must go.  That the left is willfully and egregiously exploiting the actions of a deranged psychopath in the tragic death of 26 people (20 children) in Newtown, Connecticut to achieve this end exposes their true motivation. 

I immigrated to the United States from a continent that had nearly destroyed itself in World War II.  The War was the end-product of the ascension to power of various ego-maniacs, steeped in socialist/Marxist ideology, determined to amass all political power within their countries. Once elected to office, these despots began to centralize their power and eliminate all individual freedoms and democratic institutions. The people, as they lived in nations that did not allow unfettered gun ownership, were powerless to stop the inexorable seizure of power and many paid the ultimate price as nearly 40 million were killed during the War.

Many on the left and others will say I am trafficking in hyperbole, that nothing similar to that could ever happen in the United States -- perhaps not a massive and physically destructive war but the destruction of the nation as it was founded is well on its way. These same ideologues have reassured the American people over the past 40 years that they had no intention of ever:

• Telling the American people how to live;
• Limiting access to medical care;
• Attempting by fiat and legislation to dramatically limit gun ownership;
• Shifting near unlimited power to Washington D.C., by ignoring the concept of federalism;
• Deliberately bankrupting the country;
• Placing the private sector under the thumb of bureaucrats;
• Monitoring without search warrants American's private conversations and communications;
• Allowing unrestrained illegal immigration in order to affect the voting patterns in their favor.

Yet in the America of 2013 all this, and more, has come to past and we are expected to believe the progressive cabal when they say their ultimate aim is not to effectively invalidate the second amendment by ever more stringent laws and regulations.

The left's fundamental objective of transforming America is in sight, particularly with a fellow-traveler in the White House no longer facing re-election.  Over the next four years, this faction will push their agenda more forcefully than ever as they will never allow a crisis, real or manufactured; to go to waste as they make certain an ever-increasing percentage of the population becomes indentured to the government.

I have lived my entire life on borrowed time and now in the twilight of my years, I have but one thing to say to those determined to take away or limit my right to own a firearm and to transform and destroy the greatest nation in the history of mankind.   I, and many like me, will not be intimidated and you will only accomplish your ultimate ends over our dead bodies.