The American left, whose enthusiasts traffic constantly in victimhood and noble intentions, are once again exploiting and manipulating a tragedy.  They are now shamelessly claiming not only that teenagers who have been victims of or witnesses to a shooting must be the recipients of the nation's sympathy, but that whatever they say – however inane or uninformed, as long as it conforms with the left's anti-gun orthodoxy – cannot be questioned.  Their unfortunate experience gives rise to their newly minted status as unassailable spokespersons in any debate regarding gun control.  Therefore, anyone who has the temerity to question or criticize these newly anointed voices of reason is an insensitive brute who favors continued and unabated gun violence.

I am a victim of gun violence, as I was shot as a young boy by a man whose unambiguous intention was to kill me.  I own handguns today because of the experience of coming face to face with the evil that permeates some men's souls.  However, what I, and others of similar backgrounds, have to say will be ignored by the left and the media, as their agenda is not to solve the underlying factors inherent in mass shootings or gun violence, but rather to gut the Second Amendment – to make it meaningless in the inexorable march toward their ultimate goal, controlling the federal government in perpetuity.

When I was shot and left for dead, there was no organized police presence, and all law-abiding citizens were disarmed.  The death of another homeless, displaced, and orphaned boy, buried in an unmarked mass grave, would have been just another easily ignored casualty of postwar Europe.  But I am supposed to accept the absurd notion that somehow it was the inanimate object the man was holding, and not he, that was responsible for the attempt on my life.  And I am supposed to ignore the fact that his mindset was such that he would have used any weapon available, including his hands, to accomplish the same goal.

I have been unwavering in my determination to never again face a similar circumstance.  I have had firearms in my possession for the past 60 years, as I am fortunate to live in the one nation on Earth that has embedded in its founding documents the right to bear arms.

Today, I am, along with a majority of my fellow citizens, being made a scapegoat for the failed policies of the so-called Progressives.  Escaping blame from the Progressives is the ongoing and calamitous inability of society to deal with extreme psychopaths or the severely mentally deranged (because the leftists insist that they are entitled to the same rights as other citizens).  So, too, the never-ending attempt to rehabilitate violent criminals incapable of rehabilitation is held blameless.  And we are supposed to ignore their refusal to recognize the security threat of unconstrained illegal immigration.  

My life's experience has reinforced the concept that the right to bear arms is the foundational basis of preserving and protecting freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and private property.  The socialist oligarchy the left is determined to establish in America requires that that fundamental right to be dramatically eroded and under the thumb of a central authority.

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 egomaniacs, steeped in socialist-Marxist ideology, determined to amass all political power within their countries.  Once elected to office, these despots began to centralize their authority and eliminate all individual freedoms and democratic institutions.  As they lived in nations that historically did not allow unfettered gun ownership, the people were incapable of stopping the inexorable seizure of power, and many paid the price as nearly 40 million were killed and untold millions displaced during the war.

Many on the left will say I am trafficking in hyperbole, that nothing similar could ever happen in the United States.  Perhaps not a massive and physically destructive war, but the destruction of the nation as founded is well on its way.

Those who 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.  In order to achieve that end, no tactic is beneath consideration, and no crisis can be allowed to go to waste as they make certain that an ever-increasing percentage of the population becomes permanently indentured to the government they intend on controlling in perpetuity.

Over the 242-year history of the United States, this nation has encountered many crises as well as unethical and unscrupulous political factions.  However, the left and the Democratic Party of today are the most dangerous, unprincipled, and deceitful cabal in this nation's history.  They are capable of permanently tearing this nation asunder.  They callously exploit the anger and emotion of the truly grieved, irresponsibly promise Nirvana, manipulate various ethnic blocs as sacrificial pawns, and consciously pit citizen against citizen.  They deliberately undermine individual freedom in order to achieve their devious ends, and so they are essentially not at all different from those ultimately responsible for the carnage extant in the mid-20th century. 

With this reality as a backdrop, I, along with the rest of the country, am expected to unquestionably trust and believe the American Left when they claim that they just want to pass “common sense gun laws” and not overturn the 2^nd Amendment?    

It is for that reason, as well as my life's experience, that those determined to take away or limit my right to own a firearm, as part of transforming the greatest nation in the history of mankind, will not succeed.  I, and many millions throughout the length and breadth of America, will not be cowed into silence or acquiescence.