Constitutional Defense of Your Family and Your Freedom, Part One: “I thought I was ready, I just knew that if the time ever came that I would step up and defend my family that I would. But I was wrong. When the moment came, I froze. I didn’t have the training, the confidence, or the skills needed to defend my family. And I never, ever, want to be in that situation unprepared again.” In this episode, you will learn the importance and the true meaning of The Second Amendment as the Founders intended. This individual right is not just for hunting.  It’s for protecting and defending our families. Two and a half million times a year a firearm is used to stop a crime.  We can not be unprepared if the situation arises. 

Air Date: 06/07/2017

Guests: Rick Green.

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast.  However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers.  Additionally, names may be misspelled because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Welcome

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and politics, this is WallBuilders Live with David Barton and Rick Green.  We appreciate you joining us today. As always, we want to encourage you to visit our website http://www.patriotacademy.com/, WallBuilders.com and WallBuildersLive.com. All kinds of great information at all these websites and certainly they”€™re good resources for you to get great information for your friends and family to share with them as well.

Part of what we do here at WallBuilders Live is we approach things a little bit like the founding era from the standpoint of Paul Revere warning that the British were coming. Well, we’re here to warn you that freedom can be lost in one generation if we as citizens of a great nation are not willing to study where we came from, study what the principles are that made us great and then take action to preserve those principles.

All throughout the week on WallBuilders Live we hope that we’re bringing you great information and sharing with you those principles. But we also pray that you are at home taking action on those principles. There is so much that each and every one of us can do no matter where we’re from, no matter what we do in terms of our career, or our job, our family’s situation, every single one of us as citizens in a great nation have the opportunity to do our part in preserving freedom.  Actually, I say, “€œthe opportunity”€ but we have a duty to preserve freedom. We have a duty to protect, and preserve it, and pass it to the next generation.

And a big part of that is just getting educated about where we came from, what we’ve been about, what those constitutional principles are that make our nation so great. It”€™s one of the reasons we do Foundations of Freedom Thursday throughout 2013. We’re doing that, so excited about that, I had the chance to learn so much from David Barton just getting to ask questions and share your questions that you e-mailed in which you can still do at [email protected].

And we’re going to be continuing that in 2014, continuing to study our founding principles and apply them to the issues of the day. And we’re going to do that for the next two days in a little bit of a different way.

We’ve shared a few presentations with you over the last few weeks from the WallBuilders Pro-family Legislators Conference. If you’re not familiar with that really encourage you to visit ProFamily.com. That’s our legislator’s conference where we bring in state reps and state senators from around the nation.

They get to share ideas, sharpen each other’s countenance, encourage each other, it’s a great time of worship and fellowship and learning from speakers that come in from around the nation some really powerful speakers have a great time at the legislator’s conference. So if you know your state rep or even if you don’t know your state rep or state senator you ought to send them an email and encourage them to check out the Pro-Family Legislator’s Conference and possibly attend next year.

All that information is there at that website.

A Primer On The Second Amendment.

I had the chance to share on a topic that I love and that is very important to my family and I hope it is important to you as well and that is the Second Amendment. This year at the Legislative Conference I gave a presentation on the Second Amendment.

I remember when I first started working with David Barton one of my favorite tools that he allowed us to study in that he put out for the world a study is a book that he did on the Second Amendment.

It’s basically a primer on the Second Amendment. And it goes back and it documents what the Founding Fathers said about the Second Amendment,  It documents the early court cases dealing with the Second Amendment, the state constitutions, I mean all the different data and information to really make it clear that it is in fact an individual right to keep and bear arms, and the Biblical foundation of that right. And the Founders quoting of the Bible when talking about the Second Amendment.

Passing Legislation On The Second Amendment

And I just so enjoyed what I learned from that book and I remember using that when I was in the legislature in passing legislation that dealt with the Second Amendment. That was in the old days when I was in the legislature. Back if you remember when the government was trying to blame all the gun manufacturers for crime saying, “€œIt’s your fault if some criminal breaks into somebody’s house and steals their gun, that they bought legally, that had been manufactured legally, sold legally. But this criminal steals it, goes and commits a crime. And somehow that’ Six Hours responsibility or Colts responsibility.”  It was insane.

Anyway, a lot of the states immediately started passing legislation preventing that, preventing cities in our states from jumping on that bandwagon and I was the one that carried that bill in Texas and it gave me a chance to really study the Second Amendment more into to get involved in that much more than I had been earlier in my life.

So I’ve always been a big Second Amendment supporter and a major proponent of what the Founders said that the Second Amendment was all about. At least ever since I was able to study that from David. But in the last year or so I’ve gotten much more interested in self-defense itself and how to apply, how to live the Second Amendment. Not just to preserve the right for us to keep and bear arms but what’s the proper way to actually live that out?

For me personally, to keep and bear arms and to be ready and able to defend myself, and my family, and those around me. And also to be able to defend freedom. So that led us on a little bit of a journey in putting together some presentations and I was able to share that presentation with the legislators this year at the Pro- Family Legislator’s Conference and we thought we’d bring that to you here on WallBuilders Live. It”€™s going to take two days to do this.  It’ll be a two part series. And we come back from the break we”€™ll jump right in. It’s a presentation called, “€œConstitutional Defense of Your Family and Your Freedom. Back in a moment here.

Patriot Academy

Hey, friends, this is Rick Green. You’re about to hear from some students at Patriot Academy this last summer from all over the country. I encourage you to visit PatriotAcademy.com, right on the homepage there a video is going to start playing, it”€™s just 60 seconds. You’re about to hear the audio from that video but you’re really going to want to watch the video and share it with your friends and family we are so excited about what God’s doing with the next generation.

Students:

I have a destiny. Freedom isn’t just for politicians. It”€™s meant for each of us. To play a role, to be significant, and to live with purpose. My life meaning, I have a destiny. Who am I? Does it matter? I was given one life. If not us, then who? If not now, then when? Let”€™s change the world.  People say you can’t change the world because you’re young or inexperienced. Because you aren’t ready. But I’m training every single day and I have a voice. I would give this life and everything I”€™ve got because I am a champion. We all have one life to give. I am a patriot and I have a destiny.

Rick:

We’re training up a generation of champions to change the world. Hope that you will help us and that you’ll spread the word let others know about it. Visit today PatriotAcademy.com.

I Thought I Could Do It, But I Froze

Rick:

I thought I was ready.  I’m a Type-A personality. I had shot my gun out at the ranch but I never had any real training. I didn’t think I needed any. I’m a person of action, I’m going to get it done. I just knew that if the time ever came that I would need to step up and defend my family that I would. But I was wrong.

When the moment came, I froze. I didn’t have the training, or the confidence, or the skills needed to defend my family. And I never, ever, want to be in that situation unprepared again.

Fortunately, my moment of truth came in a simulation so it wasn’t a real world. But man, it was a wake-up call for me and it began a journey of preparation and training so that I could defend my family.

And I know for thousands and thousands of families out there every year the brutality of evil becomes very real. It’s not a simulation.  It happens to them and they have to live with that devastation. And I want to know that when evil comes knocking on my door that if that situation ever becomes real in my life that now because of the training and the preparation, Lord willing, I am great and I want you to be ready as well.

Would You Be Ready To Defend Your Family

As you can tell here at Wallbuilders and at the Pro-family Legislators Conference we tend to shy away from the tough issues. So we generally spend our time on the really non-controversial universal agreement issues like marriage, and abortion, and taxes, and Sharia law, and these sorts of things.

So along those same lines, I thought we might spend a little bit of time on an issue upon which there is universal agreement and that’s of course guns. I mean, there’s no controversy whatsoever in any of your states over guns, I’m assuming. I mean, everyone agrees with the same meaning of the Second Amendment, right?

I mean, there’s not a debate over whether or not this is an individual right or right for the militia or the military whatever it is. Because there’s no reason to have a disagreement because there’s just absolutely nothing in the Second Amendment about the right to keep and bear arms being an individual right, right?

I mean, there’s there’s nothing there that would possibly indicate to you that this could possibly be an individual right. So, along those lines we’re going to analyze the Second Amendment and take a look at this issue because it’s one that we have seen a lot of debate and a lot of, shall we say, insanity in response to some of the tragedies like Sandy Hook and others.

The Second Amendment As It’s Understood By Liberals

So let’s first take a look at the Second Amendment as it’s understood by the revisionists and the liberals. You might recall a few years back when Bill Clinton was president that their position was that the Second Amendment does not extend to an individual right to keep and bear arms.

And Clinton and Gore remember it like it was yesterday, they ran around the country talking about how they weren’t going to take away your shotgun, you’d still be able to hunt, and all these things and that was their attitude towards the Second Amendment. And of course, you know as good a communicator as Bill Clinton is, I mean, he was very effective at selling whatever his message was.

Communicating Well To Win The Vote

One of things we conservatives don’t do well enough in terms of selling our message of communicating and winning the argument before we try to win the vote. I mean, Clinton was so good. I can”€™t remember if it was Will Ferrell or whoever said Bill Clinton could walk into the middle of a room and say, “€œI’m not here.”€ And people would believe him. I mean they he was that good, right? He was great at communicating.

These guys had a message, “€œDon’t worry, Buba, we’re not going to take your shotgun.”€ As if the Second Amendment was about pheasants. I mean, they actually seemed to think that the Second Amendment said something more along the lines of, “€œA well-regulated pheasant hunt being necessary to the security of Duck Dynasty the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed-“€ As if that was the reason that we have a Second Amendment that tends to be the liberal approach and the liberal view of the Second Amendment.

Take a look at what the media says about the Second Amendment. USA today, “€œThere’s no individual right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights.”€ San Francisco, Law Journal, “€œLaw-abiding Americans have no constitutional right to firearms access.”€ The New York Post, “€œThe idea that the Bill of Rights guarantees each individual right to own a gun is a constitutional allusion.”€ The Washington Post, “€œThe sale manufacture possession of handguns ought to be banned.”€

“We do not believe the second guarantees an individual right to keep them,” my hometown, the Austin American-Statesman, “there is no constitutional guarantee for private ownership of firearms.”

Why Does It Matter If Gun Ownership Is An Individual Right?

Why is this important? Why is the question of whether or not the Second Amendment is an individual right, why does that matter? Why does it matter if it’s an individual right or a group right?

And I realize that I’ve been a little bit sarcastic up until this point. But the truth is this topic is life or death. This issue comes down to life or death and it could be your life. Or someone in your family that is at stake if we lose the Second Amendment and we lose the right to keep and bear arms.

Friends, there is evil in the world. And there is no law that you’re going to pass either on the state level or the federal level that’s going can get rid of evil. You’re not going to stop it. There will be evil and there will be criminal violence. The question is how do we respond to it? The question is, what do we do to minimize it? That’s the kind of question you can ask as a legislator.

So, when evil happens it should not be a knee-jerk reaction to say that somehow government can prevent evil by getting rid of an inanimate object. And really how you answer these questions depends entirely upon your worldview.

Because you can come to two very different conclusions. How do we best deter and minimize evil? Because we’re not going to stop evil this side of heaven. How do we respond to that evil when it does turn into criminal violence?

Well, the answer depends on your worldview because if your worldview says that guns are the problem. If your worldview says that that man is essentially good and the man left to himself will make good decisions and not harm anybody then you could honestly come to the conclusion that the presence of the gun is somehow causing the violence or causing the bad behavior. If your worldview says everybody’s good and it’s the introduction of the gun that causes the problem.

That’s why a lot of these people I believe are well meaning that they’ve got good intentions but their worldview is wrong. They actually think that man is inherently good and the gun is the problem. That”€™s why people like Bob Costas will make absolutely idiotic statements like this, “€œWe have a gun culture that almost always leads to tragedy rather than safety. Far more often bad things happen then things where the presence of a gun diminishes or averts danger.”€ He went on to say, “€œI cannot think of a single instance involving a professional athlete whereby that athlete having a gun averted or diminished a dangerous situation.”€

A Professional Athlete Averted Danger With His Firearm

Folks, I can just point to my own backyard in Austin, Texas. In fact, it’s always good to show the Longhorns in a year like this. So we’re going to use Colt McCoy as an example. Here’s a professional athlete now who had a stalker come to his house in Austin, Texas and because he had his firearm he was able to deter that stalker and that stalker left instead of there being a violent action which is what that stalker was there for was a violent act.

Just right out my back yard is an example, so there is example after example, I mean not just athletes. Here in Brooklyn a 10-year-old kid, his family’s home was broken into. His parents were being held at gunpoint by one perp. Another purpose busting into his room and, because he had not been trained at Front Sight, he stuck his gun through the door. 10-year-old kid slams the door on his arm he drops the gun and the ten-year-old kid picks up the gun fires a couple of rounds at the perp, doesn’t hit him, but the two perps leave the house and the family was saved by a 1o-year-old. Don’t tell me in every instance a gun is used in a negative way and not a positive way.

Constitution Alive

Have you ever wanted to learn more about the United States Constitution but just felt like, man, the classes are boring or it’s just that old language from 200 years ago or I don’t know where to start? People want to know. But it gets frustrating because you don’t know where to look for truth about the Constitution either.

Well, we’ve got a special program for you available now called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. It’s actually a teaching done on the Constitution at Independence Hall in the very room where the Constitution was framed. We take you both to Philadelphia, the Cradle of Liberty and Independence Hall and to the WallBuilders”€™ library where David Barton brings the history to life to teach the original intent of our Founding Fathers.

We call it the QuickStart Guide to the Constitution because in just a few hours through these videos you will learn the Citizen’s Guide to America’s Constitution.  You’ll learn what you need to do to help save our Constitutional Republic. It’s fun! It’s entertaining! And it’s going to inspire you to do your part to preserve freedom for future generations. It’s called Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now at WallBuilders.com.

 More Guns Less Crime

Rick:

This Marine actually stopped a man from beating a woman to death. He was kicking her in the head trying to kill her and a Marine who had a concealed carry license was able to stop that man from committing that crime.

John Lott did the study many of you have probably quoted from it during legislation that you’ve been passing back home. But in his book “€œMore Guns Less Crime”€ he said that 2.5 million times a year a firearm is used to stop a crime while 500,000 times a year is used to commit a crime. That’s five times as often that a firearm is used for what Bob Costas says never happens.

Just look at the stats, the more you have gun ownership in America the lower the violent crime goes. Look at the violent crime drop on the left, look at this graph on the right, you see gun ownership in the orange is going up and violent crime is going down.

It works, if law abiding citizens have guns they’re able to stop the crime. But you say, “€œWell, it”€™s guns themselves cause accidents, murders, all of these things.”€ Look at this stat here, these are the big killers in the US.

So tobacco obviously blows everybody out of the water but look at that one right there, medical errors, 195,000 thousand cases. So one hundred ninety-five thousand a year from medical errors. Unintentional poisoning 31,000 almost 32,000. Non-firearm homicides almost 17,000. And then your firearm homicides at 11,000. And yet we hear all these crazy comments.

What”€™s Your Worldview

Here is Costas again, he’s responding to- this was on Bill O’Reilly when O’Reilly asked him about the whole Colorado theater situation and, “€œWouldn’t you want to be armed if something like that happens?”€

Costas said, “€œPeople who actually believe that if a number of people were armed they would have been able to take down this nut job when in fact that would have only increased the tragedy and added to the carnage. It’s far more likely than somebody playing Dirty Harry and taking this guy down. Over the course of time, there would be a dispute over somebody stepping on somebody’s foot in the line for popcorn and that dispute would escalate because someone has a gun.”€

I must have missed it, can you please point out for me all the headlines over the last few years of shootings in the line for popcorn because someone’s foot was stepped on? I don’t remember any of those, do you?

But think about what he’s saying.  He thinks that anybody that wants to protect themselves and their family has a Dirty Harry mentality as if you’re looking for a fight, you want desperately someday to be able to say, “€œGo ahead, punk, make my day.”€ As if that’s what we’re living for. That’s not what we’re living for. We just simply want to defend our family, but these guys don’t get it. Why? Because of the worldview.

That’s not what we’re living for. We just simply want to defend our family, but these guys don’t get it. Why? Because of the worldview.

You know the right answer to this, right? Guns don’t kill people. No, Chuck Norris kills people. So you were close. You”€™ve got to catch up with all the Chuck Norris jokes. And what I love about Chuck, we were blessed to have Chuck back when I ran for the Supreme Court. The only problem with that is if Chuck has your phone number this is what it looks like when he calls.  It doesn’t say to answer or deny, it just says, “€œanswer or answer.”€  There’s no denying Chuck, let me just tell you.

But here’s the point, I mean, look, I love what General Boykin said today. Everybody needs to get AR. So I thought I would throw in a picture of my beautiful wife shooting one of our ARs. I think that’s an important thing, I agree with General Boykin, everybody should get one.

But I get concerned after Sandy Hook with everybody talking about how it was the presence of an AR that would cause so much carnage and danger and that these were the evil weapons that no one should have.

Guns Don”€™t Kill People, People Kill People

So I did my own test, I took one of our ARs and I set it on the couch and I pointed it outside and I instructed it to shoot anybody that came by. And then I sat back and I waited all day long. And clearly, I have the laziest most defective AR in the country because it did nothing. Didn’t move, didn’t fire, not a thing.

Why? You know the answer.  We just said it.  Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. The problem is the heart of man. The problem is the depravity of man. And we love to blame something else, don’t we? We’ve been playing the blame game since Adam and Eve, right?

I mean, we always look for someone else to blame. I find it interesting that on the same day that Sandy Hook happened that over in China with all of their gun control and no guns the exact same day a crazed man took a knife into a school and injured or killed and 22 kids and an 85-year-old woman. Over the last two years, it’s been over 200 children and teachers either hurt or killed by crazed men going into schools with knives or swords.

Friends, you take away the guns, “€œWe’ll use knives.”€ You take away the knives, “€œWe’ll use rocks.”€ It goes all the way back to Cain and Abel. It is the heart of man that is the problem. And that’s why General Boykin was right this morning, the Second Amendment and our right to defend ourselves and our families did not start with our Constitution. It goes back to a Biblical concept of self-defense, the right to protect yourself and your family.

Bring A Speaker To Your Area

Tim:

Hey, this is Tim Barton with WallBuilders.  And as you’ve had the opportunity to listen to WallBuilders Live, you’ve probably heard a wealth of information about our nation, about our spiritual heritage, about the religious liberties, and about all the things that make America exceptional. And you might be thinking, “€œAs incredible as this information is, I wish there was a way that I could get one of the WallBuilders guys to come to my area and share with my group.”€

Whether it be a church, whether it be a Christian school, or public school, or some political event, or activity, if you’re interested in having a WallBuilders speaker come to your area, you can get on our website at www.WallBuilders.com and there’s a tab for scheduling. If you”€™ll click on that tab, you’ll notice there’s a list of information from speakers bio’s, to events that are already going on. And there’s a section where you can request an event, to bring this information about who we are, where we came from, our religious liberties, and freedoms. Go to the WallBuilders website and Bring a speaker to your area.

Raising Righteous and Rowdy Girls

Rick:

I’m going to break one of the rules in public speaking here and certainly in using a PowerPoint. I’m going to give you a very extended quote, this is long so you’ve got to stay with me.

But it’s so good I can’t just paraphrase it comes out of Doug Giles “€œRaising Righteous and Rowdy Girls.”€ and it has to do with this issue of gun control and whether or not Christians should have the mentality that General Boykin said this morning that we should have. Here’s the way that Doug Giles puts it.  It’s in a chapter called “€œTeach Your Daughter How to Shoot Guns.”€

“€œFear no man of any size. Call on me and I’ll equalize.”€ That’s the common engraving on Frontier firearms. “€œNever bring a knife to a gunfight. I was going to a talk show the other day defending the 2nd Amendment and discussing with my host the stupid and unconstitutional D.C. gun ban. I made it clear that I’m a Christian who is extremely cool, to the point of being giddy, with our right to keep and bear arms. After we trounced the anti-gun lobby for their goofy doe-eyed John Lennon like imagine solutions to violent crime we opened up the phone lines for folks to weigh in with their two cents. The first caller was a woman who asked if I thought Jesus would carry a weapon if he were here today. To which I quickly replied, “€˜Yes, of course, he would. Especially if he lived in Miami and he was driving down I-95 at 4 o’clock in the morning.”€™ The female caller being far more spiritual than I am didn’t think it was funny and went on to make it personal by asking if someone were attacking one of my daughters and I had a gun if I thought Christ would be cool with me killing the felonious freak. I told her that I sure hope he would because otherwise he’d be terribly disappointed in me and would just have to forgive me. Common sense and primal instinct tell me that the bad guy should die and the good girl should live. Call me Carneal. Of course, the holier than me caller was aghast that as a Christian I would have no problem whatsoever defending my friends, family, person, and possessions with deadly force.

Her reason being that she just couldn’t picture Jesus doing it. And concluded that because she couldn’t wrap her mind around him greenlighting the destruction of a demented perp that he certainly wouldn’t, and thus I shouldn’t. Well, when discussing what Christ would do in a given situation it’s usually good to actually go to the Gospels read them and then draw conclusions. Here’s what I’ve gotten after scouring scripture a few times and we can refer to this little bit this morning. Jesus in His earthly ministry didn’t carry a weapon except for the time when he took a whip, a whip, you’ve got to love it. And Billy Jacked the televangelist out of the temple. He didn’t chide them or write them a strong but tasteful email asking them to please do not do that kind of stuff in church. What did the meek and mild Messiah do? He whipped them. God, I hope you got that on DVD for me to watch when I get to Heaven. I wonder if the “€œChrist is a pacifist”€ lady can picture Sweet Jesus laying the leather to the backs of the marketers who were making his father’s house a place of merchandise. If Christ were to do that today he’d be thrown in prison 99.9% of churches in the USA wouldn’t have him speak at their annual Halleluja Aren’t We Fabulous conference. Because Jesus wouldn’t be behaving very Christ-like.”€

Rick:

We”€™re out of time for today folks, that was actually a presentation I was giving at the Pro-Family Legislator’s Conference. We’re about halfway through with it, so tomorrow we’ll pick up right where we left off and we’ll take you back out to the conference and finish that presentation on the Second Amendment and our constitutional defense of both our family and our freedom.

Hope you’ve enjoyed it so far. If you want to learn more you can go to our website today at WallBuildersLive.com. We actually have a link in today’s program to my website at RickGreen.com where I’ve got some articles on the Second Amendment and also we want to make some information available to you.

One of the things that’s so important that we all do if we’re going to defend ourselves and our families is get good training. And I tell you, I thought that I was trained, I thought I knew how to shoot a gun.  I’d never been trained. But I taught myself. And fortunately over the last year or so I’ve had the opportunity to get some training from some of the greatest in the country and we want to share some of that with you.

We’ve made some DVDs that we want to make available to you in a little package called Constitutional Defense of Your Family and Your Freedom and it’s available on my website at RickGreen.com or have a link for you at WallBuildersLive.com today and go there to find out more information. Tomorrow we’ll pick up right where we left off in the presentation of the legislator’s conference so be sure to tune in tomorrow here on WallBuilders Live!