The Biblical Right Of Self Defense Part 1 – What is the right of self-defense? Should citizens be allowed to arm themselves? Where should they be able to carry those arms? Tune in to hear part one of four for the biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective on the right of self-defense!

Air Date: 04/12/2021

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. 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 or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

You find your way to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, where we talk about the hot topics of the day always from a biblical, historical, and constitutional perspective.

My name is Rick Green. I’m a former Texas legislator and America’s Constitution coach. Normally, here with David Barton, America’s premier historian and our founder at WallBuilders, and Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders: those guys have the day off, because we’re sharing a program with you today, tomorrow, and the next couple of days after that on the Biblical Right of Self-Defense.

This is definitely a hot topic of the day both with President Biden’s executive orders dealing with gun control, and also just the national debate over how this should work. What is the right of self-defense? What should citizens be allowed to arm themselves with? Where should they be able to carry those arms? Does the Second Amendment mean the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed? Or does it mean it can be infringed? What was the Founding Fathers view on this?

So we want to get a biblical perspective on this, that right of self-defense. We also want to get a historical perspective and a constitutional perspective on this. So it’s going to take us a few days. We’re actually going to be sharing a live presentation that I did at one of our constitutional defense courses. So we’ll be sharing that with you and just a little bit of content, commentary, and perspective on this issue and trying to bring it to the day itself, like what’s going on in the nation right now. Some states are passing legislation on this issue dealing with how to respond to the federal laws, what can states do to interpose, to stand between the citizens and those federal laws when they overreach. So we’re going to have a lot of that this week. Hope you enjoy it.

By the way, our website wallbuilderslive.com, that’s the place where you can get the entire presentation. So this is going to take four days to cover this entire piece of content. And then this Friday, we’ll have our regular Good News Friday; lot of good stuff we want to share with you this coming Friday. But for the next four days, we’re going to be doing the Biblical Right of Self-defense.

And so at our website, wallbuilderslive.com, each day, you can go in if you missed a previous program, you can get that program. Or you can also get archives from the previous few weeks as well. If you missed some Good News Fridays or our Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs, where we take your questions and dive into those different foundational principles, if you’ve missed some of those over the last few weeks or months, you can get all of that right now at wallbuilderslive.com and some of the great interviews that we’ve had as well.

And then of course, very important, right there at wallbuilderslive.com is the place where you can make that one time or monthly contribution. I am so thankful for all of you out there across the country, so many people that donate on a monthly basis. And for some people, it’s 5 bucks a month, other people are able to get $500 or $1,000 or significant one time gifts. Those things are what make it possible for us to bring you this programming today. I don’t know how to stress that enough. We are so thankful for you. You have come alongside us. You’ve locked shields with us. You’ve really partnered with us to make it possible to bring truth to a culture that is frankly desperate for truth right now.

It’s hard to find truth in the American culture right now. There’s so many lies out there. That is not an exaggeration. There’s just this effort to mislead the American people on so many issues. I mean, I could go off on so many tangents right now, I’m not going to do that. I’m going to stick with the point, that truth is hard to find right now. So WallBuilders Live radio is more needed than ever before.

And there are so many people across the country and frankly, around the world, we have listeners around the world that look for truth here on this program. But so many people are getting the truth. They’re getting educated. They’re getting equipped on how to make a difference. They’re getting inspired to know they can make a difference. And they’re hearing the results of people that are making a difference. So that’s what WallBuilders Live is all about. We’re rebuilding those foundations while it seems like so much of America’s crumbling and falling apart. We’re rebuilding. We’re bringing that truth and rebuilding the walls, just like Nehemiah did in WallBuilders. So thank you to all of you out there that have donated to help make that happen.

I’m asking all of you that listen that get benefit from this, that get encouraged and that share it with your friends and family, to lock shields with us, to be partners with us. And you do that by sharing the program that helps expand our audience but also by donating. At wallbuilderslive.com, make that one time or monthly contribution today. We really appreciate that. Let’s dive in. We’re going to be sharing with you now the Biblical Right of Self-Defense. We’ll take a quick break. When we come back, we’ll jump right into the presentation. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

BREAK

This is Tim Barton from WallBuilders with another moment from American history. America is a special and unique nation. The average length for a Constitution in other countries is only 17 years. But we’ve had ours for over two centuries. And our 4% of the world’s population produces 24% of the world’s gross domestic product. And every year, we produce more inventions and technology than the other 96% of the world combined.

In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville of France came to America, travelled the country, and in his famous book, “Democracy in America” reported, “The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. This is the origin of the phrase ‘American Exceptionalism’ and affirms that America is unique because of the distinctive ideas on which we had been based, including inalienable rights, individualism, limited government, and the importance of religion and morality.”

For more information about American exceptionalism, go to wallbuilders.com

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live.. Thanks for staying with us. As I said before the break, we’re just going to jump right in. Here’s a presentation I did just a few weeks back. The first part of the presentation is from a few just a few weeks back and then the main part of the presentation is actually in the classroom out at Pahrump, Nevada during one of our constitutional defense courses. This is the Biblical Right of Self Defense.

Hey, friends, I’m Rick Green, America’s Constitution coach and the founder of Patriot Academy. Thanks so much for joining me for this presentation on Biblical and Constitutional Defense of Your Family. You know, there’s a verse in Proverbs that is so important that it is repeated twice. We find it in Proverbs 27:12 and again in Proverbs 22:3, and in both places, we are told that “A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions, but a simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” That’s what today’s program is all about.

We don’t want to be that fool that just assumes everything’s going to be okay, a simpleton that just walks right into danger, and has to suffer the consequences. We also don’t want to live in fear. We know that we are told not to have a spirit of fear, but of power, love and a sound mind. You know that sound mind part I believe has a lot to do with actually doing your homework; a sound mind where you use your reasoning skills, you use your deductive reasoning, and you start to put two and two together and figure out here’s the right answer. This one makes sense. This one can be backed up.

Well, when it comes to this discussion of do you have a right to defend yourself and your family? Do you have the right to actually, let’s just be blunt, take a life in order to defend your family’s life? Can you use self-defense when it means that you might have to take someone’s life if there’s an attack on someone in your family, and the only way to stop that threat is to take that life? Well, I think the Bible’s pretty clear on this question.

And this Proverb actually is what gets us started in the discussion, because what we’re trying to do here is take precaution. We’re trying to not be a simpleton. We’re trying to actually discuss these things ahead of time so that we know whether or not we do have a right to defend ourselves biblically, theologically, constitutionally. Under the laws of our country right now, do we have the right to defend ourselves and potentially have to use deadly force to do that?

And so that’s what we’re going to be covering throughout this presentation. And I want you to think back to that Proverb, and ask yourself at the end of this presentation, which category do I fit in? Am I being the prudent person? Or am I being the simpleton? Or some version say the fool? I know for me, I was the fool for most of my life. I was definitely the simpleton. I was not trained to defend my family. I did not think I needed to be ready to defend my family. You know, I told myself things like oh, it will never happen to me, or that kind of violent crime stuff doesn’t happen in my community.

Let me tell you something, friends. 1.2 million times a year, and this is before the crazy 2020 riots and all that crazy stuff, before that, 1.2 million violent crimes a year all over our nation. And it’s happening in communities just like mine, and just like yours. But sometimes we kid ourselves and think it won’t happen to us. Or sometimes we take the philosophy of God will take care of it, I don’t have a responsibility to be a part of that. Well, I think that violates all kinds of Scripture. And certainly our Founding Fathers believed that and we’ll dive into that in this presentation as well.

So the whole idea of the Castle Doctrine, being able to defend your home and be able to defend your family, that is a biblical concept, goes all the way back to the Old Testament. And what we need to recognize is that it’s more than a right, it’s a responsibility. So like I was saying, I, for years was the simpleton. I even had a concealed carry license. So I had the license in my home state of Texas to be able to carry a weapon to defend my family, but I didn’t carry because I wasn’t trained, I wasn’t sure I would know what to do in this situation, and I just assumed I never had to worry about that.

Well, I’m telling you folks, it can’t happen to you. It can’t happen to me. I actually ended up going to a training for the first time almost a decade ago. And I remember I was going through what they call a simulation house and it’s where they put you in a situation where an attack has happened on your family and in your home and I’m going through this house and I always thought I’m a type A person, I’ll step up, I’ll take care of the problem if I have to, if it presents itself.

Well, man, I figured out in that simulation house, I was not ready. I froze. And I was in this mode where it felt real to me and I froze up. And I remember thinking, wow, I would have failed my family, my daughter could have been kidnapped, something bad could happen to my family. And that was really my wakeup call that I don’t want to be the simpleton. I don’t want to be the fool that just goes blindly on and then has to suffer the consequences or my family has to suffer the consequence and then I have to live with that. I want to be the prudent person. I want to take the precautions necessary. And so for me, those precautions became getting trained and continuing to train, making sure that I’m physically ready to defend my family. But that I’m also legally ready, that I’m mentally ready, that I’ve already answered those questions, the ethical questions that I was just asking about, is it okay to use deadly force if necessary to stop a threat that could harm your family? Is that okay legally, biblically, all those things?

So we want to answer those questions well ahead of time, and then make sure we’re definitely physically trained to deal with the situation if we have to. So what you’re about to watch is a presentation that my kids and I did a couple of years ago that walks through these questions and gives you a lot of evidence from the Founding Fathers and from the idea of the laws of nature and nature’s God, if you go back to the Declaration of Independence, that’s what our freedoms are based upon.

And so I hope you enjoy this. There’s a lot of information here. I hope you’ll take some good notes. Teach it, share it with your friends and family, and pass it on. Make sure that we get as many people as possible to be the prudent person and not the simpleton. Sure hope you enjoy this. This is the Biblical and Constitutional Right of Self-Defense for Our Families.

Rick:

So you all please welcome Rhett Green. Come on up, buddy.

Rhett:

Alright. So I’m going to start us off by pulling from the actual Declaration, and then I’m going to go on to explain it. “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, but driving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Now guys, in the words of the Declaration, there are four basic frames that really represent the frame of America. First, the Founding Fathers began with the basic idea that truth is real. It is obvious and it does not change. Second, they also made it clear that God is the source of freedom. Like the Declaration says, our rights don’t come from many elected or appointed officials, but they come from God Almighty. Third, the just powers of government can only come from the consent of the governed. That’s you and me.

Rick:

Alright, friends, sorry to interrupt, but we’re going to have take a quick break. We’ll be right back. You’re listening to a special programming this week on WallBuilders Live, the Biblical Right of Self-defense. Stay with us, you’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

BREAK

Hey, guys, we want to let you know about a new resource we have at WallBuilders called the American story. For so many years, people have asked us to do a history book to help tell more of the story that’s just not known or not told today. And we would say very providentially in the midst of all of the new attacks coming out against America, whether it be from things like the 1619 project, I’d say America is evil.

And everything in America was built off slavery, which is certainly not true or things like even the Black Lives Matter movement, the organization itself, not out the statement, Black Lives Matter. But the organization that says we’re against everything that America was built on, and this is part of the Marxist ideology. There’s so many things attacking America.

Well, is America worth defending? What is the true story of America we actually have written and told that story starting with Christopher Columbus, going roughly through Abraham Lincoln, we tell the story of America not as the story of a perfect nation of a perfect people. But the story of how God used these imperfect people and did great things through this nation. It’s a story you want to check out wallbuilders.com, The American Story.

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. We’re just going to dive right back in to the Biblical Right of Self-defense.

Rhett:

The word ‘consent’ is used three times in the Declaration and 11 times in the Constitution. So obviously, the Founding Fathers didn’t want the government’s use of power without our consent. They want us to always remember that the government’s use of power without our consent is tyranny.

Now, the last part of the frame is the pursuit of happiness. This is the free enterprise system that has made America the most successful nation in history. Thomas Jefferson once said, “A wise and frugal government that shall lead men free leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.  This is the sum of good government.”

Now let’s all do our part in preserving those four basic, yet extraordinary principles. Now please join me in welcoming back my dad.

Rick:

Alright, good job, Rhett. There you go. Well done. Well done. Alright. Okay, let me dive in just a little bit on that. So he mentioned this frame, right, this is the way we kind of look at the declaration. It’s essentially holding your picture together. And you might have a different picture that you throw up there, like the white picket fence and the American flag in the house. Right? But your picture of freedom is held together by that frame. And if we lose the frame, the picture is going with it.

So all the things you love about freedom require us to have this frequent recurrence to fundamental principles in order to hold on to that frame and to keep that frame in place. So there’s a lot of principles we could talk about. I mean, I want to zero in specifically tonight on some principles that the Founders felt were absolutely essential. In fact, they considered the first principle we’re going to talk about tonight to be the palladium of all of other principles, the protector of everything else that we enjoy.

If you back up in the Declaration, one paragraph before what Rhett was talking about, where it says, when it becomes necessary for one nation to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to another and assume among the powers of the earth that separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitles them, the laws of nature is what these guys were basing so much on. They were saying, look, God’s shown us in nature how the system should work and how people should treat themselves and be organized.  And so the laws of nature were well known to the Founding Fathers.

And here’s this guy, St. George Tucker, a Founding Father that was a soldier in the American Revolution. He was a federal judge, he was a legal scholar, he’s actually professor at William and Mary. In fact, he was trained by, before I give you the quote from George Tucker, he was trained by George Wythe. Now, George Wythe is another founder you may not have heard of.

When you look at the painting that John Trumbull did at the signers of the Declaration of Independence, you have to look all the way over to the left. He was not a leftist by the way, but he’s way over there. You barely seen peeking around the corner there. And if you look at the $2 bill with the signing of the Declaration, poor George White didn’t even make the cut, man, you can’t see him: they cropped him out.

But George Wythe, very important Founding Father, in fact, this guy helped to give us the Declaration of Independence. He actually was also the mentor, not only of George Tucker, who we’re going to talk about here in a second, he was also the mentor of Thomas Jefferson, trained Thomas Jefferson, Monroe, a lot of other folks.

But Wythe had to leave, he wasn’t able to be there for the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He was so respected by the other members there, and especially the other guys from Virginia, that when they went to sign the Declaration of Independence, because he couldn’t be there on that particular day, they saved the spot at the top of the Virginia delegation so that when he came back in September, he was able to be the first name listed on the Virginia delegation. I thought it was a pretty cool story.

But we could talk about Wythe for a long time tonight, we don’t have time to dive into that. He trained this guy Tucker and Tucker replaced him as the professor of law there at William and Mary. But here’s what Tucker told us. And by the way, Tim Barton and his wife Gabi are here with us and Tim and David had brought, loan some of the documents that they have in their library for us. David and Tim have the largest private collection of Founders’ documents. Is it in the world? I know it’s in America, I mean, it’s a private collection anyway… Which is America. Yes, which like over 100,000 documents, right? So yeah, you all thank Tim and Gabi Barton for being here with us this weekend, be a part of this as well.

And Tim brought some of the documents from the library. And first one I’m going to show you tonight, I’m going to share two with you tonight, then we’re filming tomorrow, we’re going to be doing the rest of this box and we’re going to show a ton of these during the DVD programs. And if you’re not on frontsight.tv, you’ll be able to watch it there as well, so make sure you do that.

But he took, he basically did an American version of Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Law. So we took Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Law and he basically mixed it with or took it and applied it to our US Constitution and the Virginia statutes. And here’s what he said in there that is so fitting for us tonight. He said “The right of self-defense is the first law of nature.” Now, don’t forget what Rhett was saying, right, out of the Declaration, right there in the first paragraph of the Declaration, we’re told that all these rights come from the laws of nature and nature’s God.

So here’s Tucker telling us that the first law of nature is the right of self-defense. He said “Most governments, throughout history, it’s been a study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible.” In other words, government wants to restrict how much you can defend yourself because government can’t control you if you can defend yourself. Right? So he goes on to say, “Wherever the right of the people”, and this is what the warning for tonight, “wherever the right of the people to keep and bear arms is prohibited under any color or pretext whatsoever, liberty, if not already annihilated is on the brink of destruction.”

In other words, when you start limiting and you start restricting a person’s right to defend themselves, liberty is in major danger. That’s what Tucker was telling us. It’s the first law of nature. And so, let’s dive in specifically to the Second Amendment and how the Founders designed it and how it’s supposed to work. So I’m going to get some help from Reagan Green. He’s one of the DG did at 14 and he was supposed to DG at a young age is because he’s been teaching on the Second Amendment for a few years. So you all welcome Reagan Green.

Reagan:

Alright, guys, real quick. Before I jump into the Second Amendment, I would just like to say thank you to Front Sight, their administrative staff and Dr. Piazza for this incredible opportunity to not just do a class here, but be able to film it, and hopefully bring more people to these classes in the future. So with that said, let’s jump right into this. We’re going to start off with a guy named Richard Henry Lee.

Richard Henry Lee was the founding father in the Continental Congress that actually made the motion for America’s independence on June 7th 1776. Now, Lee once said that in order to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of all people possess arms and be taught how to use them, especially when young. Now that right there might help to explain why John Quincy Adams, sixth President of the United States was that with the Massachusetts Minutemen, guess what he was doing? Muskie drills? Guess how old he was? Eight years old. That’s incredible.

Rick:

Alright, folks, got to interrupt you one more time today so we can take a quick break. We’ll be right back. You’re listening to the Biblical Right of Self-defense On WallBuilders Live .

BREAK:

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. And 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’s 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 citizens 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 constitutional live with David Barton and Rick Green. You can find out more information on our website now at wallbuilders.com.

Rick:

We’re back here on WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us today. Diving right back into our presentation. Again, Today’s the first part in a four part series on the Biblical Right of Self- defense. Let’s pick up where we left off before the break.

Reagan:

Does anybody in here have a son roughly around 8-10 years old? What’s your son’s name? Kaden. Okay, so picture Kaden out doing range drills with a SEAL team today. That’s like John Quincy Adams doing musket drills with a Minutemen of eight years old. That is just plain awesome. But let’s look here again what Richard Henry Lee said “That in order to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of all people possess arms and be taught how to use them, especially when young.”

Guys, nobody on the planet is doing that better than right here in Front Sight Training Institute. But let’s just go ahead and let’s take a step back here and let’s actually look at the Second Amendment itself. Here’s what it says. “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

And some people can get a little confused about this word militia. But if you just transport yourself back to the founding era, it is clear this word militia basically meant every man that could fire a rifle. So this freedom here, it wasn’t for an official military, it was for the militia, or we the people. That’s why says the right of the people, not the right of the US military.

So guys, here’s the bottom line. Even if you don’t enjoy hunting, or guns or self-defense training as much as my family, but hey, you’re here at Front Sight, so of course you do, right. But there might be some people who are watching this on TV or DVD and they might say, gosh, you know what, I just don’t have as much of a passion for self-defense training as you guys. Here’s my message to you. You would still be wise to do everything that you can to help protect the rights of families like ours, because while I hope it never happens. There might come a day when we need to use these guns and this train that we’re getting here at Front Sight to help protect you and all of your rights. Alright, does my [inaudible 24:25] to preach there, that’s over moving on.

One last thing, guys, and then I’m going to jump off here and hand it back off to my dad. We all understand the importance of living out the Second Amendment, but can somebody here give me an example of something you can do to not just live out the Second Amendment, but also protect the Second Amendment? Somebody just shout out an answer, help me out. Votes. Yes, educate yourself. Absolutely. Those are all great answers, guys. And on top of those, like Maziar said, I want to encourage you to become students of history, continue to educate yourself, continue learning about the constitution like you are in this class, and then take this information home and send people to future classes here. Send friends. Send family. And then further your training and further building your knowledge of the Constitution.

And speaking of the Constitution, is now time for me to hand it back up for the man that first taught me how to be a sheep dog and not a sheep. Ye all welcome back my dad, Rick Green.

Rick:

Out of time for today, folks, we’re interrupting the presentation on the Biblical Right of Self-defense. Tomorrow, we’ll pick up where we left off. This will be a four part series. So if you’re going to miss one of the days this week listening to WallBuilders Live, it’ll all be available at our website, wallbuilderslive.com.

And again, don’t forget, at wallbuilderslive.com, that’s the place where you can make that one time or monthly contribution. Also, as you listen to the Biblical Right of Self-defense, maybe you want to come have that presentation live. You want to sit in the classroom with us as we teach these truths about the history of our Constitution, and specifically the Second Amendment and the right of self-defense.

The presentation you’re listening to actually took place in the classroom out in Front Sight in Pahrump Nevada. We go about once a month, and we take about 300 people with us each time. And during the day, you do Front Sight’s Handgun Defense course. You learn how to defend yourself and your family. We have people that have never shot a gun in their life, they go through these courses, a lot of people like that. And then some people that have shot their whole life but their skill level is tremendously increased. And we have fantastic fellowship.

So get the intellectual ammunition that you need, get the physical training that you need to defend your family and get that fellowship with like-minded believers from across the nation. Find out more today at constitutioncoach.com, constitutioncoach.com to join us for the constitutional defense course.

We’ll pick up tomorrow on the Biblical Right of Self-defense. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.