On October 5 Rush Limbaugh described concealed carry as a “deterrent” and an example of peace through strength on the individual level.
He segued into these comments by pointing to the ease with which Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump talks about having a concealed carry permit from New York.
A concealed carry permit, if you think one’s necessary — and by the way, they’re not easy to get. I know a lot of people in New York who have them, and it’s quite an involved process. But once you have one, one of the values in it is having people know that you do because that, in itself, is its own deterrent. What does that say, by the way? The fact that you have a concealed carry permit and you don’t mind if people know? That’s the deterrent.
Limbaugh then explained the deterring factor of having a permit to carry a gun on one’s person–and especially the deterrent of bad guys knowing you might be carrying one–by juxtaposing it with having superior military strength to ensure peace. He focused on debates surrounding the military’s purchase of a fleet of B-2 bombers–the last time such a purchase was made–and he talked of how liberals would call into his show and argue that the purchase of the bombers was a waste of money because we would never have to use them. Limbaugh said he shocked one such caller by telling him he was was exactly right; that we would never have to use our military if we amassed one sufficient in power to assure our enemies that they could not survive challenging it.
He said the same thing happened with the Stealth Bomber. Limbaugh said he asked one “liberal caller” if he knew why we were building the Stealth Bomber, and the caller said, “Why?” at which point Limbaugh responded by saying, “So, we hope, we never have to use it.”
This is peace through strength, the approach to military power best exemplified by Presidents Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Ronald Reagan–the approach that says we will build a military so great and powerful that our enemies will dare not trifle with it. Limbaugh says that concealed carry is the same philosophy at work on an individual basis. It is Donald Trump moving in and about New York City without hiding the fact that he might be armed. And it is the farmer in Kansas, the miner in West Virginia, the rancher in West Texas, and the liquor store clerk in Louisville, Kentucky— not hiding the fact that they might be armed and prepared to use their Second Amendment rights to defend their lives and the lives of their families should a dire threat show itself.
It is no irony that our Founding Fathers were explicit in saying the rights protected by the Second Amendment are “necessary to the security of a free State.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.