Hawkins: Ukraine is Handing Out Guns, Not Gun Control

With a Russian invasion well underway it is important to note that the Ukrainian government is handing out guns rather than gun control.

The tacit meaning behind this action is simple: An armed citizenry can at least fight back and may, in some cases, even repel a land-based invader.

On Wednesday Breitbart News noted that the Ukrainian Parliament took up a bill allowing citizens to carry guns and passed it on its first reading.

Ukrinform, a Ukrainian state media outlet, explains the breadth of the adopted draft:

[It] regulates public relations arising in the field of enforcement of the right of individuals and legal entities in Ukraine to carry civilian firearms, ammunition, as well as products structurally similar to weapons and ammunition. The bill also defines the legal regime of ownership of civilian firearms, establishes the basic rights and responsibilities of individuals and legal entities for the production, acquisition, possession, alienation, carrying, transportation, repair, use of civilian firearms and ammunition, etc.

Then, on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted:

We will give weapons to anyone who wants to defend the country. Be ready to support Ukraine in the squares of our cities.

— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) February 24, 2022

Zelenky’s readiness to arm those who will stand and fight against Russia is a reminder that self-defense is key to gun ownership. To put it another way, gun ownership is key to self-preservation.

And humanity does not just possess a need for self-preservation but a right to preserve one’s life as well. This is why America’s Founding Fathers ensured that ‘the right to keep and bear arms” was/is protected by the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment simultaneously protects the right to defend one’s life and the right to possess the tools necessary to defend it.

(Add Federalist 46 to your reading list and you will see that the defense of one’s liberty was also in view when the Second Amendment was written. Madison highlighted that the fact that Americans were armed meant they could successfully band together to repel threats to their liberty, and he noted that this made them exceptional among the nations.)

The need for self-defense and the defense of liberty is bearing down on Ukrainians and Zelensky is handing out guns rather than gun control.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange