A true hero passes on

We note with the utmost respect the passing of Marek Edelman, one of the leaders of a group of 200 or so ordinary Jewish citizens confined to the Warsaw Ghetto when the German Army came to round up them up for transport to concentration camps in the spring of 1943. The citizens decided to not go without a fight, and with small arms and whatever makeshift weapons they were able to scrounge up held off the mighty Wehrmacht for three solid weeks, until the brave Poles were finally defeated by the mass use of explosives by the Nazis.

This sort of example, not "hunting or sport shooting", is why the Founders of our country listed the Second Amendment where they did in the Constitution, behind only the rights of freedom of speech and assembly - they recognized and acknowledged the inherent right of Americans to use firearms to successfully fight back against attacks by their own government, should it become oppressive and threaten the loss of their freedoms or even their very lives.

This kind of atrocity can and does happen over and over again, even in today's world. One only has to remember the recent stories of:

The former Yugoslavia in the early 1990s
Rwanda in 1994
The breakaway republic of Chechnya in the former Soviet Union
Darfur, in Sudan
Zimbabwe in the 2000s

All of these tragedies were made easily possible by the simple fact that the citizens of those areas were disarmed by the force of law, and as such had no way of fighting back against their oppressors save with their bare hands.

Rest easy, Mr. Edelman. You will never be forgotten around these parts.