U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- One of the nation’s largest and most active grassroots gun rights organizations says the Russian invasion of Ukraine “underscores the importance of the Second Amendment to the defense of freedom in the United States,” a remark that so far has brought crickets from the gun prohibition lobby.
Reuters reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “called on all citizens who were ready to defend the country from Russian forces to come forward, saying Kyiv would issue weapons to everyone who wants them.”
BULLETIN: In an appeal to gun owners around the world, the Second Amendment Foundation, which spearheaded the creation of the International Association for the Protection of Civilian Arms Rights, is reaching out to member organizations to support Zbroya, the Ukranian Gun Owners Association (UGOA). That group is a member of IAPCAR. Contributions may be made directly to UGOA by visiting the Zbroya page at the IAPCAR website here.
“Our brother and sister gun owners in the Ukraine are fighting for their lives,” SAF said in a prepared statement, “and now is the time for gun owners across the country and around the world to step up and help them in their hour of need.”
“When IAPCAR was founded,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb recalled, “we stressed the importance of civilian arms rights because when a nation is threatened with its very existence, responsibility for that nation’s defense invariably falls to the people, the patriots willing to take up arms and stand on the front lines of freedom.”
The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (SAF’s sister organization) was blunt in a statement released amid international angst over the invasion, “The right of the people to keep and bear arms has protected (the United States) since the beginning, and what is happening right now in Ukraine should be a lesson to all of those who push for citizen disarmament and a ban on private gun ownership how perilous that would be.”
“While we’ve seen reports that the Ukraine Parliament (Verkhovna Rada) has voted to ease restrictions allowing civilians to carry arms outside their homes,” said Alan Gottlieb, in his role as CCRKBA chairman, “in our country this has been the constitutional law of the land since our nation was founded.”
According to CNN, Zelenskyy quickly ordered a general military mobilization, prohibiting all men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country. Ukraine citizens are allowed to own firearms, but they do not enjoy the Second Amendment-level right to keep and bear arms.
“Our Second Amendment was enshrined in the Bill of Rights by men who had just fought a war for independence,” Gottlieb observed in a prepared statement. “They returned to their homes from battlefields, not from some deer hunting camp.
“The right to keep and bear arms has never been about shooting ducks,” he added, “but about protecting our right as citizens of the greatest nation on earth to defend our homes and families immediately against the kind of international outrage now unfolding in eastern Europe.”
The nationally-known gun rights advocate took a swipe at the gun prohibition lobby—which includes the billionaire-backed Everytown for Gun Safety and its subsidiary, Moms Demand Action, the Brady group and the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility—asserting those groups “would have America become vulnerable to such aggression as we are now seeing on television screens from coast to coast.”
Everytown had nothing to say about Ukraine, but it did lament in a tweet that “Gun violence has overtaken car crashes as the leading cause of trauma-related death in the U.S.”
“This isn’t some action movie Americans are watching,” Gottlieb said, “this is real life, and it vividly illustrates why so many of us fight day and night to protect and defend our Second Amendment rights.”
According to an estimate at GunPolicy.org, “Ukraine is home to an estimated ten million state- and civilian-owned firearms yet lacks cohesive gun laws. The nation inherited vast quantities of Soviet-era small arms and ammunition, and is a known source of weapons to regions of conflict and human rights abuse.”
A few lines later, the report notes, “Estimates of the number of guns in private hands range from 2.2 to 6.3 million. These suggest a median rate of 6.6 firearms per 100 people, although the higher figure would yield a rate of 13 per 100. In 2005, Ukraine ranked 84th in the world for the number of civilian firearms per capita.”
The group then notes, “As recently as 2006, Ukraine had the world’s sixth-largest military firearm inventory.”
Whether this squares with the data reported by Ammoland colleague David Codrea here isn’t clear. But it does demonstrate there are Ukrainians with at least some guns, and as Russian troops move into cities, they may face potentially nasty opposition. Wars, especially in urban settings, can be pretty dirty affairs where what substitutes as rules of engagement may amount to shooting anything that looks like a Russian, and for the invading Russians, anything that might be a Ukrainian resistance fighter in neighborhoods full of Ukrainians, whether they’re combatants or just scared civilians.
Those who have persistently argued that “weapons of war” do not belong in our neighborhoods might jump on the next plane to Ukraine in an effort to sell that notion to the citizens whose country has just been invaded.
Perhaps Gottlieb nailed it when he remarked, “We can only hope that gun prohibitionists, or at least their supporters in the establishment media, learn something from this tragedy. To live in peace, one must always be prepared to defend it.”
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About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
The right to self defense is a natural human right for all people,anyone against that in any form is a would be tyrannical monster.
Musicman…you just cracked the code! Move to the head of the class.
Thanks for reading and sharing AmmoLand News!
Yes, he gets a gold star for the day!
I concur! There is nothing about gun control/confiscation that makes it a priority. Gang-related shootings, if that issue were addressed appropriately, would be the way to curb “trauma-related deaths”. But as we all know, the Left loves thugs and lets them go scot-free, while lawful gun-toters are persecuted by leftist prosecutors for having the temerity to defend themselves from imminent deadly threats.
The problem as I see it from here is that Leftists love all that is bad for We The People, and always 100% of the time make the exact wrong choice, every time. This is deliberate malfeasance!
It’s as clear as the nose on our faces too about the kind of citizen the Ukrainian is. In the past when we see fleeing “migrants” from countries the left LOVES to bring into America, we see buff looking military age men in the front of the line with no women or children visible. That’s not happening there…
I so despise the leftards.
Let that feeling stoke your inner fire for the day of settling accounts.
“If a man has no sword, he should sell his cloak and buy one.” Part of Luke 22:36 Those words are spoken by JESUS the LORD, there is no higher authority on this earth. The sword was the assault weapon of that day. The right, the order to keep and bear arms comes from the LORD and, in this country, it is a right written into law as part of our very constitution. Anyone saying or acting otherwise is evil and criminal. Life can be simple if you let it. Sad to see a nation invaded but good to see… Read more »
I liked your reply so much I hit the like button, but that wasn’t enough, so I just kept on pushing the button for a minute or so anyway.
Fentanyl according to the very trustworthy CDC, (sarcasm),topped 100,000 deaths last year making Fentanyl deaths the #1 killer of men between 18-50.
Hey Joe Biden, Ukraine sure could use the weapons you left in Afghan. lol
They can buy them cheap from Russian mob weapons dealers.
At the end of the Cold War, the third largest nuclear power on earth was not Britain, France or China. It was Ukraine. The Soviet collapse, a slow-motion downfall that culminated in December 1991, resulted in the newly independent Ukraine inheriting roughly 5,000 nuclear arms that Moscow had stationed on its soil
Instead, Ukraine punted. It demanded that, in exchange for nuclear disarmament, it would need ironclad security guarantees. That was the heart of the agreement signed in Moscow early in 1994 by Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
William Jefferson Clinton gave his word on it………………………………. results…………..disaster.
Clinton Mafia still hard at work
CCRKBA is absolutely correct! There is positively no doubt the militia was the reason we won our war for freedom in the late 18th century. However, the French came to our aid at the last moment as well. We were fighting the most ruthless, powerful and successful military in the world at the time. The British! However they had to travel very slowly over a thousand miles just to get here. Russia on the other hand borders Ukraine and that makes it much easier to overwhelm the relatively small army of regular army and militia in Ukraine. One of the biggest differences however is our militia… Read more »
In a Republic both the First and Last lines of defense are the People: an informed and empowered People who defend with their voices; and an Armed and Prepared People who will establish and maintain peace and security when government fails.
Progressives, leftists and communists, read it and weep. Millions of armed Americans stand ready to defend the honor and security of our Republic against all enemies both foreign and domestic. No act of legislature, court or bureaucrat can change that. Recent events in Central Europe only confirm that truth. Semper Fidelis
This proves what 2nd amendment advocates have been saying for decades.
There is only two ways to get our country back; Turn to God, and away from sin, and get rid of the CRBs in government, on both sides of the aisle.
Well said and Restore the republic!
Rules of engagement? We don’t need no stinking rules of engagement!!
In Kyiv, the government in 1993 went so far as to consider seizing operational control of its nuclear missiles and bombers. But that never came to pass.Instead, Ukraine punted. It demanded that, in exchange for nuclear disarmament, it would need ironclad security guarantees. That was the heart of the agreement signed in Moscow early in 1994 by Russia, Ukraine and the United States. In late 1994, the pledges got fleshed out. The accord, known as the Budapest Memorandum, signed by Russia, Ukraine, Britain and the United States, promised that none of the nations would use force or threats against Ukraine and all would respect its sovereignty… Read more »
KHRUSHCHEV SAID THE THE SAME THING WHEN HE VISITED, THAT IT WOULD BE VERY HARD TO OVERTAKE THE USA BECAUSE OF THE AMOUNT OF GUN HERE.
We don’t have to fear an invasion from another country. Oh wait ! There is that pesky Southern Boarder, but Kameltoe Harris , the Czar of the Boarder has that well in hand , doesn’t she? Huh ?
History is necessary it teachers then asks us to remember so that we never forget. There is a lot to discuss when it comes to the past which can be enjoyed by friends. The problem here is the future and what to discuss with those folks here at ammoland. The twenty first century is moving forward and the world in changing faster than we are aging. Hours turn into days weeks into months. The past is how Russia is engaging the Ukraine this fight has been going on for decades. The future has no need of Americans on the ground… Read more »
You are exactly right about Agenda 21 now Agenda 2030. These documents are the work of 2 insane uber rich dead guys, one named David Rockefeller who inherited his oil money and a self-made Canadastan individual named Maurice Strong who made his billions in the oil biz in Canadastan. Both saw even more opportunity in restricting freedoms from others. They used their vast wealth and generational influence to seduce the stupid hippies that started Earth Day in college who by the way never left academia, and stupid politicians who would prostitute themselves for a cheap political contribution, (politicians are the… Read more »
I understand Thank you Most readers here do not understand what coming forward. Again Thank you
Maybe they should sign a peace agreement that if they would give up their nuclear weapons Russia would not invade and let UA be autonomous country and NATO could stand behind that agreement?
Ukraine Gave Up a Giant Nuclear Arsenal 30 Years Ago. Today There Are Regrets.
Yes John I know and I hope you understand I was being facetious. Maybe we, i.e. the USA, could give this a try with the RuskyChicoms?
Understood
The problem in Ukraine IS military style weaponry, and the people using it. Please send MDA, everytown, et. al. to lecture Mr. Putin. If they are unable to convince him to destroy all the military arms his soldiers are using, let them go to the front lines and talk directly to the soldiers.
I can only imagine the reaction of Russian soldiers to such a lecture. Question is whether they will shoot before or after finishing laughing. This assumes MDA+ have someone who speaks Russian so that soldiers can understand the demands.
The “study” that Bloomturd’s AstroTurf group is touting isn’t an apples to apples comparison of actual numbers of deaths. It employs a metric called Years of Potential Life Lost. YPLL is based on the assumption that everyone who died would have lived to be 80 yeas old. My common sense tells me this a convenient metric to exaggerate the impact of guns. One 20 year killed by a gun equals 60 YPLL. You have the same YPLL from a dozen 75 year olds. That same common sense also points out that young people (especially in crime ridden urban s***holes) are… Read more »
Do you really think if the United States of America was invaded that the government would give citizens anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons because your grandpa shotgun ain’t going to stop the Russians