Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

December 4, 2008

The world watched in horror as a handful of armed slaughtered scores of innocent people at ten locations in Mumbai, India.

Many important questions remain unanswered about the origins and connections of the terrorist group that carried out that atrocity. One question, however, is being carefully avoided by the mainstream press: How can a handful of armed men, however well-trained and equipped, hold a city of 13.5 million people hostage ? unless the potential victims had been disarmed first?

One answer is found in the Indian Arms Act of 1878, a British colonial measure that stripped native Indians of their right to bear arms.

Ghandi would later write that ?the Act depriving a whole nation of arms? was the blackest misdeed of British rule. Last week?s massacre is part of that Act?s baneful legacy, and a vivid reminder that the right of armed self-defense is a key element of the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.