In a column preceding Cinco de Mayo, local Springfield columnist Richard Thompson argues the importance of civilian gun ownership:
Cinco de Mayo celebrates a great Mexican military victory in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. On that date, 4,000 amateur Mexican soldiers armed primarily with old rifles and machetes defeated 6,000 heavily favored French troops, well trained and well armed. Indeed, at that time the French army was arguably the most formidable fighting force in the world. The last time France had lost a battle was at Waterloo, Belgium, in 1815. Napoleon I’s defeat there is enshrined in our language. “He’ll never win this one; he’s met his Waterloo.”
Of course, if you’re familiar with Mr. Thompson’s other columns, you’re recognize he is unlikely to mean to make that point. But he does.
Both the American Left and Napoleon III want their would-be subjects disarmed in order to make them more pliable and eventually more European.
Like Steven Den Beste wrote recently:
So let’s be clear: Progressives don’t fear guns in the hands of criminals, or not very much. It’s not about school shootings, either. It’s guns in the hands, and homes, of law abiding citizens that Progressives hate. Those are the guns they wish were gone; those are the guns they will try to eliminate if they can. Because those are the guns which stand in the way of them taking over.
Let’s not underestimate historical ignorance, either, where militias are confused with professional, all-volunteer militaries.