Here in Billerica, Massachusetts, we're starting our 350th anniversary celebration. Revolutionary war reenactors, tents, cannons, muskets, candlelight tours, period food, demonstrations of soap-making and the like.
Here in Billerica, Massachusetts, it's hard to get a firearm, one of the very things our founders fought so hard to protect. The irony truly strikes home with every cannon report, every musket blast coming from the park not a mile away from me. The land of the free, subject to permission (which can be denied here in MA for nothing more than the police don't like how you look).
How did we let ourselves get to this point, when to use our "freedoms" we must first obtain permission; where one of the most basic human instincts, self-defense, is subject to regulation and denial; when a developer can buy land next to a range and then declare the range a nuisance and get it closed?
When did we let our guard slip so that denying a police officer the search of a vehicle or residence is seen as hiding something? How is it that the government can steal my home for a private company? Why can I be declared a terrorist and have all of my belongings stolen, my name slandered, and my family ruined for nothing more than what was once an accepted hobby?
To me, the future of my rights, my freedoms, my hobbies and my interests is uncertain. When I hear each cannon report, I feel a great laughter from Washington DC. With each musket sounding I hear a cacophony of laughter from uncaring, uninformed citizens of this country.
Just some ramblings from an eighteen year old of this once grand country.