'Among the lessons learned from the 1946 events in McMinn County are these two:
First and foremost, this incident, like so many before and since, affirms why our Founders codified in the Second Amendment the unalienable right of the people to “keep and bear arms.” As Justice Joseph Story (appointed to the Supreme Court by our Constitution’s author, James Madison) wrote, “The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.” History records the appalling 20th-century consequences of disarming the people.
The second lesson is that those of us who have pledged by sacred oath to “support and defend” the Liberty enshrined in our Constitution against “enemies foreign,” must be equally devoted to the defense of Liberty against insult by “enemies domestic.”'
