Remarks of Police Lieutenant Harry Thomas

Public Address at Fountain Square/Cincinnati, Ohio

February 27, 1994

Welcome to the People's Republic of Cincinnati!

As usual, since I am speaking publicly, I must make the following disclaimer: I am NOT speaking to you as an official spokesman or representative of the Cincinnati Police Division. If I don't say that, I'm liable to have visitors waiting for me when I get back to work.

For the past 21 years, I have been a member of the Cincinnati Police Division. On three occasions, I have sworn a solemn oath; once when I was promoted from cadet to patrolman, once when I was promoted from patrolman to sergeant, and yet again when I was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant. That oath was to support the Constitution of The United States of America.

I have buried almost a dozen of my fellow police officers who died defending that oath. The last one died right before my eyes in the major trauma room of University Hospital. I signed the receipt for his body so that he could be transported to the morgue.

I think about those men often, and I think about what they died for. And that is why I become furiously angry when I see our Constitution, the most remarkable document ever written in the course of human existence, being used as toilet paper at every level of government.

The Brady Bill is now a reality. For the first time in the history of our country, American citizens must request the governments permission to exercise a constitutional right. And if the government sees its way clear to grant permission, we must wait 5 days to exercise the right.

But even this is not enough to please our keepers in Sodom-By-The Potomac. Gun laws are not being passed quickly enough to suit our federal law enforcement agencies, so they have formulated their own plan to discourage gun ownership.

In Ruby Ridge, Idaho, Sammy Weaver, age 14, the son of Randy Weaver, a man who had taken his family to the mountains to escape the tyranny of a government run amok, was hunting in the forest near the Weaver cabin with his dog. He wasn't the only person hunting in that forest that day. Sammy Weaver was ambushed and fatally shot in the back by two United States Marshals. And lest anyone accuse the US Marshals of not being thorough in the performance of their assigned tasks, I would point out that they also shot the dog, also in the back.

Later, Vicki Weaver, Randy's wife and the mother of the Weaver children, opened the door of the Weaver cabin to admit her husband, who had been in a nearby shed to visit the body of his son. Vicki Weaver was holding her 10 month old infant daughter in her arms. That proved to be only a slight inconvenience to FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi, as he shot Vicki Weaver through the head. She fell dead to the floor, her skull exploded, still clutching her daughter in her lifeless arms. It would appear that it is now a capital offense to be the son, wife, or dog of a gun owner.

Waco. "Waco" is a word which, among American patriots, engenders the same anguished feelings of outrage as the word "Alamo." Last year, at the NRA Convention in Nashville, my wife and I returned to our hotel room and flipped on CNN to see the latest developments in Waco. The Branch Davidian compound was burning. My wife cried. She knew that there were many children in that compound. She asked me why. Why are they burning the compound? I told her the simple truth; they have to burn it. Has anyone here seen and read the Waco search warrant affidavit? It's crap. It didn't establish enough probable cause to even knock on the Branch Davidians door.

When the FBI took over from the BATF (which some people say actually stands for Burn All Toddlers First) they knew that they would find no illegal weapons in the Branch Davidian compound.

They were between a rock and hard place. 4 ATF men dead, an unknown number of Branch Davidians dead, the FBI had only one choice: destroy the compound, so that no one could ever prove whether illegal weapons were present or not.

For hours, the FBI pumped supposedly non-lethal CS gas into the compound. Those of us in law enforcement and the military know differently. CS gas, in high concentrations in an enclosed area, is lethal. The first ones to be affected, by vomiting, convulsions, unconsciousness and death, would be the children. The same children that the feds claimed they were trying to rescue from the evil cultists. The same children that local Texas authorities found to be happy and healthy under the care of the Branch Davidians.

The FBI did not pump CS gas into the Branch Davidian compound to force its occupants to come out. They pumped that gas in to make sure the occupants couldn't come out. Dead gun owners, and dead gun owners' children, tell no tales.

The time has come for us to openly discuss something that up to this time we have mainly whispered about. The purpose of the 2nd Amendment is to threaten the government. The framers of our Constitution knew that government is a necessary evil, which, as in the case of the British government, could easily become more evil than necessary. The Founding Fathers wanted to ensure that should that situation again come to pass, the American people would have the capability to reclaim their country by force of arms.

I believe that we are dangerously close to that day when we will have to use the 2nd Amendment in exactly the manner that our forefathers anticipated. When I was a boy, my father could buy firearms through the mail. It was rightly believed at that time that such a transaction was the business of the buyer, the gun dealer, and no one else. I lost that right with the passage of the GCA 68. In my lifetime, I have been able to walk into a gun store, select a handgun, and walk out of that store with that gun in my hand. My children lost that right with the passage of the Brady Bill. I'm not giving up any more rights.

I sincerely hope that a political solution to this problem is still possible, and I will continue to work on the NRA Board of Directors to try to find that solution. But if that solution cannot be found, I say this to the megalomaniacs in Washington: Pass your gun laws. I will not beg the government for a license to continue to be a handgun owner. I will not submit to being finger printed, or photographed, or interrogated like a criminal for claiming my birthright as a free American. I will not register a single gun that I own. I will not surrender a single gun that I own. I will not apply for an "arsenal" license because I own more than 20 guns or more than a thousand rounds of ammunition. I will not attend mandatory safety training, nor will I submit to a test to prove that I'm fit to be a gun owner.

And Miss Reno, I have this to say to you: If you send your jackbooted, baby-burning bushwackers to confiscate my guns, pack them a lunch, it will be a damned long day. The Branch Davidians were amateurs, I'm a professional.

Patrick Henry, while addressing the Virginia House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775, put these concepts into words in a manner far better than I can ever hope to:

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me,

GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH!"