By Karen L. MacNutt,
Contributing Editor

By all accounts, Rebecca was a good and respected neighbor. So her friends were stunned to learn she had been accused of a horrible crime. Times were not good for the community.

Unemployment and crime were high. People saw traditional social values dissolving. They felt powerless to influence their government or effect meaningful changes in their situation. Things were just not as they should be.

People were afraid, even in their own homes. They could see others who had been affected. Rebecca was not the only one said to be involved in the hideous practice which was shaking the community to its very roots. People were afraid they would become victims. They called upon their government to take whatever steps were needed to bring things under control.

Anger ran high. The health and safety of the children were at stake. It was the children who were victimized; and, it was they who accused Rebecca.

Courts move slowly. What good, people said, was there in making it difficult to convict those who are a threat to society? High government officials, journalists, and even the president of the leading university were all in agreement. Books had been written exposing how dangerous the situation was. Everyone knew what had to be done.

A special prosecutor was appointed to deal with the problem. By the time Rebecca was accused, the jails were filled with others who had committed the same crime. Some had been held months awaiting trial. The authorities were not about to let such dangerous people out on bail. Rebecca was not the first to be convicted, but most of the others were of a lower socio-economic background where one expected to find such criminals. The trial was highly publicized. However, the evidence against Rebecca was mostly unsupported hearsay. When the jury returned a not guilty verdict, the judge, a law and order man, sent them back with further instructions. Returning a second time, they found her guilty.

Although those concerned with civil liberties pleaded for her release, on July 19, 1692 Rebecca Nurse and four others convicted of witchcraft were executed in Salem, Massachusetts.

The persecutions at Salem began in the imaginations of small, ignorant children. They were encouraged by community leaders trying to impress the public so as to improve their own political standing. Ultimately the persecutions took the lives of twenty-two innocent people. Most of those accused were simply different from, or unpopular with, their neighbors. The witch hunters reached a little too far when they accused the governor's wife. That accusation brought an abrupt end to the persecution.
The year 1991 marked the 200th anniversary of the Bill of Rights. 1992 marked the 300th anniversary of the Salem Witch trials, a low tide mark in the history of American civil rights and women's movements.

Sitting, as we are, on the brink of the 21st Century, we can feel smug about how gullible our predecessors were in Salem. But the formula for the Salem persecutions is timeless. The forces that concocted it are alive, well and on the move today. It is a simple formula.

First comes fear born of ignorance. Combine that with a feeling of helplessness to achieve frustration. Add anger, choose a victim, and mix. To achieve a greater effect, have the mixture spread by self-righteous people who exhibit a desire to impose their own morality on the rest of the world. Community leaders anxious to "look good" without having to do any work are always ready to help. Add panic to remove the legal safeguards that protect individual rights and the result is something more lethal than any simple, mass murderer.

Unfortunately this devil's brew is bubbling in many areas of American society today.

Like Rebecca, gun owners are on the receiving end of a prejudice based on ignorance. For three hundred years the American family grew up with guns. Most of our ancestors were honest, hard working people who died from natural causes. Pioneer women stood shoulder to shoulder with their men to open a continent. They knew how to use guns as did their children. Guns were not toys. They were tools to obtain food. They were a protection from wild animals and lawless prowlers.

Today we are being told women are too stupid to have guns to protect themselves or their homes. We are told our children should be kept ignorant of guns. We are told guns are an evil talisman that causes crime, accidents, and even suicides. If we can only get rid of or reduce the number of guns in society, they preach, we will have a better community. These same self-appointed determiners of "politically correct thinking" are appalled to think a woman might want to have a gun.

A gun is only a mechanical device. It, like every other tool, has a capacity for good or evil which depends upon the person who uses it. Many people, especially women, fear guns out of ignorance. As Franklin Roosevelt once said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself."

Safety and true understanding can only be achieved through knowledge. The only product of ignorance is prejudice. If you have a gun in your home, you should know how to use it. Even if you do not have a gun in your home, they do exist in our world and you should still know how to handle one safely.

Parents must also teach their children to be safe and responsible in their world. Hiding knowledge from them is not in their best interest. Learning how to use dangerous things safely is part of growing up. If you do not teach your children about firearms responsibility, then the only thing they will know about guns is what they learn from television. The only image portrayed on television is firearms irresponsibility.

Like the children of Salem who played with "black magic," children of today are still attracted by the "forbidden fruit." You must teach children to deal safely with things they might come across in life.
Society still engages in witch hunts, although the object of the prejudice is different. The Bill of Rights, all of the Bill of Rights, was intended to protect people whose ideas or interests might be unpopular. It was designed to make life difficult for witch hunters.

Crime cannot be stopped by ignoring the rights of people who own guns lawfully. Laws that make it easier to convict, thus easier to send innocent people to jail, are not in our best interests. Laws that give the police more power to ignore our right to be secure in our homes from government intrusion, are not in our best interest; and neither are laws that make simple possession of a gun a crime. Such laws, based on public fear and frustration, are a quick fix designed to make politicians look good at the long term expense of the public.

Gunowners are the object of the latest witch hunt. It is a hunt born and nurtured in ignorance and prejudice. It threatens not only the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms, but also your right to be free from searches and seizures, your right to travel freely, your right to have honesty in government, your right to property and your right to defend your very life.

The price of liberty is truly eternal vigilance. If you want to live where you are protected by the law, not living in fear of it, you must be willing to work to preserve your freedom and you must be tolerant of others.

If at some time someone accuses you of being unwilling to compromise, or of being too extreme in your position, or, if someone suggests you should give up some of your civil rights to obtain safety, remember Rebecca. Innocence in a country where the government is not subservient to individual rights is not a protection.

Indeed, it was her innocence that caused Rebecca's down fall. Had she really been a witch, she could have simply turned her accuser into a toad and gone merrily about her own business unmolested.