By Genie Jennings,
Contributing Editor

Lynne Roberts is amassing a legacy for her grandchildren. She hopes "to keep them in leather cases with a name plate on each," although she fears she may have to have chests to hold everything she finds. These chests will be full of the true Treasure of the United States, as we know it: Freedom.

She is collecting short, concise and accurate books and pamphlets describing our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, in particular everything she can find about our Second Amendment rights. She is including things like Silver Certificates and coins, the true items of exchange before our paper money became mere paper. Each chest will contain a Bible.

As a little girl Lynne watched the cowboy movies and television series that were prevalent at the time. Unlike most of us who concentrated on the actions of the cowboy heroes, Lynne was mesmerized by the heroism of the women she saw. They were fun-loving, horse-riding, gun-toting cowgirls, and strong, capable women who defended their homes and children while their husbands were gone. She loved the clothes! Long, flowing skirts, full enough to hide a shotgun as the brave woman stared down a possible marauder. These were her role models. Women, who did traditional home-making things, but were tough and able to take care of themselves, their families, their homes.

Those role models never completely left her mind. Like them, Lynne grew into a strong, capable woman. Decades went by and in many ways the little girl's dream was fulfilled. However, one aspect was missing. Living among traditional town dwellers in the East, with no family member who was a hunter or shooter of any kind, she had had no ready access to or experience with firearms.

One fateful day in 2000, Lynne decided to accomplish her dream, and learn to shoot a gun. Unfortunately, she quickly learned that because she lives in Massachusetts, she could not simply buy a gun and learn to shoot! The first of many cumbersome steps was to go to her local police station to get a firearms permit application.

Lynne had begun her day with a feeling of euphoria: Finally, she would realize her childhood ambition to become a cowgirl! She left that police station in a state of shock. Her thought was, "Where has my country gone?" While she was immersed in the American dream of work, family and home, someone had stolen many of the fundamental rights she assumed would always be there.

Someone was messing with the wrong woman. She held firmly the image of that pioneer woman with the shotgun hidden in her flowing skirt standing up to the men who would do harm to her home and family. They might have taken her country, but she was now engaged in a battle to get it back!

She remembered an incident from her childhood, when her immigrant grandfather reprimanded Lynne's mother. "Beware, Adele, they lie to you, they don't care about you or the children, they are deceiving you! You will not go. I see them before in my country. You will not go!"

Lynne was very young, and her memory of the event was incomplete, but the anguish in her grandfather's broken English was indelible. It rang in her mind as she walked to her car. Who were those that her grandfather had seen before in his country? We can guess. We have not been invaded physically; we have been invaded by ideas: Concepts of justice and equality that sound Utopian and are in reality the opposite of individual freedom; concepts of the group having ultimate authority over the individual; concepts of the whole being more than the sum of the parts; concepts of the group being more important than each member of the group.

Lynne had entered the police station a happy, free woman in 20th century America. She left a reality-stricken woman unsure of what freedoms she still might have, and how quickly they might evaporate. She left angry.

She left with two goals: First, to obtain and learn to shoot a gun; second, to find a group of women with whom she could both enjoy using firearms, and also work to retain and regain her rights as she knew them.

Through the Internet she contacted a leading gun rights and Constitutional activist in her state. Don Kusser led her to the Braintree Rifle and Pistol Club to fulfill application requirements for the hateful permit, and to the most important gun rights organization in the state, GOAL (Gun Owners Action League) of Massachusetts.

Again, through the Internet she found Second Amendment Sisters. SAS did not have state coordinator, although there were a few members in the state. Lynne accepted their invitation to organize a group. At this point she "had yet to even hold a real firearm, let alone be able to properly shoot one!"

In general her local gun club was welcoming. While some members objected to the formation of a small women's group, more recognized that "it was the woman's voice that had to be raised and heard by Congress and State Legislators. And, before that could happen, women needed to see the deceptions they were being fed."

Nine years later Lynne has made great strides in raising that female voice and combating that deception. She has not only learned to properly handle a firearm, she has also become a Certified NRA Pistol Instructor. She has not only successfully organized her state chapter of a national women's pro-gun group, she has also recruited coordinators for both a widening number of sub-chapters in Massachusetts and nearby states. Hundreds of women have participated in her annual Introduction to Shooting for Women events as well as monthly practices throughout the Commonwealth. She is an active member of GOAL of Massachusetts, an avid pro-gun chatroom contributor, public speaker, and member of the Board of Directors of SAS.

She focuses on the future. What will her grandchildren inherit? The books she has chosen are for the most part short, simple and easy to understand, because Lynne fears the damage that has occurred in the education system will progress. Disciplined conduct and reasoning ability are devalued. The self-control and morality necessary for government of and by the People are eroding. More and more we are encouraged to indulge ourselves now rather than work for a future reward. This promotes not juvenile but truly infantile behavior.

Good parenting and schooling leads a child from whimsical changes in activity into sustained focus for longer and longer periods of time. However, for three decades public education has espoused the Sesame Street model of changing segments that mirror the attention span of a 2- or 3-year-old. A nation of babies cannot rule itself.

She has taken to heart Ben Franklin's response to the woman who asked what the Constitutional Convention had given them. "A Republic, madam, if you can keep it!"

Lynne means to keep it. More accurately, she means to reclaim it. The freedom of her childhood that had diminished so much while she was busy raising a family and pursuing a career must be recovered. Each generation is charged with preserving and protecting this unique experiment in governance that is the true gift of our country.