The Founding Fathers placed a high priority on the right to bear arms. In feudal times, owning weapons reflected a person's rank in society. The invention of gunpowder and the gun leveled the playground, so to speak, making the peasant as powerful as the knight. In the emerging American Colonies, the combined firepower of the American colonists, using guerilla warfare, matched the heretofore unmatched firepower of the British Royal Government. After the defeat of the British at Yorktown, the Founding Fathers realized the importance of free speech and the right to bear arms. Today, our current government is the most rapacious, power-hungry in history, threatening to take those rights away.