THE POWERFUL TESTIMONY OF MANUEL MARTINEZ

"My name is Manuel Martinez.  Born in Cuba.  American Citizen for more than 40 years.  I oppose any manipulation, any regulation or disruption of the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.

In 1959 a Revolution … individuals … malicious individuals, masquerading as Democrats, revolutionaries, established a regime … a dictatorial regime … in my nation.  Called Communism, Socialism, Stalinism, Marxism, and whatever other named -ism you want to put on it.  The reason why it was done was to take away the guns from the People.   The right of the People to wear guns.  That is a God-given Right.  It's not given by anybody.  It's not given by any group.   It's the same thing as freedom, which is a God-given Right.  And no one, absolutely no one, has the authority to take it away.  To cease to defend the Second Amendment, and my God-given Right of freedom, will cease only with my death.

I've been through it.  I've been there.  You people don't know what freedom is because you never lost it.  You haven't been tortured.  You haven't been [sic] assassinations, you haven't been mothers begging for the life of their son not to be killed because the only reason is they wanted to be free.  And they killed the mothers and they killed the sons.

So my way to protest, the way to oppose, because if we keep tangling with the Second Amendment, we are open the same way that Cuba was open for Communism.  China, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Venezuela, on and on.  A dictatorial regime that will destroy this country, in the same way that it destroyed those ones that I mentioned to you.

Gun Control does not protect anybody.  It doesn't protect the citizens, it doesn't protect the People.  The only reason for gun control is for the Government to be protected from the Citizens.  In that way the Government can manipulate the People and subjugate them.  That's what's happened in Cuba for 52 years … 54. 

I came here for freedom.  At the time I came here it was different.  This country opened their arms for me … I couldn't get it in Cuba.  And they opened their arms for me, I probably wouldn't get it here today.  I hope that I get clear with you, and you understand my point of view.  I think that concludes my testimony."

Cuban Memorial, Tamiani Park, Miami: each cross bears the name of a victim of Castro's genocide