Ending the Myth that America is Dangerous because of Gun Ownership

So do gun lovers who refuse to love their republic as much as they claim to love their guns.

 

There is no Appeal to Ignorance of the Supreme Law of the Land.

There is no appeal to ignorance of the Intent and Purpose of Any law, much less the Second Article of Amendment to our supreme law of the land; and that Wisdom of our Founding Fathers.

You are talking about the wisdom of these Founding Fathers.................
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."
- Thomas Jefferson

"The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
- Thomas Jefferson (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria)

only a criminal would want to disarm lawful citizens

 

gun lovers are "moral criminals" by refusing to get really really serious about their relationship with their State or Republic. even wo-men can do that.

 

"Our main agenda is to have all guns banned. We must use whatever means possible. It doesn't matter if you have to distort the facts or even lie. Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed."
Sara Brady
Chairman, Handgun Control Inc, to Senator Howard Metzenbaum
The National Educator, January 1994, Page 3.

"If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses, you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things." Author unknown.

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!"
Adolph Hitler
Chancellor, Germany, 1933

 

and that is exactly where the Feds have been going, at an increasing rate, ever since WW2, really, but the 68 riots really got them going! The uproar over Waco made them tiptoe about for a while, but now that most people, who live just 100 miles away from Waco, don't even know about it, much less care, the Feds are back to their Hitlerian ways.

 

the right can't learn by historical mistakes; some on the left, get it.

Fortunately, the left still has recourse to some true witness bearers.

 

Let me make a comment. No right is absolute, and you cannot read the 2nd. Amendment any more absolutely than the other rights it helps protect. The First Amendment reads “freedom of “speech,” but this does not equate to freedom to commit libel, slander, or false advertising.

I do believe the RKBA is a fundamental individual right, but it is not without limitation. For example, “arms” cannot be taken literally to mean anything that one would call “arms” (nukes, for example) any more than “religion” in the 1st. Amendment can be read to protect human sacrifice to a sun god at the winter solstice to ensure the return of spring. The only people who read a right—any right—in such absolutist terms are those who wish to deny the right by arguing any pretense of the right applying in society automatically means it extends to an illogical and unwarranted extreme. Our courts have had countless opportunities over the years to consider the nature and scope of all our rights, and not one has ever accepted this illogical absolutist extreme argument.

Understanding that the RKBA is no more unlimited than, say, the freedom of speech or free exercise of religion does not mean it is any less a natural right than these are.

All citizens of my nation are entitled to certain rights as a birthright. But these rights have a recognized scope. Free speech has never been considered to protect perjury, and the RKBA has never been considered to extend to a convicted murderer. The point is these rights can be forfeited by our actions—but only after we have been afforded a due process and a fair hearing. Felons lose more than just their RKBA. But it is their actions which cause them to lose their rights—not a bureaucratic edict that all persons, regardless of how they have acted, are no longer trustworthy enough to enjoy a particular form of liberty (or, to put it another way—we as your leaders no longer feel we should be bound by this restriction on our power).

Your example of consensual oral sex as a felony offense is moot. These laws have been declared unconstitutional.

But if you think a particular law creates a ridiculous felony offense then you are probably not alone. And it is your right to seek to change that law, or to change the denial of the RKBA to exclude that particular felony offense, or to even limit the denial of this fundamental right to a list of “violent” felonies—rape, murder, robbery, etc. .

The RKBA is a right of peaceful possession. We each have the freedom to choose whether to exercise this right or not, and, like our other rights, we can lose its protection by our actions.

---

“The great ideals of liberty and equality are preserved against the assaults of opportunism, the expediency of the passing hour, the erosion of small encroachments, the scorn and derision of those who have no patience with general principles, by enshrining them in constitutions, and consecrating to the task of their protection a body of defenders.” Justice Benjamin Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, Lecture II, 1921.

“Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."--Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (192 (Brandeis, dissenting).

 

The Second Amendment also has the warning that this right should not be infringed upon.

What other right has this warning? Does "infringed" mean something different than it did back 1787? Did James Madison have his own definition for "infringed?"

What gun control laws did the Founders implement back after the radification of the Constitution that would form a basis for current restrictions?

 

give us ONE example of a privately own nuclear defense system....and cite the source

 

How did you reach your conclusion from the Intent and Purpose of our Second Article of Amendment.

If any form of (natural) right it be, then it must be a natural States' sovereign right.

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State

There is no Appeal to Ignorance of the law; especially when any form of "open book test".

 

I think the HItler quote has been debunked, same with the Brady quote but the Brady quote does encapsulate what she wanted save the socialist part. The brady's were republicans for most of their lives

- - - Updated - - -

Look for awhile at the China Cat Sunflower
proud-walking jingle in the midnight sun
Copper-dome Bodhi drip a silver kimono
like a crazy-quilt stargown
through a dream night wind

Robert Hunter

 

thank you for illustrating the "cognitive sonnance" of those of the opposing view.

 

And pot smokers refuse to love their republic as much as they love their pot?

And gay marriage advocates refuse to love their republic as much as they love same-sex partners?

Tell me, when has my gun ever harmed you? And I doubt there are as many in here who have given "my Republic" as much as I have.

 

It may not be Your gun but the threat of Your gun falling in to the wrong hands, and increasing our tax burden through a War on Crime.

 

Sure,

Let’s consider the 1st, 2nd, and 4th Amendments, because gun banners tend to focus on the 2nd. Amendment and ignore the similar language in the other two. All three amendments use the phrase “the right of the people.” Gun banners admit the phrase protects an individual right in the 1st amendment, then they claim the phrase is somehow changed to become a state’s right in the 2nd, only to return to being an individual right in the 4th. The argument is foolish on its face.

I agree the 2nd. Amendment also says “shall not be infringed.” Similarly the 1st Amendment speaks in absolute terms: “Congress shall make no law.” Yet Congress has made laws regarding libel, perjury, and slander—which are all forms of speech—and these laws are constitutional. Why? Because the scope of the term “free speech” has never been considered to give protection to these forms of malicious speech.

The 4th Amendment also reads in absolute terms: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated”—and yet courts have time and again upheld forms of warrantless search and seizure. Why? Because not all forms of government intrusion are deemed an unreasonable search or seizure. (Fortunately the 2nd. Amendment has no “unreasonable” language in it, and this helps deprive judges of some of the power they like to wield to decide what is reasonable and what is not.)

The question courts struggle with is what is the nature and scope of the RKBA—that conduct which “shall not be infringed”? Not every armed conduct falls within that core right. If I robbed a store, then I could not complain that the robbery charge brought against me infringed on my RKBA because the RKBA is not a right to commit violence unless in self-defense or defense of others. Gorte is making the absolutist fallacy argument. You can’t have a RKBA, because if you do then it must be carried to these illogical extremes where no laws can exist to regulate firearm possession. It’s like saying you can’t have a right of free speech without also permitting perjury and slander. It is a classic gun banner argument, and has no more credibility than the argument that the 2nd. Amendment only protects firearms (muskets, etc.) in existence at the time the right was recognized in the amendment. That is what I was addressing.

If we are going to be effective advocates for our RKBA, then we have to understand this is the battlefield we have inherited. Heller acknowledges the right is not unlimited, and like it or not, this “not unlimited” right view is consistent with how the court has viewed our other rights:

"Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy 152-153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489-490; Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The American Students' Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing [Page 627] conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.26"

District Of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 626-627 (200


The combat in Heller was over whether the individual RKBA even existed or not. It was a war fought against people who believed that the RKBA was dependent on the militia, and that the government could abolish an individual right by changing the nature of the militia. Those of us who believed the RKBA is a fundamental, individual right independent of militia service won that battle—and the RKBA is properly recognized as a core portion of the larger right of self-defense against private and government aggression. In short, the RKBA is no longer the red-headed step child of the Bill of Rights. But calling something a right, calling individual, calling it fundamental, and calling it a natural right which predated our constitution (all of which are correct), does not define the full scope of the conduct the right protects. Heller was only one case, and it did not fully define the scope of the right. It has given us a hint that some arms will not be considered as being protected, and has clearly said some conduct can be regulated.

In fighting the future battle over the scope of the right—what it protects and what it does not—the court will continue to look at the history of the right and what is has always been understood to protect. Bans prohibiting possession by felons and the mentally ill have historically been deemed as not infringing on the RKBA—at least that is the court’s reading of history.

If you believe that you have an individual RKBA, as I do, then you need to be prepared to fight the battle over the scope of the right. In making this fight we cannot argue “shall not be infringed” means the RKBA is so broadly defined that no laws can ever exist to regulate firearms. That’s the trap gorte and others want us to fall victim to—because it has no historical support—and because it makes us out to look like unreasonable extremists.

Oh, if you guys are looking for a verifiable Hitler quote on the RKBA then try this one:

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty. So let's not have any native militia or native police. German troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the maintenance of law and order throughout the occupied Russian territories, and a system of military strong-points must be evolved to cover the entire occupied country.” Adolf Hitler, dinner talk on April 11, 1942, quoted in Hitler's Table Talk 1941-44: His Private Conversations, Second Edition (1973), Pg. 425-426. (Borman and other Hitler sycophants recorded [by way of stenographer] Hitler’s private dinner conversations with leading Nazis on a regular basis. Many of these conversations survived the war and were published in the above book).

 

I have none. But please don't misunderstand what I have said. Read my last and share your comments.

 

you are the one saying we own private nuclear devices, or assumed that we would want them. That suggestion is a downright insult.
Comment enough for you?

 

Try post 37 in the thread MD, CMD of gun licensing speaks of gun owners. I made it in reply to you. Read it first, let me know you understand it, and then I'll give you more....

 

Slow down now. Here is what I said:

"I do believe the RKBA is a fundamental individual right, but it is not without limitation. For example, “arms” cannot be taken literally to mean anything that one would call “arms” (nukes, for example) any more than “religion” in the 1st. Amendment can be read to protect human sacrifice to a sun god at the winter solstice to ensure the return of spring. The only people who read a right—any right—in such absolutist terms are those who wish to deny the right by arguing any pretense of the right applying in society automatically means it extends to an illogical and unwarranted extreme."

I am sorry if you interpreted this to mean an insinuation that you or any other person who believes in the individual RKBA wants a nuke. What I was saying is only those who want to deny us this right make this argument--they say we can't have the RKBA because it has to be so unlimited that it would be read to protect nukes. This is an anti-individual RKBA argument that I was rejecting, nothing more.

 

everything you have posted on guns-this forum or others-is crap that appears to come from some AI program that appears to be the PhD thesis of some geek at Cal Tech. Your posts butcher the English language, make no sense, rarely are responsive to the posts you quote and are fundamentally wrong when it comes to second amendment scholarship.

 

You are preaching to the choir--as I am in agreement with most of your points.

Myself, being more of a Constitutional Orginalist, I look for inspiration and validation based on the views of the very Founders who wrote the laws AND the common practices and applications of the law during that time period.

Progressives somehow allowed themselves the right to use an amorphous "evolving stardands of decency" to contort solid interpretations that have held over the decades. Even the right of judical review was granted without the real consent of the people.

Obviously, the RKBA must be held to at least a similar standard as it was in 1789. Back then, dangerous felons were not allowed to be armed, and they certainly weren't allowed long criminal carees or long lives for that matter. Aside from not allowing hostile natives and slaves from having arms, there were no "gun control" laws in effect at that time.

We must look for inspiration not so much from Heller or McDonald---but more from the Militia Act of 1792---created by nearly the same people as the USC. If "the milita" was only supposed to consist of military aged male citizens, then the Founders over 45 and all women and children under 17 would not have been allowed arms. This was most certainly NOT the case. In fact, the Milita Act even demanded the use of pistols, and allowed for ownership of destructive devices like cannons. No arms that were expensive, rare or cumbersome were expected to be purchased by the common man. AS IF---Washington would not have wanted his countrymen to have the most cutting edge weapons commonly at hand--- and would have not used an AR or AK rifle if developed at that time.

I say the RKBA community should focus more on how the law was actually used in the past, than dwelling on how it should be changed to mollycoddle anti-gun extremists.

 

I agree.

The key for me is to remember that the militias—before the Constitution—were dependent on the individual RKBA by state choice. The RKBA does not depend for its existence on the duty of militia service. The right is a restraint on governmental power, and the government cannot abolish this restriction on its power by claiming it has made the restriction irrelevant through the use of some other power it has (i.e. the power to arm the militia). It is a pre-existing right the people chose to force their government to recognize. The pros and cons of the right were already weighed, and inclusion of the right for protection was the choice. It is not the province of any revisionist anti-gun judge to say the choice was wrong. Heller said it best:

"JUSTICE BREYER moves on to make a broad jurisprudential point: He criticizes us for declining to establish a level of scrutiny for evaluating Second Amendment restrictions. He proposes, explicitly at least, none of the traditionally expressed levels (strict scrutiny, intermediate scrutiny, rational basis), but rather a judge-empowering “interest-balancing inquiry” that “asks whether the statute burdens a protected interest in a way or to an extent that is out of proportion to the statute's salutary effects upon other important governmental interests.” Post, at 689-690. After an exhaustive discussion of the arguments for and against gun control, JUSTICE BREYER arrives at his interest-balanced answer: Because handgun violence is a problem, because the law is limited to an urban area, and because there were somewhat similar restrictions in the founding period (a false proposition that we have already discussed), the interest-balancing inquiry results in the constitutionality of the handgun ban. QED.

We know of no other enumerated constitutional right whose core protection has been subjected to a freestanding “interest-balancing” approach. The very enumeration of the right takes out of the hands of government — even the Third Branch of Government — the power to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the right is really worth insisting upon. A constitutional guarantee subject to future judges' assessments of its usefulness is no constitutional guarantee at all. Constitutional rights are enshrined with the scope they were understood to have when the people adopted [Page 635] them, whether or not future legislatures or (yes) even future judges think that scope too broad. We would not apply an “interest-balancing” approach to the prohibition of a peaceful neo-Nazi march through Skokie. See National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977) (per curiam). The First Amendment contains the freedom-of-speech guarantee that the people ratified, which included exceptions for obscenity, libel, and disclosure of state secrets, but not for the expression of extremely unpopular and wrongheaded views. The Second Amendment is no different. Like the First, it is the very product of an interest balancing by the people — which JUSTICE BREYER would now conduct for them anew. And whatever else it leaves to future evaluation, it surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home."


District Of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570, 634-635 (200(emphasis in original)

 

No, you didn't. You Only have fallacy for your Cause.

Here is one example:

Each Amendment must be read according to the plain meaning of the words. There is no appeal to ignorance of the Intent and Purpose as that form of End; since, every rational Person should know, that only the means should be sacrificed to the End and not the End to the Means; contrary to the dictates of "plain reason and legal axioms".

- - - Updated - - -

Nothing but fallacy.

This can be considered a natural right on private property.

 

as in most cases, the power is relegated from the wallet. You got deep enough pockets, you buy what you want, of course, within reason. I agree, no nukes

- - - Updated - - -

There is no Appeal to Ignorance of the law or its Intent and Purpose; except to the disingenuous left
There is no appeal to ignorance of the Intent and Purpose of Any law, much less the Second Article of Amendment to our supreme law of the land; and that Wisdom of our Founding Fathers.

"On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
- Thomas Jefferson

 

Simply being able to purchase better privileges and immunities under Capitalism, may have helped in the advancement of Socialism and the concept of equality.

- - - Updated - - -

Unfortunately for those of your point of view, our Founding Fathers were wise enough to include the Intent and Purpose of that specific law, in writing.