Thursday, June 26, 2003

Limits to freedom



Blogcritics.org are apparently upset about how the Secret Service is dealing with protesters at Pres. Bush's public appearances. You can read the whole thing here, but this passage jumped out at me:

In the letter to Ashcroft recently released, the members of Congress called the prosecution of Bursey for carrying his sign outside the designated free speech zone "a threat to the freedom of expression we should all be defending."

"As we read the First Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free speech zone.' In the United States, free speech is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to express it do not depend on their doing it in a way the President finds politically amenable ... We ask that you make it clear that we have no interest as a government in 'zoning' Constitutional freedoms...


No interest in zoning Constitutional freedoms? Since when? It looks to me as if someone decided to interpret the Constitution with some consistancy for a change and read the First Amendment the same way the Second Amendment has been read for many years.

But they are actually right. There are no zones of Constitutional freedoms. Per the First Amendment, the entire United States is a free speech zone. And per the Second, it is a free to bear arms zone as well.

As we read the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the United States is a 'free to bear arms zone.' In the United States, the individual right to keep and bear arms is the rule, not the exception, and citizens' rights to bear arms do not depend on their doing it in a way that Sarah Brady or anyone else finds politically amenable.

Monday, June 23, 2003

Guns to blame?



Jeff has an interesting post over at Alphecca. After you read it, come back and read my comments below.

When I was a teenager (age 13 or 14) in Houston, Tx, I walked into a Western Auto, bought a .22 rifle and ammo and walked out. White Oak bayou was near my house and my friends and I regularly walked the mile or so carrying our .22s for an afternoon of plinking along the bayou after school. Lest anyone think that this was somewhere in the country, I lived inside Loop 610.

Was this legal? Buying the gun was. Owning the gun was. Shooting the gun inside the city limits was not. But we knew gun safety and shooting down into the bayou was safe so we never got into trouble. And we knew if we did get into trouble with the police, we would be in even more trouble with our parents.

Our parents raised us, taught us right and wrong, taught us correct behavior, and reinforced that teaching with discipline. Discipline was not a negotiation of what we could do an not do. It was rules of conduct with real consequences for breaking the rules. That is another big change. Kids today are not disciplined and the law often prevents parents from doing so effectively. As a result, kids often have little respect for their parents' authority and consequently, they learn little respect for any authority. This doesn't apply to all kids, but it applies to way too many.

Sunday, June 15, 2003

Terrorists Termites



The World Trade Center wasn't the first incident, nor the last, but it did inspire these words:

"We continue to pursue the terrorists in cities and camps and caves across the earth. We are joined by a great coalition of nations to rid the world of terror. And we will not allow any terrorist or tyrant to threaten civilization with weapons of mass murder. Now and in the future, Americans will live as free people, not in fear, and never at the mercy of any foreign plot or power.

"We have no intention of ignoring or appeasing history's latest gang of fanatics trying to murder their way to power.

"We will not relent until justice is done and our nation is secure. What our enemies have begun, we will finish."
--President George W. Bush, 09-11-2002.


The USA, in good conscience and without hypocrisy, cannot ask that Israel do otherwise.

The Roadmap for Peace is a noble goal, but Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the other Palestinian terrorists organizations and those that support them and celebrate their actions are not just roadblocks on that road, they are landmines in a desert. They have to be cleared before the road can even be built.

The world may wish for peace in the Middle East. So what? The Palestinian terrortists wish for the complete destruction of Israel.

Abdel Aziz Rantisi, a hard-line Hamas leader, said Saturday his Islamic militant group would not halt its attacks against Israel.

"The word cease-fire is not in our dictionary, Resistance will continue until we uproot them from our home land."


Terrorists are like termites. You can't negotiate with termites. You can talk all you want, but all the while, they just keep chewing, chewing, chewing. Why? Because while your goal is to protect your house, the termites' goal is to consume it. You can't talk to termites, and if it is your house they are eating, you can't ignore them either. You have to exterminate them. Israel seems to understand this. After 9-11, I thought we had figured it out as well.

Thursday, June 12, 2003

Guns and Self-defense



Alphecca has a post on guns and self-defense. He cites a couple examples where the Violence Policy Center says that people who own guns for self defence are often killed with their own gun, and that owning a gun created a false sense of safety. Jeff says this is the result of an improper use of the gun.

He's right. When someone is killed with their own gun by an assailant, it is quite often due to misplaced trust--the victims placed their trust in the threat presented by the gun in their hands and not in their ability to use the gun in their hands. When the threat was insufficient to stop the assailant, they were unprepared to take the next step required and actually fire the gun in self-defense. Or if they did fire the gun, they tried not to hurt the assailant too badly and just wound him enough to stop him. WRONG! When the use of deadly force is necessary to defend oneself, nothing less will suffice. If you have the opportunity to do so, point the gun at the attacker and say "STOP!". If the attacker does not stop immediately, shoot to kill. If you do not have the time to warn them off, just shoot to kill. And remember: "Two in the body and one in the head guarantees they're really dead."

:: UPDATE ::

There is more on this subject at The Smallest Minority. My same comments apply.

Saturday, June 07, 2003

If you like a good conspiracy, this one's a doozy



George W. Bush and Tony Blair said Iraq had weapons of mass distruction.

As Robert Kaplin reports, The Iraqi government in the 1990s admitted to U.N. weapons inspectors that it had produced 8,500 liters of anthrax, as well as a few tons of the nerve agent VX.

From the report Hans Blix delivered to the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 27:

On the question of Iraq's stocks of anthrax, Blix reported there existed "no convincing evidence" they had ever been destroyed. On the contrary, he said, there was "strong evidence" that Iraq had produced even more anthrax than it had declared "and that at least some of this was retained." Blix also reported that Iraq possessed 650 kilograms of "bacterial growth media," enough "to produce . . . 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax."


On the question of VX, Blix reported that his inspection team had "information that conflicts" with Iraqi accounts. The Iraqi government claimed that it had produced VX only as part of a pilot program but that the quality was poor and therefore the agent was never "weaponized." But according to Blix, the inspection team discovered that the Iraqi government had lied. The Iraqi government's own documents showed that the quality and purity of the VX were better than declared and, according to the inspection team, there were "indications that the agent" had indeed been "weaponized."


6,500 "chemical bombs" that Iraq admitted producing still remained unaccounted for. Blix's team calculated the amount of chemical agent in those bombs at 1,000 tons. As Blix reported to the U.N. Security Council, "in the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for."


German intelligence service reported in 2001 that Hussein was three years away from being able to build three nuclear weapons and that by 2005 Iraq would have a missile with sufficient range to reach Europe.

President Jacques Chirac declared this past February that there were probably weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that "we have to find and destroy them."

Al Gore, declared last September, presumably based on what he had learned as vice president, that Hussein had "stored secret supplies of biological and chemical weapons throughout his country."

In a speech delivered at the Pentagon in February 1998, Bill Clinton described what he called Iraq's "offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5,000 gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax; 25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs." Clinton accurately reported the view of U.N. weapons inspectors at the time "that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many, many more weapons."

But only Bush and Blair were lying? Read all about it here.

:: UPDATE ::

Instapundit (as usual) has more to say about it.

:: UPDATE 6/11/2003 ::

More quotes from more apparent liars.

Friday, June 06, 2003

Federalism, States Rights and the Civil War



Mrs. du Toit says one of her pet peeves is people that try to revise history. It is one of mine as well.

The national conflagration known as the Civil War as not just about slavery as many current revisionists want to believe, but slavery was an important part of the fuel that flared into war, and emancipation was used as a weapon during the war. The spark that set the fire was the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, but the embers had been smoldering since the foundation of the nation.

Even during the Constitutional Convention there were two sides (there always are) and they were diametrically opposed on the issue of the role of the national government. The Federalists, led by Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, favored a strong, stable, centralized government which could enforce uniformity in national affairs. The Democratic-Republicans, led by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, favored a weak national government and strong, sovereign, state governments as they felt these were more responsive to will of the people.

It must be remembered that at this time, there was no such thing as national citizenship. Individuals were citizens of states and the state governments were responsible to the citizens. The national government was seen as a government formed by the people to govern the common interests of the states on a national level. The House of Representatives was directly elected by the people, but the Senate was not elected but appointed by the state governments as representatives of the states. Also, political parties did not have the recognized role that they now have in American politics. The Hamiltonians and Jeffersonians did not really become parties until the election of 1800 and even then, their role was ill-defined.

The nation was struggling to establish its identity. Hamilton had a vision, Adams had a vision, Madison had a vision, Jefferson had a vision. In that order, those visions created a spectrum of political ideas and it was thought by most at the time that only one of these vision could successfully guide the new nation. There was disagreement as to which one it should be, but the idea of a loyal opposition, of changing from one vision to another with each election was unfathomable and to those in power, opposition to the sitting government seemed to border on treason. Therefore, they sought to protect the nation by suppressing opposing views.

Things were relatively quiet when George Washington was President, but he was succeeded by John Adams and the quiet ended. Federalists policies antagonized the Jeffersonians throughout Adams' term. The Federalists held power until 1800 when the Democratic-Republicans gained control of Congress and Thomas Jefferson was elected president. The shift in power was due in part to a rift between Hamalton and Adams over war with France--Hamilton wanted it, Adams didn't--and in part to public response to the passage of the Alien and Sedition acts in 1797. The purpose of these acts was to provide a way to suppress and punish opponents of the government. This was seen by the Democratic-Republicans as too much power for the national government and they campaigned for a different vision of the role of government

But it was not really that simple. Before the election, Jefferson and Madison responded to the Alien and Sedition acts with the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. The Kentucky Resolution submitted by Jefferson was the most radical, proposing the doctrine of nullification which held that as sovereign states, a majority of states could vote to nullify any law passed by Congress with which they disagreed. This doctrine was to become one of the smoldering logs in the fire of Civil War.

When Jefferson took office, he retained many of the policies a structures put in place by the Federalists. The policies were working and he felt that with power in his hands, they could not do the harm he feared from the Federalists. He allowed the Alien and Sedition acts to expire, but like the Federalists, he also sought to suppress and punish his opponents. Jefferson used the weapon of impeachment.

Before leaving office, the Federalist Congress passed the Judicial Act creating hundreds of new federal judges. Adams was up until midnight the last day of his term signing judicial appointments. Jefferson viewed this as an attempt to pack the federal courts with federalists in an attempt maintain control over at least one of the three branches of government and he didn't like it. Jefferson ordered Sec. of State James Madison to ignore the appointments and they went undelivered. The new Congress soon repealed the judicial act and Jefferson thought that was the end of it. Then one of the appointees [?] Marbury asked the Supreme Court to issue a writ of mandamus ordering James Madison to deliver his appointment so he could assume his legally created and appointed office.

To make a long story short, the Supreme Court ruled that it could not issue the writ because the law passed by congress delegating that power to the court was unconstitutional. This established the principle of judicial review which gives the Supreme Court the power to declare laws passed by Congress to be unconstitutional.

Jefferson felt this gave the Court too much power because the Supreme Court was controlled by federalists. He feared they would use this power to nullify Dem-Rep legislation passed by Congress. Jefferson sought to purge the courts by charging federalist judges with high crimes and misdemeanors and impeaching them. In most cases he was unsuccessful, but it shows that Jefferson was just as determined as Adams and Hamilton to suppress opponents to his political vision.

The opposition between federalism and state sovereignty continued and eventually took on sectional lines pitting the largely industrial-mercantile North against the largely agrarian South The early on, the critical issue was not slavery but the protective tariff which the South felt penalized them unfairly as two thirds of the tariffs collected were collected in southern states. One of the early weapons which the South tried to use against national laws favoring the North was nullification, this time championed by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina.

Calhoun's doctrine of nullification did not require a majority of states. It held that because the states were sovereign, they could act on their own and did not have to rely on the Supreme Court to declare a law unconstitutional. Rather, any state had the power to nullify within its borders, any law passed by congress with which it disagreed. Nullification could only be overcome by a Constitutional amendment ratified by 3/4s of the states and if the federal government tried to force compliance without an amendment, the state had the right to secede from the Union.

South Carolina tested this doctrine and lost the battle but won the war when President Andrew Jackson declared the doctrine of nullification to be treasonous and threatened to use all the force necessary to enforce the laws of the United States within South Carolina. Other southern states refused to support South Carolina in the confrontation so South Carolina agreed to a compromise formulated by Henry Clay of Kentucky by which S.C. would withdraw its nullification of the tariffs in exchange for a gradual lowering of the tariff over the next 10 years. Because the tariff was lowered, Calhoun and his followers considered this a victory for state sovereignty and continued working to build a solid South that could eventually successfully oppose federal political and military power.

With the tariff question settled, the critical issue soon became slavery. The abolitionist movement was growing in New England, primarily Massachusetts, and demands for an end to slavery were increasing. Because these demands came primarily from the north, the South felt attacked again. The South feared that a strong federal government controlled by northern interests would seek to destroy the south's economy by abolishing slavery which was critical to the South as a source of labor for raising the cotton on which its economy was based.

Federalism had always been strongest in the north, especially New England, and as more states were added to the Union, the issue of whether slavery would be allowed in these states became critical. This was because of representation in the Senate. The North had a greater population so it was likely that northern states would control the House. But since each state has only two senators, population was not an issue in the senate. As long as there was a balance between slave states and free states in the senate, one section could not ride roughshod over the other. Through a series of compromises, this balance was maintained until 1860.

The election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860 was seen in the South as a clear signal of the intention of the North to prevent the introduction of slavery into the territories and thus end once and for all the balance of power in the Senate that had kept the flames of regional conflict suppressed. The (now solidly aligned) Southern states began exercising their sovereignty and seceded from the Union (South Carolina was first, of course). Abraham Lincoln, while he accepted a principal of limited state sovereignty, did not believe that any state had a right to leave the Union once joined. This was the spark of rebellion that finally set the bonfire ablaze.

The issue driving the events was slavery, but freeing slaves was not the purpose of the Civil War. The purpose was to preserve the Federal Union. There was little doubt that forcing the slave states to remain in the Union meant the eventual end of slavery. Fully 69% of the popular vote for President in the 1860 election was for anti-slavery or free-soil candidates. Most of those votes came from northern and western states. The South was outnumbered in the House and if slavery was prohibited in the territories, either by legislation of popular sovereignty, the balance in the Senate would swing to the anti-slavery forces who would then pressure the South intolerably. For survival, the South had to leave the Union and make its own way.

Lincoln was only moderately anti-slavery. He felt that given time, slavery would come to an end as the South found more efficient ways to drive their agrarian economy. Lincoln was opposed to emancipation of slaves without compensating slaveholders and he felt that emancipation further required a way of colonizing the freed slaves outside of the United States. For Lincoln, the war was always about preserving the Union, but he had to balance this against the fact that his support came from two groups, pro-Unionists that were against abolition, and abolitionists that saw the war primarily as a way to bring about emancipation. It was a delicate balance.

By 1862, there was growing discontent over the course of the war. Lincoln was in danger of losing the support of the abolitionists who were beginning to see that the goal of restoring the Union might be at odds with the goal of abolition. They began to see that war was not necessary to free the slaves in the remaining Union states, but that nothing could be done to free the slaves in the United States without a constitutional amendment. The constitution recognized slavery, and the 5th amendment prevented the taking of private property (slaves) with out due process of law and just compensation. As a result, the abolitionist were evermore ready to say "Good riddance" to the South and free the slaves remaining in the Union. Lincoln was losing his base of support.

Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862. Many think that this freed the slaves, but it did not, at least, not entirely. The proclamation was primarily a war measure aimed at putting pressure on the Confederacy on one hand and restoring abolitionists support for the war effort on the other. In July, Congress had already passed, and Lincoln had accepted, the Second Confiscation act which declared that all slaves held by those in rebellion were free. However, Lincoln delayed in proclaiming these slaves to be free because he feared upsetting the balance of his support for the war by offending the non-abolitionist in the north. He waited for a success on the battlefield when pro-war sentiment would be strongest. In September, after the battle of Antietam, Lincoln issued a preliminary proclamation of emancipation declaring that a final proclamation of emancipation, under the terms of the Confiscation act, would be forthcoming unless the states then in rebellion surrendered by January 1863.

When finally issued, the Emancipation proclamation only freed the slaves in areas not currently under federal control (and thus was not enforceable until those areas came under federal control) but did nothing to alter the status of slaves in rebellious states or parts of states that were under federal control. Nor did it free the slaves in slave states that had remained part of the Union.

Think about it. Lincoln was fighting a war to preserve the Union. His support was precariously balanced between pro-Unionists that didn't really care about abolition and certainly not about fighting for the rights of blacks, and abolitionists that felt abolition was a holy writ to be imposed on the slave states by whatever means necessary whether they were in the Union or not. The abolitionists cared nothing for preserving the Union without the abolition of slavery. Without the slave states to oppose it, abolition could be accomplished in what remained of the United States with an amendment but the rest of the country was not interested in debating such an amendment in the middle of a war. The Emancipation proclamation gave the abolitionists reason to support the war effort because it created a means of freeing the slaves in the Confederacy by the extension if US military power. It did not require that the war be won or the Union restored, just that Union armies move through Confederate territory, freeing the slaves as they go. In addition, once the war had ended, attention could be turned to and amendment to abolish slavery. Pursuit of the war now served the purposes of both abolitionists and pro-Unionists and Lincoln had the base of support he needed to pursue the war for his purpose, which was to preserve the Union.

The 13th Amendment was proposed by a Congress controlled by abolitionists and ratified by states that were predominantly free. It was not done until after the war ended and the states of the defeated Confederacy had not yet been readmitted to the Union. It is doubtful that such an amendment would have been ratified if the slave states had been immediately restored to statehood and included in the count. War was not necessary to end slavery in the United States, but a constitutional amendment certainly was and it was secession that made such an amendment possible. War was necessary to preserve the Union but if slavery was to be outlawed, it had to be done before it was put back together. And that is what happened. The Confederacy was defeated, slavery was outlawed, and the defeated states were "reconstructed" and "allowed" to rejoin a Union that now outlawed slavery.

One thing the Emancipation proclamation eventually did for many in the North was change their view of the purpose of the war. By 1864, slavery seemed to be the cause for which the South was fighting and if the South wasn't fighting, there would not be so much suffering and death. By this time, the North was not fighting to preserve the Union so much as to end the war and now ending the war also meant ending slavery which would remove the South's reason for fighting.

What the proclamation did not do was change the purpose of the war for the South. The war was to defend state sovereignty and southern independence. Slavery was not the primary issue, it was just something that North was trying to take way in order to extend their economic dominance over the southern states and make them dependent upon northern merchants. Remember, it was only the secession of the slave states that made the ratification of the 13th amendment possible. If the South had remained in the Union, slavery would have continued for some time but the South would have been under increasing economic and political pressure from the rest of the country. The South had come to believe that the common interests that originally bound the states together had been subsumed by overriding regional concerns and union was no longer desirable. In effect, they wanted a divorce.

But at the root of all was the old conflict between federal sovereignty and state sovereignty. And in the end, the federalists won. That states could not secede was enforced by force of arms. Federal citizenship was pronounced and trumped state sovereignty. The 14th Amendment extended the protections of the federal Bill of Rights to US citizens and state constitutions and state law had to conform. The United States became a federal republic with a strong central government, as Hamilton and Adams had envisioned, and not a loose association of sovereign states with a weak central government acting as its agent which Jefferson had desired.

When studying the history of the Constitution, it is important to know the original intent of the founding fathers because where it has not been modified, that original intent still holds true. But one of the original intents was that government be responsive to the changing needs of the country, in many cases, original intent has been modified to meet the needs of changing times. Where original intent has been preserved, that original intent is valid, but where it has changed--through force of arms, amendment, or judicial interpretation--that change is equally valid. It does little good to pretend otherwise. Just like it does little good to pretend the Civil War was just about slavery.

Wednesday, June 04, 2003

"News"papers?



Porphyrogenitus is wondering just how much we can trust newspapers these days:

I am starting to wonder just how much of what we were told in the Newspapers of Record just wasn't so. Actually, I'm wondering less and less: the answer is this isn't very new. People are just more aware of it now, and the Real Reporters© find this turn of events unbecoming.


I'm not surprised at all. Over the years, I have found that newspaper reports of incidents of which I have direct knowledge read nothing like what I know to be true from having witnessed it first hand. And the few times I have been interviewed, the quotes bore very little resemblance to what I actually said. The sports sections are different, but these are generally reports of events with thousands of witnesses, many of whom will be reading the reports. Sportswriters can't afford to deviate too far from the truth. Not so with "news" reports which may be the only information the reader has on the subject.

As a result, I don't read newspapers for news. I read the sports and the comics, and use the rest of the paper to clean the barbeque grill.

Tuesday, June 03, 2003

Surfing the Blogosphere



From USS Clueless: The Dog Days of August. When I followed the link to "Dogs marry in Connecticut", I was greeted with an ad for Hillary Clinton and Barbara Walters. That is just too much coincidence.

From Michael Totten: France Requests U.S. Statehood

On a serious note, from Little Green Footballs: Palestinian kids: Ask for death. Sounds like a roadmap to pieces.

James Lileks has apparently discovered an American naming convention:

Well, we know Eric Robert Rudolph’s guilty, don’t we? He has THREE NAMES. He was Eric Rudolph for years, but now he’s Eric Robert Rudolph. Say no more. That’s why I never thought Richard Jewell did the Atlanta bombing; he would have been described as Richard Jay Jewell, or Richard Harvey Jewell. People don’t get a middle name unless they’re a famous criminal. That’s the law. Ricky Ray Rector. Lee Harvey Oswald. James Earl Ray. Sirhan Sirhan Sirhan.

The nation is run by people with four names (William Jefferson Blythe Clinton, George Herbert Walker Bush, Harry Herbert Heever Hoover,* etc.) The nation is entertained by people with one name - Cher, Sting, Madonna, Eminem, Rush. The people with three names are found guilty by jury members who have two names. What of the five-namers, you ask? Those are the puppet masters, my friend. The Masonic Illuminati. Somewhere now in Bavaria, Rheingelt Quincy Etienne Xavier Chernobog is shaking hands with John Jacob Zhinkleheimer Kim Tanaka. And that handshake took six years to learn.


In case you were wondering what happened to Bill Whittle. (be sure and read the comments)

Monday, June 02, 2003

Floating all Boats



In this post by Daniel Drezner, it sounds like the rich get richer, the poor get rich and someone else moves in to take their place. Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

The Importance of the 2nd Amendment



Much of the following is part of a thread I was involved in a couple of years ago on a newsgroup. I wanted to get my comments on the record here.

Possession of firearms should be limited to the armed services. That *WAS* the purpose the Second Amendment--it says so in so many words.


No it doesn't, not at all. The militia is the armed citizenry. IOW, a militia is not something that you join. The militia is created by the simple existence of an armed citizenry.

There is much confusion created by the sentence construction of the 2nd Amendment. The Bill of Rights as a whole was intended to protect individual rights against infringement by the Federal government. It was based on the Bills of rights in several state constitutions which protected individual rights against infringement by state governments.

The introductory phrase, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," is intended to explain the reason that the individual right to keep and bear arms is being protected. The 2nd Amendment is unique in that it is the only amendment which has such an explanatory preamble. Even so, it does not state that the only reason for a citizen to be armed is so that he can join a militia. It is clear from contemporary writings promoting the Bill of Rights that the militia was created by the existence of an armed citizenry and not that the citizenry was armed by the existence of a militia.

An amendment to protect the right to education might be similarly written:

"A well-educated electorate being necessary to the preservation of a free society, the right of the people to read and compose books shall not be infringed."


This does not mean that only well-educated voters have the right to read or write books. Nor does it mean that the right to read books of one's choosing can be restricted to only those subjects which lead to a well-educated electorate.

The purpose of this provision is: although not everyone may end up being well-educated, enough people will become well-educated to preserve a free society.

Similarly, the purpose of the 2nd amendment is that the people from whom a necessary and well-regulated militia will be composed, shall not have their right to keep and bear arms infringed so that there will be an armed citizenry from which the state (and federal militias) can be drawn.

In The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788, while the states were considering ratification of the Constitution, Tench Coxe wrote:

"Who are the militia? are they not ourselves. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American...The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."


Here is a quote from the case of Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886):

"It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or reserve militia of the United States as well as of the States, and in view of this prerogative of the general government...the States cannot, even laying the constitutional provision in question [the Second Amendment] out of view, prohibit the people from keeping and bearing arms..."


When the Constitution and Bill of Rights was written, the people knew what the intent was and said so in print. As a result, anyone who can read can know what the original intent was without having to speculate.

Only one law needs to be passed, in my opinion. Reword the archaic amendment in the Bill of Rights to remove the right bear handguns, automatic and semi-automatic weapons, and use copkiller bullets. There, I've said it. I will now put on my flame retardant suit.


No flames here. I happen to agree that the only resolution to this issue is to re-write the 2nd Amendment. It will require re-writing the whole Constitution though because the Second Amendment is the primary guarantee that the will of the people can be ultimately enforced. Without the Second amendment, we are left to rely on the benevolence of the government. And it was due to a distrust in the benevolence of government that the Bill of Rights was adopted in the first place.

So while I agree that the Second amendment could be re-worded for clarification, I would favor re-wording it to make the right to keep and bear personal weapons a clear and unambiguous right of individual citizens not subject to restriction by federal, state or local government except as a result of felonious activity of the individual.

The US Constitution does not grant any rights or privileges to the citizens it serves. Rather, the Constitution is the means by which the citizens delegate power to, and restrict the power of, the government.

The freedom and liberty we enjoy in the US is protected and preserved by the Constitution. And the Constitution is protected and preserved by the 2nd amendment. Any attack on the personal right to keep and bear arms that is protected by the 2nd amendment is an attack on the Constitution itself and thus an attack on the U.S.

There are established constitutional methods in place for altering the nature of the Constitution. So far, none of the opponents of the 2nd amendment have attempted to seek such a solution. Instead, they propose ignoring the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and anything else that gets in the way of their agenda--an agenda_they intend to pursue regardless of who may disagree or get in their way.

Yes, the US is under attack...from itself. But this is healthy and serves its on purpose. Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom and the stronger the attacks, the more vigilant people become.

The US is always under attack from itself. The Constitution creates a government of three parts that exist in dynamic tension. Each balances and opposes the others and through that opposition, supports the others.

It is the same with ideas. Thesis plus antithesis produces synthesis. Without such discussion of differing opinions, there is no progress.

Judiciary rulings by courts with the appropriate jurisdiction interpret and define the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and tell us how they apply. In all cases of Constitutional interpretation, the US Supreme Court has final jurisdiction.

Slander, libel, copyright, religious practices, all of these issues have been tested in court and ruled on based on the court's interpretation of the law and the 1st amendment. These rulings have helped to clarify and shape our understanding of the 1st amendment and this is a proper and necessary part of the constitutional process.

However, to date, the Supreme Court has not issued a ruling in support of a federal gun control law based on a clear interpretation of the 2nd Amendment. Rather, most rulings have upheld such laws on the basis of Congress' power to regulate interstate commerce. Until the 2nd Amendment is revised by subsequent amendment, or by Supreme Court ruling, it has to be accepted as written with the original intent of the authors.

Different groups may have differing opinions as to what the 2nd amendment actually says and what it was originally intended to say. Neither side of this discussion has the power or authority to make the final determination without amending the Constitution. Only the Supreme Court can do that and so far, it has declined to do so. But it is going to have another chance.

What every well regulated militia needs...



...but is it armed?