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Dem
Sen: Second Amendment Not Meant For Citizens To Take Up Arms Against Government. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) on states
nullifying federal gun laws: [...] ["]The Second Amendment is not an absolute right, not a God given right, always had conditions
upon it like the First Amendment has. The idea that the Second Amendment was put in there in order to allow citizens to fight
their government is insane.["]
Glenn
Beck: If Police Get Drones, 'The 2nd Amendment Is Absolutely Dead'. Senator Rand Paul's media tour following his
"misunderestimated" statements on drones brought him to Glenn Beck's radio show Friday, where the two men discussed the prospects
of a terrifying future where police cars have "robotic firing arms" that take down criminals with the push of a button. If that
ever happens, Beck told Paul, "the Second Amendment is absolutely dead."
Mark Levin: 'An up-or-down
vote on the 2nd Amendment is unconstitutional'. On his Tuesday [4/9/2013] radio show, conservative talker Mark Levin defended the GOP
senators who are threatening to filibuster new gun control laws and argued that any attempt to threaten gun ownership would be unconstitutional.
Biden Mocks the Basis of Second Amendment.
This guy is the vice president, the former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and supposedly a leading Democratic expert on gun issues.
And yet, he doesn't understand the Second Amendment.
Second Amendment
crumbling as gun-control victories spread. The Second Amendment got attacked this week from three sides, leaving gun
owners scrambling to find safe ground. While President Obama has lost momentum for federal gun-control laws, he has picked up
victories with his allies in blue states and at the United Nations.
The
War Against the Second Amendment Has Only Just Begun. In an interview with Jason Mattera which was conducted last
month but is just now hitting the news, Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky admitted that the Democrats' effort to ban "assault
weapons" is "just the beginning." In addition, Schakowsky says that she wants to ban all handguns, and thinks this can
constitutionally be done, despite the Second Amendment. I think it is obvious that Schakowsky was only saying what a great
many Democrats believe.
Is Oregon writing the worst gun law
ever? If HB 3200 gets passed into law, you may as well pack up and leave the state if you have any interest in
Second Amendment rights.
Federal
Court Refuses State AG: Concealed Carry Stands in Illinois. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected Illinois
Attorney General Lisa Madigan's request "to reconsider a ruling that found the state's concealed carry weapons ban unconstitutional
[in Dec. 2012]." Madigan has argued that the December ruling overturning the ban was in conflict with other appeals court
rulings and that it went beyond what the Supreme Court required.
Democide. In Turkey, "reasonable"
gun control laws enacted in 1911 permitted the democide of two million Turkish Christians a few years later. In Germany, the
"commonsense" 1928 gun control laws of the Weimar Republic preceded Hitler's Holocaust by a decade. The Weimar politicians
did not intend for their gun control laws to lead to the slaughter of millions of people, but it is an historical fact that those gun
control laws permitted the Nazis to carry out their Holocaust. How? By making it economically and militarily feasible to
round up and mass murder entire towns without any significant resistance. In fact, the Nazis quickly learned that they
needed only a hundred ordinary military policemen to exterminate towns of a thousand Polish Jews in a single day.
WA Dems Sponsor Bill Allowing Police to Search
Gun owners' Homes. In a mistake that probably wasn't a mistake, a Washington state bill sponsored by liberal Democrats contained a little-noticed
provision that would have called for the police to have the right to search private citizens' home once per year if they own certain types of guns.
Why Americans Need Assault Rifles. Reams of paper have been produced
supporting or disparaging this or that about the 2nd Amendment, and brighter men than me have argued both for and against it, but
my view is that the Founders of the Republic had a nation like Switzerland in mind. While gun control advocates are keen on
comparing the US to the UK, Canada and Australia, nations that ban guns in most cases, they tend to ignore Switzerland.
Switzerland does not have a professional army and instead relies upon civilians to participate and train in a militia. The
Swiss are issued an assault rifle, currently the SIG SG 550, a fully automatic weapons that even US gun nuts can't easily get
their hands on. The Swiss also have a very weak central government, something I believe the Founders preferred but became an
idea that got lost after the North won the Civil War.
The Second Amendment is Not about
Hunting. Our Founding Fathers' perspectives are just as important and relevant today as they were more than 200 years ago
because the nature of man hasn't changed over time. The world is still full of people who would enslave us and compel us to do their
bidding if they could. Our nation's capital is still loaded with elected officials who believe they know what's best for the rest of us,
and they are willing to use whatever force is necessary to subjugate us and make us fall into line behind their way of thinking even if it
violates our constitutional rights. [...] As unappealing as this possibility is, the day may come when we will need our weapons to fend off
an overreaching and tyrannical government, as our Founding Fathers knew could happen.
Rahm Emanuel Goes
After 1st And 2nd Amendments. A 15-year-old girl who performed at the president's inauguration is gunned down by gangs less
than a mile from Barack Obama's home. What does Chicago's mayor do? He blames banks who lend gun makers money.
The Purpose of the Second Amendment.
In all the talk that has happened and will happen, the press and the general public seem willing to ignore the actual purpose of the
second amendment. The amendment is not about sports. It is not about recreation. It is not about hunting. It is
only partly about defending yourself from a criminal. The second amendment is about ensuring a "free state."
February 23 Will Be A Day of Resistance.
While Barack Obama is calling for Americans to give up their freedom, their rights, and their guns, we're calling for Americans to resist.
We're calling on Tea Partiers, moderate Republicans, Libertarians and even moderate Democrats to stand up one month from today, on the 23rd of
February and say, "No more!" [...] It'll be a Day of Resistance where gun owners and patriots can peacefully gather and show Barack Obama, the
media, and the knockkneed Republicans in Congress that we may have lost a battle last November, but we haven't lost the war. Don't
meekly give up your 2nd Amendment rights when you can stand with us and RESIST!
The 2nd Amendment
Is What Makes The Other Nine Possible. As debates over firearms simmer and President Obama mulls sweeping firearm
restrictions via executive orders, media personalities like Piers Morgan dismiss guests defending gun rights with contempt.
You'd think resistance to disarmament amounts to culpability for the Sandy Hook slaughter.
New York Declares War on the Second
Amendment. The Ruger, Walther P22, and Smith & Wesson target pistols all use magazines with capacities of 10 or more, and
their principal purpose is to make holes in pieces of paper at up to 50 yards. New York has therefore just made it eminently
clear that the Constitution does not even protect sporting uses of firearms, let alone the Second Amendment's primary intention of
individual, collective, and national self-defense. This should mobilize all supporters of the Bill of Rights to deploy all
necessary legal, nonviolent, and socially acceptable methods to take these enemies down decisively and permanently.
Advice on the Second Amendment.
The trigger for the American colonists' revolt at Lexington and Concord in 1775 was their belief that the British intended to seize their
gunpowder, which would then enable the military to repress the populace at leisure. Stephen P. Halbrook's The Founders' Second
Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms (2008) documents the thinking at the time of the American Founding, and it wasn't focused on
the right to shoot ducks.
Preserving the Second
Amendment. [Scroll down] Those words, "executive orders, executive action," used in conjunction with constitutionally
protected rights and liberties, ought to alarm us all. They used to frighten Barack Obama. On Oct. 2, 2007, then-Sen.
Obama railed against what he called the abuse of executive powers purportedly perpetrated by President George W. Bush in his
administration's efforts to protect the American people from acts of terror by radical Islamists. Apparently, the current
occupant of the Oval Office has overcome his early concerns about chief executives exceeding their authority.
Americans, never give up your guns.
These days, there are few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains:
the right to bear arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions. [...] For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the
US 2nd Amendment is a rare light in an ever darkening room. Governments will use the excuse of trying to protect the people from
maniacs and crime, but are in reality, it is the bureaucrats protecting their power and position.
Self Governance
is Under Attack, not just the Second Amendment. On Wednesday [1/9/2013], Rasmussen Reports released the results of a poll revealing
that only "74% of American Adults continue to believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of an average citizen to own a gun."
This finding is perplexing because the Constitution hasn't changed.
More states look for ways to control gun
laws. A growing number of states are aiming to keep Uncle Sam's hands off their weapons if Congress decides to stiffen
gun-control laws in response to last month's deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Eight
states — Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming — have adopted laws in recent
years that would exempt guns made in the state from federal regulation as long as they remain in the state, according to Jon Griffin
of the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Three completely unrelated news stories that
vintage media somehow forgot to report. [#2] Dianne Feinstein's true stated goal is the unconstitutional confiscation of all
firearms from civilians: [...] "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States, for an outright ban, picking up [every
gun]... Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in." Note she doesn't mention the Constitution as an obstacle; only the vote tally. As
Obama's economic policies make ever more Americans dependent on government largesse, vote tallies will soon cease to be a problem for
authoritarian statists like Feinstein.
Wyoming Lawmakers Propose 'Gun Protection' Legislation.
Several Wyoming lawmakers are proposing legislation designed to protect gun-owners from any potential federal firearm ban. The "Firearms
Protection Act" bill, introduced this week, would make any federal law banning semi-automatic firearms or limiting the size of gun magazines
unenforceable within the state's boundaries.
The great guns debate: Grabbers rise anew.
Post-Sandy Hook, the great debate over guns has sunken to new levels of deceit and misrepresentation, all in the name of unconstitutional
gun-grabbing. Consider legislation being proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein. The California Democrat seeks to dishonestly redefine
"assault weapons" — heretofore machine-gun-type weaponry banned nearly 30 years ago — to be just about any weapon that
liberals think looks especially menacing or they simply don't like. She proposes measures clearly in violation of the Second Amendment.
We Must Control the Second
Amendment Conflict. The side that controls the language of an argument controls the argument, and the side that takes
and maintains the offensive controls the entire conflict. The enemy must then react to our actions instead of making us react to
his, and continue to react until he is no longer capable of fighting. We are indeed at war with an adversary with whom good faith
and win-win negotiation are not possible.
Vanity
Fair: Second Amendment 'Must Be Removed from the Constitution'. On January 2, Vanity Fair ran an all-out attack on the
constitution, the 2nd Amendment, and common sense in a column by Kurt Eichenwald titled, "Let's Repeal the Second Amendment."
Eichenwald's approach consists of attacking the NRA, arguing that gun owners avoid discussing more gun control by saying they don't want
to "politicize" shootings, and taking the standard progressive position that there wasn't really a right to keep and bear arms until
Justice Antonin Scalia created one in recent Supreme Court decisions.
Why the 2nd Amendment.
Today's Americans are vastly better-armed than our founders, Warsaw Ghetto Jews and Syrian rebels. There are about 300 million
privately held firearms owned by Americans. That's nothing to sneeze at. And notice that the people who support gun control are
the very people who want to control and dictate our lives.
could
any of these slaughters have happened against an armed populace? let's keep the discussion simple, so that even a simpleton can
comprehend it. the 2nd amendment to the constitution of the united states is not about protecting "hunting rifles." it is about resisting
tyranny, and the oppression, violence and carnage wreaked upon a people by their government. it was the framers intent that an armed people could
resist such oppression, could fight against governmental murder. think for just a moment, if you are capable.
No capitalization in original.
The Root
of Mass Shootings: Mental Illness. Our government leaders, any many others, would have us believe that putting the kibosh to the 2nd Amendment
is the answer to rampant violence in the United States, particularly in the wake of recent shootings where innocent children and adult citizens have been killed.
It would seem that way. But it's really not the answer.
The N.R.A. Is Still
Vital, Because the 2nd Amendment Is. Today, with 4 million members, the N.R.A. is one of the largest civic organizations in the U.S., and by far
the largest civil liberties organization on the planet. On top of that, polls indicate that as many as 17 million more Americans consider themselves N.R.A.
members even if they haven't paid dues. (Perhaps, for example, because they took an N.R.A. gun safety class.)
The Real Second Amendment. [Scroll
down] The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was derived from our understanding of the British experience that militias were
necessary to curb the tyrannical powers of the king. In our case, 'well regulated militias' were necessary as a condition of the
colonies to agree to subordinate their sovereignty to a federal government. They wanted a guarantee of power to insure that some
future federal government could not egregiously exceed its powers prescribed in the body of the constitution they agreed to.
Furthermore, like the militias of the English barons, these state militias were formed ad hoc from the populace as needed on short
notice and therefore depended on the populace being already proficient in the art of arms.
Second Amendment at risk in second
term. Democrats just couldn't hold it together. With less than 100 days to go before the election, the left
let slip its vision of a second term for President Obama that will be the end for the Second Amendment.
The 2nd Amendment Transcends
the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty. It's widely known that the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, being negotiated as I type, is simply gun control by
another name. Although it is being sold as a treaty to lessen the number of guns moving across borders illegally, it will ultimately require
a national gun registry to be enforceable: perhaps even an international gun registry. And while all of us should be contacting our
Senators to demand they refuse to ratify this ridiculous treaty when it comes before them, it behooves us also to remind them (and ourselves) that
the 2nd Amendment transcends any U.N. treaty at any time and any place in this country.
Another
victory for the Second Amendment. U.S. District Judge Benson Everett Legg's groundbreaking March 5
ruling that Maryland cannot refuse to issue a handgun permit to an otherwise qualified individual unless that person
has an acceptable reason for wanting one is a jurisprudential gem that correctly shifts the burden of proof from the
citizen to the government. His elegant reiteration of basic Second Amendment rights in Woollard v. Sheridan
will be quoted for generations: "A citizen may not be required to offer a 'good and substantial reason' why he
should be permitted to exercise his rights. The right's existence is all the reason he needs."
Since I don't need a good reason to own a gun, I'm
going to mention this to Santa Claus:
New Israeli Machine Gun — The
NG7. Israel Weapon Industries recently unveiled its new NG7, a 7.62mm version of the venerable Negev
5.56mm light machine gun. ... The NG7 fires 850-1,050 rounds per minute on gas regulator position one and 950-1150 rpm
on position two.
Federal
judge says gun owners need not provide 'good reason,' rules Maryland law unconstitutional. Maryland
residents do not have to provide a "good and substantial reason" to legally own a handgun, a federal judge ruled
Monday [3/5/2012], striking down as unconstitutional the state's requirements for getting a permit. U.S.
District Judge Benson Everett Legg wrote that states are allowed some leeway in deciding the way residents exercise
their Second Amendment right to bear arms, but Maryland's objective was to limit the number of firearms that
individuals could carry, effectively creating a rationing system that rewarded those who provided the right
answer for wanting to own a gun.
Federal judge
severely limits Second Amendment rights. Over the last few years, the Second Amendment has experienced
somewhat of a rebirth, thanks largely to a pair of Supreme Court decisions: District of Columbia v. Heller and
McDonald v. Chicago. In these seminal decisions, the Supreme Court affirmed the understanding of the
Founding Fathers that there is indeed an individual right to keep and bear arms, a God-given right to protect oneself
that is guaranteed to us in the Second Amendment to our Constitution.
Illegal
immigrants have no right to arms - court. Illegal immigrants do not have a right to bear arms
under the U.S. Constitution, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday [12/16/2011]. The U.S. Court of
Appeals for the 8th Circuit, based in Missouri, rejected an appeal brought by Joaquin Bravo Flores, who
was charged with possessing a firearm. Agreeing with the 5th Circuit, the court concluded that the
protections of the Second Amendment do not extend to undocumented immigrants.
Court slaps
Chicago's gun grabbers. The federal judiciary is slowly coming to the realization that the
Second Amendment actually means the public can have guns. That's not sitting well with local
politicians in Chicago and Washington who are determined to keep the public disarmed.
Second
Amendment Rights not Assured Despite Court Victories. The Heller and McDonald cases
may have established an individual right to bear arms but that doesn't mean there won't be efforts to subvert
that right by gun control advocates.
Second
Amendment Takes Double Shot in California. A double-whammy came down today against gun rights
advocates in California. First, the California Assembly voted to prohibit the open carry of unloaded
handguns. Current law had allowed unloaded weapons to be carried openly in public. "You are
disarming our citizens" while doing little to disarm criminals, said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber.
"It is not just the right to keep, it is the right to bear arms," said Assemblyman Tim Donnelly, R-Twin Peaks.
Breyer
Suggests Second Amendment Out of Date. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, speaking this past
weekend on Fox News Sunday, declared that the Founding Fathers did not intend firearms to go unregulated.
Breyer was one of four dissenting justices in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller case, which
overturned a firearms ban in the District of Columbia. The decision in Heller was significant for many
reasons, primarily for holding that the Second Amendment was connected with not only the right of individuals
to bear arms, but also the power of state governments to maintain militia capable of resisting an oppressive
federal government.
Did
Justice Breyer Invent History to Justify His Personal Agenda? An oft-quoted maxim attributed
(dubiously) to Mark Twain instructs writers: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."
Perhaps Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has been reading the recently published diaries of Twain and has
been inspired to weave a little yarn of his own — a story strong on emotion but woefully light
on facts.
UN
Determined to Destroy America's Second Amendment. The United Nations wants to control small
arms in order to promote peace and security, but their own research contradicts this rhetoric.
Shooting
Down the Constitution. Even a simple guy like me can figure out these words from the U.S.
Constitution: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." That's
contained in the Second Amendment. So why did four Supreme Court justices this week vote to infringe
on the right to bear arms? The court ruled 5 to 4 that 76-year-old Otis McDonald, an
African-American Democrat who lives in Chicago, can own a handgun.
Supreme
Court Leans Toward Incorporation of Second Amendment. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments
yesterday [3/2/2010] in McDonald v. Chicago — the case challenging Chicago's handgun ban.
Judging from the transcripts, it looks like a majority of justices favor applying the Second Amendment to the
states.
'Right To Bear Arms' Means Just
That. Otis McDonald, 76, an Army vet who lives in a high-crime area of Chicago, thinks the
Constitution gives him the right to bear arms to protect himself and his wife as he protected his country.
We think so too.
Which political party wants to take away your right to own a gun?
Ohio Democratic Party
unsuccessfully tries to get gun records. The Ohio Democratic Party tried unsuccessfully this
week to get information on all people licensed to carry concealed weapons in the Buckeye State. The
state party sent letters to Ohio's 88 sheriffs requesting the names and addresses of permit holders and
the dates the licenses were issued. Ohio has about 211,000 permit holders.
NJ
Court Rules 2nd Amendment Does Not Apply in State. New Jersey ratified the United States
Constitution on December 18, 1787 — in fact, it was the third state to do so — but
an appeals court has determined that that does not necessarily mean that the state must uphold the rights
guaranteed by that Constitution. ... A New Jersey appeals court has concluded that Americans have no Second
Amendment right to buy a handgun. In a case decided last week, the superior court upheld a state law
saying that nobody may possess "any handgun" without obtaining law enforcement approval and permission in
advance.
From Guns to Butter.
Last week, the [Supreme] Court agreed to hear a Second Amendment challenge to Chicago's handgun ban. Since that
law is very similar to the Washington, D.C., ordinance that the Court declared unconstitutional last year, it is bound
to be overturned, assuming the Court concludes that the Second Amendment applies not just to the federal government
(which oversees the District of Columbia) but also to states and their subsidiaries. That seems like a pretty
safe assumption, since over the years the Court has said the 14th Amendment "incorporates" nearly all of the
guarantees in the Bill of Rights.
Guns and the Constitution:
The phrase "the right of the people" or some variation of it appears repeatedly in the Bill of Rights, and
nowhere does it actually mean "the right of the government." When the Bill of Rights was written and
adopted, the rights that mattered politically were of one sort — an individual's, or a minority's,
right to be free from interference from the state. Today, rights are most often thought of as
an entitlement to receive something from the state, as opposed to a freedom from interference
by the state. The Second Amendment is, in our view, clearly a right of the latter sort.
Why the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is Important
to You: Across our nation a debate rages about "gun control". This euphemism glosses over the fact that
what is being debated is one of the most precious guarantors of liberty, the right to keep and bear arms. At the heart
of this debate is not whether the right to keep and bears arms is an individual right or not, but at its core the debate is
over the primacy of the individual over the primacy of the government. This debate rages because many, too many, in
this country have forgotten, or, worse, have never been educated in, the nature of our rights.
Why
Do We 'Keep and Bear Arms'? The Founding Fathers assumed that any government, including the one
they established, could grow into a monster. They argued that only "the people" with a right "to keep
and bear arms" could prevent such a tyranny. James Madison, the "father of the Constitution," stated
that tyrants were "afraid to trust the people with arms," and lauded "the advantage of being armed, which
Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."
High-Profile Gun
Rights Case Inches Toward Supreme Court. The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is likely to
decide whether the Second Amendment's guarantee of a right to "keep and bear arms" restricts only the federal
government — the current state of affairs — or whether it can be used to strike down
intrusive state and local laws too.
Sotomayor's 'Fundamental'
Flaws. Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor claim that her Second Amendment rulings are
examples of "judicial restraint." The problem is that she's restraining the Second Amendment. Judge Sotomayor
has ruled twice that the right to keep and bear arms is not a "fundamental right." The second time was
after the U.S. Supreme Court said that it is.
Sotomayor Ruled That States Do Not Have to Obey
the Second Amendment. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor ruled in January 2009 that states do not have to
obey the Second Amendment's commandment that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
Chicago Law Banning Handguns
in City Upheld by Court. A Chicago ordinance banning handguns and automatic weapons within city limits was
upheld by a U.S. Court of Appeals panel, which rejected a challenge by the National Rifle Association. The unanimous
three-judge panel ruled today that a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year, which recognized an individual right to bear
arms under the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, didn't apply to states and municipalities.
Ninth
Circuit Court Extends Second Amendment Rights. Believe it or not, the Ninth Circuit Court
ruled today that the second amendment restricts the powers of state and local governments to interfere
with the individual right to gun ownership. The decison even observes that the right to bear arms
is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition." Notes Cato Institute's Ilya Shapiro, "I
rarely get a chance to say this, but the Ninth Circuit gets it exactly right."
Yes,
California, There Is an Individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Today [4/20/2009] the Ninth
Circuit (the federal appellate court covering most Western states) ruled that the Second Amendment restricts
the power of state and local governments to interfere with individual right to have guns for personal use.
That is, the Fourteenth Amendment "incorporates" the Second Amendment against the states, as the Supreme
Court has found it to do for most of the Bill of Rights.
Citizens can
challenge state, local gun laws. A federal appeals court ruled Monday that private citizens
can challenge state and local gun laws by invoking the constitutional right to bear arms — the
first such ruling in the nation — but upheld a ban on firearms at gun shows at the Alameda
County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton.
Chicago
Defies the Second Amendment. Since the Supreme Court upheld the individual right to own guns last
summer, one municipality after another with handgun bans has faced reality. Washington, D.C., which lost the case,
changed its law. Morton Grove, Ill., repealed its ban. So did neighboring Wilmette. Likewise for
Evanston. Last week, Winnetka followed suit. Then there is Chicago ...
Right to Bear Arms:
Washington, D.C., will become a safer place to live and work thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Thursday
[6/26/2008] against the city's absolute ban on handguns. The Court ruled that the Second Amendment's
guarantee of the right to bear arms is an individual right, not just one that permits states to maintain
militias, striking down one of the nation's toughest anti-gun laws. As someone who lived in the
District at the time the city imposed its ban 32 years ago, I say it's about time.
The Court defers to
plain language. No sulking conservative can imagine the Second Amendment would have been upheld
if Republican presidents had not appointed the five members of yesterday's majority. Who can doubt that
Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry and ol' Bubba would have appointed
judges dedicated to throwing out the constitutional guarantee upheld yesterday?
Silver
Bullet. The 2008 Supreme Court term ended with a bang yesterday as the Justices issued their
most important ruling ever in upholding an individual right to bear arms. The dismaying surprise is that
the Second Amendment came within a single vote of becoming a dead Constitutional letter.
Bill to limit governor's control of guns OK'd by
Senate panel. On a 4-2 party-line vote, the Republican-controlled Senate Government Committee
approved a measure Tuesday [6/20/2006] that would legally bar any [Arizona] governor from using a state of
emergency to place new restrictions on the possession, transfer, sales, carrying, storage, display or use of
firearms or ammunition. The bill also would remove any ability to commandeer and use weapons or
ammunition during any state of war.
It's a shame the states have to pass
laws that reiterate the Second Amendment.
Constitution
protects our right to bear arms. The U.S. Supreme Court's recent affirmation of the "Right of
the People" to bear arms was long overdue. Our U. S. Constitution was written to guarantee that the
civil rights we have would not be abridged by any government entity. After the lessons learned from
the tyrannical rule of the British and the resultant Revolutionary War, the last thing our forefathers
wanted was a government that could remove our rights with the stroke of a pen.
Gun Ban Bill
Would Cripple the Second Amendment, Group Warns. Anti-gun Democrats are trying to make up for
lost time by reintroducing legislation intended to ban so-called "assault" weapons, a Second Amendment group
warns. Gun Owners of America says the "queen of gun control," Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), is trying
once again to outlaw many types of weapons based on their cosmetic features.
Gun
Rights and Presidential Politics: In the District of Columbia, it is a crime to have a handgun.
It also is a crime to have shotguns or rifles unless they are unloaded and disabled. Ordinary people cannot
have a gun, even in their own homes. Earlier this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
struck down the law as unconstitutional. The court said the Second Amendment does not allow a law like it
because it keeps Americans living in D.C. from exercising their Second Amendment rights.
The Second Amendment Wedge. Last
week the Supreme Court decided to take on the biggest gun control case in almost seventy years:
District of Columbia v. Heller. The Heller case is an appeal by the DC government from the US
Circuit Court's decision holding unconstitutional D.C.'s ban on privately-owned handguns and severe
limits on other weapons.
D.C.'s Gun Ban Gets Day
in Court. Despite mountains of scholarly research, enough books to fill a library shelf and decades of
political battles about gun control, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity this week that is almost unique for a
modern court when it examines whether the District's handgun ban violates the Second Amendment. The nine justices,
none of whom has ever ruled directly on the amendment's meaning, will consider a part of the Bill of Rights that has
existed without a definitive interpretation for more than 200 years.
9 Seem Set To Rule for Gun Rights. The U.S.
Supreme Court appears ready to acknowledge for the first time that the Second Amendment bestows on Americans
the right to possess guns. While many gun owners have long believed such a right to exist under the
Constitution, it has gone largely unrecognized by the federal courts.
Gun
rights is biggest issue for court to decide. The guns case — including Washington,
D.C.'s ban on handguns — is widely expected to be a victory for supporters of gun rights. Top
officials of a national gun control organization said this week that they expect the handgun ban to be struck
down, but they are hopeful other gun regulations will survive.
USA Today isn't too sure ...
Do you have a legal right to
own a gun? Guns, and questions about how much power the government has to keep people from
owning them, are at the core of one of the most divisive topics in American politics. Nowhere is that
divide more pronounced than in the gap between Americans' beliefs about their rights under the Second
Amendment, and how courts have interpreted the law.
Give gun owners uniformity.
Why does USA TODAY object to uniform laws? The rules of safe driving don't change when you travel from a
state highway onto a federal one. Why should rules for gun owners change when they travel from a state
park to a federal park or wildlife refuge? As it is, gun owners who enjoy going afield in our parks face
a confusing nationwide patchwork of rules and regulations, governed by different agencies and bureaucracies.
It's inconsistent, burdensome and unnecessary. More than half the Senate agrees.
This is an original
compilation, Copyright © 2013 by Andrew K. Dart
The DC Gun Ban: Gun rights
adhere to the American people, not to government-sanctioned groups. Rights, by definition, are
individual. "Group rights" is an oxymoron. Can anyone seriously contend that the Founders, who
had just expelled their British rulers mostly by use of light arms, did not want the individual farmer,
blacksmith, or merchant to be armed? Those individuals would have been killed or imprisoned by the
King's soldiers if they had relied on a federal armed force to protect them.
Isn't Self-Defense Common Sense?
[Scroll down] In last year's ruling, which the U.S. Supreme Court will soon review, the D.C. Circuit overturned
a Washington, D.C., gun law that bans possession of handguns in the home and requires that rifles and shotguns
be kept "unloaded and disassembled or bound by a trigger lock." The law thereby effectively bars city
residents from using firearms for self-defense in their own homes. [Senator] Obama evidently considers
that de facto prohibition a "common-sense regulation," since he recently cited Washington's law as an
example of constitutionally permissible gun control.
The Armed Defense of Liberty: Despite the heroic
efforts of Sen. Bob Smith to turn it back, the latest batch of irrational and servile restrictions on the
Second Amendment continues to ooze its way through that allegedly deliberative institution, the
Congress. Perhaps because the gun control debate is now so entirely drenched in the emotive
sludge that is the principal intellectual food of our political establishment this seems a good moment
to recall the deep reasons, the fundamental context, that must inform any responsible deliberations
on the question of an armed citizenry.
Court Rediscovers 2nd Amendment,
Liberals Fear Other 'Rights' May Soon be Found. Tragedy struck leftists all across
America last week when a federal appeals court reviewing the District of Columbia's handgun ban,
ruled that the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed upon by the District.
Second
Amendment Solidified: The Department of Justice issued an extensive
report that very clearly and definitely shows that the Second Amendment was intended
to protect an individual right. … The answer was definitive: "The Second
Amendment secures a right of individuals generally, not a right of states or a right
restricted to persons serving in militias."
Ship captain's
Second Amendment rights upheld. A Warren County ship captain may carry a concealed weapon in New
Jersey waters and ports, state Superior Court Judge John Pursel ruled Wednesday [8/11/2004]. The judge
cited the post-Sept. 11 world of terrorist threats and the recent rise in the terrorist alert system
not the Constitution] as part of the reason for his decision to grant the carrying permit.
The world according to
Dick: The Second Amendment Sisters simply advocate a woman's "right to choose" to own and
carry firearms. But [New Jersey Senate President] Dick Codey thinks the government should make that
choice for them. He knows what's best for a woman.
Supreme
Court Refuses to Confirm Constitutional Right to Bear Arms : The
Supreme Court disappointed gun rights groups Monday [12/01/2003] by refusing to
consider whether the Constitution guarantees people a personal right to own a gun. The
court has never said if the right to "keep and bear arms" applies to individuals.
Gunning for Your Gun
Rights: The United Nations' agenda may not be to overturn the Second Amendment
per se, but it has cleared a path for making enforcement of this constitutional
protection illegal under international law.
New Jersey to
Expand Seizures in Gun Cases. A New Jersey state assemblyman has introduced a
bill that would allow the government to seize the home or car of anyone whose property
contains an illegal firearm. In New Jersey, nearly every gun is considered "illegal."
Gun Control: The
assault weapon statute is purely cosmetic — banning guns because of politically incorrect
features such as bayonet lugs (as if drive-by bayoneting were a problem) or a rifle grip that
protrudes "conspicuously" from the gun's stock. Police statistics from around the
nation show that such guns are rarely used in crime.
Guns and Federalism: Members
of Congress who support gun rights are currently engaged in a dubious tradeoff: to save the Second
Amendment, they've decided to undermine the Tenth.
Restoring the Right to Bear
Arms: For decades, the Second Amendment was consigned to constitutional exile, all but erased
from constitutional law textbooks and effectively banished from the nation's courts. But no more.
Recent developments in the law and in political culture have begun the process of returning the amendment to
its proper place in our constitutional pantheon.
The Individual's Right to
Bear Arms: Judges know very well how to read the Constitution broadly
when they are sympathetic to the right being asserted. We have held, without much ado,
that "speech, or … the press" also means the Internet, and that "persons, houses,
papers, and effects" also means public telephone booths.
Ninth "Circus" Court
of Appeals Strikes Another Blow to Our Freedoms: Federal
court rules citizens do not have individual right to bear arms.
It's the anti-gun people who are
nuts. This year's Pittsburgh NRA convention set an attendance record. Over the course of
the convention's weekend-long run, more than 61,000 people visited the booths, workshops and meetings.
And, unlike at recent rallies in American cities "celebrating" sports teams' victories, there wasn't a single
act of violence, not a single arrest, no wild drinking or drug-induced demonstrations. ... Come to think of it,
I suppose that's precisely why the convention generated so little attention from the so-called mainstream media.
Gun Control: The Criminal
Lobby. Gullible Americans are not rare. All that is required for a small wealthy elite to
destroy the Second Amendment is a gullible jury and a judge who permits a class action suit to expropriate the
powers of legislators.
Reviving the Second Amendment: On
Oct. 16, [2001,] in United States v. Emerson, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit joined the Bush
administration and respected legal scholars across the political spectrum in affirming the right that each of
us enjoy, as individuals, to own a gun.
How Ted Kennedy Opposes The Second
Amendment: When the history of the 20th century is finally written, one of its key features
will be the wanton slaughter of more than 170 million people, not in war, but by their own
government. The governments that led in this slaughter are the former USSR (65 million) and the
Peoples Republic of China (35 to 40 million). The point to remember is that these governments
were the idols of America's leftists. Part of reason for these and other tyrannical successes was
because the people were first disarmed.
Blacks
Allegedly Victimized By "Racist" Gun Control Laws: Second Amendment experts say current gun
control laws are preventing law abiding African Americans from acting in self-defense against the illegally
armed criminals that infest their inner-city neighborhoods.
Maryland
Police Say Disabled Man Has "No Good Reason" For Handgun: The State of Maryland has denied a
physically disabled citizen a permit to carry a concealed handgun because he does not have a "good and
substantial reason" to be armed.
Where Gun Control Is Going: It is
astonishing that the American people continue to fail to get their collective intellectual arms around the
absurdity and increasingly dangerous threat to human freedom that gun control represents. Banned by
the Second Amendment, restrictions placed upon government by the law of the land are blatantly ignored by
that very same government!
DC
Residents Sue to Keep Guns in Home: Residents of the District of Columbia
have lived with some of the nation's most restrictive gun-control laws since 1976. Six of
those residents, who claim their safety is at risk because they can't defend themselves,
have sued the city to force a change in the law.
Sniper tips trigger firearms
crackdown: Gun advocates fear witch hunt by Montgomery County police… using the 100,000
tips called in during the October sniper terror investigation, reports the Washington Times.
D.C. Gun Law Under Fire: A
Second Amendment group is filing a lawsuit demanding that the nation's capital ease up its gun laws, which
are considered the most restrictive in the nation.
Baltimore
outlaws BB guns for minors: The BB gun, like the classic Red Ryder celebrated in a popular holiday
film, is a traditional Christmas gift that has always come wrapped in a certain risk. Now the toy
carries a threat that has nothing to do with putting an eye out: a $500 fine and two months in jail.
Gun
Control and Freedom: Thomas Jefferson said, "When governments fear the
people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
FBI
Agents "Miffed" that Gun Owner Contacted Media: Prior to the
capture of "Beltway Sniper" suspects John Allen Muhammad and
John Lee Malvo, an unconfirmed number of Maryland gun owners received surprise
visits from the FBI as part of the investigation. One such gun owner had a surprise
of his own for the agents when they arrived at his home.
Why
worry about a national gun database? There's an obvious problem with
arguing that an existing law is needed to prevent crimes like the sniper attacks when
it has manifestly failed to do so.
NRA
Sticker Is No Reason for Cops to Search Truck, Court Rules
Guns
and Violence: Did you know that water is 19 times more dangerous to a child
than a firearm? In 1996, 805 children died from accidental drownings and 42 died
from firearm accidents.
Gun bans don't
equal freedom: A couple of the West's democracies are behaving less and less
like the bastions of freedom they claim to be and more like authoritarian regimes rife with
little Napoleons who want absolute control over their respective masses.
LaPierre: 9/11 Windfall for
Anti-Gun Lobby: The anti-gun lobby wants you to surrender your freedoms in the name of
security. If Americans fall for it, they will get neither, a new book warns. "Smoke was curling
over the ruins of the World Trade Center when the gun-control lobby swung into action, seizing on that tragedy
to score points in the political arena," National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre and his predecessor
James Jay Baker write in "Shooting Straight: Telling the Truth About Guns in America."
The
Second Amendment Revisited: If the gun control lobby were really sincere
about keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, they would welcome the Bush
administration policy, but there is no sincerity. The hysterical reaction is
all about not being able to ban the private ownership of guns. Again and again
their true intent becomes clearer: registration, gun bans, and finally confiscation.
The Second Amendment is Not Enough:
Pro-firearms advocates have been in a defensive posture for too long on this issue. Rather than forever
reacting to the threats by anti-gun advocates, pro-gun advocates should seek a legislative affirmation of the
individual's right to bear arms.
The Second Amendment Strikes Back:
Enemies of the right to self defense using guns, must argue that "the people" in the Second Amendment does not
refer to individuals, despite this interpretation everywhere else in the Bill of Rights when the
Founding Fathers referred to "the people."
Ultimate
Civil Right: To Protect Yourself. by Charlton Heston
The Terrible Fear That People May Exercise Their
Rights: On April 10 [2002] an Ohio appellate court unanimously ruled that Ohio's ban on
carrying concealed weapons, in effect since 1974, violated the people's right to keep and bear arms. The
appellate court also upheld a lower court's dismissal of the prosecution of a pizza deliveryman who carried a
handgun in his waistband for protection while making his deliveries. Since 1851, the Ohio
Constitution has said, "the people have the right to bear arms for their defense and security." In
striking down the ban, the court noted that the framers of the Ohio constitution "put the citizens' rights up
front. We believe they meant what they said." This ruling is a victory for the citizens of Ohio.
Making
the case: The lawlessness of today's racial quota and gun control
liberals may be coming under serious challenge.
Mountaineer
May Carry His Black Powder Rifle: The Second Amendment Foundation has hired an airplane to fly a
pro-gun banner over the crowd at Saturday's football game [9/7/2002] between the University of Wisconsin
Badgers and the West Virginia Mountaineers. "Guns save lives," the banner will read.
Does Bush's
"Project Safe Neighborhoods" Violate the Constitution? A Bush administration program that calls
for federal agents to prosecute gun crimes runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution, some legal scholars
believe. "In actuality and despite what the federal courts have felt constrained to do, the federal
government has no more legitimate constitutional authority over gun crime that happens in one state than it
does over jaywalking or drunk driving," said Gene Healy, Cato Institute legal scholar.
More Injustice on the
Way: Gene Healy, a Cato Institute scholar, recently provided a thorough exploration of the
unintended consequences of the new Bush-Ashcroft plan to federalize gun crimes, known as the Project Safe
Neighborhoods program. The unintended consequences of this law are frightening.
Heston on the right to bear
arms: In an exclusive interview, the NRA chief sounds off on threats to the 2nd Amendment.
Bush Administration Backs
Individual Right to Bear Arms: Reversing the four-decade-long federal interpretation of the
Second Amendment, the Bush administration has told the Supreme Court that it believes the Constitution
protects an individual's right to bear arms.
Are Gun Control Opponents
Crazy? Reflect on this: Hitler was popularly elected. We know what happened in
Germany. Among his first actions was to impose restrictions on gun ownership "For the safety of the
people of Germany." Is this the kind of safety Bill Clinton has in mind for us? The primary goal
of the Second Amendment, and the reason that it is indispensable, is to give each American the ability to
protect himself from a repressive Government and the ability to defend himself where the State never
can — in his home.
"Safety"
is not even worthy of our consideration as an issue. When it
comes to your Second Amendment rights, the issue of
freedom is more important than the issue of safety.
Gun rights decision may
sound the death knell for gun bans: The media has largely ignored a recent Fifth Circuit Court of
Appeals ruled that the Second Amendment guaranteed an individual the right to bear arms.
Gun
Group Says Second Amendment Foe Exploiting Tragedy: A gun rights group says an anti-gun
congressman is using the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States as an excuse to further his
unconstitutional agenda.
Reading the Second
Amendment: Is [the Second Amendment] so hard to understand? Apparently so. Even
some of its defenders don't like how it is worded because it allegedly breeds misunderstanding. But the
Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights is indeed a well-crafted sentence. By that I mean
that its syntax permits only one reasonable interpretation of the authors' meaning, namely, that the people's
individual right to be armed ought to be respected and that the resulting armed populace will be secure
against tyranny, invasion, and crime. Someone completely ignorant of the eighteenth-century American
political debates but familiar with the English language should be able to make out the meaning easily.
A Freedom Under
Fire: Except for perhaps the question of whether or not to legalize abortion, no public issue of
recent years has absorbed more interest or stirred the violent emotions of thoughtful people (and of those
less so) than the prickly matter of gun control. In the editorial pages of newspapers, before the
committees of Congress, the battle has been joined.
Weapons Scanner Raises
Constitutional Concern: A federal agency is developing a radar-like device that uses
electromagnetic waves to peer through clothing and detect concealed weapons from up to 50 feet away.
News of the planned system comes amid national angst over domestic terrorism while adding a new dimension to
the debate over the constitutionality of high-tech policing practices.
No individual gun
rights? Quotations from the Founding Fathers on the subject of the Second Amendment
The Strange Case of United
States v. Miller: With the extreme polarization of the modern gun debate, this case has assumed
an importance far beyond what anyone expected in 1938.
Dianne
Feinsteins' Latest Incredible Lie.
Militia 101.
The U.S. v. Miller Revisited.
United
States vs Miller : Court opinion & documents.
Who Will Speak for the Second
Amendment?: A new Web site has appeared which accuses Attorney General John Ashcroft
of having expressed "a position on the Second Amendment that is in direct conflict with legal precedent,
historical research, and established Justice Department policy." What exactly did Ashcroft
say? The site quotes a May 17, 2001 letter to National Rifle Association Executive Director
James Jay Baker, in which Ashcroft writes: "…let me state unequivocally my view that the text and
the original intent of the Second Amendment clearly protect the right of individuals to keep and bear
firearms." That is the statement which the Violence Policy Center (VPC) condemns.
Guns, Personal Security,
and Freedom By Richard Burgner.
Firearms
and Freedom: The Second Amendment protects what
is arguably the most important liberty of all, since it safeguards all other rights.
Liberty Belles: Putting your
Second Amendment rights first.
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