An amazing case for reducing gun ownership in America

xav10 said:
Is SideThorn a Trump cabinet member? Or is he one of the nutters on here who don’t believe in things like birth certificates or death certificates. They’re just birthers on a slightly different trip...I’m sure they’re birthers as well. Trump’s America.
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Alex Jones Infowars disciples. I think they prefer to be known as 2nd Amendment loons, but I wouldn't give them that much respect.
 
Is the Second Amendment for Just the Militia?
By William Sullivan
Let's begin with the simplest of observations. Our United States Constitution serves two distinct purposes.

The first is to explicitly enumerate the powers and procedures of our nation's central government, which was defined as the three distinct bodies (which, by the way, two thirds of the high school students currently lecturing us about the Second Amendment cannot name) – the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial, with levels of authority descending in that precise order.

The second is to explicitly enumerate the limitations of that central government's power, which is the sole reason why our Bill of Rights exists. The Constitution would not have been ratified in 1791 without the addition of these first ten amendments. Therefore, our Constitution would not exist without the limitations to our central government's authority described therein.

Some miss this simplest of understandings.

Take Brett Arends, who, in 2016 after the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, committed to a different argument at Market Watch. He argues that the Second Amendment does not describe a "limitation" of the federal government's authority, as is commonly understood of each of the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights. Rather:

The Second Amendment is an instrument of government. It's not about hunting or gun collecting or carrying your pistol into a saloon. The Founding Fathers left it up to us to pass sensible laws about all these things. The Constitution is about government.

His argument as to the veracity of this statement is among the more laughable things you'll ever read. He cites Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 29, cherry-picking choice phrases from the essay, filling in the gaps with his own thoughts. For example, Arend writes:

Each state militia should be a "select corps," "well trained," and able to perform "the operations of an army." The militia needed "uniformity in ... organization and discipline," wrote Hamilton, so that it could operate like a proper army "in camp and in the field," and so that it could gain the "essential ... degree of proficiency in military functions."

Hamilton was explicitly arguing against a standing, full-time federal military, favoring "well-regulated" militias among the states to preserve liberty from a tyrannical federal government. But Arend's logic appears to be based upon nothing more than an observation of the fact that a "well-regulated militia" is cited by both the Second Amendment and Federalist 29, so therefore, Federalist 29 must be making the case that the Second Amendment's purpose is to secure solely the militia's "right to keep and bear" firearms, not the right of "the people" as the Second Amendment explicitly states. There is nothing more that binds Federalist 29 to Arend's claim.

Perhaps it's pertinent to note, however, that there are mountains of practical examples among Hamilton's contemporaries refuting that claim.

Samuel Adams, in 1788 (the same year this Federalist Papers essay was published), said plainly that the "Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

James Madison, in 1789, said before the explicit language of the 2nd Amendment had been ratified (emphasis added) that the "right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country."

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George Mason, in 1788 to the Virginia Ratifying Convention: "I ask, sir, what is the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers."

Even Hamilton, in Federalist 29, asserts the same. It's pretty clear that Brett Arend missed a key point Hamilton makes in the essay.

Arend offers that "Hamilton was scathing about the idea that the 'militia' could mean every Bob, Billy, and Benjamin with a musket," saying Hamilton wrote that a militia is "the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it."

But that's not the whole quote by Hamilton in Federalist 29. It actually reads (emphasis added):

[A]n army of any magnitude ... can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline or the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and the rights of their fellow citizens. This appears to me the only substitute for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, should it exist.

This is the sentence immediately before the one Arend references, which specifically cites that a "large body of citizens" – i.e., every law-abiding "Bob, Billy, and Benjamin" – should be both disciplined and armed with weaponry comparable to the "standing army," and that this is the "best possible security against [a standing army], should it exist." Arend conveniently left that last bit out in his selective dissection of the essay, too. Because that "standing army" does exist, and Hamilton's words are still relevant.

Hamilton's prescription for liberty was explicit. It describes an armed populace. Never once does he say guns should be limited among law-abiding citizens by the federal government, the tyranny feared by the anti-Federalists, whom he was entreating or hoped to pacify with this essay.

Like the Second Amendment, Hamilton is describing the necessity of a "well-regulated militia" as a reason for an armed populace. Given that a "well-regulated militia" will, at times, be necessary to "the security of a free State," "the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed" by the federal government.

This is all easily understood and sensible. Why is that wisdom disavowed by modern gun-grabbers, and worse, why are Hamilton's words being misrepresented?

Leftists lost this battle long ago, because suggesting that the Second Amendment applies only to protect a "state-sponsored militia" and not "the people" was always a losing battle when fought on the grounds of reason. The only way this "militia" boondoggle could succeed would be through revisionist assumptions about a "living Constitution" and judicial activism, not observation of history or honest appraisal of our Constitution's purpose.

And thankfully, the Supreme Court abrogated all of that nonsense in recent years in the cases of Heller v. District of Columbia and McDonald v. Chicago.

Look no farther as to why former justice John Paul Stevens (whose last case over which he presided was McDonald) recently penned an op-ed for the New York Times calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. It is nothing short of surrender to the unmistakable logic of the Second Amendment's purpose. For the sweeping gun regulation that the left demands to be found consistent with the Constitution, the Second Amendment must first be abridged. And that will not happen anytime soon.

Like most gun rights advocates, I appreciate Stevens's honesty, and I welcome the left's efforts to try.
 
Sheriff Joe said:
https://www.americanthinker.com/art...ionalize_the_midterms_if_you_want_to_win.html
GOP: 'Nationalize' the Midterms if You Want to Win

Whenever a Democratic candidate tries to separate himself from the national party – the Bernie Sanderses, the Nancy Pelosis, the Maxine Waterses, the Keith Ellisons – it is the GOP opponent's duty to reel him back in.

When an ostensibly moderate or centrist or conservative Democrat claims that the liberal Democrats' values are not his values, the GOP candidate should respond, "You are an honorable person, and I take you at your word. But you and I both know that you and your beliefs are a minority in today's Democratic Party. The values you decry may indeed not be yours. But they are the values of the majority of your fellow Democrats, and the Democratic majority's values, their beliefs, their governing philosophy, their legislation, not yours, will prevail, if electing you hands control of the House/Senate to the Democrats."
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Reflecting here on moral responsibility, I have referred to "we." For it has never occurred to me that the moral responsibility falls much less heavily on those of us on the American left than it fell on Comrade Stalin and those who replicated his feats in one country after another. And I am afraid that some of that moral responsibility falls on the "democratic socialists," "radical democrats," and other leftwingers who endlessly denounced Stalinism but could usually be counted on to support— "critically," of course—the essentials of our political line on world and national affairs.--Genovese
 
What Is a Militia, Anyway?
By J.L. Woodruff
Among the signs carried by many of the half-educated demonstrators protesting the Bill of Rights in Washington, D.C. was one that read, "What part of 'well regulated' don't you understand?" The reference is to the famous introductory phrase of the 2nd Amendment, which says, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It is safe to say the protester waving the sign meant it as a rebuke to those who think the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right to own firearms.

As a simple declarative sentence, despite the unnecessary use of commas typical of 18th-century writing, the amendment is perfectly clear to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of English. Yet in recent decades, it has become the source of lies, distortion, and obfuscation by assorted opponents of the Bill of Rights who claim that only members of a militia may own guns. They include federal judges, left-wing activists, the politicians they support, and assorted anti-gun nuts in academia and news organizations. They pay homage to Michael Bloomberg and his Billionaires' Crusade to Disarm the Peons by smearing the National Rifle Association's 5 million members as a bunch of murderers and congressional puppet masters and spread demonstrable nonsense about the Bill of Rights.

Most of them, unlike the mawkish teens pumping their fists like Weathermen at a Viet Cong rally, are real grown-ups in coats and ties, many with law degrees and lots of official-sounding titles that make them seem like authoritative folks who really know what they're talking about. But they don't.

The ACLU, for example, in its hallucinatory interpretation, claims that "the people" in the amendment refers not to persons, but to state governments and their power to establish militias. The left-wingers there do not explain how a description of state powers ended up in a list of things called the "Bill of Rights." Others, including former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens, implausibly insist that the amendment guarantees firearm ownership only to members of a militia.

That is one of the greatest public frauds in U.S. history. Fortunately, no one needs a law degree or even extensive knowledge of what America's Founders thought about militias to see through the fraud and to understand the 2nd Amendment. Knowing rudimentary English will do just fine.

Imagine that the 2nd Amendment is about something other than firearms. Suppose the amendment said, "A well-educated electorate being necessary for the functioning of a free republic, the right of the people to read and write books shall not be infringed."

Does that mean only registered voters may read books? Of course not. The right is guaranteed not to voters, but to people, from whom the electorate is drawn. Does this imaginary amendment mean that only trained librarians may read books? Does it mean that only college graduates may write books? Does it mean that the government gets to decide who may read books, and which books they may read? Of course not. Does it mean that one can read but not write books? Nope. Both are guaranteed activities.

Most important of all, notice that the right to read and write is not dependent on the well educated electorate. The reverse is true: the educated electorate depends on the right. The origin and reason for the right are not mentioned at all. It exists independent of the electorate. The introductory phrase, which does not limit the right, is simply the reason why the right "shall not be infringed."

Violations of the guarantee are not allowed. That could not be more explicit: the right "shall not be infringed." And what does "infringe" mean? It means to limit, curb, restrict, undermine, encroach, or diminish. That is clearly, obviously, and undeniably forbidden.

Anyone who says the right to read and write books is limited to registered voters is either lying or an idiot. Now take a look at the journalists, judges, politicians, and academics pushing the demonstrably false notion that the 2nd Amendment limits the right to gun ownership to militias. They, like CNN's Jeffrey Toobin – a magna cum laude graduate who claims on YouTube that the 2nd Amendment is "ungrammatical and mysterious" – are not idiots (at least not all of them). The people pushing the nonsense that firearms ownership depends on membership in a militia are smart, well educated people. They can read English very well. They know what the 2nd Amendment means. They have chosen to distort that meaning.
 
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