Posted on 05/10/2002 10:35:56 AM PDT by Richard Poe
IN THE CLASSIC STAR TREK episode "I, Mudd," Captain Kirk short-circuits a dangerous android by talking circles around it. The Bush Justice Department has accomplished something similar, driving the gun-ban movement into a full-fledged system meltdown, with nothing more than a few, well-chosen words.
Solicitor General Theodore Olson filed two briefs with the Supreme Court Monday, which stated, among other things, that the Second Amendment guarantees to all citizens the right "to possess and bear their own firearms."
No big deal, most Americans would say. We always knew we had a right to keep and bear arms. But the gun-ban cyborgs reacted as if someone had dropped a W32.Klez virus into their brains. One can almost hear the smoke hissing from their ears, as they stammer, "This does not compute!"
CBS correspondent Jim Stewart declared that Olson’s briefs have reversed, "25 years of Justice Department policy…"
Brady Center president Michael D. Barnes said the brief has reversed "at least four decades" of federal policy.
New York Times columnist Bob Herbert averred that federal policy has opposed individual gun rights, "for more than 60 years."
Abe Lincoln himself opposed individual gun rights, insists Paul Begala of CNN’s Crossfire. Begala says that Olson’s brief gives the Second Amendment a "new meaning that no scholar has ever found."
The cyborgs seem confused. Did the government revoke our gun rights 25, 40, 60 or 140 years ago?
John Ydstie of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered says it happened in 1939, when the Supreme Court ruled in a case called United States v. Miller.
Two gangsters named Jack Miller and Frank Layton had been charged with transporting an unregistered short-barreled or "sawed-off" shotgun across state lines. The National Firearms Act of 1934 imposed special taxes and registration requirements on machine guns and short-barreled shotguns. It was the first federal gun-control law in America. Ostensibly passed to crack down on gangsters such as Miller and Layton, the law was controversial, since it limited gun rights for all Americans.
The charges against Miller and Layton were dismissed in district court, on the grounds that the National Firearms Act violated states’ rights and the Second Amendment. However, prosecutors appealed to the Supreme Court.
That’s where the confusion begins. According to media cyborgs, the Supreme Court ruled against Miller and Layton on the grounds that they were not members of a state militia and therefore had no right to keep and bear arms.
But that is not what the court said.
In fact, the court conceded that the gangsters were militiamen, inasmuch as the militia included "all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense." However, the justices were not sure whether sawed-off shotguns qualified as militia weapons.
The gangsters might have won their case by arguing that sawed-off shotguns were used by U.S. infantrymen in World War I. However, neither Miller, Layton nor their attorney showed up in court. Only the prosecution presented its case.
Lacking sufficient evidence to rule on the case, the justices sent it back to the lower court for additional fact-finding. But the fact-finding never took place. Jack Miller was shot dead by unknown assailants. Frank Layton pleaded guilty and got four years probation.
At best, United States v. Miller ended inconclusively. However, even liberal law professor Sanford Levinson notes that Miller can be construed to mean "that the individual citizen has a right to keep and bear bazookas, rocket launchers, and other armaments that are clearly relevant to modern warfare…" This is a far cry from the Brady Center’s interpretation.
Levinson is a rarity in the legal profession – an honest liberal. Another liberal recently stricken with honesty is Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe.
In 1999, Tribe announced that he had finally gotten around to studying the Second Amendment and, wonder of wonders, had discovered that Americans really did have a right to "possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes."
Unfortunately, Tribe’s treatise American Constitutional Law – which took a dim view of individual gun rights – had been a standard text in many U.S. law schools since 1978. Tribe revised the 1999 edition to reflect his new thinking. But he was 20 years too late.
Thanks to liberal law professors, generations of lawyers, prosecutors and judges have been indoctrinated with lies about the Second Amendment.
Just as it took generations to undermine gun rights in America, it will take generations to undue the damage. Ted Olson’s briefs are a small but important step in that direction.
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"I've got more than I need but less than I want"
Gangsters? I thought they were good old boy moonshiners.
For a dim, that makes him a genius.
Actually, U.S. v. Miller was not really a loss for the Second Amendment. The real loss for the Second Amendment came when people started misconstruing what Miller actually said.
First of all, I would posit that not all objects which can be used as deadly weapons are protected by the Second Amendment. If they were, the federal government would be unable to tax or regulate sales of bricks, lumber, baseball bats, beer and wine bottles, gasoline, automobiles, belts, hammers, chainsaws, or much of anything else. I really don't think the Second Amendment was intended, or should be interpreted, as forbidding taxes on items like the above.
Since the Second Amendment clearly is not intended to forbid restrictions on acquisition, ownership, and transport of all items which could possibly be used as weapons, it is reasonable to ask what exactly are the "arms" that are protected. Here the "militia" phrase is useful: it establishes that the "arms" protected by the Second Amendment are artifacts which may be used as weapons in the context of a well-functioning citizen army.
While one might argue that the Court should have found that a short-barreled shotgun was such a weapon, it is not the job of the Supreme Court to make such determinations. Judges are to make extremely limitted use of their own personal knowledge on relevant subjects; for the judge to consider a fact, it should either have been admitted into evidence or else be something about which no controversy is possible. For example, if it were relevant to a case, a judge could take into account the fact that January 1, 1980 was a Tuesday, even if nobody presented evidence to that effect.
Unfortunately, the notion that a sawed-off shotgun would be useful in a well-functioning militia is not 100% non-controversial; one could make vaguely plausible arguments to the contrary. Consequently, the judges could not simply make use of personal knowledge on the subject, but had to remand the issue to trial court, the proper venue for examining such issues. Unfortunately, the government dropped the case and declared victory, while whoever wrote the Miller syllabus (which is not legally binding or even meaningful) wrote it to suggest an unambiguous government victory.
"sawed off" shotguns are perfectly legal and sold today. It depends on which end is sawed off. I know because I own one. It is called a Winchester Defender aka Campers shotgun.
So, the assault on the Second Amendment coincides with the start of global communism. Coincidence?
You need all the "barrel" you can get. Tell me, hotshot, what is the shot pattern difference between a 12 gauge at ten yards for standard length vs 18 inches.
Don't you watch John Wayne movies?
They don't call them scatter guns for nothing and that is the reason they are illegal. Yes, if you are fighting a head on battle with someone then those that you hit are legitimate targets however, if anyone is even close to the action they are going to be hit or in danger of it, innocent or not. If maneuverability in tight quarters is the goal then the defender is more than adequate and the shot distribution is at least somewhat controllable by the shooter.
You are reduced to bragging to one another (albiet in code) about PENIS SIZE????
Admin Mod, seperate these two pugalists for a three-count. Maybe a word from you will lend some sobriety to a increasingly high-school-level exchange.
Get off my back!
As far as 'spraying' from a sawed off, I have oftentimes gotten the same effect from tightly choked guns due to shot deformation. There always seems to be a few 'flyers' that land outside the pattern, oftentimes by a wide range. I would still consider a shotgun an ideal weapon for close-quaters.
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