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The Truth About The Right To Keep And Bear Arms
Flopping Aces ^ | 12-22-12 | CJ

Posted on 12/23/2012 10:17:01 AM PST by Starman417

“I don’t think legitimate sportsmen are going to say, ‘I need an assault weapon to go hunting,’” Cuomo said, according to the New York Times. “There is a balance here — I understand the rights of gun owners; I understand the rights of hunters.”

Cuomo indicated the state will likely force some kind of permit process on owners of semi-automatic “assault weapons.” In addition to generating revenue and expanding the size and reach of government, the effort will allow the state to confiscate the weapons of citizens who do not comply.

Confiscation could be an option. Mandatory sale to the state could be an option. Permitting could be an option — keep your gun but permit it,” the governor said.

This is the mayor of one of the largest states (population-wise) in the country! We have devolved into to a point in the gun rights argument that we're reverting back to the very thing from which we sought independence. The Declaration of Independence lists several grievances that led to the Revolutionary War.

King George was an oppressive ruler. He quartered troops in private homes to keep the citizens in check. He forced sailors to take up arms against fellow countrymen. He taxed them into oblivion without any representation. He made up laws on the fly to deal with trouble makers and denied them due process.

In Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1803), St. George Tucker, a lawyer, Revolutionary War militia officer, legal scholar, and later a U.S. District Court judge (appointed by James Madison in 1813), wrote of the 2nd Amendment that, "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, and this without any qualification as to their condition or degree, as is the case in the British government."

Yes, I'm a nerd. I read and RESEARCH the meanings of the Constitution, especially the most fundamental and important of our rights. Delving further into the Appendix, Tucker explains further the meaning of the 2nd Amendment (emphasis is mine).

This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty .... The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game: a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes. True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy: but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game. So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.

Sound familiar? Today's progressive movement has sought to turn the 2nd Amendment's meaning into something it isn't. Our lofty politicians - protected with their throngs of security guards, armored vehicles, and other protections - and their lapdog media have succeeded at convincing the "low information voters," as Rush Limbaugh likes to say, that this right is meant to apply to hunters only. Or in your home only.

In addition, they have tried to tell us that even if we were hunters, we "don't need those kinds of weapons for hunting." Nearly every argument I have with a progressive gun grabber usually ends incorporates the statements that there is no use for any type of magazine that can carry more than 10 rounds or to own a weapon that looks black and evil. Personally, I think that's racist that they are trying to ban so-called "black rifles."

Another constitutional scholar to our Founders, William Rawle, wrote a book in 1829 called, "A View of the Constitution of the United States of America." In this book, he talks about the reach and authority of the 2nd Amendment while also discussing the limitations on those that would attempt to circumvent it. He, rightly so, points out that the 27 words that make up the 2nd Amendment are composed of two, separate clauses; not one run-on sentence. Of the first clause (a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free state), he writes:

(excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net...


TOPICS: Gardening; Politics
KEYWORDS: 2nd; banglist; blogpimp; constitution; guncontrol; guns; secondamendment
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1 posted on 12/23/2012 10:17:13 AM PST by Starman417
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To: Starman417
"...I understand the rights of gun owners..."

Obviously, he doesn't.

2 posted on 12/23/2012 10:25:30 AM PST by Washi (Socialism is Slavery)
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To: Starman417
Very true. The principal purpose of the 2d Amendment is to forestall, and if need be to overthrow, incipient tyranny. It ain't about getting venison on the table. As Judge Alex Kozinski wrote,

The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Fortunately, the Framers were wise enough to entrench the right of the people to keep and bear arms within our constitutional structure. The purpose and importance of that right was still fresh in their minds, and they spelled it out clearly so it would not be forgotten. Despite the panel's mighty struggle to erase these words, they remain, and the people themselves can read what they say plainly enough:

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.

3 posted on 12/23/2012 10:29:25 AM PST by pogo101
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To: Starman417

These wackos have no intention of taking guns from CRIMINALS. All the talk is about taking them from honest, law-abiding people. They know danmed well what they are doing. Leaving guns in the hands of criminals allows them to waltz right in and take what they want from the honest people who work their a$$e$s off to pay the taxes that pay for the welfare cards of the criminals.


4 posted on 12/23/2012 10:34:17 AM PST by I want the USA back
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To: Starman417
Important quote in the article from Supreme Court Justice Story:

The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.

The thing is, we're so far away from that. Who here favors dismantling the "standing armies" of the United States?

5 posted on 12/23/2012 10:41:31 AM PST by Behind the Blue Wall
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To: Behind the Blue Wall
The thing is, we're so far away from that. Who here favors dismantling the "standing armies" of the United States?

Even if the standing armies, under a tyranny, surely could win out over even an armed populace, that is no reason to allow disarming OF the populace under the notion of, "Well, what's the point nowadays?"

6 posted on 12/23/2012 10:46:03 AM PST by pogo101
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To: Starman417


The Founder's Intent

7 posted on 12/23/2012 10:55:36 AM PST by DocRock (All they that TAKE the sword shall perish with the sword. Matthew 26:52 Gun grabbers beware.)
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To: Starman417

All cards have not been played...yet!

I believe it is time for the states to begin writing some amendments to the constitution.

They should do this while the mid west states still have a conservative majority. With open borders it will not be long before even they are taken over.


8 posted on 12/23/2012 10:55:47 AM PST by CIB-173RDABN (California does not have a money problem, it has a spending problem.)
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To: Starman417

>> Confiscation Could Be An Option. Mandatory Sale To The State Could Be An Option... <<

Sadly..the same mindset of the sheep of Australia and England who bowed to this is America’s mindset also. Yes, many would surrender their firearms one bullet at a time, with most wasting those bullets on the flunkeys who would come to take them rather than on the those who sent them, but most, to preserve their cushy lifestyle, will kneel with heads bowed.


9 posted on 12/23/2012 10:58:34 AM PST by Ed Story
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To: pogo101

I don’t disagree, but if one of the central arguments underlying the right to bear arms is to “repel invasions” before an army can be organized, then we’ve already long since ceded that argument by allowing the federal government to maintain standing armies in times of peace.


10 posted on 12/23/2012 11:01:49 AM PST by Behind the Blue Wall
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To: Starman417
A few days after the tragic Sandy Hook school murders, a young Marine in fatigues stationed himself at the front entrance of the Nashville elementary school his two children attend. Another parent heard him admit to a reporter that he was unarmed. The other parent commented that, even though the young Marine standing guard was not armed, it made him “feel better” to know he was there.

It’s often been observed that “perception is more important than reality”. The observation is often correct. It is never MORE CORRECT than for those we’ve come to call “liberals”. I prefer “statist” but “liberal” has morphed from its classic meaning to the other end of the spectrum so I’ll stay with it.

Since these folks operate almost entirely on EMOTION and FEELING, REALITY seldom allows FACTS to intrude upon the delusional worldview they have constructed and the comfort that provides them. It is that illogical, irrational and delusional mindset that prompts many of them to continue to quest after a Utopian society. The thought that such a society can and will never be achieved in a fallen world populated with failed sinners never penetrates whatever remains of their cognitive consciousness. It’s a DANGEROUS WORLD and, as the liberals continue to “define deviancy down”, it becomes more dangerous daily.

There is another, far more sinister, level of the “liberal” call for gun control.

It was Mencken who offered that “The urge to save humanity is most often a false front for the URGE TO RULE.” He clearly had been a student of the liberal politicians of his day. Were he alive today and able to observe the likes of Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, Obama and the rest, he’d almost certainly have used far stronger language to frame his sage observation.

To conclude, dozens of studies reveal the FACTS concerning gun control. Those FACTS are that where firearms are widely and READILY available to law-abiding citizens, CRIME GOES DOWN! The liberals who willfully ignore the FACTUAL EVIDENCE and continue to call for gun control (i.e. the DISARMING of DECENT CITIZENS, thereby denying them the ability to exercise their God-given right to self-defense) are those about whom Mencken wrote: Their goal is NOT about preserving life. It is about the hell-bent pursuit of the impossible to achieve Utopian world where all are equal but some (that’d be THEM) are MORE equal than others (that’d be US).

There are many PRO-RTKABA videos on You Tube that your often busy lives don’t allow you to find on your own. Search there for “Gun Control”, watch them – and, more importantly – SHARE THEM with the folks in your orbit.

We’re in a fight. And losing will ultimately cost us much more than our right to our guns.

Dick Bachert 12/19/2012

11 posted on 12/23/2012 11:02:59 AM PST by Dick Bachert (An ARMED society is a POLITE society!)
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To: I want the USA back
A few days after the tragic Sandy Hook school murders, a young Marine in fatigues stationed himself at the front entrance of the Nashville elementary school his two children attend. Another parent heard him admit to a reporter that he was unarmed. The other parent commented that, even though the young Marine standing guard was not armed, it made him “feel better” to know he was there.

It’s often been observed that “perception is more important than reality”. The observation is often correct. It is never MORE CORRECT than for those we’ve come to call “liberals”. I prefer “statist” but “liberal” has morphed from its classic meaning to the other end of the spectrum so I’ll stay with it.

Since these folks operate almost entirely on EMOTION and FEELING, REALITY seldom allows FACTS to intrude upon the delusional worldview they have constructed and the comfort that provides them. It is that illogical, irrational and delusional mindset that prompts many of them to continue to quest after a Utopian society. The thought that such a society can and will never be achieved in a fallen world populated with failed sinners never penetrates whatever remains of their cognitive consciousness. It’s a DANGEROUS WORLD and, as the liberals continue to “define deviancy down”, it becomes more dangerous daily.

There is another, far more sinister, level of the “liberal” call for gun control.

It was Mencken who offered that “The urge to save humanity is most often a false front for the URGE TO RULE.” He clearly had been a student of the liberal politicians of his day. Were he alive today and able to observe the likes of Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, Obama and the rest, he’d almost certainly have used far stronger language to frame his sage observation.

To conclude, dozens of studies reveal the FACTS concerning gun control. Those FACTS are that where firearms are widely and READILY available to law-abiding citizens, CRIME GOES DOWN! The liberals who willfully ignore the FACTUAL EVIDENCE and continue to call for gun control (i.e. the DISARMING of DECENT CITIZENS, thereby denying them the ability to exercise their God-given right to self-defense) are those about whom Mencken wrote: Their goal is NOT about preserving life. It is about the hell-bent pursuit of the impossible to achieve Utopian world where all are equal but some (that’d be THEM) are MORE equal than others (that’d be US).

There are many PRO-RTKABA videos on You Tube that your often busy lives don’t allow you to find on your own. Search there for “Gun Control”, watch them – and, more importantly – SHARE THEM with the folks in your orbit.

We’re in a fight. And losing will ultimately cost us much more than our right to our guns.

Dick Bachert 12/19/2012

12 posted on 12/23/2012 11:05:49 AM PST by Dick Bachert (An ARMED society is a POLITE society!)
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To: Starman417
Cuomo indicated the state will likely force some kind of permit process on owners of semi-automatic “assault weapons.” In addition to generating revenue and expanding the size and reach of government, the effort will allow the state to confiscate the weapons of citizens who do not comply.

Cuomo indicated the state will likely force some kind of permit process on owners of “publishing and broadcasting devices.” In addition to generating revenue and expanding the size and reach of government, the effort will allow the state to confiscate the “media” of citizens who do not comply.

Cuomo indicated the state will likely force citizens to accept some kind of “provisions to billet soldiers in private homes throughout the state.” In addition to generating revenue and expanding the size and reach of government, the effort will allow the state to “confiscate the real estate” of citizens who do not comply.

Cuomo indicated the state will likely force some kind of permit process on “churches.” In addition to generating revenue and expanding the size and reach of government, the effort will allow the state to “prohibit the free religious expression” of citizens who do not comply.

13 posted on 12/23/2012 11:09:28 AM PST by Unknowing (Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.)
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To: DocRock

Nicely done!!


14 posted on 12/23/2012 11:10:04 AM PST by SFConservative
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To: Starman417

The point of the second Amendment was to ensure that a militia could be called together. Remember: the militia is just about any able bodied mentally competent adult. Therefore the right of the people [ ie: you & I ] to keep & bear arms can not be infringed if you want to maintain the capacity to assemble a militia - which comes in handy during times of increasing government tyranny or oppression. No wonder then that government shills & representatives advocate against private gun ownership. The entire Amendment spells this fact out quite clearly but the anti-second Amendment folks have distorted its meaning beyond all recognition.


15 posted on 12/23/2012 11:14:33 AM PST by Republican1795.
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To: pogo101

where the government refuses to stand for reelection

Or maybe where the re-election was more riddled with fraud than most 3rd world dictatorships?

What was it, 19 wards in Phily w/o a single vote for Romney?
In CO, one of their major cities had more votes than adults....

Saddam and Hugo would be proud of this last election.


16 posted on 12/23/2012 11:14:40 AM PST by logic101.net (Was Orwell wrong about anything besides the date?)
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To: DocRock

This image is fictitious. There are too many red-coats
still standing to warrant a reload.


17 posted on 12/23/2012 11:23:46 AM PST by Slambat (The right to keep and bear arms. Anything one man can carry, drive or pull.)
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To: Starman417

“Assault weapons”? What means this term, “assault weapons”?

All weapons are, in the ultimate meaning of the term, “assault weapons”. The motive behind any assault is to force the victim into submission, or failing that more limited objective, to cause the victim to be extremely disabled or dead.

The means of the assault may be as simple as a gesture or word, escalating all the way up to “extreme prejudice”, using brute force, deadly instruments or just setting up conditions in which expiration (death, for those of you from Rio Linda) is the only option for the victim.

The means of assaulting the intended target may be more or less efficient in dispatching the objective, i.e., a Thompson sub-machine gun does the job much more quickly and affects a much larger number of people at any given time when used, as compared to, say, a six-inch knife.

So either “assault weapon” is either a redundancy, or it is a meaningless term, which applies to far more than a maybe scary-looking rifle with a stock and pistol grip, with a magazine. A single-shot muzzle-loading smoothbore pistol is equally as much an “assault weapon” as an M-14 or AK-47.


18 posted on 12/23/2012 11:25:57 AM PST by alloysteel (Bronco Bama - the cowboy who whooped up and widened the stampede.)
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To: DocRock
OUTSTANDING GRAPHIC!!! THANK YOU.

A few days after the tragic Sandy Hook school murders, a young Marine in fatigues stationed himself at the front entrance of the Nashville elementary school his two children attend. Another parent heard him admit to a reporter that he was unarmed. The other parent commented that, even though the young Marine standing guard was not armed, it made him “feel better” to know he was there.

It’s often been observed that “perception is more important than reality”. The observation is often correct. It is never MORE CORRECT than for those we’ve come to call “liberals”. I prefer “statist” but “liberal” has morphed from its classic meaning to the other end of the spectrum so I’ll stay with it.

Since these folks operate almost entirely on EMOTION and FEELING, REALITY seldom allows FACTS to intrude upon the delusional worldview they have constructed and the comfort that provides them. It is that illogical, irrational and delusional mindset that prompts many of them to continue to quest after a Utopian society. The thought that such a society can and will never be achieved in a fallen world populated with failed sinners never penetrates whatever remains of their cognitive consciousness. It’s a DANGEROUS WORLD and, as the liberals continue to “define deviancy down”, it becomes more dangerous daily.

There is another, far more sinister, level of the “liberal” call for gun control.

It was Mencken who offered that “The urge to save humanity is most often a false front for the URGE TO RULE.” He clearly had been a student of the liberal politicians of his day. Were he alive today and able to observe the likes of Chuck Schumer, Diane Feinstein, Obama and the rest, he’d almost certainly have used far stronger language to frame his sage observation.

To conclude, dozens of studies reveal the FACTS concerning gun control. Those FACTS are that where firearms are widely and READILY available to law-abiding citizens, CRIME GOES DOWN! The liberals who willfully ignore the FACTUAL EVIDENCE and continue to call for gun control (i.e. the DISARMING of DECENT CITIZENS, thereby denying them the ability to exercise their God-given right to self-defense) are those about whom Mencken wrote: Their goal is NOT about preserving life. It is about the hell-bent pursuit of the impossible to achieve Utopian world where all are equal but some (that’d be THEM) are MORE equal than others (that’d be US).

There are many PRO-RTKABA videos on You Tube that your often busy lives don’t allow you to find on your own. Search there for “Gun Control”, watch them – and, more importantly – SHARE THEM with the folks in your orbit.

We’re in a fight. And losing will ultimately cost us much more than our right to our guns.

Dick Bachert 12/19/2012

19 posted on 12/23/2012 11:30:05 AM PST by Dick Bachert (An ARMED society is a POLITE society!)
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To: Behind the Blue Wall

True, but on the other hand, the invasion of illegal aliens
from Messyco still goes on unhindered by the second
amendment or even the standing army. This is a Coup d’état
and they know eventually the 2nd amendment is going to get
in their way.


20 posted on 12/23/2012 11:32:34 AM PST by Slambat (The right to keep and bear arms. Anything one man can carry, drive or pull.)
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