Posted on 10/17/2007 11:48:49 AM PDT by Dr.Syn
Second Amendment Rights and Black Sheep October 18, 2007 After carefully reviewing the historical documents pertaining to the drafting and ratification of the Bill of Rights, I am unable to find a single instance of “intent” that the Second Amendment was the bastard child of the litter. And yet liberals (including the Mainstream Media), who treat nine of the original Amendments with the same reverence they bestow on Mao’s Little Red Book, consistently treat the Second Amendment as the flawed bastard of the Bill. If any of our Constitutional Rights were trampled to the same extent that the exercise of Second Amendment Rights are daily disparaged and denied...the American Civil Liberties Union would suffer a collective panty-twist. In June of this year James Goldberg had his gun confiscated by the Glastonbury, Connecticut police and his gun permit was revoked after he was charged with breach of peace. Goldberg entered a Chili’s restaurant to pick up a takeout order on June 21. When he reached for his wallet to pay for the order a waitress spotted his legally owned and carried gun under his shirt and called the Glastonbury police. What happened next should frighten all Americans. As reported by the Hartford Courant, “Officers arrived and pushed Goldberg against the wall, while customers and wait staff watched. Goldberg, the soft-spoken son of a 30-year police veteran, said he calmly told the officers he had a permit to carry. They checked it out and found that he did. But because the waitress was alarmed he was arrested for breach of peace.” In true Gestapo style, Glastonbury Police Chief Thomas Sweeney had “...no problems with the officers' actions with regard to the incident,” And by the “always presumed guilty” treatment afforded legal gun owners, the state revoked Goldberg’s permit before his case even went to trial. Even though Goldberg’s arrest was dismissed by the Superior Court and his record was squeaky clean within a month of the incident, his permit was revoked and he had to apply to Connecticut Board of Firearms Permit examiners, “a civilian board that hears appeals on revoked or denied gun permits” for its reinstitution. The Board has given him a hearing date of May 14, 2009. Thankfully this Board is being sued by one of its own members, M. Peter Kuck, secretary of the Board of Firearms Permit Examiners, for denying citizens their due process rights with regard to the denial of their Amendment II Rights. And another “alarmed” individual, Susan Mazzoccoli, executive director of the board, has responded to Kuck’s lawsuit in true totalitarian fashion...”We have tried to involve the governor's office to have him removed....” One can only imagine the national outcry if a poll worker became “alarmed” at the sight of a black man trying to cast his ballot and the police arrested that black man because he “alarmed” the female poll worker and then the state revoked his Fifteenth Amendment Right. Or better yet, in response to Malik Zulu Shabazz (head of the New Black Panthers) ranting “death to Israel...the white man is the devil...Kill every goddamn Zionist in Israel! Goddamn little babies, goddamn old ladies! Blow up Zionist supermarkets” in front of the B’nai B’rith building in Washington, D.C...how about suspending the First Amendment rights of Black Muslims? I bet he “alarmed” a few people that day. But pooping on your Second Amendment Right is no big deal. For the sake of those needing a refresher course, Amendment II of the Constitution states that, “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.” Not only does contemporary discussion of the Amendment go ludicrously out of its way to question the meaning of every word in Amendment II (including the placement of commas in the text), but it also questions the legitimacy of the Amendment. In every instance, the liberals toil in angst while trying to nullify the intent and simplicity of Amendment II. Yale Law School professor Akhil Reed Amar believes that, “The amendment speaks of a right of ‘the people’ collectively rather than a right of ‘persons’ individually.” (as if there is a difference between some abstract group of “people” and individual citizens) Yet, there seems to be no problem with the word “people” when it comes to the sacred First Amendment. How can this be? How can “people” in Amendment I instantly become individual persons but “people” in Amendment II are argued not to be individuals? By making Amendment XIV a “living right”, Professor Amar justifies this dichotomy by arguing, “...given that a broad reading is a policy choice rather than a clear constitutional command, it must be functionally justified. And the mere fact that, say, the First Amendment has been read expansively is not an automatic argument for equal treatment for the Second.” Amar further argues that, “...other amendments have been read generously; why not the Second? The obvious functional idea that sticks and stones and guns...can indeed hurt others in ways that ...words cannot.” And to this argument, one might ask the simple question, “How many “persons” did Adolf Hitler or Joseph Goebbels actually kill with a gun versus how many “people” did they kill with words?” Or ask about the 1932, German election that yielded a major victory for Hitler’s National Socialist Party. The party won 230 seats in the Reichstag and made Hitler Chancellor of Germany. (You have to love that right to vote) Yet, liberals fight daily to restore the voting rights of convicted felons while simultaneously trying to nullify the Second Amendment Rights of the innocent. Sort of gives a whole new meaning to Black Sheep. |
This people are monsters and can’t be trusted with upholding our laws!
And yet liberals (including the Mainstream Media), who treat nine of the original Amendments with the same reverence they bestow on Mao’s Little Red Book, consistently treat the Second Amendment as the flawed bastard of the Bill.
***It’s not just liberals. Free Republic has its contingent of absolutists who favor property rights over the bill of rights.
Bang
Obtaining a "permit" is a request to exercise the Second Amendment.
It gets much worse. The State Police are the ones being sued for interpreting (creating?) the CT gun laws according to their taste.
We throw citizens in jail who are charged with a crime before their case even goes to trial. Where's the outrage?
Temporarily confiscating one's property seems to pale in comparison.
Temporarily confiscating one's property seems to pale in comparison.
But we do not deny them their voting rights or muzzle them or not allow them to write letters to the editor or not give them culturally appropriate meals, etc, etc, etc....
Nope. We just take away their freedom, that's all, and throw them in jail. Without a trial. I'll bet you even agree with that.
Yet here we have a story where the use of one's property is suspended and you go ballistic.
I don’t think it was ever in the Founders’ minds to ever deny a person’s right to self-protection. I think it was just absolutely a given considering the threats and needs pioneers and revolutionaries faced daily. It was probably foreign to a man of the sixteenth century that you would ever try to take away his means of self-protection.
But we don't keep them in jail for years after the charges are dropped.
If anything, the second amendment is broader than the first. The first starts out "Congress shall make no law...". The second has no such limitation on who is prohibited from restricting the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Thus while you could argue that the first had to be expanded by the Supreme Court to apply to the other two branches of government or to the states, the second is a blanket prohibition of restriction by all levels and parts of the government from its ratification.
But we do not deny them their VI and VIII Amendment Rights...which is essentially what was done to the INNOCENT man in this story all because a Chili's waitress was "alarmed".
Correct. Connecticut needs to get their act together.
A person’s right to self-protection with a gun? That right was only protected for a certain class of citizens -- primarily white, male landowners.
Non-whites didn't have that right protected. Nor women, children, foreign visitors, illegal aliens, Indians, prisoners, the insane ... quite a few persons did not have that right protected.
Now, that's not to say they couldn't have guns. Just that their right to have them wasn't protected.
A person’s right to self-protection with a gun? That right was only protected for a certain class of citizens -- primarily white, male landowners.
Non-whites didn't have that right protected. Nor women, children, foreign visitors, illegal aliens, Indians, prisoners, the insane ... quite a few persons did not have that right protected.
Now, that's not to say they couldn't have guns. Just that their right to have them wasn't protected.
Then why do the gun laws vary from state to state? For example, why is concealed carry allowed in some states but not others if the second amendment applies to every state?
When it comes to the first amendment, the laws in all the states are uniform.
His 6th and 8th amendment rights were not denied! Get a grip.
The State of Connecticut, the governmental body which issued the license, should speed up the process. But they're not violating the U.S. Constitution by dragging their feet.
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