Posted on 11/21/2007 8:30:01 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Yesterday, Senator Fred Thompson issued a statement on the Supreme Court's decision to grant certiorari in the District of Columbia gun ban case. It reads, in part:
I’ve always understood the Second Amendment to mean what it says – it guarantees a citizen the right to “keep and bear” firearms, and that’s why I’ve been supportive of the National Rifle Association’s efforts to have the DC law overturned.
In general, lawful gun ownership is a pretty simple matter. The Founders established gun-owner rights so that citizens would possess and be able to exercise the universal right of self-defense. Guns enable their owners to protect themselves from robbery and assault more successfully and more safely than they otherwise would be able to. The danger of laws like the D.C. handgun ban is that they limit the availability of legal guns to people who want to use them for legitimate reasons, such as self-defense (let alone hunting, sport shooting, collecting), while doing nothing to prevent criminals from acquiring guns.
The D.C. handgun ban, like all handgun bans is necessarily ineffectual. It takes the guns that would be used for self protection out of the hands of law-abiding citizens, while doing practically nothing to prevent criminals from obtaining guns to use to commit crimes. Even the federal judges in the D.C. case knew about the flourishing black market for guns in our nation’s capital that leaves the criminals armed and the law-abiding defenseless. This is unacceptable.
The Second Amendment does more than guarantee to all Americans an unalienable right to defend one’s self. William Blackstone, the 18th century English legal commentator whose works were well-read and relied on by the Framers of our Constitution, observed that the right to keep and bear firearms arises from “the natural right of resistance and self-preservation.” This view, reflected in the Second Amendment, promotes both self-defense and liberty. It is not surprising then that the generation that had thrown off the yoke of British tyranny less than a decade earlier included the Second Amendment in the Constitution and meant for it to enable the people to protect themselves and their liberties.
Governor Mitt Romney also issued a statement, which reads in full:
It is my hope that the Supreme Court will reaffirm the individual right to keep and bear arms as enshrined in the Bill of Rights and protect law abiding gun owners everywhere. To further guard this fundamental liberty, as President, I will take care to appoint judges who will not legislate from the bench but will instead strictly interpret the Constitution.
If Mayor Rudy Giuliani issued a statement, I could not find it on his website. [UPDATE: I must've not looked very hard, because more than one commenter found this statement: "I strongly believe that Judge Silberman’s decision deserves to be upheld by the Supreme Court. The Parker decision is an excellent example of a judge looking to find the meaning of the words in the Constitution, not what he would like them to mean."]
I could not find a statement on the Senator Barack Obama or Senator Hilary Clinton campaign sites either. Note: If these or other candidates issued statements on the cert. grant, I'll post links to those as well. Just e-mail them to me, or note them in the comments.
lol how true!
“Too bad Mitt and Rudy weren’t pro-gun when they last held office”
BETTER THEY WEREN’T...........THEY ARE EXPOSED!
Mitt still isn't pro-gun. He still supports the assault-weapons ban, or at least he did in May.
See #4.
No surprise there. The Donks want to stay as far away from any gun talk as possible before next Nov., knowing full well any gun-grabbing sentiments expressed during the campaign would most likely spell their doom (in the general election, at least).
A candidate that thinks that the Constitution means what it says? I thought the Constitution is a "living breathing" document that takes lawyers wearing robes that are appointed by politicians to "interpret" what it should be saying.
I bet it would be revealing.
I was looking at a Massachusetts gun rights organization, GOAL, and there was an article there that pointed out that the number of licensed and registered gun owners went down while Mitt was Governor (25%? Something like that), and another article that said that Massachusetts had built several “bonded gun warehouses” to store confiscated firearms, pending destruction while the owners litigated their cases.
Mitt, NRA life member and lifelong hunter, signed a bill that required, in no uncertain terms, that the gun owner got a receipt for the confiscated guns (shades of “Brazil”!)
FRED THOMPSON ... 2ND AMENDMENT ADVOCATE ... PRO-LIFE ... SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONSERVATIVE ... PING!
Happy Thanksgiving to all and God bless.
Governor Mitt Romney also issued a statement, which reads in full:
It is my hope that the Supreme Court will reaffirm the individual right to keep and bear arms as enshrined in the Bill of Rights and protect law abiding gun owners everywhere. To further guard this fundamental liberty, as President, I will take care to appoint judges who will not legislate from the bench but will instead strictly interpret the Constitution.
“Happy Thanksgiving to all and God bless.”
God bless you too, and thanks, you have a happy Thanksgiving too!
Ping!
I like Fred, alot, and am an NRA Life member. But in all fairness the NRA was late into this fight.
Mitt, NRA life member and lifelong hunter, signed a bill that required, in no uncertain terms, that the gun owner got a receipt for the confiscated guns (shades of “Brazil”!
Just imagine how scared a burglar would be when you wave that receipt at him and yell, “Stop, I’ve got a gun!”
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