Posted on 12/04/2006 2:04:25 PM PST by neverdem
News By Us, not news bias
This caught my eye this morning: Paul Helmke’s anti-liberty rant Guns and Governing, on The Huffington Post, December 1, 2006. Helmke is head of The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence. Here is my response, December 1, 2006.
First of all, very first of all, when it comes to guns, there is no governing to be, with the exception of protection of the Bill of Rights. Since the right to bear arms is absolute, there is no governing over it. there can be only protection; you protect the rights of the people on that and that’s your oath. Simple. Anything else is an attack.
Refusal to understand this not only reflects a poor understanding of the law and practical values in America, but reveals a hidden agenda to overthrow us all. All of us, not just those who support rights, but all of us. That would include Mr. Helmke, himself, unless he wishes to own a gun secretly.
In fact, if any anti-gun activist owns positively any sort of weapon in the home for self-defense – I don’t care if it’s a baseball bat! – he/she supports self-defense and the use of up to lethal force. Or, don’t they realize what they’re saying and doing? Most anti-gun nuts do in fact own weapons. Right, Rosie? N’cest pa, Dianne?
The second amendment isn’t about guns, it’s about personal sovereignty and the use of force to back it up.
Anti-gun activists, therefore, are to be discredited utterly.
In three itemized issues, Helmke lays out mention of straw purchases, political clout of the gun rights lobbies versus election wins, and he mentions gun violence.
The first two arguments are themselves straw arguments, since straw purchases are way exaggerated as many, many writers have pointed out in the past in detail, and since the election wins and losses are not gun rights based, but far, far more based on republican disappointments, border control issues and size-of-government issues. Every voter knows it. It is silly to write that republicans lost because they listen to the NRA when voters (readers) know darned good and well their own minds and why they didn’t vote republican this time around.
The third argument got my attention: Gun Violence.
Again, there is the call for sensible gun laws, but in fact there is no such thing as a sensible gun law. Could there be such a thing as sensible censorship? The only sensible gun law exists purely as a civil right, and it is absolute. If you want sensible gun laws, try no one under eighteen owns a gun, felons don’t own a gun, and non-citizens don’t own a gun, and then, repeal all gun laws. Now, that’s sensible.
Here is my analysis as Mr. Helmke’s piece summons of me.
The Second Amendment was made absolute and impervious to due process for a reason. The Founding Fathers knew very well what they did not want any more of – no more over-reach, no more abuses of powers, no more warrants without local supervision (jury) and more – and just as certainly as the fact that they ratified it all, they knew that it all had to be backed by force forever. That force is in the hands of the People, individuals like you and me, and it is this sovereign authority that cannot be infringed. It is being infringed various different ways. It is your authority which is being infringed. Remember that gun control is attacking not guns, and it’s not attacking violence; it is attacking individual sovereign authority which is backed by lawful force.
In many ways, Americans are being bluffed out of their sovereignty.
Attacks on guns are attacks on personal sovereignty to undermine the power of the People to remain in control over the country: gun control is an attack to wrest that control from the people in an immense transfer of authority, convincing people or coercing people out of it. Remove the lawful force of the people, and the rest can simply be taken unopposed.
Many laws toward that goal come in the form of anti-crime measures, so that little by little, the people surrender – Americans cooperate – in handing over what they think will help fight crime. Americans will do a lot and put up with a lot if they believe it will help.
It’s a scam, a trap. Because of the sovereignty of the People and the People’s own lawful force to back it up, the idea of one-sided force in this country is a trap.
Helmke summarizes, “More guns are likely to make a home, a state, or a country more dangerous, not more safe.”
This is, of course, wholly untrue, and I’ll say just where.
Well, America, if you want to help fight crime and violence, listen up.
I’ve said a thousand times that police have no mandate to protect individuals. Most officers will nod and agree with this if asked. I’m surprised that some younger officers are not even aware of it. Hell, even some legislators aren’t aware of it, but it’s true. This is important for everyone willing to help to fully understand. As always, I am speaking not to gun owners, but to non-gun owners and the impartial, people looking for both sides of the issue. Heads of household who really want to understand. I know it’s hard to accept, but every head of household must come to understand that police don’t have to protect you.
Police join law enforcement to help, but in actuality, in the most critical moments of a crime emergency, you are on your own.
As benign as it might sound at first, ‘governing’ guns and people who own them means restricting before-the-fact your right to act at the moment action is needed most – when you are facing grave danger alone, and let’s be realistic: only you have the right to make that call. I support the idea of investigation for reasonableness under the circumstances, but before-the-fact restrictions (gun control) are entirely unreasonable and unlawful. It grows crime by permitting it to succeed unopposed in case after case after case, hundreds of thousands of times every year.
Equally realistic is the fact that some Americans believe preparedness in self-defense to be an unwanted burden. Their over-reaction of being expected to grow up and protect loved ones manifests itself as name-calling gun owners as Cowboys and Vigilantes. It’s merely a denial or a refusal to take responsibility for something that unavoidably belongs only to them.
For an example of this, please visit the YouTube Video Confession Of A Rat: An anti-gun newspaperman admits to his wife (and to himself) that he can’t be counted on to protect her life.
‘Governance’ over guns and people who rise to meet their responsibility is a ruse to disarm individuals to pave the way to grow crime to the advantage of officials. In a very obvious way, the anti-gun crowd uses the crowd who refuse this burden to increase numbers of anti-gun voters. Minions. Minions by the millions.
As I say often – very often – personal disarmament is a trap for the American household and a payday for officials.
Who is the real thief in this issue?
Why is the Second Amendment absolute and made impervious to due process? Why can there be no such thing as so-called sensible gun laws?
Because the individual victim of crime is the first line of defense, and no matter what law you write, we always will be. Gun control takes away the power but leaves the ultimate accountability, the typical bureaucratic trap. This is anti-violence? This is American? Is it good for your household to be denied the power, but left with the responsibility anyway?
The individual is now and always will be the first line of defense. And when crime is an excuse to transfer liberty and authority out of the hands of the people, this then makes the citizen the first line of defense for the entire nation. Taking away that anywhere/anytime, instance-by-instance defense is in no way sensible.
Myself, I prefer the John Bolton type of leadership. He never leaves any questions as to what he meant.
The various states have *all* ratified the Constitution and are therefore subject to it by their own assent. While their individual Constitutions may afford greater protections than the federal Const. they may not afford less protection. And I do believe a future USSC will force the states to abide by the Second Amendment.
The Constitution does not guarantee or even provide for the right to vote, yet it has been determined to be unconstitutional to require the payment of a tax to exercise the non-existent "right to vote."
No Navy Bases in Alaska. And yes, those that are discharged are treated just as all other civilians.
Would you say that internet and television is protected by the 1st Amendment?
I don't need to resolve it. If they (the gun Nazis) want to 'resolve' it, they can come and get what I have..
See post 47 about if the Bill of Rights should apply to states by default.
A good .50 cal rifle costs entirely to much and weighs too much... But its a nice thought...
The best part about a .50 is that you can really reach out and touch someone. (You know getting personal when they aren't expecting it) LOL
One of our Founders, Tench Coxe, said: "Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American ... the unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." \
I don't see any "except ordnance" suggestion here. The people were to have access to everything that a standing army could use against them, so that their greater numbers than that of a standing army would assure that the people would be supreme. This is most definitely a statement that the right to keep and bear arms is intended as a check against ALL government, including standing armed forces.
The judge is not going to allow the presentation of evidence as part of a motion to dismiss, especially when the factual nature of the evidence has been determined by the Supreme Court to be essential to the application of the law. If the prosecution contradicts the defense, the judge is going to have to have a trial, so that the jury can decide the facts and apply the law.
If the judge DID dismiss a second time, without allowing presentation of evidence at trial, the Supreme Court could simply repeat the Miller decision to them without change. Given the guidance from the Supreme Court, what motion to dismiss could the defense offer that would be convincing?
The District Court judge used his own knowledge to determine that a short-barreled shotgun was "arms" and this could hardly be contradicted by the prosecution. But on what basis would the judge decide that a militia would or would not find a short-barreled shotgun useful? This would required evidence conceivably far outside the judge's experience and subject to prosecution arguments.
It is within the judge's power to dismiss for lack of evidence after the prosecution has presented its case. I believe that double jeopardy attaches as soon as any evidence is presented at trial. If so, then the prosecution would not be able to appeal. Even if double jeopardy did not attach to such a dismissal, the prosecution would have little grounds to appeal, since it is unlikely that the Supreme Court would overrule the judge and dictate that the evidence was sufficient. Even in that case, it would simply be necessary to complete the trial, leaving the matter to a jury. From a jury acquittal, there would be no appeal.
Thank you for the informative posts, this has turned into a rather interesting thread.
A detailed knowledge of constitutional history is something that I need to gain!
Some of the posters on this site would claim that the Fourteenth Amendment was unjustifiably used to apply the First Amendment to the states. That the freedom of speech or right to assemble of freed black slaves was of no interest to those who passed the amendment. The passage of the amendment just after the Civil War means nothing. And the inclusion of the "privileges and immunities" clause, repeating the phrase used in the infamous Dred Scott decision, means virtually nothing, certainly not the right of freed slaves to keep and bear arms as the Supreme Court suggested Dred Scott would have if his escape from bondage had been allowed.
To further the nonsense, those same posters would claim that the act of "incorporation" somehow causes the Fourteenth Amendment to mean something different after a Supreme Court decision than it had prior to such ruling.
It was common in warfare to attack an enemy fortress by tunneling under the walls and emplacing as much gun powder as possible to completely destroy what was above the mines. Today a single tactical nuclear weapon could accomplish that same job and that is what they are intended to do today.
Using your argument, it would be perfectly consistent with the Second Amendment to outlaw machine guns. You put no burden on the government to seek the consent of the governed through the amendment process, but allow Congress to claim that technology takes precedence over the Bill of Rights. I don't agree and I would challenge you to say what arms, other than nuclear, you would permit the Congress to outlaw simply because they didn't yet exist at the time of the writing of the Bill of Rights.
Perhaps there are crimes so complex that we can dispense with jury trials. Perhaps political issues are too complex to permit popular voting. Perhaps some ideas, like communism, are simply to dangerous to permit free speech. I don't think so.
From the opinion:
"In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument."
Where in the opinion does the court hold that the right to keep and bear arms is a collective right, differing from other rights guaranteed to the "people" as used in the other amendments? Do you notice that there is no mention in the opinion as to whether 2A is individual or collective?
Miller, an individual, would have been off the hook had the court decided a sawed off was suitable for military use.
True, it is a rather irregular opinion and certainly in no way a reliable precedent for the "collective rights" gang. The case would most certainly have to be twisted to support such a position.
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