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 Helmkes 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 thats 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 dont care if its a baseball bat! he/she supports self-defense and the use of up to lethal force. Or, dont they realize what theyre saying and doing? Most anti-gun nuts do in fact own weapons. Right, Rosie? Ncest pa, Dianne?
The second amendment isnt about guns, its 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 didnt 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 dont own a gun, and non-citizens dont own a gun, and then, repeal all gun laws. Now, thats sensible.
Here is my analysis as Mr. Helmkes 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 its 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.
Its a scam, a trap. Because of the sovereignty of the People and the Peoples 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 Ill say just where.
Well, America, if you want to help fight crime and violence, listen up.
Ive said a thousand times that police have no mandate to protect individuals. Most officers will nod and agree with this if asked. Im surprised that some younger officers are not even aware of it. Hell, even some legislators arent aware of it, but its 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 its hard to accept, but every head of household must come to understand that police dont 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 lets 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. Its 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 cant 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.
How much gunpowder does the Second Amendment permit one to own? How much dynamite? Please define the "fringes" of the right to keep and bear arms for us.
If the United States, itself, had not already proved just how wrong you are by ending World War II using two nuclear weapons, your argument might be more convincing. Or do you support the banning of the possession or use of such weapons world wide?
While true of rifles, it's not much of an effect at shotgun ranges. Many short single and double barreled shotguns were used by calvary, particularly Confederate calvary, during the Civil War.
See for example : The Evolution of the Military Shotgun
It's true that modern military shotguns, starting with the Winchester Model 1897, which had an 18" barrel (and probably the reason that limit was set for shotguns, while 16" was set for rifles). But the reason the modern pump and semi-auto shotguns have 18 or 20 inch barrels is for increased magazine capacity, the magazine being directly under the barrel, not some real advantage to the longer barrel. In fact it's a disadvantage in close combat, and why the M-4 Carbine version of the M-16 has a 14" inch barrel, and why police cruiser's hold shotguns with shorter than 18" barrels (so much for them being exclusive gangster weapons).
But, assuming that it did qualify, does the tax stamp pose an undue burden? Miller was allowed to possess the shotgun -- that right was not denied. He simply neglected to obtain a stamp. Wasn't that the federal charge?
It was, but a requirement for a stamp is an "infringement", one that hits the poor particularly hard. The tax stamp was $200, . the value of the shotgun probably $5-10. It was effectively a ban, for all but the rich and corporations.
Secondly, assuming the shotgun is a militia-type weapon, doesn't Miller have to be at least registered in the militia -- per the Militia Act?
No, the decision made it clear that Miller need not have been registered as part of any organized militia, although the government argued thusly. The Second Amendment protects a right of the people, not of the militia, organized or not.
Third, the National Firearms Act also covered machine guns, weapons that are undeniably militia-type weapons. Per your argument, it would follow that a tax stamp on those weapons also would be unconstitutional.
It sure would and it sure is. But that's never been tested at the Supreme Court. I suspect even the Supreme Court would not have ruled that "Judicial Notice" could be taken that a machine gun, even a submachine gun like a Thompson, is "part of the ordinary military equipment" and "that its use could contribute to the common defense." It would have been even more ludicrous to have asserted that a BAR was not such a weapon.
And a mere 4 years after the 14th was passed, the Supreme Court, which didn't like the notion, nullified the "Privileges and Immunities Clause of the 14th amendment, in the infamous Slaughter House Cases Now that was real Judicial Activism. I'm sure you're proud of the Court's parsing of the amendment, it was in the finest tradition of determining the meaning of "is".
Today the P&I clause means essentially nothing as far as the Courts are concerned. Did it's authors intend that it mean nothing? I don't think so. When asked, one of them indicated that it was to apply the protections of the first 8 amendments against the states.
So a crime committed with a firearm is more deserving of punishment than one committed with a machete, or a bomb for that matter?
Match the punishment to the crime, not to the tool used to commit it.
Bumpkin. -- Gotta love that old anti-BOR's parsing..
There was no brief, and no appearance by Miller or Layton's attorney. The case had been dismissed by the lower court, Miller and Layton were not to found by the time of the Government's appeal. No one ever said they were good guys. Miller was killed, .45 in hand, before the SC's decision was handed down. Layton on the other hand accepted a plea bargin, was given 5 years probation, by the same federal judge who had dismissed the case on the basis of the law being in violation of the Second Amendment. He successfully served out the probation, keeping his nose clean, or at least not getting caught.
While within his power, its pretty stupid to treat your soldiers as less responsible than the local civilians of the same age group.
I don't know about the Army, but the Air Force at least allows carry of shotguns and other anti-bear weapons on it's Alaskan bases.
Original intent was to apply it to all arms, and it applied to the most powerful weapons of the day.
If you want it to not apply to some modern weapons, you must amend the Second Amendment.
Otherwise you'd be able to limit newspapers and magazines to the use of simple hand operated presses. No modern high speed "assault" presses would be allowed. Similarly, free speech or press protections would not apply to TV, Radio, or the Internet, as someone else has pointed out, you could have to purchase a several thousand dollar tax stamp for the privilege of posting here.
Ever hear of the "Davey Crockett" ? It was deployed by infantry grunts, and it's launcher was similar to a recoilless rifle.
"The Mk-54 weighed about 51 lb (23 kg), with a selectable yield of 10 or 20 tons (very close to the minimum practical size and yield for a fission warhead). The complete round weighed 76 lb (34.5 kg). It was 31 in. (78.7 cm) long with a diameter of 11 in. (28 cm) at its widest point;"
I even found a video, which contains some inaccuracies as documented at the link above, but has some great shots of the weapon being loaded and fired, *with a live warhead*. It was more commonly mounted on a Jeep, but as you can see could be carried by the grunts and mounted on a tripod, like a heavy machine gun, or antitank missile.
Then there were the "Atomic Demolition Munitions" aka "backpack nukes".
SADM in it's travel case.
A better analogy to gun control would be to ban bullhorns. Or to tape people's mouths shut upon entering a theater, lest they shout fire, when there is no fire. Of course they couldn't shout warning if there *was* a fire either. Very much like gun control. It about "prior restraint". The first amendment is about prior restraint, and content. Disturbing the peace with a bullhorn is no different than firing into the air at 2 AM. Both are punishable as misuses of rights and as violations of the rights of others. My ownership (I wish!) of a .50 Browning Machine gun, would violate no ones rights. Nor would my ownership of a cannon. (In fact I met a couple of guys who owned cannons. Since they were reproductions of old muzzle loaders, they are not in violation of the National Firearms Act. Many folks own more modern cannon, and electrically powered Gatling type machine guns, by paying the tax, which for those guns doesn't really raise the cost significantly. Course you can't do that anymore, unless the weapon was manufactured before '86 because Congress banned new manufacture of machine guns for private use, tax or no tax, in 1986.
Then why did the Supreme Court rule that they should not have taken "judicial notice"?
Of course I was thinking of the pretrial motion in the first (dismissed) case, not a putative second trial.
But I'll take your word for the required procedure, at least pending consultation with my (lawyer) daughter and her (lawyer) husband.
It doesn't of course. That doesn't keep the gun grabbers from claiming otherwise. Actually the "collective rights" argument preexisted the case, and was made by the Government. The Court chose not to address the point, IOW they ignored the argument.
It doesn't, but if you read the Government's brief, *they* asked the court to rule that such is the case.
Here's the Summary, from their brief. The actually body of the argument is worse, actually nauseating to read.
The Second Amendment does not grant to the people the right to keep and bear arms, but merely recognizes the prior existence of that right and prohibits its infringement by Congress. It cannot be doubted that the carrying of weapons without lawful occasion or excuse was always a crime under the common law of England and of this country. In both countries the right to keep and bear arms has been generally restricted to the keeping and bearing of arms by the people collectively for their common defense and security. Indeed, the very language of the Second Amendment discloses that this right has reference only to the keeping and bearing of arms by the people as members of the state militia or other similar military organization provided for by law. The "arms" referred to in the Second Amendment are, moreover, those which ordinarily are used for military or public defense purposes, and the cases unanimously hold that weapons peculiarly adaptable to use by criminals are not within the protection of the Amendment. The firearms referred to in the National Firearms Act, i.e., sawed-off shotguns, sawed-off rifles, and machine guns, clearly have no legitimate use in the hands of private individuals, but, on the contrary, frequently constitute the arsenal of the gangster and the desperado. Section 11, upon which the indictment was based, places restrictions upon the transportation in interstate commerce of weapons of this character only, and clearly, therefore, constitutes no infringement of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms," as that term is used in the Second Amendment.
(Emphasis added)
Plenty do. Officers, especially staff officers, for instance often carry only a pistol. Aircrew in all services usually carry a pistol. Tanks and other vehicle operators often carry pistols. Military police carry pistols. They are certainly "part of the ordinary military equipment".
That they have the legitimate power is what is in dispute.
The second amendment would seem to indicate that they do not. YMMV, but you can't assume your conclusion in your argument. It's called circular reasoning, IIRC.
Well, cannon for one. And ships armed with them. The Constitution provides that Congress has the power to issue letter of Marque and Reprisal. That wouldn't make much sense if individuals to whom the letters would be issued could not own cannon, and ships that could mount them. They could and did, for quite some time after the passage of the Bill of Rights. You can still own those sorts of cannon today, no tax stamp, no permit required. At least in Texas, I've seen 'em and heard 'em. And here they are: (Me too, I think, but am not sure)
It would be, but if look again, you'll see the yield was 18 tons, not 18 kilotons
That was just the courts fixing their earlier error in ruling that the "privileges and immunities" of US citizens did *not* include those protected by the Bill of Rights. Of course they only chose to "incorporate" those rights they approved of. (Save the 3rd, for which there is virtually no jurisprudence, either way).
Actually mostly 18"
But earlier, much shorter barreled shotguns were common in military use, before the advent of the pump action. They are so much "handier", but the advantage of more rounds was thought to outweigh the disadvantage of the longer length.
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