Posted on 03/26/2008 7:52:32 AM PDT by PlainOleAmerican
There’s no doubt...
Many buy into a “greater common good” when the Founders new all too well that there is NO good greater than individual liberty and freedom.
They also knew that there was no price too high in preserving it and that’s why the second amendment exists for every American.
It includes the 1903 addition of the National Guard.
Exactly right!
The current law is
Title 10 ARMED FORCES, Subtitle A General Military Law, Part I, Chapter 13 THE MILITIA, Sec.311 Militia: composition and classes.
You can read it at the legal information institute, of the Cornell law library (both online)
Thanks!
I did my time in the Army, and still would be in if not for a medical discharge. They can’t get me back, I am a free agent.
Not just the Second Amendment—the whole Bill of Rights.
You’re part of the militia then. It’s a unilateral declaration by Congress.
This right existed when the Pilgrims landed, when Virginia was settled, indeed it existed at one minute before the Bill of Rights was proposed, debated and ratified. The Bill of Rights did nothing to change that right. What about “unalienable” or “shall not be infringed”, is hard to understand.
Debate? Debate what? Whether the right exists today? To even rise the issue is to allow the question. Yes, there are two broad agendas: those who deny the right and those who recognize it.
We must never allow any right to be subject to a test of “utility”. It would be absurd to say, for example, that because nothing important ever happens in a town that we can question if anyone there should be “allowed” to have the right of free press.
It is worse with RKBA because those who are hoplophobic refuse to recognize the times when the lawful use of a firearm by a private owner resulted in the savings of innocent lives. Further, misuse of firearms by the authorities is minimized. If we allow a utility test, when those who are hostile to the right are allowed to jigger the reporting, of course the public is being fed constant news that firearms are only evil.
So, in the end the writer is complaining about a question that will only be resolved by political power. Who has the votes to suppress the right, who has the votes to deflect suppression. Happily, we now have two powerful venues for the expression and development of conservative ideas: talk radio and intenet forums such as this one. We also have search tools like Google, where obscure essays and documents that make powerful contributions to any discussion are now easily located, accessed, and excerpted into subsequent material. Only a few years ago, it would have been impossible for the entire collection of Amicus filings in DC v Heller to be made universally available.
The MSM would NEVER have published those briefs. They would NEVER have quoted hardly more than a few words for them, if any. The public would NEVER have been able to read the iron-clad logic and the irrefutable logic of the various briefs filed in support of Heller. Also, they would NEVER have quoted enough of the briefs that supported the District’s position so the public could see what MORONIC arguments they put forth.
The Left has lost its grip on information. More important, they have lost their control of the discussion. Now that radio talk show hosts have invented the new sport of dissecting the Left’s Media Playbook on How to Fool the Public, so that montages of soundbites of dozens talking heads all suddenly using the exact same obscure phrase to put forth the exact same policy position has become a new form of pubic ridicule the Left is just now waking up to, well, the Left can only respond with bluster because they don't know how to behave differently. The Left still regards telling the truth as just another “tactic”!
All this bodes well for all the unalienable rights, as each in turn gets its day in the sun, no thanks to the Left, who really don't care for a single right, except as it advances or protects something they really want to do.
In case anyone missed it, this is an excellent article, written by a Democrat no less!
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1991699/posts
All of which is made possible by the 2nd...
Then I think we are o.k. on this, based on what I have heard.
What do you think?
However...
Regardless what the USSC finally decides about D.C. v. Heller, this case was essentially decided in Heller's favor when the 14th A. was ratified. In fact, beware of any discussion about the 2nd A. that does not also mention the relationship of the 2nd and 14th Amendments.
More specifically, regardless what the Founders had in mind when they made the 2nd A., John Bingham and the 39th Congress clarified the scope and purpose of the Constitution's priviliges and immunities, including the 2nd A., when the 14th Amendment made. This is evidenced by the fact that Bingham, the main author of the 14th A., included the 2nd A. when he read the first eight amendments as examples of constitutional privileges and immunities that the 14th A. applied to the states. So there is no doubt in my mind that the 2nd and 14th Amendments protect the personal right to keep and bear arms from both the federal and state governments as much as any other constitutional privilege and immunity protects other personal rights.
See the 2nd A. in the middle column of the following page from the Congressional Globe, a precursor to the Congressional Record. The page is a part of one of Bingham's discussions about the 14th Amendment.
http://tinyurl.com/y3ne4nNote that the referenced page is dated for more than two years after the ratification of the 14th Amendment. So Bingham was evidently reassuring his colleagues about the scope and purpose of the ratified 14th Amendment.
Given the unlikely possibility that the USSC decides D.C. v. Heller in favor of D.C., then it is time for tar-and-feathers for a Court that is wrongly ignoring the clear intentions of constitutional lawmakers.
"The true key for the construction of everything doubtful in a law is the intention of the law-makers. This is most safely gathered from the words, but may be sought also in extraneous circumstances provided they do not contradict the express words of the law." --Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1808. ME 12:59"We the People are the rightful master of both congress and the courts - not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." --Abraham Lincoln, Political debates between Lincoln and Douglas, 1858.
"The Framers of the Constitution and the colonies that ratified simply said “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.” But what did they mean?"
The next major phase of the argument will deal with scope and extent. The argument will be that it's not a right which happens to be to keep and bear Arms but that it is a more limited right to keep and bear Arms and regulation beyond those limits is not infringement of the right to keep and bear Arms itself.
They will point to Jefferson, “No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms…”, Sam Adams "...who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms..." and the early State declarations of rights which used words like "defence of themselves and the State". They will then try to constrain the right to keep and bear Arms in a way that many will not like.
Excellent post!
Well said!
In the Declaration of Independence the forefathers state “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed - That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive to these ends it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government...”
The Articles of Confederation called for the States maintain well regulated militias and declared public munitions depots. The forefathers began to realize a great many problems with the Articles and sought to rectify the situation. In the end they decided to draft the Constitution.
The context is in the Preamble - “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, PROVIDE FOR THE COMMON DEFENSE, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
The Constitution goes a step further than the Articles in regards to the Common Defense
Amendment II - “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.”
Further context is provided by Alexander Hamilton, a signed witness on behalf of the state of New York. In Federalist 29 Alexander Hamilton (a direct witness mind you) wrote to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution. He provided further clarification for the new rights, laws, and limitations.
- “The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States.”
He further wrote “By thus circumscribing the plan, it will be possible to have an excellent body of well-trained militia, ready to take the field whenever the defense of the State shall require it. This will not only lessen the call for military establishments, but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist.”
The key to all of this is the part where he states “...who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens”
In other words even though the United States does not actually train and regulate the militia and a great burden would be placed on the individual State to do the same.... the PEOPLE bearing arms have a more vested interest because their liberties, their family's liberties, and the liberties of the community at stake. The liberties are worth defending and because of this citizens familiar and respectful of arms would not lack the discipline to fend off aggressors.
Hamilton further stipulates “Where in the name of COMMON-SENSE, are our fears to end if we may not trust our sons, our brothers, our neighbors, our fellow-citizens? What shadow of danger can there be from men who are daily mingling with the rest of their countrymen and who participate with them in the same feelings, sentiments, habits and interests?”
I guess libs are at a loss of common sense
This is especially true as the forefathers were skeptical of standing armies and went out of their way time and again to limit the Federal military that may intentionally, or unintentionally infringe on the rights of the people
Amendment IV - Ordered that “in peacetime no soldier could be quartered in any home without the consent of the owner.”
They went a step further to prevent their words from being misconstrued and resulting in the loss of rights
Amendment IX “Stated that rights not stated should not be construed to deny or disparage others.”
So in effect, even if you were delirious to think Amendment II did not guarantee the right for individuals to keep arms, the IXth states that this is not grounds for disparaging the right to bear arms, even if you believed Amendment II didn't specifically grant you those rights.
And if that weren't enough the Bill of Rights starts out
“The conventions of a number of the States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added.”
The right to keep and bear arms was important enough it was included in the 10 Amendments that facilitated the passage of the Constitution, which was threatened by disputes between Federalists and Anti-Federalists.
History repeats itself time and again; sometimes it predicts itself. In 1787 the author of the Anti-Federalist papers wrote that Civil War (1861-1865) would be inevitable if the Constitution was ratified because of the conflict between State's rights and Federal rights. And now, with the 2nd Amendment on the line, so too are all of the other 9 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights was a promise to the States; they would be added if the States ratified the Constitution. If the Amendments were not added, the States were not bound to the Constitution because it was the States authority first to protect their citizens. So, if a Supreme Court ruling is levied infringing on the rights of citizens within a States (or District) to bear arms, is that State no longer bound to the Constitution due to breach of contract?
The Confederates were able to argue secession was constitutional because States’ rights were infringed. The Commonwealth of Virginia argued for secession when Lincoln wanted to move troops through Virginia to South Carolina. What of the disarming of free citizens?
The Revolution came to fire on 19 April 1775 when free citizens held arms against an army under the control of a tyrannical government; they would most certainly not surrender their arms to ANY government; not even one they created.
Great story. People open to the facts can change how they think about things. This is the problem with political correctness that seeks to silence open sharing of information.
I have a slightly different tale...
My neighbor was a Boston liberal who moved to the South only to be shocked at how many neighbors were “gun-toting conservatives.”
For almost eight years, he railed against me and others over our “guns” which had he not asked, he would not even know about in most cases.
Then one night, he returned home after dark with his then five year old daughter in the car to find the door to his home swing open and no lights on anywhere. Guess who’s phone rang as he was afraid to enter his own home and investigate?
After I investigated for him, while he and his daughter hid in the car, I asked why he called me? He said “because I knew you would come armed!”
He too is now the proud owner of a firearm and an NRA member who is teaching his now teenage kids how to properly manage firearms...
Funny how a few seconds of harsh reality can change everything. BTW - His wife simply didn’t pull the door tight when she left for the store... LOL
As the old saying goes, “In a pinch, a gun in hand is better than a cop on the phone any day!”
“When seconds count, the cops are merely minutes away.”
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