Posted on 06/26/2008 6:59:27 AM PDT by shortstop
In a way, it doesn't matter what the Supreme Court decides.
Right will still be right, wrong will still be wrong, and freedom will still be freedom.
Sometime this morning – it may already have happened by the time you read this – the Supreme Court of the United States will announce whether the Second Amendment is an individual right or a state right.
At issue is whether the Bill of Rights empowers the state to organize an army to keep you subdued or whether it guarantees you the right to arm yourself against the oppression of the state.
And that is the issue.
The Second Amendment isn't about hunting or target practice. It's not about pretty guns and ugly guns and it's not about pioneer times and marauding Indians. It is about the right of the individual to rise up in violent might to protect himself, his family, his property and his freedom.
We don't say that anymore, but the Founding Fathers never said anything different. Their view was clear: Guns are a last-ditch protection against encroachment on liberty. In a Constitution built around checks and balances, the people are the check on the government, and guns are the final means of maintaining that check.
That's why we have the Second Amendment.
“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.”
Gun banners, using a 20th Century meaning of the word “militia” -- National Guard – say the Second Amendment gives the state the right to organize an army. Freedom lovers, understanding what the founders meant by “militia” -- every adult citizen capable of defending the community – know the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns.
Unfortunately, for most of a century, this individual right has been denied by the federal courts. Though originally universally understood, its meaning has been obscured and forgotten – probably intentionally.
Which gets us back to today's case.
Maybe the court will side with freedom, maybe it will side with oppression.
But that won't change the facts.
And the facts are that freedom exists whether it is recognized by the government or not. In its history, the Supreme Court has said that black men can be property and that your home can be taken against your will if the government can get somebody else to pay more taxes on it.
Throughout our history, there are repeated examples of the government seeking to strangle certain individual rights. But also throughout our history, there are repeated examples of individuals nonetheless claiming those rights and, invariably, ultimately forcing the government to recognize them.
That is the story of civil rights in this country.
And the Second Amendment is a civil right.
Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus because the government refused to recognize Fourteenth Amendment rights. Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus because she asserted a right the government did not yet recognize.
In the end, Rosa Parks won.
Susan B. Anthony was fined for voting because the government refused to recognize that “all men are created equal” included women. Susan B. Anthony was fined for voting because she asserted a right the government did not yet recognize.
In the end, Susan B. Anthony won.
Or, more correctly, freedom won.
In fact, Rosa Parks was right and the government was wrong. Likewise, Susan B. Anthony was right and the government was wrong. Freedom exists as a gift from God. Government may suppress it, but it is immoral and wrong to do so.
When the Supreme Court said that neither Dred Scott nor any black person could ever be a citizen of the United States, or file a law suit in court, it was wrong. The fact was that God made Dred Scott free and the laws and courts made him a slave. They could only do so, they could only deprive him of his liberty, through forceful oppression.
And the same is true today.
We can only be deprived of our liberty through forceful oppression.
And being denied the right to own an implement of self-defense – a gun – can only occur through forceful oppression.
The fact is that free Americans believe and claim that the Second Amendment – like the First Amendment before it – is an individual right. The Founding Fathers were wary of standing armies, and had in the body of the Constitution already empowered the government to defend the nation with an Army and Navy. It is illogical that in the list of individual rights it would reauthorize the government to arm itself.
Rather, in the Bill of Rights, as the Founding Fathers specifically sought to protect the people from an overpowerful government, the only reasonable interpretation of the Second Amendment is that it was intended to arm the people as a balance against the arming of the government.
Natural law guarantees the right of self-defense. The Constitution guarantees the means of self-defense.
The government can deny that. But it can only do so through oppression.
Today we will learn whether or not the Supreme Court supports the continued oppression of Second Amendment rights. All across our country, laws suppress the will of the Constitution in regard to the “keeping and bearing” – owning and carrying -- of arms. The Supreme Court will either ratify that oppression, or begin the long process of rolling it back.
But either way the principle is true and unchanging. We have the right to own guns. It is a civil and natural right. It can no more be limited or put to a vote than any other liberty.
And someday our courts will recognize that.
Until then, the fight for American freedom continues.
This is easy. Change the Bill of Rights to state that it is our right to own guns. Leave out anything that can be challenged. This will stop the Supreme Court from ever addressing this again. In fact, add in the idea that the Supreme Court “cannot address it again”.
I agree with the author of the article overall. I disagree with a small technicality of the argument though. The author claims that the Second Amendment is primarily about ones right to overthrow an oppressive governemnt. I disagree with this from the aspect that such a right was only given as an example of the reason for guaranteeing the right to bear arms which the people of the time would recognize aznd agre with, but not the only reason.
The part of the overall debate that I’m still mulling over is where do we draw the line. At what point is a weapon too powerful to be considered personal protection or necessary for ensuring civil liberties? If the police have automatic weapons and become puppets in a fascist regime, then in order to have the ability to overthrow the civil authorites the citizens would need at least the same. Or to escalate this into the realm of the ridiculous, what about nukes? Well a nuke would probably be overkill and take out far more than just the leaders of a government. The line has to be somewhere between a pea shooter and a nuclear weapon, but where and why?
That's a ridiculous headline.
Should that unhappy day arrive, the doors of the local National Guard Armories would swing wide open. Many — not all but many — of the citizens who are in the Guard would be on the barricades with the rest of us.
We’d probably have all the M-60s, MA2s, ammo and the rest we’d need to give a good account of ourselves.
Heller has been affirmed. RKBA upheld. Whew! Close one, that. Five/four decision of course. But what if it had gone the other way? No doubt there would have been a lot of posts here on FR expressing ourage. But what else? Does anyone think there would have been any more reaction than just talk?
The incredible part of the 5-4 decision is the fact that there are four anti-Constitution Supreme Court judges who don't understand the Constitution. These four people are a disgrace to our country.
Considering our Founding Fathers put a provision in the Constitution for contracting warships from citizens (Letters of Marque), I don't see that they did draw a line. Warships were the most powerful weapons of their day.
That said, I do think there is a legitimate concern for the regulation of NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) weapons. These things are inherently unstable and even the government has problems with containment. They should be considered a public hazard, not a weapon protected by the 2nd Amendment.
... and I’ll say here like I’ve said on other threads, they should be IMPEACHED immediately.
When you have to sit and decide what the authors of the 2nd Ammendment really meant, something is wrong. The 2nd Ammendment should be changed to be absolute and not interpreted by the court.
I wonder if this affects the restrictions on carry that is allowed by issuing judges in New York State.
It is common for judges to issue cc permits but restricted to “hunting and target” and NOT for selof-protection or self-defense.
That practice seems unconstitutional but it is very common in New York.
I hope someone challenges that infringement in a NY court.
Lol!
The militia is the people. A militia is not well regulated without a means to resist.
A seminal question, to be sure. And to which I must reply: "Would you trust a politician with nuclear weapons?"
Because you do. The most powerful weapons on the planet are controlled by people most of us would not buy a used car from.
Most of us cannot afford the 'care and feeding', the proper storage and maintenance of a nuke, much less a viable delivery system. However, virtually any man-portable weapon is a different matter, and would be even easier from a financial viewpoint if the supply was not limited by law, causing the price of the arms and their parts to be much higher than they are on the world market.
Having read the Federalist Papers, the RKBA was seen as the counter, in extremis, to the misuse of the military (be it the Federal standing army or the state militias) against the people, the bulwark against the usurpation of the power resident in the people, who are governed only by their consent.
Thus, whatever weapon, whatever arm necessary for the people to retain that power in the face of an overreaching government which can be effectively served and maintained by them should be included in the right.
Gun is a MAN MADE right. Even freedom of religion is a man made right.
Those 4 should be impeached and as Rush just said how scary it is for the fate of the Nation to be dependent on how “Justice” Kennedy happens to feel on any given day.
“At issue is whether the Bill of Rights empowers the state to organize an army to keep you subdued or whether it guarantees you the right to arm yourself against the oppression of the state.”
This is absolutely correct although I prefer the word tyranny to oppression. (a minor point)
The bill of rights is intended to empower ‘the people’.
These rights are NOT bestowed upon ‘the people’(that’s us)by the state.
Contrarily, it is the people that bestows power upon the state.
At the very beginning of our Constitution it says:
‘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, ...’
The State is intended to be a servant of ‘the people’ NOT the other way around.
A ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people,..” (Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address)
To the extent the State no longer represents the people, to the extent the State subverts the bill of rights, to THAT (aforementioned)extent the state has become tyrannical, in that it is misusing the power that we the people have bestowed upon it.
... And yes, the right to self defense is natural (some may argue God Given)and self evident.
The founding fathers show an understanding of natural law (extending from God) when they used the term ‘inalienable rights’ — in the Declaration of Independence.
STE=Q
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