Posted on 06/26/2008 11:51:58 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Liberals, who hate guns almost as much as they hate cars, got a well-deserved lesson in Second Amendment rights when the Supreme Court spit in their face by ruling that the Constitution really does guarantee the right of Americans to own guns.
The ruling, which struck down the District of Columbia’s laws almost totally restricting handgun ownership, affirmed the traditional view that the Second Amendment means exactly what it says when it guarantees "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
The avid gun-grabbers have long insisted that the accompanying clause, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state" restricts the right to bear arms to members of said militia -- a sophistry in view of the fact that at the time the amendment was adopted, the “militia” included all able-bodied adult white males.
As Thomas B. McAffee & Michael J. Quinlan, writing in the North Carolina Law Review, March 1997, Page 781, stated "... Madison did not invent the right to keep and bear arms when he drafted the Second Amendment -- the right was pre-existing at both common law and in the early state constitutions."
Obviously, the Founders were not gun grabbers, as the gun-grabbing community would have us believe. Actually, unlike today’s liberals, they had faith in their fellow citizens and in their ability to avail themselves of their rights in a safe and reasonable manner.
The District of Columbia law was based on the fallacious idea that by banning hand gun ownership by citizens except under the most onerous conditions, criminals -- a not un-sizeable part of the district’s population even with the exclusion of members of Congress as a criminal class -- wouldn’t be able to buy and own guns and thus continue their murderous ways.
C’mon now. Do they really believe that criminals buy their guns in legitimate gun shops? Or do they understand that their anti-handgun laws haven’t made even the slightest dent to the city’s incredible murder rate? Don’t they realize that their Draconian gun laws punish honest citizens unable to protect themselves and their homes, and not the thugs who are on a killing rampage on the streets of the nation’s capital?
They share the fantasies of the nation’s elitist gun-grabber fanatics who simply refuse to believe that the majority of their fellow citizens are mature enough to be trusted to own handguns, or for that matter, to conduct their affairs without Big Brother’s guidance and control.
The liberals who want to ban gun ownership are the same liberals who’d like to drive family-sized automobiles off the nation’s streets and highways, prohibit the use of fossil fuels because they allegedly harm the environment and contribute to non-existent global warming -- a fantasy they are inflicting on the American people -- and demonizing carbon dioxide, a natural gas without which life on earth cannot survive.
The Supreme Court ruling has been greeted by the American people as a welcome sign that many of their rights long threatened by out-of-control judges who make or misinterpret laws, rather than enforcing them, are now at last being safeguarded by the High Court.
That’s a dangerous misconception. The new decision was a 5-4 ruling. That tiny majority, often reversed in other rulings that defy the meaning of the Constitution, will vanish if the liberals manage to elect Barack Obama and give his party sufficient control of Congress to guarantee that future Court vacancies will be filled with activist liberal justices who will turn the Constitution upside down.
We won a big one this time but the battle is far from won.
Liberty squeeked by.
So my rights come from the Supreme Court?
What would ANY of us done had it been 4-5?
Ahh, from my cold dead hand?
No; the Ronald Reagan we elect in 2012 will restore the Court to its rightful balance, roll back taxes to their 2008 levels, close the National Health Service, and bring the military back to where it was before Obama took office.
“The avid gun-grabbers have long insisted that the accompanying clause, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” restricts the right to bear arms to members of said militia — a sophistry in view of the fact that at the time the amendment was adopted, the “militia” included all able-bodied adult white males.”
That’s certainly true, but its a bad argument. Presumably you wouldn’t want to restrict gun use to JUST able-bodied adult white males...
“...Or do they understand that their anti-handgun laws haven’t made even the slightest dent to the city’s incredible murder rate?”
Unfortunately, hanging onto guns hasn’t changed it very much either.
Wow, did you end up on the wrong forum! People on this FreeRepublic actually fervently believe that the right to keep and bear arms is the one right that guarantees that we keep all the rest of our rights.
To get back to your DU site, make at left at Huffington Post, then another left for George Soros and continue on the Kark Marx Strasse.
Bon Voyage!
I think that’s what Kennedy was afraid of. He didn’t want poke the last stick in the eye of armed citizens. And again, perhaps he read “The Pelican Brief”.
“Wow, did you end up on the wrong forum!”
I certainly hope I did not. I was under the impression that this forum existed to discuss important issues, and was not just an exercise in repeating the “approved” responses in a mindless way.
“People on this FreeRepublic actually fervently believe that the right to keep and bear arms is the one right that guarantees that we keep all the rest of our rights.”
I know a lot of people on this forum believe that. I don’t happen to be one of them. Amazingly enough, not everyone on the “right” does. Anyway, what you fervently believe is neccesary for your “rights” is immaterial to this particular argument. If you believe you have a “right to bear arms” then that stands on its own merits. It doesn’t have to be justified, or defended, or made excuses for.
The point that is being made by the article is that restricting gun ownership has done nothing to allay crime (which it hasn’t). The point I was making is that owning guns seems to be equally ineffective in restricting crime. Therefore, logically, there must be other reason/s for the crime rampant in Washington DC, and presumably other way/s to counter it.
I would suggest it would be more profitable for us to discuss those reason/s and way/s rather than knee-jerk statements about “inalienable rights”, presuming of course, that solving the crime problem is what you want to do.
ping
“We won a big one this time but the battle is far from won.”
We (constitutionalists) should consider ourselves fortunate that this case came up on Bush’s watch.
You're wrong. I can't tell you how many times some mutt has come in to my store off the street and taken one look at the the Glock on my side and left without saying a word.
And upon what, exactly are you basing this supposition. In all states that have implemented CCW laws, crime has either gone down, or the rate of increase has decreased.
“No; the Ronald Reagan we elect in 2012....”
In 1976, I knew where Ronald Reagan was and what he’d been doing for the preceding 15 years. Where is he and what has he been doing now?
Is such measure the determining factor in what rights we have?
Read John Lott’s book “More Guns Less Crime”. It will blow your theories out of the water with cold hard facts about the relationship between gun ownership and crime. But if you don’t believe that’s true, feel free to post a large sign in front of your house or place of business that says this house/business does not believe in private firearms ownership and the owner does not have any firearms on the premises.
Our rights come from God,not nine fools in a courtroom .Molon Labe.
Including the thousands of documented cases where crimes were thwarted by someone armed? Would the crime rate be higher or lower if the right to own guns was removed?
Hint: Check out England.
Except I don't see God arguing before the SC or making our laws or enforcing restrictions. The rights may come from God but we still have to fight for them.
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