Gun Control and the Constitution

Wall Street Journal ^ | February 10, 2013 | DAVID B. RIVKIN JR. And ANDREW M. GROSSMAN

[neverdem]

The courts would no more allow government to undermine the Second Amendment than the First.

Could there be a better illustration of the cultural divide over firearms than the White House photograph of our skeet-shooting president? Clay pigeons are launched into the air, but the president's smoking shotgun is level with the ground. This is not a man who is comfortable around guns. And that goes a long way toward explaining his gun-control agenda.

Lack of informed presidential leadership aside, there is a gulf between those Americans who view guns as invaluable tools for self-defense, both against private wrongdoers and a potentially tyrannical government, and those who regard that concept as hopelessly archaic and even subversive. For them, hunting is the only possible legitimate use of firearms, and gun ownership should be restricted to weapons suited to that purpose.

But while the level of the policy discourse leaves much to be desired, its constitutional dimensions are even more dimly recognized, much less seriously engaged. Yet the debate over guns, as is the case with many other contentious issues in American history, cannot be intelligently pursued without recognizing its constitutional dimensions. The Supreme Court's 2008 decision in Heller v. District of Columbia confirmed that the Second Amendment means what it says: "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

After Heller and its follow-on case, McDonald v. Chicago, which applied the Second Amendment rights to the states, what government cannot do is deny the individual interest in self-defense. As a legal matter, that debate is settled.

The president and his allies seem to have missed the message, as demonstrated by his continued insistence that most of the American people, including many hunters, support his proposed gun-control measures. Even if that claim were true, constitutionally protected...

[Frank_2001]

Besides being our most noble emperor,he’s a professor of law! How could he POSSIBLY have missed the message???/sarcasm;)

[Texas Fossil]

The Lying POS who resides at 1600 Penn Ave. has decided he will unilaterally reduce our nukes to 900 (for now) without a treaty or Senate approval on the action. By “informal agreement” with the Russians. Nuts.

Now, what does the Constitution say about nukes? See how evil Obozo is.

Commie Dems: “We don’t need no stinkin Laws!”

And where are those in DC defending the nation as they swore in their oath of office?

Remember the part about “protect and defend the Constitution”?

[Texas Fossil]

Sorry I failed to post the link:

Obama to Renew Drive for Cuts in Nuclear Arms (ours)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2987270/posts

[Repeal The 17th]

“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.”
~United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939)

[MileHi]

Too bad Miller couldn't show up. Being dead made it problematic I suppose.

[FlyingEagle]

Mabe he is shooting the skeet while the clay is still in the launcher?

[OneWingedShark]

Too bad Miller couldn't show up. Being dead made it problematic I suppose.

True -- And it's too bad the court wasn't aware that shotguns had been used in WWI trench-clearing.

[noinfringers2]

As to people in Washington D.C. defending the Nation you can stop at Brennan the Muslim right after Obama the Muslim.

[tumblindice]

I have a Winchester 1897. It will sweep quail and dove as well as Heinies.
The barrel has mellowed over the years into a beautiful brown.

[Repeal The 17th]

“When American troops were in the heat of the fighting in the summer of 1918,
the German government sent a protest through a neutral agency to our Government
asserting that our men were using shotguns against German troops in the trenches.
The Ordnance Department procured some 30,000 to 40,000 shotguns
of the short-barrel or sawed-off type, ordering these from the regular commercial manufacturers.
The shell provided for these guns each contained a charge of nine heavy buckshot.”
~Benedict Crowell, Assistant Secretary of War (1919)
-
America’s munitions 1917-1918:
Report of Benedict Crowell(Google eBook):
http://books.google.com/books?id=3XcMAAAAYAAJ&hl=en
-

[neverdem]

LOL!

[South Dakota]

I have my Fathers long tom 97 shotgun. It has a 32 inch barrel and my dad would wait for everyone else to stopp firing at pheasants and then he would raise his shotgun and drop the bird everyone else missed

[DangerZone]

The bottom line is that the federal government has no Constitutional authority to make any law concerning firearms or weapons of any kind and that includes background checks. In fact, the Constitution expressly forbids it from making such laws in the Second Amendment

Furthermore, if the Fourteenth Amendment applies the Bill of Rights to the states as most liberals claim, then state governments are prohibited from making such laws also.

[Wildbill22]

Ironic, but Miller just may play a pivotal part in establishing how “Assault Weapons” are specifically protected under the 2A.

[Ray76]

Al Qaeda in the White House.

[Texas Fossil]

Very well said.

[Chainmail]

It is interesting that the Left tries to use the "well regulated militia" part of the 2nd amendment to claim that 1. it isn't an individual right and 2. we don't need militias anymore, so the right to bear arms is archaic and irrelevent. The problem is that the word "regulated" in current parlance means "controlled" but during the 18th Century it meant "trained", as in knowing the loading drill and basic military maneuvers. That is why full-time troops were known as Regulars.

We still need a militia, since our neighborhoods are still potentially under threat from gangs in some places and we still have natural disasters where an organized defense is important against looters and other criminals. In time of major war, militias would provide well-trained shooters to our armed forces - essentially as we have always done befoire. I'm sure that the Left understands all of this but their desire to utterly enslave everyone overcomes them.

[NTHockey]

>>The president and his allies seem to have missed the message<<

Elmer Fudd didn’t miss the message; he does what he damn well pleases. NOBODY is willing to call him out; so he keeps on ignoring the Constitution, the courts and anybody who stands up to him.

We are still waiting to resume drilling in the Gulf, after a judge ordered that Elmer Fudd had no authority to stop the drilling. Oil companies are too afraid; wildcatters are too afraid; everybody is too afraid.

Welcome to Acirema, land of the enslaved and home of the cowardly.

[DH]

The courts would no more allow government to undermine the Second Amendment than the First.

---

But.....but.....but that was back before the courts were stacked by a liberal Congress pandering to the will of Marxist presidents.