Posted on 08/11/2018 5:33:16 AM PDT by libstripper
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. In 1791, the Founding Fathers placed into the U.S. Constitution a set of ten amendments that we refer to collectively as the “Bill of Rights.” Among them was an innocuous measure designed to protect state militias against federal overreach. Until the 1970s, nobody believed that this meant anything important, or that it was relevant to modern American society. But then, inspired by profit and perfidy, the dastardly National Rifle Association recast the provision’s words and, sua sponte, brainwashed the American public into believing that they possessed an individual right to own firearms.
(Excerpt) Read more at outline.com ...
I always characterized this “innocuous measure designed to protect state militias against federal overreach” as the Founders worrying that the government would be able to take its guns away from itself - since the President can Federalize the state militias with a phone call or a text message now...
bookmark
An excellent article.
I have one quibble. Charles Cooke writes that the Texas supreme court upheld the right to arms in 1859, but not in 1871, and that the verbiage had not changed.
This is not exactly right.
Texas sided with the Confederacy in the War between the States, or Civil War, if you prefer. They lost, and the carpetbagger government created a new Texas Constitution in 1869. That Constitution gutted the right to keep and bear arms.
“Every person shall have the right to keep and bear arms in the lawful defense of himself or the state, under such regulations as the legislature may prescribe.”
The fourteenth amendment was adopted in 1868, so the 1869 Texas Constitutional amendment was a direct assault on the fourteenth amendment and the Second Amendment.
The Texas Supreme Court was using the carpet bagger 1869 Texas Constitution as a way to justify their desire to have the government disarm people it disagreed with.
There had been a change in verbiage, at the state Constitutional level.
Is history going to repeat itself? What I see in the papers and FB crowd, we are surrounded by idiots who have no inkling of how our freedoms are precious and must be protected. Otherwise a revolution will happen again just as King George tried. Only this time it won’t be muskets.
I always thought the 2nd Amendment was there to provide a means of enforcing the 3 Amendment.
...the people might be left unable to remove their government should the course of human events run sour.
For me, this is the REAL purpose of the 2A.
Liberals, by nature, somehow believe its the purview of government to give us our rights and thus, the voice of the Constitution is the voice of the government. That's why they can read the second amendment's clear language and believe it gives the government the power to confiscate our guns. Liberals are standing on their heads.
...and the 3rd Amendment is under-appreciated.
Quartering want just housing/feeding soldiers at citizen’s cost, it was intimidating & spying. We’ve just managed to automate it today in ways unimaginable then.
The left, Progessives, Socialists, Communists, Fascists, are all variations of the philosophy that all power should reside in the State.
They do not believe in limitations on government power. It directly contradicts their core values.
Simply put, it is a human right to protect one’s self.
The Left has problems with the very concept of justifying clauses that grant no powers but are only there to justify something else.
They do so notably on account of the 2nd Amendment and A1:S8:C1.
But more telling for their inability to understand that the Constitution is Law and not guidelines is their inability to understand the doctrine of enumerated powers and the function of the 10th Amendment.
The issue with federal gun control statutory laws isn’t so much the 2nd Amendment but the 10th ... there is no delegated power given the federal to restrict the production of Arms, their sale or possession among the several States. None whatsoever. All federal gun control laws presently on the books are situationally unconstitutional.
I say “situationally” because with respect to federal protectorates not under the Jurisdiction of any State (like D.C.) or the Territories there is a broader grant to write Rules and Regulations hewn out as an exception to the doctrine of delegated powers.
In Marbury, Marshall pointed out that nothing in the Constitution is without function and that a reading of same that rendered the rest non-operative, as a superfluity of form without function, was invalid. The inescapable logic is that the enumeration of Powers demonstrates that those are the only Powers.
That exact same logic also applies if any circumstantial exceptions to that doctrine are hewn out, for if there are other UNWRITTEN circumstances besides those enumerated whereby the federal may claim more general power than the enumerated Powers then the enumeration of those specific circumstances is itself a superfluity, or form without function.
Y’all can go to hell. I’m gettin’ a gun!
“Simply put, it is a human right to protect one’s self.”
That’s it in a nutshell. The Second Amendment can be repealed, laws passed prohibiting guns, confiscation can be instituted, possessers of now illegals guns jailed...but the underlying right to defend oneself can never be taken away. Weapons seem to be the best tools for protecting this right. The question is...how far down the course of events I mentioned above do the self-defense believers intend to let these actions progress?
Most people don’t realize just how LITTLE the federals can legally control. Article II Section 8 enumerates what few powers they have, then the Ninth and Tenth Amendments make it clear that they MAY NOT add to those powers.
Congresscritters seem to think that a majority vote in Congress makes anything legal, but it ain’t so. Incandescent light bubs, for one small example, are none of their damned business. (Feel free to add a few thousand more examples.)
The Framers thought this was obvious but George Mason and others demanded the inclusion of the Bill of Rights to nail down some of these sacred and untouchable rights. Maybe the BoR should have been 30 Amendments long ...
“A well regulated Militia (of the people, assembled by the people), being necessary to the security of a free State (for the people), the right of the people (not state militias or national military) to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
From the congressional record, here is Rep. John Bingham’s clarification about the first eight amendments, including 2nd Amendment, that the above excerpt is probably talking about.
John Bingham, Congressional Globe. (See 2nd Amendment about in middle of 2nd column.)
Regarding the constitutionality of owning arms, note that the Second Militia Act of 1792 required soldiers to get their own guns.
Second Militia Act of 1792
This is exactly why the 2a exists.
Because if govt is running sour its ignoring the constitution.
But what is neglected is that the right to carry arms also obviates the attempt of another individual to wrongly interfere with a citizen's right to conduct his own business in his own way, especially on his own property and in his own home.
So far, judicial action has failed to thoroughly affirm the attempts of state and local government to steal that liberty by claiming that it is only by the issuance of a certificate that the individual has permission or license, rather than admitting that Amendment II is a blanket provision right down to the regulation of one individual against the liberty of another.
This stems from one of the last commandments of Jesus of Nazareth just prior to His execution by the Roman authorities under the pressure of an unlawful popular voice vote:
Luke 22:36,38
Then said he unto them,Note that two of His close adherents were already armed, a customary habit not questioned, even at their last common meal of private religious observance, immediately prior to His arrest."But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip:And they said,
and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." . . ."Lord, behold, here are two swords."And he said unto them,"It is enough."
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