Posted on 08/18/2006 12:24:13 PM PDT by neverdem
Ngoc Le heard his wife’s screams and ran from the back of the wireless store he owns in Camden, New Jersey. His wife was behind the counter, as was a masked man wielding a knife. The man brandished the blade, herding the couple into a back room. Once there, he tied the 28-year old businessman to a chair, then proceeded to rape 22-year old Kelly Le. Once the brutal rape had finished, he slit the couple’s throats, then ran away. There was no 2nd Amendment, no right to own a gun, and Antonio Diaz Reyes got away with murder.
That isn’t actually how the events of December 31st, 2004 played out. We do have a 2nd Amendment in this country, after all. So when Antonio Reyes held Kelly Le at knifepoint, Ngoc Le was able to shoot and kill the attacker with his legally owned firearm. DNA tests later determined that Reyes was responsible for a string of rapes in downtown Camden that had terrorized the city for months. The Le’s were shaken by what happened, but there were no regrets.
I was reminded of this armed citizen story when I read Tom Derby’s recent piece in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Derby, an English and reading teacher in Camden, New Jersey, says it’s time for the 2nd Amendment to go away. In fact, he says, “The premise of the Second Amendment, the need for minutemen, no longer exists. In a free society we must rely on the police. We have more important rights to fight for than the right to bear arms.”
Mr. Derby is an English teacher, so perhaps he can be forgiven for not knowing that the U.S. government has said our individual security and safety is not guaranteed by the law enforcement in this country. There are several Supreme Court decisions that hold citizens have no constitutional guarantee of protection by police (South v. Maryland and Castle Rock v. Gonzalez come immediately to mind), and many more decisions have been made at lower levels (in the case of Warren v. District of Columbia, for example, the D.C. Court of Appeals ruled that “a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen.”). Despite what Mr. Derby says, we are responsible for our individual safety. The law enforcement community performs a valuable service each and every day, but any cop will tell you that they can’t be your personal bodyguard.
Tom Derby also says, “When wolves and human predators roamed freely Northeast, one was entitled to defend one’s family and property with firearms. Circumstances have changed; we need to reconsider that entitlement.” How have circumstances changed? Derby has taught in Camden, New Jersey for 18 years. He should be all too familiar with the human predators that still roam the streets. Camden, after all, was named the most dangerous city in America for the second year in a row last year, and has been in the top ten each of the past eight years, according to Morgan Quinto, the company that ranks cities on their crime rates. In 2004 the city’s murder rate was 60.8 per 100,000 residents, more than 11 times the national average. Its robbery rate was almost 8 times the national average, and its rate of aggravated assaults were more than 4 times the national average. Yet Derby says we should no longer be entitled to defend ourselves?
Derby seems to think that if we scrapped the 2nd Amendment, all the criminals in this country would lay down their weapons. Yet the criminal element doesn’t rely on the 2nd Amendment any more than child pornographers rely on the 1st Amendment. Get rid of the right to legally own firearms, and the gang members and street thugs plaguing Camden won’t even blink. But the legal gun owners, like Ngoc Le, will pay the price.
Tom Derby appears to be a teacher who cares a great deal about his students, and he should be commended for that. In his piece, he writes about several who have fallen victim to violence. One of the students he mentions, a boy named Len, was an “A” student who eventually joined a gang. Derby writes, “I lost track of Len, and a colleague brought me the bad news before the papers got it: He had become a professional assassin, and his own gang killed him and set his body on fire in a football field in North Camden.”
But Derby seems to be blaming Len’s death on an inanimate object, rather than the human beings who took Len’s life. Nothing is said about Len’s choices in life that placed him directly in the path of violence. In the end, Derby says it’s not a person responsible for Len’s death, but a thing.
It’s easy to take this approach. We don’t have to think ill of the dead, wondering why they chose a life of crime instead of a life inside the boundaries of the law. We don’t have to be angry with them for inflicting violence on others, because it’s not their fault. The devil didn’t make them do it, the gun did. But if we’re going to make excuses for the criminal behavior of those we love, we can’t expect them to change their ways.
My wife lived in Camden for nine years, and if she and I had never met, there’s a good chance that my 15-year old stepson would have been in Mr. Derby’s class. I know my wife would be glad that he had a teacher who cared about him, but she’d be livid knowing that his teacher thought she should be disarmed so she couldn’t protect her family from the wolves roaming the streets. I don’t think Mr. Derby is a bad man, just horribly misguided.
Hard to say, for sure.
Shotgun behind the front door jamb. Handgun in each vehicle. Open gun rack with three rifles over the sofa. Handgun in the desk next to the 'puter. Handgun for wife's purse. Open gun rack with two rifles in bedroom. Handgun in drawer next to the bed.
Other long guns here & there around the ranch buildings.
ALL legal & legally obtained. All loaded. All accessable. None locked.
LOTS of ammo for each.
For most of those which use them, I have extra, loaded, magazines.
Reloading equipment & supplies for most of them.
:)
i agree 100% that the commie dictatorships use 'mental institutions" to suppress political dissent-i was thinking along the lines of schizophrenics with command hallucinations for example or people who stuck up a convenience store-the government does have a legitimate function in extreme cases-under the 1st amendment you can't physically threaten the president or other people for that matter nor just start speaking out of turn at school,in a courtroom,etc.-basically we don't disagree-i believe if someone wants to own a machinegun or antitank rifle there's no problem-if they use it to commit a crime,then the law should deal with them,but otherwise stay out of our lives-illegal aliens i don't think is debatable-they're invaders-you don't arm invaders if you can help it
I agree with what you said, especially illegals.
AFAIC, illegals are just another criminal to be apprehended or shot in the attempt.
"We the People of the United States,..." simply does not include intruders, under any rational interpretation.
I have no problem with the seriously mentally ill, IF it is competent medical authority AND the courts, AND normal 'due process', complete with attorneys & even a guardian, if necessary doing the finding & ruling.
I get queasy about felons getting an automatic loss, just on the basis of what has been elevated to a felony in recent years. OTOH, violent felons, especially repeaters, shouldn't be on the street, anyway.
OK, yes, that's in the First Amendment. I was talking about free speech and freedom of religion.
But freedom of assembly is by definition a collective right. There is no news in the fact that the Framers said "of the people" in regard to freedom of assembly.
They did not need to say "of the people" in the Second Amendment. The fact that they did suggests that their basic concern was that the people as a whole be able to own weapons. That requires an individual right, but raises the question of whether all individuals, regardless of personal characteristics or behavior, have a right to own guns, as they do have such an absolute (in that sense) right to speak and worship freely.
Again, I simply cite this as a justification for the constitutionality of laws that restrict ownership of guns by felons or noncitizens, to the extent that such laws exist. Whether they're a good idea or justified is a separate question.
I appreciate your modifications on the question of ownership (illegals, and the seriously mentally ill).
I would actually add another point that I'm sure you'd agree with: Even ex-felons have some natural right to self-defense. It must be balanced against their potential danger to society, but still, there's a natural right to self-defense that is not erased by past behavior.
Hard@$$ me, I only consider a pardoned citizen to be an "ex-felon". Once a felon, always a felon. Now, a felon MIGHT be an ex-inmate, and maybe even an ex-criminal.
By definition, a felon is one who has been convicted of a felony; no "ex" applies without a pardon. Same applies to "convict".
However, that is hairsplitting. As I said about "violent felons": They don't belong on the streets in the first place.
The way the clause is phrased, the phrase ALSO applies to the right to petition the government for redress of grievances.
By your analysis of the construction, then the right to petition would also be a collective, not an individual, right.
Being a teacher was surely the last thing on my mind as a choice of profession. Unfortunately all those I did love and actually tried (law enforcement, army officer, law school) just didn't quite work out. Then I married a teacher and I felt a deep urge to try my hand at it. I was experienced...all US Army Infantry Lieutenants are skilled teachers...they just teach different subjects. You know, when God Almighty chooses a path for one of his children, sooner or later....his will BE done. When I actually applied to the system I was told rather bluntly that I was the wrong race and ethnicity and pretty much the wrong gender too. But funny, doors started to open. I slid thru a system already set against me without a problem. I have stayed there and taught the other side of the AGENDA for over 16 years. Greater is HE who is in me than he who is in the world....
The Philadelphia Inquirer lets him print such drivel.
Some progress was made. Alaska went from shall issue to unrestricted. Now you only need paperwork if you want reciprocity in other states that observe reciprocity for their shall issue privilege.
Repealing the 2nd Amendment to stop crime is like repealing the 1st Amendment to stop porn!
Let's put the 2nd Amendment FIRST!!!
Good for Alaska! At least ONE state out of fifty has FREE citizens.
The term "collective right", as generally used, refers to "rights" of the people as a whole or, more typically, the "rights" of 50%+1. The freedom of assembly is definitely not in that sense a collective right. If two people want to assemble they have the right even if the "collective will" of everyone else is that they be forbidden.
It's a Fait Accompli--We've got the guns--how are they going to get them?
Molon Labe.
It's two states.
Socialist loving Vermont never had shall issue. IIRC, Vermont never infringed on the 2nd Amendment.
I agree. Solo FReeps are protected by the Constitution, of course.
The reference to "of the people" in the rights to peaceably assemble and petition the government is simply a recognition that people can get together in large groups for these purposes. Normally, though not always, demonstrations and petitions involve a group.
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