Exclusive: The Las Vegas massacre underscores the intellectual dishonesty of the “gun rights” lobby, which falsifies Second Amendment history and pretends armed citizens could shoot back to stop slaughters, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
Many politicians, especially those on the Right, pretend they are strictly adhering to the U.S. Constitution when they often are just making the founding document mean whatever they want – but perhaps nowhere is that as dangerous as with their make-believe Second Amendment.
A painting of President George Washington leading a force of federalized state militias against the Whiskey rebels in western Pennsylvania in 1794.
In the wake of Sunday’s mass shooting in Las Vegas – where one individual firing from a high-rise hotel murdered 58 people and wounded more than 500 at a country music festival – we are told that the reason the United States can’t do anything to stop this sort of carnage is the Second Amendment’s “right to bear arms.”
“Gun rights” advocates insist that pretty much any gun control violates the design of the Constitution’s Framers and thus can’t be enacted no matter how many innocent people die.
Some on the Right, as well as some on the Left, even claim that the Founders, as revolutionaries themselves, wanted an armed population so the people could rebel against the Republic, which the U.S. Constitution created. But the Constitution’s Framers in 1787 and the authors of the Bill of Rights in the First Congress in 1789 had no such intent.
Arguably other individuals disconnected from the drafting of those documents may have harbored such radical attitudes (at least rhetorically), but the authors didn’t. In fact, their intent was the opposite.
The goal of the Second Amendment was to promote state militias for the maintenance of order at a time of political unrest, potential slave revolts and simmering hostilities with both European powers and Native Americans on the frontiers. Indeed, the amendment’s defined purpose was to achieve state “security” against disruptions to the country’s new republican form of government.
The Second Amendment reads: “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.”
In other words, if read in context, it’s clear that the Second Amendment was enacted so each state would have the specific right to form “a well-regulated militia” to maintain “security,” i.e., to put down armed disorder and protect its citizens.
In the late Eighteenth Century, the meaning of “bearing” arms also referred to a citizen being part of a militia or army. It didn’t mean that an individual had the right to possess whatever number of high-capacity killing machines that he or she might want. Indeed, the most lethal weapon that early Americans owned was a slow-loading, single-fired musket or rifle.
No Anarchists
Further to the point, both the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were the work of the Federalists, who – at the time – counted James Madison among their ranks.
James Madison
And whatever one thinks about the Federalists, who often are criticized as elitists, they were the principal constitutional Framers and the leaders of the First Congress. They constituted the early national establishment, people such as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris and Madison.
The Federalists feared that their new creation, a constitutional republic in an age of monarchies, was threatened by the potential for violent chaos, which is what European aristocrats predicted for the new United States. Democracy was a largely untested concept that was believed likely to fall victim to demagoguery and factionalism.
So, the Framers sought a political system that reflected the will of the citizens (the House of Representatives) but within a framework that constrained public passions (the Senate and other checks and balances). In other words, the Constitution sought to channel political disputes into non-violent competition among various interests, not into armed rebellions against the government.
The Framers also recognized how fragile the nation’s independence was and how domestic rebellions could be exploited by European powers. Indeed, one of the crises that led to the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787 was the inability of the old system under the Articles of Confederation to put down Shays’s Rebellion in western Massachusetts in 1786-87. Washington saw the possible hand of British agents.
So, the Federalists were seeking a structure that would ensure “domestic Tranquility,” as they explained in the Constitution’s Preamble. They did not want endless civil strife.
The whole idea of the Constitution – with its mix of voting (at least by some white male citizens), elected and appointed representatives, and checks and balances – was to create a political structure that made violence unnecessary.
So, it should be obvious even without knowing all the history that the Framers weren’t encouraging violent uprisings against the Republic that they were founding. To the contrary, they characterized violence against the constitutional system as “treason” in Article III, Section 3. They also committed the federal government to protect each state from “domestic Violence,” in Article IV, Section 4.
Putting Down Rebellion
One of the first uses of the new state militias formed under the Second Amendment and the Militia Acts, which required able-bodied men to report for duty with their own muskets, was for President Washington to lead a federalized force of militiamen against the Whiskey Rebellion, a tax revolt in western Pennsylvania in 1794.
Thomas Jefferson in a 1800 portrait by Rembrandt Peale.
In the South, one of the principal reasons for a militia was to rally armed whites to put down slave uprisings. On the frontier, militias fought against Native Americans over land. Militias also were called up to fight the British in the War of 1812.
But you don’t have to like or dislike how the Second Amendment and the Militia Acts were used to recognize how the Framers intended these legislative provisions to be used.
The Second Amendment was meant to maintain public order, even an unjust order, rather than to empower the oppressed to take up arms against the government. That latter idea was a modern reinterpretation, a distortion of the history.
The revisionists who have transformed the meaning of the Second Amendment love to cite provocative comments by Thomas Jefferson, such as a quote from a 1787 letter criticizing the Constitution for its commander-in-chief provisions.
Jefferson argued that violence, like Shays’s Rebellion, should be welcomed. He wrote, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s [sic] natural manure.”
Jefferson, of course, was a world-class hypocrite who rarely believed what he was saying or writing. He crafted noble words, like “all men are created equal, … endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” but he was a major slaveholder who raped at least one and likely more slave girls and had slave boys whipped.
He also was never willing to risk his own blood as that “natural manure” of liberty. During the Revolutionary War when Benedict Arnold led a force of Loyalists against Richmond, Jefferson, who was then Virginia’s governor, fled the capital. Later, when British cavalry approached Charlottesville and his home of Monticello, Gov. Jefferson again took flight.
But more to the point, Jefferson was not a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, nor was he in the First Congress, which produced the Second Amendment. In other words, it’s a historical error to cite Jefferson in any way as speaking authoritatively about what the Framers intended with the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. He was not directly involved in either.
A Collective Right
The real history of the Second Amendment was well understood both by citizens and courts in the generations after the Constitution and Bill of Rights were enacted. For most of the years of the Republic, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment as a collective right, allowing Americans to participate in a “well-regulated Militia,” not an individual right to buy the latest weaponry at a gun show or stockpile a military-style arsenal in the basement.
Noah Pozner, 6, one of 20 children murdered on Dec. 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
It’s true that many Americans owned a musket or rifle in those early years especially on the frontier, but regulations on munitions were still common in cities where storing of gunpowder, for instance, represented a threat to the public safety.
As the nation spread westward, so did common-sense restrictions on gun violence. Sheriffs in some of the wildest of Wild West towns enforced gun bans that today would prompt a recall election financed by the National Rifle Association.
However, in recent decades — understanding the power of narrative on the human imagination — a resurgent American Right (and some on the Left) rewrote the history of the Founding era, dispatching “researchers” to cherry-pick or fabricate quotes from Revolutionary War leaders to create politically convenient illusions. [See, for instance, Steven Krulik’s compilation of apocryphal or out-of-context gun quotes.]
That bogus history gave rise to the image of the Framers as wild-eyed radicals – Leon Trotskys of the Eighteenth Century – encouraging armed rebellion against their own Republic. Rather than people who believed in the rule of law and social order, the Framers were contorted into crazies who wanted citizens to be empowered to shoot American police, soldiers, elected representatives and government officials as agents of “tyranny.”
This false history was advanced particularly by the American Right in the last half of the Twentieth Century as a kind of neo-Confederate call to arms, with the goal of rallying whites into a near-insurrectionary fury particularly in the South but also in rural areas of the North and West.
In the 1950s and 1960s, some white Southerners fancied themselves an armed resistance against the tyrannical federal government as it enforced laws on racial integration and other supposed infringements on “states’ rights.” In the 1990s, armed “citizens militias” began to pop up in reaction to the election of Democrat Bill Clinton, culminating in the Oklahoma City bombing of 1994.
While designed primarily for the weak-minded, the Right’s faux Founding history also had an impact on right-wing “intellectuals” including Republican lawyers who worked their way up through the federal judiciary under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and now Donald Trump.
By 2008, these right-wing jurists held a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and could thus overturn generations of legal precedents and declare that the Second Amendment established an individual right for Americans to own guns. Though even these five right-wing justices accepted society’s right to protect the general welfare of the population through some gun control, the Supreme Court’s ruling effectively “validated” the Right’s made-up history.
The ruling created a political dynamic to which even liberals in national politics — the likes of Barack Obama and Joe Biden — had to genuflect, the supposed Second Amendment right of Americans to parade around in public with guns on their hips and high-powered semi-automatic rifles slung over their shoulders.
What the Framers Wanted?
As guns-right activists struck down gun regulations in Congress and in statehouses across the nation, their dominant argument was that the Second Amendment offered no leeway for restrictions on gun ownership; it’s what the Framers wanted.
Graphic of the National Rifle Association.
So, pretty much any unstable person could load up with a vast killing capacity and slouch off to a bar, to a work place, to a church, to a school or to a high-rise Las Vegas hotel and treat fellow Americans as targets in a real-life violent video game. Somehow, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness was overtaken by the “right” to own an AR-15 with a 30-or-100-bullet magazine.
When right-wing politicians talk about the Second Amendment now, they don’t even bother to include the preamble that explains the point of the amendment. The entire amendment is only 26 words. But the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, find the preamble inconvenient because it would undercut their false storyline. So they just lop off the first 12 words.
Nor do they explain what the Framers meant by “bear arms.” The phrase reflected the reasoning in the Second Amendment’s preamble that the whole point was to create “well-regulated” state militias to maintain “security,” not to free up anybody with a beef to kill government officials or citizens of a disapproved race or creed or just random folks.
So, even after the massacre of 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012, Fox News personality Andrew Napolitano declared: “The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us.”
At the time, the clear message from the Right was that armed Americans must confront the “tyrannical” Barack Obama, the twice-elected President of the United States (and the first African-American to hold that office) especially if he pressed ahead seeking common-sense gun restrictions. But Napolitano was simply wrong on the history.
Another dubious argument from the gun-rights lobby was that armed citizens could take down a gunman and thus stop a mass shooting before it became a full-fledged massacre.
But a gunfight among largely untrained civilians would likely add to the slaughter, not stop it. For instance, a 2012 mass shooting occurred in a darkened theater in Aurora, Colorado. Does anyone logically think that a bunch of terrified gun carriers exchanging fire in such a situation – not knowing who the original shooter was – would solve the problem?
And how about Sunday’s massacre in Las Vegas where the shooter positioned himself on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and fired down on a packed concert venue, a substantial distance away?
Assuming that the concertgoers were armed and tried to defend themselves, they would likely have ended up shooting other innocent concertgoers because of the initial confusion as to where the shooter was positioned. That would have further complicated the challenge to police who could have mistakenly opened fire on armed people in the crowd rather than locate and stop the original killer as he kept firing from his sniper’s perch. In other words, the horrific death toll could have been even higher.
To pretend that such carnage was the intent of the Constitution’s Framers, who wrote about achieving “domestic Tranquility,” or the goal of the First Congress, which drafted the Second Amendment to promote “the security of a free State,” is intellectually dishonest and a true threat to the lives of American citizens.
Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).
I don’t care what you do to try and stop these types of mass murders when someone has lost their mind like the lasvegas gunman did he will find a way he could have filled his vehicle with explosives and drove into the concert and killed five hundred or a thousand people and injured thousands and as for as guns are concerned you could walk into a home center with 30 to 50 bucks and buy what you need to build a fully automatic grease gun style weapon and then their is ammunition when is’rael went to war in 1947 they purchased brass lip stick cases from great Brittan to make cartridge cases with are we going to take vehicles away from everyone are we going to take lip stick away from women I mean really where will it end their is to much hate in the world we need to stop and say a little prayer for ourselves and others from time to time the devil is working 24/7 let’s pray for our country and leaders I pray that we wont be so divided and show a little more love for our people
I am always in awe of people who say that things, like How guns kill. I’m sorry but if this were true, we would be seeing mass shootings daily. Three Hundred Million guns in the ands of civilians, I think things are always overstated. Personally, I’m more terrified of getting in my car and driving, than the remote possibility I could be involved in a mass shooting, now we’re talking about stupid people. How many people die every day from overdosing, think what that number would be without Narcan! How many people die every day from heart disease, because they are fat. It is so true when you see sayings like, why is it that when a drunk driver kills someone it’s the drivers fault, not the cars. We should ban cars, spoons, drugs, wait drugs are illegal. Driving drunk is illegal. We need to ban food from fat people, they cost the health care system how many hundreds of millions. You speak of a well armed militia, we have one, and the government will never take that away.
Mr perry, let me begin by saying I absolutely respect thehell out of you. Your groupie one of the very few media sources I absolutely trust. I understand you are giving an analysis of the 2nd amendment argument, not trying to pass an agenda.
But I have questions for you. If we were to remove the right to bear arms from our people, do you think this would extend to our police as well? To our military during times of martial law, such as was proclaimed in ferguson during their period of unrest and large scale protests and riots?
Do you believe our government still works, to the point that the masses can even be awoken to our governments bloody foreign policy, our enslavement of the third world for the sake of international capitalism, and to the point our masses can enact change thru our government system? Are we allowed to realistically have candidates to vote for that will change the policies that allow correction of the rampant injustice worldwide that you have made your life’s work to inform the public of?
I ask these things with the utmost respect, and would be thrilled to hear your perspective.
I appologize for my spelling errors, autocorrect is intent on making me appear foolish.
I’ve seen a quotation which said “Politics is the art of the possible”, and that’s impossible. Restricting the types of weapons available to citizens is about the best I think we can hope for.
Regarding the police, the reason so many of them behave like lawless goons is because they can. The citizens who agitate for (and get) all gun restrictions removed are numerous enough that at least one of them will always be on a jury for a policeman who executed a citizen with his weapon, and there will be no conviction. These second amendment people also a huge factor in the election of Law And Order prosecutors who ensure the cases almost never go to trial. (And if they do, the prosecutor often plays to lose.)
Regarding Mr. Parry, I can’t recall him posting in the Comments more than a handful of times, and if memory serves, it was to clarify an important point in the essay. I could be wrong about that. :)
This is an excellent article by Mr. Parry, well-expressed, specific when needed, and above all, courageous. I applaud Mr. Parry’s insight and experienced perspective. I recently looked at the US Constitution as shown in my old 1960 college history text, and was shocked to discover, in brackets, the explanatory note “[i.e., for military purposes]” in the “to keep and bear arms” segment of the amendment’s main clause. I do recall that, at the time, the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment as described by Mr. Parry was widely accepted––even by the more conservative political and historical (so to speak) instructors in my classes. The re-writing of the history of this amendment seems to have accelerated some time after my undergraduate days.
Mr. Parry does not mention the Federalist Papers in his article, but he well could have. I recall college reading assignments from the Papers, in which the amendment was discussed by several of our “founding fathers,” within a context consistent with the article’s thesis re the meaning of “to bear arms,” and “well-armed militia.” Finally, I express my gratitude to anyone who dares to challenge the mythical misconceptions regarding Thomas Jefferson, and to describe openly the shared racial prejudices of our deified leaders.
Thank you, Robert.
Jim
The Militia is necessary for a free State and the armed people are necessary for the Militia.
Capital “M” seems to indicate a formal Militia.
Your statement about the founders not having the 2nd amendment as a defense against the government is TRUE, they did NOT want the people to be able to riot against the government and take down the government, NO government would countenance that!
However, the REST of your rant is all PURE FANTASY! The militias did NOT start AFTER the 2nd amendment was passed, they started LONG before that in each of the states. James Madison did not pull the bill of rights out of his ass, they were the submitted recommendations for protections against the government from the states, that the states had ALREADY enacted into their OWN constitutions.
CONTRARY to your opinion, a glance at COLONIAL LAWS all specifically state or imply that every non exempt male between 15 and at least 50 shall own a weapon that HE is to keep in good working order and produce at militia muster days. The states have some armories of state controlled weapons and powder for use when necessary, but the laws specifically state that each non exempt person SHALL own a gun in good working order.
“Common to nearly every colony was the requirement that members of the militia (nearly all free white men) possess muskets and ammunition; the rest, such as Rhode Island and South Carolina, clearly assume it. Some of these statutes are explicit that militiamen are to keep their guns at home; others imply it, by specifying fines for failure to appear with guns at church or militia musters. If the militiaman?s gun was stored in an armory, and was issued “only in emergencies or on muster day,” it is strange that the governments fined militiaman for failing to appear with gun and ammunition. None of the Colonial militia statutes even suggest a requirement for central storage of all guns. None of these laws in any way regulated the possession of firearms by the white population, except for requiring nearly all white men to own guns.”
If you were a LEGAL SCHOLAR, you would know that laws and constitutional amendments are to be read using the canons of construction, meaning that THE WORDS and punctuation are VITAL to determining what the law ACTUALLY means.
The second amendment STATES “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.”
Using the canons of constructions, the FIRST PART “A well regulated Militia, COMMA” is the goal of the amendment. The second part “being necessary to the security of a free State, COMMA” is the PURPOSE of the goal in the FIRST part. The FINAL part “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” is the RIGHTS GRANTED BY THE PEOPLE, TO THE PEOPLE!
It is CLEARLY an individual right of the people to keep and bear arms.
The DISTORTION in the gun control debate is YOURS, intentionally so, LYING about what the amendment is for and how it was arrived at and what its intentions were. The rights granted by the US Constitution were NOT granted by God, NOT granted by the Federal Government and NOT granted by the State governments, they were GRANTED by the sovereign PEOPLE.
WHale
Since you are obviously a gun owner, I hope that your emotional state is more grounded than your rants on this thread make it appear.
Did you go to the same school as Annie? You know the one where you are taught to insert belittling personal attacks in conversation’s with those whose views are different than yours?
You’re kidding me right? With all the slights Mr. Hale has cast at others with a different opinion, a little turn-about is not fair play?
Hales comments are strong to be sure. The poster known as Hale, does explain why the person he is replying to is ‘ignorant’ or ‘wrong’ in his OP. As to fair play… each to their own. Passions/emotions are strong here. Overall I think you and I agree on much.
Again.
The Second Amendment was intended to permit disgruntled citizens to have the same weapons as the government in order to prevent tyranny. That means all Americans who can afford nuclear weapons should have them.
No, it was not, its purpose was for the PEOPLE to be armed and be allowed to defend themselves from indians, criminals, invading armies and to be able to hunt and provide food for your families. The LIE about it being to defend yourself against the government is a 20th century invention against a government that no longer limited itself to the Constitutional restrictions that the people put on the government.
whale
Thom Hartmann also had an excellent column. He did cover some of the same ground https://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/repeal-second-amendment
Thank you!
From your link I was able to locate a copy of Patrick Henry’s speech in an 1815 book. I rejected one from 1805 because it used the old methods of rendering alphabet letters like “f” for “s”.
https://tinyurl.com/y829nsw9
It appears that I was wrong in assuming that the NRA *hores would hunker down for a while.
“Despite Las Vegas shooting, a rollback of gun regulations is still under consideration”
Some provisions: Let’s say you live in a dirtwater state, and manage to secure a Concealed Carry permit there. If the “Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act” passes, you’ll be able to carry your concealed penis extender into any state – even the ones with strict laws.
Purchase of “armor-piercing bullets” will become easier. Haven’t you heard how deer have been evolving super-thick hides?
The worst feature about this is the “Hearing Protection Act”. REAL MEN can’t be bothered to wear earplugs or muffs, so this will enable them to blaze away posing like John Wayne in the movies while Protecting Their Hearing! Wonderful!
But imagine if you will some Evil Lefty Agitator who gets hold of this wonderful technology and slips into a dark theater with his trusty Sound Suppressed Second Amendment Device. With any luck at all he could easily double the body count in Las Vegas by timing the almost inaudible “clicks” of his SAD going off with loud events in the movie. Ah, and the possible excitement at concerts, and badly lit city streets.
No doubt the NRA guys will counsel us to Be Brave, for while macho hearing protection may cost a lot of lives, it’s part of Being Free.
https://www.fastcompany.com/40476400/despite-las-vegas-shooting-a-rollback-of-gun-regulations-is-still-under-consideration
Your commentary proves your abject ignorance about guns! A “silencer” does NOT silence a supersonic rifle bullet, it baffles it, REDUCING its decibels to a SLIGHT DEGREE, it does NOT silence it completely. Furthermore, the silencers only work for a limited amount of rounds before the baffling materials are degredated to a degree that they no longer “silence” the weapon firing. Finally, on full automatic, it wouldn’t silence ANYTHING!
But, go on, keep lying about the facts, the law and anything you want to pretend that your viewpoint has merit, the rest of us recognize that LAST WEEK an armed civilian stopped a sudanese refugee from continuing his shooting spree in a tennessee church and held him until the police arrived. Had you been in charge of the laws of this country, the illegal CRIMINALS would have all of the guns and the LEGAL civilian population would be unarmed and at the mercy of criminals and fascists like Antifa.
Except for the word I bolded, I’d chalk up your claims to simple ignorance. But that specific claim about “supersonic” tells me you’re a totally dishonest hack of the same rank as the Zionist trolls we see here. That’s because you use a true but irrelevant fact to propagate a lie.
Ammunition can be loaded with many types of powder, and with any amount of it. Below a certain amount of powder in the shell case the bullet will emerge subonic, and the sound can be easily managed.
Yes, the silencers degrade with use, but the amount of that is also a function of how cleanly the powder burned. Unscrewing a slightly clogged silencer and screwing in a fresh one would take only a few seconds. Doing that every one or two hundred rounds is no great inconvenience. And it’s not like the murderer couldn’t have a pocket full of clean and loaded handguns.
The last claim was a dilly of a lie too.
As I repeatedly said to the Zionist trolls, you’ve demonstrated that you’re a very dishonest person.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2016/11/22/corps-put-silencers-whole-infantry-battalion.html
With over 300,000,000 firearms out there, it seems we already have countless potential militias in the States. They only need to become ‘well regulated’ and serve in the Army National Guard, and dare I say, sent overseas to help create ever more enemies.
The intent of the 2nd amendment seems pretty straight-forward – it’s a “well-regulated militia” that’s deemed “necessary for the security of a free State.” Proponents of the idea that this actually means the individual ownership of arms have never provided another logical explanation for this clause. Most of the time they just ignore it.
WRONG, the INTENT of the 2nd amendment is for the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE to guarantee rights to themselves! The RIGHT has ALWAYS been seen as an individual right to keep and bear arms, only recently was that even questioned. It took Heller to have the US Supreme Court definitively state that YES, it is and always has been an INDIVIDUAL right!
The PROBLEM is that you don’t understand how LAWS are written determines what the LAW means. Meaning the ACTUAL WORDS and punctuation are the determining factor, not your inaccurate opinion!
If you were a LEGAL SCHOLAR, you would know that laws and constitutional amendments are to be read using the canons of construction, meaning that THE WORDS and punctuation are VITAL to determining what the law ACTUALLY means.
The second amendment STATES “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.”
Using the canons of constructions, the FIRST PART “A well regulated Militia, COMMA” is the goal of the amendment. The second part “being necessary to the security of a free State, COMMA” is the PURPOSE of the goal in the FIRST part. The FINAL part “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” is the RIGHTS GRANTED BY THE PEOPLE, TO THE PEOPLE!
It is CLEARLY an individual right of the people to keep and bear arms.
GUNS are NOT now and never have been the “property of the government” to be collected and kept until such time as necessary and then distributed to the PEOPLE. The colonial laws are all CLEAR, every non exempt males between 15-50, some as high as 65, shall have at LEAST ONE serviceable weapon to be BROUGHT to the semi annual or monthly militia role calls! The WEAPONS are not for the purpose of the militia, each colony ALREADY had armories to store weapons, powder and ammunition for use in emergencies, this was to be used for his OWN defense purposes and to provide the ability to hunt for food and be trained in the accurate use of such weapon.
Proponents of the 2nd amendment have ALWAYS stated the ACTUAL reason behind the 2nd amendment, but opponents only hear what they WANT to hear!
You can have your own OPINION on the 2nd amendment, but your opinion doesn’t count, those of SCOTUS does.
There it is again.
What is a militia again? Yes because the numerous comments above yours are definitely ignoring the second amendment right? Pushing your premise a bit further, I would say it’s deemed necessary to have more then because you aint free friend, not even close.
Please see my second post on this page for an explanation.
Leave the Second Amendment alone. I fully support gun ownership beyond what it is limits hold currently. The world is not ready to be disarmed. We have not evolved yet for such a move.
No one is asking for people to be totally disarmed although that would be a great idea. I am guessing you did not get the point of this article.
The POINT of the article is to put the “supposed journalists” opinion into an article espousing his beliefs and using outright LIES to convince you of his supposedly educated opinion. Most of the articles “points” are outright lies!
The 2nd amendment DOES NOT state that it is the RIGHTS of the states to have militias and therefore the citizens should temporarily IN EMERGENCY situations be allowed to carry weapons. It SPECIFICALLY states that the “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE, not the RIGHT OF THE MILITIA!
@ “No one is asking for people to be totally disarmed although that would be a great idea.”
Perhaps if you are an urban dweller with an excellent police force.[1] But many still live in rural areas without speedy first-responders. Do you propose that they submit to their attackers be they human or furry?
[1] Confidence in first responders can easily be misplaced. In the Columbine, Colorado school massacre, the shooting began at 11:19 a.m. The first police officer arrived on the scene at 11:24. However, police did not enter the building until 1:09 p.m., one hour and 50 minutes later, long after 13 were killed with 21 injured and the assailants had committed suicide.
Well sir, I’ve looked through your recent set of posts, and must confess I can make no sense of them.
You express concern about the Rural Dweller without “an excellent police force”. Since you don’t own a gun, perhaps you live in a decent sized town. Yet as a lawyer you must also know about Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales.
“Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone”
A possible explanation is that you live in a gated community and outsource the theoretical violence to some hired private guns – and that’s why you don’t have one yourself.
You claim a special insight about which sorts of debates are obviously one-sided and those which aren’t. This reminds me of the myriads of religious people who know their particular viewpoint is the correct one, and all the others are dead wrong. Of course every single one of them draw the same conclusion – “I’m right!” and all the rest are destined for Hell.
I suppose we’ll have to agree that the two of us seem to be reading different history books, and that our conclusions are wildly at variance.
it is also intellectually dishonest to write as a reporting journalist when you obviously write from an agenda you espouse.
I expect that the justices of the Supreme Court have access to the same material, or even more and yet continue to uphold, protect, and even broaden the rights of individuals under the second amendment. I would love to hear from people who do not have an agenda or from people who present their agenda first then their reasoning. It has become painfully obvious that people in the reporting business can no longer be trusted to speak or write without presenting personal bias and that is why the people have rebelled in their voting this past election
“Many politicians, especially those on the Right, pretend they are strictly adhering to the U.S. Constitution when they often are just making the founding document mean whatever they want – but perhaps nowhere is that as dangerous as with their make-believe Second Amendment.”
Whenever I read an opinion piece that starts by calling the opposition a liar, dishonest, and agenda driven, then proceeds to deny that which is clearly true, I know I’m dealing with someone who is not interested in truth and every word is read with suspicion.
Let me clear some things up for you. How about we do this. BOOM, the 2nd amendment is gone. Now, you get the gun laws you want… or do you?
The problem with you on the left is you think that government grants all rights. I don’t know how you can come to this conclusion, but many of you do. It’s almost as if you’ve never heard of the Bill of Rights, Enumeration, Subject Matter Jurisdiction, and a host of other definitions on what the federal government is, and isn’t.
Let’s start with an oppressed people who fought their government and won freedom and liberty. The first battle of that war began when the government tried to take their guns away – or in that case, the ammunition. The war ended with the colonies gaining their freedom and standing an an entire country with no rules, regulations, laws or limits. This is where that nebulous idea of Liberty comes in.
Liberty is the ability to do something without asking permission. Liberty cannot be granted, ever, it can only be taken away. It is something you own as a living breathing person. I say liberty cannot be granted because it can’t. Permission is granted, liberty is not.
SO these people decide to form a government. They do so by meeting writing, debating and discussing. They consider articles of confederation, but eventually decide on a very limited type of government called a Republic. A representative Republic is a form of government where the power remains with the people, and certain rights are granted to a “king,” to be turned into powers, to operate the government. Now, you hear Rule of Law, well, this is before Rule of Law, it’s Rule of Consent. The Contract they form, or Articles of Power are rights granted to the contract, on which a government will be built. That Framework is the Constitution.
The states rejected it.
They rejected it a number of times.
The reasoning was the Necessary and Proper Clause. This clause gave almost unlimited power to enforce the granted rights, which they called, “Enumerated Rights.” There’s more to this, and I’ll get to it in a minute. The states were afraid that the new government would be as corrupt as the old one, and one of the biggest two concerns was the new government trying to stop free speech or arresting people for engaging in it… and fear that a government would eventually try to take arms away from the people, just as the old one had. That is why, when the Bill of Rights was completed, it included a preamble… Have you ever read it? No? Didn’t think so.
THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.
The 2nd is not a design for the right to bear arms, nor is it an exclusive or even inclusive statement. The 2nd limits the federal and state governments, in a way you don’t understand. Forget incorporation under the 14th Amendment. It’s a silly thing to do and opens up the right to regulation like never before. Why do you think they did it? The 2nd is a limitation on the federal government, and the words, “The right of the people,” works with the 9th and 10th amendments in how owns the right and where it comes from, and even how it can and cannot be regulated.
The gun laws on the federal level, ALL of them, are passed under the Interstate Commerce Clause. The power to regulate trade between the several states. …”in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers…” What do you think MISCONSTRUCTION means? It’s taking an unrelated clause and misapplying it to take something away that they have no power to control. EXACTLY what the states did not want to happen, yet, knew would.
There is no subject matter jurisdiction for gun regulation on any personal arms, in this nation. There is no power, at all, period, to regulate weapons. You can forget the 2nd, it means nothing. Enumeration is where you fail.
Much of what you said is true, GOD doesnt give you your civil rights, the FEDERAL government doesn’t give you your civil rights, the STATE governments do not give you your civil rights, the SOVEREIGN PEOPLE are the ones that gave us our civil rights.
The STATES did NOT reject the US Constitution, because the STATES had nothing to do with it, the approval of the US Constitution was sent to the PEOPLE to decide, not the state legislatures, because the state legislatures WOULD have rejected it entirely, because under the Articles of Confederation, each state could veto any legislation that it wanted. The STATES were supreme, this is where the FALSEHOODS of the Confederates took place, their mistaken belief that STATES were supreme, the US Constitution changed that and it specifically stated that the states were no longer supreme, the federal government was supreme and the federal governments powers were limited and that the REAL power remained with the PEOPLE!!
I wonder if the raving fanatic has “outed” himself with this declaration.
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/stories/2010/april/sovereigncitizens_041310
I have to wonder if Trump is planning to kill the family of the Las Vegas terrorist.
I think Vegas can be used as a Rorschach test. You know that whatever evidence surfaces, or does not surface, the narrative in the media will be either A – a Muslim terrorist or B – a lone gunman. Such announcement would also be made within hours; regardless of any intuition one has that more time would be required to conduct a thorough investigation.
Say what you want about the mad hatters on the various alt-right sites, but they sure know their guns. This is where many combat vets and live, eat and breath. They can analyze the slightest sound, flash, or trajectory and give you very credible reasons why the current narrative is highly unlikely.
So, then that leaves us 3 alternates, option B the Muslim, but other other options as well. An internal terrorist group or a government sponsored clandestine organization. If it is option B or C, we can presume that our government is doing what it can to handle situation. However, it is option D, than the second amendment seems like the only alternative, however dreadful.
Why so much fuss about a problem that has been declining and is much less prevalent than previously? Smacks of “thought-control” by politicians/media/sects that try to manipulate Americans?
Mass shootings are not growing in frequency, experts say
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/no-rise-mass-killings-impact-huge-article-1.1221062
…. Grant Duwe, a criminologist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections who has written a history of mass murders in America, said that while mass shootings rose between the 1960s and the 1990s, they actually dropped in the 2000s. And mass killings actually reached their peak in 1929, according to his data. He estimates that there were 32 in the 1980s, 42 in the 1990s and 26 in the first decade of the century. Chances of being killed in a mass shooting, he says, are probably no greater than being struck by lightning….
A professor named James Alan Fox assures us that Things Are Getting Better!
h**ps://149.101.16.41/content/pub/pdf/htius.pdf
That’s the link to a 183 page piece titled Homicide trends in the United States
This professor has also penned an editorial for US Today titled Mass shootings are a fact of American life way back in 2011.
h**p://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/2011-01-11-fox11_st_N.htm
Some nut murders a bus load of people. There is an instant uproar. After a decent interval, things quiet down and the Gun Rights people emerge victorious. That’s the way it ought to be, for Nothing Can Be Done. That’s because Mass shootings are a fact of American life.
One more time: Things Are Getting Better, and Nothing Can Be Done.
This is like me refusing all my vaccinations before slipping off to a vacation in some backwater third-world hellhole. When I acquire and barely survive a bout of typhoid fever or some other disease, I can emerge from the hospital praising my anti-vaxxer stance. To match Scalise, I’d need to claim that I’m going to double my donations to organizations spreading alarm about polio, or measles, or whooping cough, or rabies vaccinations.
This character will almost certainly be reelected, and is apparently looking towards higher political office. Just what we need….
absolutely is SHOULD strengthen your desire for people to have MORE access to guns, rather than more gun control. Gun CONTROL only stops innocent LEGAL citizens from defending themselves. Criminals will STILL have access to guns and the unarmed citizens will be at the criminals mercy until the cops arrive to chase off the offender.
The ONLY reason that more Republican congressmen weren’t killed was because Scalise had joined the team and had a protective detail because he is a Congressional LEADER. Had Scalise NOT been a member of the team, his detail would have been with him and not at the baseball field and the psycho left wing nutcase would have murdered a large number of Republican Congressmen and their families.
Perhaps that is what you are really trying to accomplish!
LAST WEEK, we had ANOTHER instance where armed private citizens DEFEND THEMSELVES and others from criminal activity long before the cops arrive to protect you. A citizen in tennessee prevented more murders by a sudanese refugee when he shot up a church by going to his car and grabbing his weapon and detaining the suspect.
There are around 2 MILLION instances of civilians defending themselves EACH YEAR, and according to statistics, less than 30000 deaths by GUN each year and that includes, accidents, suicides and homicides!
There are 2.5 million deaths EACH YEAR in the USA, meaning GUN DEATHS by all causes accounts for 0.012 percent of the deaths in the USA every year and you want to take away law abiding citizens right to defend themselves? This is once again, the lying liberal media emotionalizing an event for their own political and financial gains, rather than an HONEST discussion.
Maybe when the US Government and all its gun/weapon toting agencies learn how to control ” their Guns/Weapons ” , the US population will learn to control – Theirs. The Military complex makes billions on it. The Murders -that is.
@ “Maybe when the US Government and all its gun/weapon toting agencies learn how to control ” their Guns/Weapons ” , the US population will learn to control – Theirs. The Military complex makes billions on it. The Murders -that is.”
Although I can cite no empirical evidence, I suspect that you are right, although I suspect it would take more than that. We live in an extremely violent society, with that violence evidenced from the very top of government in foreign wars launched at the whim of a single person that have killed millions of people and in state governments that claim the power to execute criminals. The elephant in that room is that there is no such thing in the physical world as a government. Never met one, never changed one’s diaper, never kissed one; governments only exist in our collective imaginations. Behind the non-existent veil of “government,” it is actually human beings wearing that veil who are doing the “government” killing. The Emperor who was wearing no clothes comes to mind …
So long as anyone has the “right” to kill except in cases of self-defense or defense of others from violent attack, we live under a “government” that endorses and encourages the right to commit homicide.
But one need also address factors such as victimless crimes and gross wealth inequality and remove the scourge of poverty that drives people to commit violent crimes, methinks.
Another person who seems determined to spins things to suit his own convictions.
He said: “By 2008, these right-wing jurists held a majority on the U.S. Supreme Court and could thus overturn generations of legal precedents and declare that the Second Amendment established an individual right for Americans to own guns. Though even these five right-wing justices accepted society’s right to protect the general welfare of the population through some gun control, the Supreme Court’s ruling effectively “validated” the Right’s made-up history.”
1. Legal precedents are not Constitutional provisions but Court opinions. Sometimes the Court gets it wrong.
2. Use of the word ‘people’ in the 2nd Amendment means the ‘individual person’, just as it does everywhere else it is used. To deny that is to claim the Founders didn’t make careful use of the language. Had they meant the protection to apply only to people while on militia duty, or only the use of arms FOR militia duty, they could easily have made that distinction. But they declared it a right of the ‘people’ without making any restrictions.
3. Congress has no legislative authority under the meaning of ‘general welfare’. Its powers are delegated specifically in Article 1 Section 8. No delegation of power to regulate firearms is listed there. All legislation by Congress regulating firearms is unConstitutional because of that and the Courts cannot change that.
4. Assuming that some people might believe a right of an individual to keep and bear arms means a right to engage in anti-social violent behavior is spin of the worst kind. No such intent was ever expressed by any responsible Founder, including Jefferson and Franklin that I’ve ever seen or heard of.
5. The fact that the citizens’ rights under the Constitution were often violated doesn’t make the case that the right didn’t then exist, or doesn’t exist today.
There are plenty of statements from the major figures of that time which clearly state the intent of the 2nd Amendment, while also incorporating the need to have a capable militia by the states, was to keep the citizens free from having arms controlled by the government, (and that included protection from local government oppression, not just federal), not only for militia duty but for defense of self and property and to assist local law enforcement in public emergencies. To insist that these concerns didn’t exist and/or weren’t included in the protection of the 2nd Amendment is simply wrong.
The author seems to forget how the Constitution itself works. Congress has only those powers over the people which have been delegated to it. The Supreme Court cannot make policy, legislate or negate state laws; it can only hear cases which meet the requirements in Article 3.
It’s actually “the people”, not just “people,” so that implies a collective, rather than an individual right. That certainly comports with the prevailing attitudes towards the masses at the time. The founders did not trust the masses – that’s why they designed a republic, not a democracy. It’s this same attitude that also produced the electoral college. This didn’t really begin to change until the 1820’s, with the coming of Andrew Jackson.
You state that “major figures” made “plenty of statements” at the time which clearly state the intent of the 2nd Amendment. Could you please provide examples of these statements, to include who made them, and their significance? That would be helpful.
WRONG, it states “the RIGHT of the people to keep and bear arms SHALL NOT be infringed”! It does not state the “RIGHTS OF THE MILITIA to keep and bear arms” The Bill of Rights did not just appear magically out of James Madison’s anal cavity, he developed the Bill of Rights out of the suggestions of the constitutions of the individual states, so it is INCUMBENT upon an honest person to then go to see what the STATES said about gun ownership and it become EVEN CLEARER that the right is an INDIVIDUAL right, not a collective right!
“In the late Eighteenth Century, the meaning of “bearing” arms also referred to a citizen being part of a militia or army. It didn’t mean that an individual had the right to possess whatever number of high-capacity killing machines that he or she might want. Indeed, the most lethal weapon that early Americans owned was a slow-loading, single-fired musket or rifle.”
This is incorrect. In the late eighteenth century, the most lethal weapon that early Americans owned was the cannon. Lexington and Concord were fought because the British were trying to seize our cannon. There were no laws against private citizens owning cannons. Any merchant or riverboat captain could buy a cannon and put it on his boat if he pleased. The article is correct that there were laws about the storage of powder for those cannons though, but those laws were entirely different in intent compared to modern gun laws (safety regulations are not the same as firearm prohibitions).
Change your publication’s name to Distortium News. This Perry character is advancing the Bullcrap Official Narrative wwhich is Bullcrap.
Dr. Kissinger was once (accidentally) heard to say that the American people would never give up their guns voluntarily. It would take a crisis real or imagined. How many medications was this alleged shooter using? Ask the murdered Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto or the Armenians how they felt about gun control or confiscation. Are we really to believe that if only the policing powers and the criminals have guns the rest of the sheeple will be secure?
There are many questions about Sandy Hook and other crisis events (911, Boston Marathon) which have yet to be resolved. If our government does not have compassion for the millions they have killed in Asia and the Middle East do we really believe such individuals would not turn on Americans at some future point? How many politicians have no armed security guards?
It’s amazing to see the fantasy world these people have constructed for themselves. The NRA has previously claimed that the Jewish Holocaust was on account of Hitler’s Gun Control laws.
Another fellow was rhapsodizing about the outcome of the Revolution.
That’s an outcome of the Revolution I’d never heard of – “an entire country with no rules, regulations, laws or limits.?
One wonders why none of this Libertarian Wet Dream made it into the history books. Possibly because it’s merely a fairy tale the NRA boys and girls tell each other. Is this stuff an outcome of Home Schooling? Or is something they pick up on the internet tubes?
“When right-wing politicians talk about the Second Amendment now, they don’t even bother to include the preamble that explains the point of the amendment. The entire amendment is only 26 words. But the likes of Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, find the preamble inconvenient because it would undercut their false storyline. So they just lop off the first 12 words.”
From The Supreme Court Decision
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Held:
1.
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
…
b)
The prefatory clause comports with the Court’s interpretation of the operative clause. The “militia” comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. The Antifederal-ists feared that the Federal Government would disarm the people in order to disable this citizens’ militia, enabling a politicized standing army or a select militia to rule. The response was to deny Congress power to abridge the ancient right of individuals to keep and bear arms, so that the ideal of a citizens’ militia would be preserved.
Pp. 22–28.
…
The Second Amendment is naturally divided into two parts: its prefatory clause and its operative clause. The former does not limit the latter grammatically, but rather announces a purpose.
…
3. Relationship between Prefatory Clause and Operative Clause
We reach the question, then: Does the preface fit with an operative clause that creates an individual right to keep and bear arms? It fits perfectly, once one knows the history that the founding generation knew and that we have described above. That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents. This is what had occurred in England that prompted codification of the right to have arms in the English Bill of Rights.
Your issue with these ‘right-wing’ politicians seems to be that they actually bothered to read the decision, the discussion and the numerous briefs.
http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/dc-v-heller/
let it be
Thank you, Mr. Parry. Your readers may also want to read Justice Stevens’ on the second amendment. He forcefully rebukes Scalia’s activist assertion of an individual right. But even Scalia defended the constitutionality on gun control measures.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-five-extra-words-that-can-fix-the-second-amendment/2014/04/11/f8a19578-b8fa-11e3-96ae-f2c36d2b1245_story.html?utm_term=.3867f2446c4f
Peace.
yet stevens OPINION doesn’t MATTER, now does it? He is ignorant of the US Constitution and has proven that for decades on the court. His opinion counts just as much as YOUR does, not at all!
WHale
Makes me for one as a Briton GLAD that I don;t live in a society with such intellectual hogwash(to put it mildly) does NOT determine public policy!
An amazing amount of paid comments.
There is no there there. NRA has five million members. It spends 3 million a year on lobbying. If anti-gun people want to do something – repeal the 2nd amendment. Ladies with hatchets did it to the 18th Amendment. REPEAL. That is how it is done. Forget all the gun control mini-debate over bullets and silencers and crap. If they want to change things repeal the second amendment. It might take years of hard work and plenty of money but it can be done. With initial funding from Bing or Zuckerberg the anti-gun folks can put someone else’s money where their mouths are. Or it could be defeated over and over again. But that is the American way for these types of social problems.
No disputing that, especially from safe spaces.
The 2nd amendment states that the right to keep and bear arms is the “right of the people”. It does not mention an exclusive “right of the militia”. The US constitution recognizes and assigns rights and responsibilities to 3 entities:
1. The Federal Government,
2. The several states, and
3. the people.
The 2nd amendment rights are granted explicitly to “the people”. I interpret that to mean me, not just the state or national guard.
The left in this country, particularly those whose loyalty and allegiance is divided between the USA and the Pharisaic Talmudist cult of Israel, have long aspired to strip Americans of their guns. In recent years this agenda has noticeably combined with a conspiracy to stir up a “color revolution” to leave our nation in a state of disunity and chaos, and our citizens in a state of helplessness.
The timing of the Las Vegas massacre is ominous. It fell exactly on the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik ‘October’ revolution; it follows closely the introduction of new gun control proposals in
Congress, and coincides with the dawning realization that the US armed forces are soon to be driven from Iraq/Syria (and NATO removed from Turkey) unless some major new source of motivation, money and manpower are found. This event has false flag (‘new Pearl Harbor’) written all over it – just in the nick of time. The agendas lurking in the media responses to this could not be any more dark and disturbing.
Please don’t misunderstand my remarks. I am a long-time follower of your reporting and I am appreciative and grateful for all that you do. But on this issue, I think you are precariously perched on the wrong side of history.
I have enormous respect for Robert Parry’s investigative journalism; however, he seems to my mind to plunge out of his depth and into one-sided partisanship when he addresses America’s constitutional history. This article is no exception.
First, to my own biases: I come from a rural background, where first-responder response time was measured in hours rather than minutes. And I have long been a political activist who had to worry about a fired-up drunk coming for me with a weapon. I have been shot at in that circumstance (as well as in my role as a combat soldier in Viet Nam). Because I value my life, I value my means of self-defense. On the other hand, I took a vow of non-violence after Viet Nam except in defense of myself and my family. I no longer own a firearm. I would have no issue with a well-tailored constitutional amendment that tempers the Second Amendment. But as a retired lawyer, I believe that an amendment would be necessary; an acceptance of the Constitution’s amendment by reinterpretation is but to repudiate Law itself.
Mr. Parry’s exposition is *completely* one-sided. He makes no mention of the strong historical arguments on the other side. For that reason, his essay is entitled to no worth; one must address the other side’s points in a principled debate. But the Supreme Court’s majority and dissenting opinions in District of Columbia v. Heller establish that there is history to support both sides of the argument and that the majority’s view of the constitutional history prevailed; whether one believes that it existed before or not, there is since Heller a Second Amendment personal right to bear arms for self-protection and hunting, as well as a right to bear arms for revolution. I will not repeat those historical arguments here. One can read them in the majority and dissenting opinions. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=6484080926445491577
However, I will observe that those opinions take a microcosm view of the Second Amendment, not addressing the larger context of rights surrounding the Second Amendment’s operative clause. For example, the existence of the right of revolution is not controversial although its outer parameters are. Its ancient antecedents lie in both Western and Eastern history, as well as in U.S. constitutional history. For a succinct review of that history, I recommend Aleksandar Marsavelski’s paper, The Crime of Terrorism and the Right of Revolution in International Law beginning at its page 266, https://goo.gl/SDzag8 (.) Or for an even shorter review there is the Wikipedia article, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_revolution
Moreover, while both sides in the Heller case mention an English common law right of self-defense, neither elaborates to the point of acknowledging its fundamental nature in our constitutional scheme of things. But to obtain that understanding, one need read only the short third chapter of the oh-so-influential-on-our-founders treatise by John Locke, Two Treatises of Government, Book II, An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government (1764 ed.), http://www.johnlocke.net/two-treatises-of-government-book-ii/
Indeed, that Natural Law right of self-defense is so fundamental to our constitution’s concept of ordered liberties that the individual right to bear arms for self-defense might, instead of in the Second Amendment, logically be found to exist in the Fourth Amendment’s substantive due process guarantee of Liberty. And one must come to grips with John Locke’s views if one is to cross the threshold into understand American constitutional history.
There are other examples but I need cut this short. However, I will close by remarking a personal opinion: Those who have never faced the receiving end of lethal violence are not in my considered view fully qualified to express an opinion against the right of self-defense with whatever weapon personal survival requires. So too the right to protect loved ones. The will to survive is simply too strong for any law to overcome.
Paul let me first start out by saying, how I am probably one of the most unqualified to speak about our Constitutional rights. Although, after reading your comments over time I feel you are more than qualified, so I take what you say very seriously.
I wrote above, how I really don’t have an opinion to this gun right issue, but after reading what you wrote here Paul a light bulb did go off in my head which you energized with your words. I would like to add, that maybe I would be afraid to end the right to bear arms, for the same reason I would be afraid to end all abortions. I do not support abortions, but I do respect a woman’s right to her having control over her own body. Add to that, if abortions were made illegal, then could you bear hearing all the stories about ‘back alley’ abortions gone bad? For me this is saying something, since I was adopted, but never the less I would not want women dying all because abortions were made illegal.
If tomorrow we outlawed gun ownership, then consider this; even though you would now be unarmed there would still be tons of guns out there illegally, and what would that mean to your being able to defend yourself. Apparently Paul, more than once in your life you needed a gun for protection, so you Paul would be in a pickle for you to be without a gun for protection, to put it nicely. Then there would be the loop holes. Naturally the police would still be armed, and I can imagine that security guards would be too. Then there will be the rich person who can afford to petition our legal system, so as they could also own a firearm. So far Paul, the thugs, the police and security guard, plus the rich guy, got their guns, but not poor you. You see Paul I may be all for us Americans continuing to own guns. and all because of your predicament your in without one.
Paul, as you know there is no clear and legible answer to this problem of the right for us Americans to own a gun. I say this because apparently this Amendment can be read and interpreted in many different ways. I personally am coming to the belief, that America’s problem with guns isn’t so much a problem of merely gun ownership, although who owns one is debatable, but it is more of a problem within our culture. We Americans must start respecting life in all of life’s many varieties. Our leaders and media think nothing of demonizing a nations leader, and all for the sake of our wanting to dominate that nations assets. We put more substance into saluting a flag during the playing of the National Anthem than we do to people civil rights being respected, that’s some sour thinking if you ask me.
Paul, you may have convinced me to lean more to protecting the 2nd Amendment, than us as a nation ditching it. We as a nation need to get a hold of ourselves. We must where possible come together, and not be just right or left, or liberal and conservative, but be people who care for people, all people.
Hope I didn’t upset you Paul, but I just thought I had to say something in support of what you just wrote here. Stay safe hombre. Joe
Next time Mao’s starvation of 50 million Chinese comes up, I must remember to give “his side” of the story at least equal weight.
Next time the Iraq invasion is discussed here, I must remember to remind everybody that a whole lot of work went into creating the fantasy of Saddam’s WMDs. And given a loose interpretation of Cheney’s 1% precautionary notion, there was a chance that the neocons had it exactly right. Therefore allowing the inspectors to continue their search of Iraq was just too risky.
Next time Climate Change from Global Warming is spoken of here, we must be highly respectful of the Exxon Viewpoint. Certainly any new GW essays ought to be “balanced” by one presented by somebody on Big Energy’s payroll. The illustrious Mitt Romney said it best – “Corporations are people, my friend.” Since I believe the Supreme Court has said the same thing, it’s only right that people get the Full Story from non-flesh-and-blood “people”.
Next time slavery is mentioned, somebody must step forward and speak of the Southern View that slaves were docile, happy, well clothed and well fed. Those subhumans were learning from their light-skinned betters the rudiments of morality and civilization. And they were SO much better off here than in the jungles of dark Africa. When the Southern side of the story is presented, it’s only right that everybody be respectful. Perhaps that’s the way it really happened!
Zachary, that is straw man argumentation. As Edward R. Murrow said, on some issues there is only one side. We are not here dealing with a one-sided issue. And that was my precise point that you evade: Mr. Parry claimed that there is no constitutional history on the pro-gun side of the issue; my point was that there is such history on both sides of the issue and that one need only read the opinions in District of Columbia v. Heller — which I linked — to confirm that fact.
Although I did not adequately make another point, Mr. Parry is simply wrong in his incredible view of the right of revolution’s role in the history of the Second Amendment. Indeed, that right is so strongly recognized that it is explicitly set forth in the constitutions of 35 U.S. states, [1] including several of the original 13. And the Second Amendment did not arrive in a vacuum; it was all bound up with other closely-related issues such as: [i] fears of the tyranny that might flow from establishment of a standing army and the perceived need to balance that danger with countering provisions for a militia that was believed would inevitably be stronger militarily than the standing army (they got that one wrong); and [ii] a fear of a federal government that was so strong that the Constitution was ratified only subject to the condition that a Bill of Rights to expressly protect the individual and the States from potential tyranny — including the right to bear arms — be promptly added by amendment. Alexander Hamilton’s view that a bill of rights was unnecessary — that individual and state rights were assuredly protected by creation of a federal government with only enumerated powers — was expressly rejected.
Moreover, Mr. Parry claims that the Amendment’s wording is unambiguous, that it can only have one meaning. But any lawyer or grammarian can tell you that it is ambiguous. It states: “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.” Mr. Parry draws from that language that the Amendment has only to do with the Militia. But it is just as easily understood as stating a reason for not tinkering with a right to bear arms that predates the Constitution. And that right was well recognized as a right of Englishmen that had existed for centuries before the Constitution, to wit the right of self defense and the right of revolution: check the Magna Carta of 1215 where the Lords who had successfully rebelled against King John at Runnymede retained their right to bear arms and the right to overthrow the King if they so chose. In other words, the right of revolution that the American Colonists had just exercised against King George, as 13 newly-sovereign states had announced in the Declaration of Independence. (Notice here that the former colonies did not give up the common law of England under the Constitution’s balancing of powers, including common law individual and collective rights, including the right of revolution as explicitly proclaimed in the constitutions of 35 states,[1] the federal constitution’s proclamation of the crime of Treason notwithstanding.)
In fact it was the holding of the 5-4 majority in Heller after addressing the relevant constitutional history that the Amendment’s prefatory clause has a meaning different from that which Mr. Parry proclaims is its only possible meaning. The other four justices agreed with Mr. Parry’s interpretation. All of which is evidence that the prefatory clause is in fact ambiguous and that one must, therefore, look to the constitutional history to determine its intended meaning. Even there, five justices viewed that history as leading to one meaning while it led the other four to another meaning.
I personally view the Amendment and its history as ambiguous, although I see more weight in the pro-gun view of that history. But my purpose is writing my post is as I said in its opening, Mr. Parry seems to lose his objectivity when he discusses constitutional history. It is incorrect to claim that the history of the Second Amendment is one-sided.
And as further evidence of that point, I direct your attention to the Consortium News article Mr. Parry linked to in his opening sentence that contains a preposterous discussion of the Constitution’s Necessary and Proper Clause as its foundation: The Necessary and Proper Clause is as follows:
“The Congress shall have Power … To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the *foregoing* Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.” The article reads the word “foregoing” out of existence. The Clause refers only to the enumerated powers of Congress that precede it. It is not a grant — as the Consortium News article claims — of Power for Congress to pass any legislation it desires. And it has never been understood that way by any court. The courts routinely strike down laws Congress enacts on constitutional grounds. Nor could the Clause be understood that way by any grammarian.
I try to keep in mind that the Constitution is committee work. Vagueness and ambiguity are ordinarily necessary to obtain agreement in such work, often leaving the vagaries and ambiguity to be worked out later, in this context through court decisions. With a document as old as the Constitution, we are often left with only conjecture based on our best understanding of its drafting’s context including our guesses as to what the Founding Fathers had in mind. Often, that itself leads to disagreements. But we are perhaps lucky to know that they were overwhelmingly united on achieving what they believed to be the basic rights of Englishmen because those rights had been spelled out in court decisions and other documents over the preceding centuries. So perhaps ironically, we often find ourselves interpreting the Constitution by looking to the rights established by the government the Colonies had just rejected. For example, the right to trial by jury would be incredibly vague were we not to understand that the Founders meant the right to jury trial as it had evolved under English law. Just so, I’m inclined to interpret the right to bear arms as that term had evolved under English law including Natural Law rights. In that regard, I went farther than the Heller Court.
I do not believe that Mr. Parry was being disingenuous but I think he needs to be more careful in distinguishing between his advocacy and his role as historian when he attempts to interpret the Constitution. His claims that the Amendment is unambiguous and that its history is one-sided are simply wrong, which he should have known if he read the Heller decision.
_________
[1] Often in provisions that also proclaim the rule of Natural Law. See ALA. CONST. art. I, § 2; ARK. CONST. art. II, § 1; COLO. CONST. art. II, § 2; CONN. CONST. art. I, § 2; DEL. CONST. pmbl.; KY. CONST. § 4; IDAHO CONST. art. I, § 2; IND. CONST. art. 1, § 1; IOWA CONST. art. 1, § 2; ME. CONST. art. 1, § 2; MD. CONST. art. 1; MASS. CONST. pt. 1, art. 7; MINN. CONST. art. 1, § 1; MISS. CONST. art. 3, § 6; MO. CONST. art. 1, § 3; MONT. CONST. art. 2, § 2; NEV. CONST. art. 1, § 2; N.H. CONST. pt. 1, art. 10; N.J. CONST. art. 1, ¶ 2; N.C. CONST. art. I, § 3; N.D. CONST. art. 1, § 2; OHIO CONST. art. I, § 2; OKLA. CONST. art. 2, § 1 OR. CONST. art. I, § 1; PA. CONST. art. 1, § 2; R.I. CONST. art. 1, § 1; S.C. CONST. art. I, § 1; S.D. CONST. art. 6, § 26; TENN. CONST. art. 1, § 2; TEX. CONST. art. 1, § 2; UTAH CONST. art. 1, § 2; VT. CONST. ch. I, art. 7; VA. CONST. art. 1, § 3; W. VA. CONST. art. 3, § 3; WYO. CONST. art. 1, § 1.
Not only is the 1st part of the much-MISrepresented 2d Amendment to our Constitution:
“A well regulated Militia, BEING NECESSARY TO the security of a free State . . .”
but the EARLIER Article I, Section 8, clause 15 DEFINES the constitutional PURPOSES for which the militia may be activated:
“To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrection and repel Invasions:”
The Framers knew intimately that Shay’s Rebellion under the Articles of Confederation and the Whiskey Rebellion under our current constitution threatened the democratic form of government that they fought for against the English crown.
Their words, enshrined in the constitution that they gave us, protected our new government from the threats both from within and from without.
The right to bear arms was NOT intended to permit the murderous conflagration that the dishonest phony gun patriots now ignorantly defend.
As pointed out above, the Supreme Court rejected your argument. Here is the relevant link again.
“The real history of the Second Amendment was well understood both by citizens and courts in the generations after the Constitution and Bill of Rights were enacted. For most of the years of the Republic, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment as a collective right, allowing Americans to participate in a “well-regulated Militia,” not an individual right to buy the latest weaponry at a gun show or stockpile a military-style arsenal in the basement.”
From The Supreme Court Decision
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
YOU are referring to an IRRELEVANT portion of the decision, that of the MINORITY, the dissent is NOT law, ONLY the HOLDING is law, everything else is dicta, meaning not LAW.
Stevens statement in his dissent is a LIE, the 2nd amendment was meant at the time it was proposed and evidenced by the various STATE constitutions to be an INDIVIDUAL right, not a collective right.
Stevens words are NOT law, you can’t use stevens dissent to argue against the majority opinion, the holding of the majority opinion is LAW, stevens dissent is NOT!
A Supreme Court decision rendered by Deep-State corrupted Anton Scalia, Samuel Alito, and Clowny Thomas must be questioned.
At least 10% of the wounded grunts at the base hospital where I served in Vietnam were victims of their own “friendly fire.” In the chaos of battles and firefights, commonly known as the fog of war, they shot each other, tossed hand grenades at each other, and in one instance, ambushed each other, because the brass forgot to inform the soldiers who fired upon the other soldiers marching in the dark of night they were sending out a second ambush team. Fortunately, at the base hospital where I was stationed, the brass forbid medical personnel to carry a sidearm even when we went off base and into the field to treat Vietnamese civilians. Armed MPs went on these medical missions with locked and loaded M-16s to protect us. So, ironic as it may seem, the brass at the hospital insttuted a policy of gun control in a war zone. But unfortunately, this false historical narrative in popular culture about Americans being armed with their own high-powered weapons to protect their civil rights has gained the status of a sacred myth. We are descendants of a paranoid, frontier and slave-owning culture, that attempted genocide against Native Americans and African Americans as we also did against Vietnamese. So there is a historical continuity from the massacre at My Lai to the one at Las Vegas. Now that may seem to be a rather outlandish and eccentric take on this heated and partisan debate over gun control. But I’ve given up on trying to convince civilians that sensible gun control legislation is in the best interest of all of us. Richard Hofstadter called it in the sixites “the paranoid style in American politics.” Americans are an inward looking and fearful people despite all this hairy-chested propaganda from icons such as John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. But each evaded fighting in war of their generation and instead they fought them on a Hollywood soundstage. This simulacrum of reality in the popular culture will never change among my fellow citizens in this country. Though I admire Richard Parry’s astute, thoughtful and extensively researched essay which I endorse given the horrific things I saw as a naive, young man in Vietnam. But there is a dark undercurrent of violence in our country that works as a ripe tide and it drowns any rational debate. I saw the pathological sickness in the body politic during my tour in Vietnam. I saw the true American character in Vietnam. Nothing much has changed in the intervening decades. Ernest Hemingway once cynically observed the vast majority of generals die in bed rather than on the battlefield.
Yes, the popular culture has been made militaristic by our corrupt mass media, and is willing to “serve” the interests of a violent oligarchy in places like Vietnam, which was not in any sense a war of popular causes.
The values of peace did not prevent the US oligarchy from starting genocidal wars like Vietnam, and recruiting soldiers among the people by convincing young men that killing proves them as men. The peace movement had absolutely no persuasive effect: they simply persecuted the peaceniks, as they will always do. The US oligarchy since WWII has only once been restrained by the people: by the race riots of the early 1960s, which scared the rich enough to pretend to be persuaded by the likes of MLK, and allow the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to pass. Now we have militarized police to enforce tyranny.
Unfortunately, we live in an era of economic power controlling the institutions of our former democracy, including mass media, and using abusing government to militarize foreign and domestic policy. The ideas of peace are not in the language of tyrants; they speak only the ugly language of force. Until we have restored democracy, we must give not an inch to our utterly corrupted government.
Go back in time, Philippines, Mexico, Natives
i have read-needs confirmation-that Chicago has amongst the tightest of gun controls…..
The problem is Indiana (right next door) has very loose gun laws.
Illegal guns then……Laws or taking rights away from Law abiding citizens ….Helps how again?
I’m not sure I understand your comment, but I think that because states’ borders are porous, we need to solve this issue on a national level. There are already some limits on arms (no hand grenades, no RPG’s, no full auto, etc). It is a complicated issue, but I think that most people who live in cities that are seeing excessive gun violence every day, with many crimes perpetrated by the very young, would like to see some measure of effective gun control. For one, I would be in favor of a required license and gun safety course.
If certain guns from Indiana are not available in Chicago they would be illegal, yes? Laws don’t stop criminals was my point. My rights or yours should not be infringed upon under the guise of stopping crime, as it patently doesn’t work. I would be in favor of licensing and safety courses as well, just like Canada. Plus background checks of course. I would not care to restrict much beyond that like Canada though. Some of the Canadian gun laws are absurd….
Well paying meaningful employment. Disparagement of ALL Violence, including State Sponsored Violence against millions.
Tannenhouser-
I would like to see your evidence that laws don’t stop criminals.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
https://mic.com/articles/126573/japan-has-shown-the-rest-of-the-world-how-to-eliminate-shooting-deaths#.1mXLPPSFP
Before you accuse me of wishing to take away your rights, I would like to state that I am not in favor of taking away everyone’s guns, but I do think that we need to have a rational discussion about ways to reduce gun violence.
The shooter in Los Vegas was a law abiding gun owner. He was never even arrested at any time in his life.
Yes that’s correct. Lets remove rights so this will stop right???
Hi Robert: while I disagreed with. your several articles regarding Trump and Russia I complete agree with you with reference to the 2nd Amendment. Now how do we solve the problem? Ideally, in my opinion, just abolish the 2nd Amendment but this could be very difficult to get the 2/3 of the states approval. So let us hope to be able to name some more SC liberal justices, but also this solution is a very long term affair. What is your suggestion?
The US Supreme Court has NO AUTHORITY to overturn an amendment, the ONLY way to get rid of the 2nd amendment is to repeal it and it will NEVER happen!
This poor fellow definitely hasn’t been following the news. The Supreme Court can and has “overturned” constitutional features by simply redefining what the words mean.
I doubt if he knows that in the case of the Second Amendment, the rightwingnuts on the Court have changed the meaning of that one into NRA dream stuff.
One reason I worry when visiting the US, I was in Chicago and Cincinnati on separate occasions and I heard multiple gunshots outside my hotels. Something I have never heard in my own country. And I think those NRA types should read the Scientific American article I promoted before, Guns and Violence: What the data say vs. what people think. Perhaps rather than what people think, it should read what some Americans think. One never knows when someone might lose it, succumb to violence through a brain tumor or what ever. Guns should be those required for hunting and little else, all registered and owner having timely medical checks.
This almost happened to someone I know. A brain-damaged man was alarmed when he heard car noises near his home. When his wife came inside with some grandchildren in tow, she was suddenly face to face with her husband pointing a shotgun at them. THAT was when the family finally made every single firearm in the house suddenly vanish. They had already hidden the car keys, but for some reason they hadn’t thought of the guns.
and if you succumb to gun violence and attack me, as long as I have my gun on hand, i CAN defend myself!
There are over 2.5 million deaths each year in the USA, 30 thousand are gun related deaths, and that includes accidents, suicides and homicides! That is 0.012 percent of all deaths in the USA each year, do you THINK that you are making a mountain out of a molehill?
FURTHERMORE, almost 2 million times per year, legally armed civilians stop criminals and that doesn’t include the times when criminals GO ELSEWHERE to commit crimes where it is safer, where guns ARE more restricted.
CHICAGO has some of the most unconstitutionally restrictive gun laws in the country, it does NOT prevent criminals from shooting 60 people each weekend! Criminals do NOT CARE what the gun control laws are, they are ALREADY criminals, all GUN CONTROL does is restrict law abiding citizens the right to defend themselves.
Many years ago my father remarked to me that if somebody decided to kill me, he would definitely get the first shot. This poor fanatic doesn’t understand even the fundamentals. He imagines his gun is some kind of magic shield which will repel the assassin’s bullets.
One wonders if he has given the slightest thought of how he would have fared in Las Vegas. Probably not, for that would destroy the fantasy world he has constructed.
The official narrative upon which this article is based is false. There were multiple shooters. One or more from the fourth floor and one or more at one or more of the gates. We have a law against murder. What we need is honest law enforcement and media.
I’ve agreed with Robert Parry on every issue – until this one.
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
– Thomas Jefferson –
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”
– Benjamin Franklin –
The flintlock was the ‘assault rifle’ of its day.
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”
Not an actual Franklin quote. The word “lunch” did not become part of the English language until decades after Franklin’s death.
Mathew Johnson.
http://www.ediblegeography.com/lunch-an-urban-invention/
As late as 1755, according to Samuel Johnson’s definition, lunch was simply “as much food as one’s hand can hold” — which, as Laura Shapiro, culinary historian and co-curator of the New York Public Library’s new Lunch Hour NYC exhibition, recently explained to me, “means that it’s still sort of a snack that you can have at any time of the day.”
Talk about tyranny, there are more people killed by police officers in the US than anywhere else. More people are in prison in the US than in any other country. We have the highest infant mortality rate of any modern country. We have the most fun deaths of any other country not at war. We have the poorest and most expensive Heath care system in the modern world. We have the least effective gun control in the world and we have the most inequality in the world.
So what are we so proud of?
Your statement is a mixed bag of liberal lies that have NO BEARING on actual occurrences.
If you dont want to get shot, dont resist the police, the POLICE have the same right to self defense as you do as a citizen, the police have the same right to go home to their families at night as YOU do. Don’t fight the police in a dark back alley! If you believe you were wrongly arrested, HIRE an attorney to fight it out in COURT, WITH WORDS, rather than fight it out with the police in a dark alley where sudden movement may cause the cop to fear for his safety and REASONABLY defend himself. It is better to be tried by 12, than carried by 6!
As of June 2017, the US has the 2nd highest prisoner rate per 100K population!
In 2017, the USA infant mortality rate is 5.374 per 1000 live births, Russia is 7.396, Ukraine is 8.327, China is 9.631, Venezuela is 12.269, Poland is 4.036, UK is 3.653, Germany is 2.626.
The worst is Angola with 88.548 infant deaths per 1000 live births, the best is Luxembourg with 1.301 infant deaths per 1000 live births.
Furthermore, BECAUSE of great medical care, more preemies are being born alive, which would be a miscarriage in most other countries and preemies are the largest portion of the increased infant mortality rate.
We have plenty of gun control, the problem is that we have too many criminals that dont care what the gun control laws are, gun control only works on law abiding citizens, gun control laws have NO BEARING on crime because the criminals can always commit crimes to get guns in violation of those gun controls they DONT care what the law states, that is why they are criminals!
Most inequality in the world? Are you talking income disparity? Most other countries have less disparity because they steal from the rich and KEEP it for the government, they only give smidgen tot he poor.
The AVERAGE income in the USA is 45K per year. The average income per capita in the WORLD is 10K So, even the POOR in the USA, single person 16K and couple of 25K is making almost twice the annual salary of what the rest of the world makes. The bottom five percent of wage earners in the USA would be in the top 5% wage earners in places like India! These racist NFL and NBA players whose minimum salaries are 500K per year are in the top 1% of wage earners IN THE WORLD! It is insane to hear multimillionaires telling the average citizens about how OPPRESSED they are.
They are LOOKING for signs of oppression and racism rather than looking for opportunities to succeed, you will find what you are looking for whether it is there or not! Dr Seuss was perfectly fine for the Obamas to read to children at the yearly easter egg roll on the White House lawn but when Melania Trump sends Dr Seuss books to a library, they are SUDDENLY racist books?? I don’t think so, you are letting your political beliefs interfere with actual facts!
This fellow is also an ignorant fanatic. Possibly a barely educated deputy Billy-Bob.
As I remarked earlier, firearms are tools. Because of their potentially lethal nature they ought to be regulated as to who uses them, and how, and when. Just ran into a piece describing a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun with an extra built-in rifle barrel and pistol grip. Something Mad Max would use? No, it was a perfectly logical and useful tool which was never needed.
h**p://russia-insider.com/en/politics/fact-russian-cosmonauts-carried-shotgun-space/ri21104
What’s incredible is that the US Government is the world’s biggest mass murderer and the liberals trust it to protect them by taking away guns from their fellow countrymen. The irony,
Let me guess: you and your trusty pistols and rifles and shotguns are going to tackle a company of evil US Government Mercenary Troops. Take down their Apache helicopters. Destroy the missile-firing drone sitting at 15,000 feet before it blows your house to hell and gone. Punch holes in the 60 ton tank sitting half a mile away still adjusting its laser rangefinder. And you undoubtedly have a plan to defeat the squad of self-propelled cannon parked at the big box store 22 miles away.
So considering the US government has all that equipment, and considering their bloody history, why aren’t you more focused on disarming them?
Brilliant idea! Disarm the evil government, and entrust our national defense to the brave 2nd Amendment Militias.
Actually, I’ve seen Libertarian “scholars” say that is the exact solution. Just imagine how impressed the Chinese would be. Or the Russians. Heck, even Holy Israel might join the race for First To Invade.
“If I have unjustly wrested a plank from a drowning man, I must restore it to him though I drown myself. This, according to Paley, would be inconvenient. But he that would save his life, in such a case, shall lose it. This people must cease to hold slaves, and to make war on Mexico, though it cost them their existence as a people.”
– Civil Disobedience
Shrink the military by 90% ,you toss Imperialism but will be able to maintain National Defense; Reduce workers income tax and maintain a healthy citizenry.
You are both right, which is why the issue cannot be resolved by discussing only the immediate issue.
The militaristic tyranny of US foreign policy and militarized policing has rooted in the popular culture, but that is not its cause: the cause is control of government and mass media by the economic power of oligarchy.
We wish for a peaceful government and peaceful citizens, but the more power we have given to government, the further from that we have come. While citizen weapons are not much deterrent to government tyranny, they do have some effect.
Only the restoration of the institutions of democracy from control by economic power, can permit us the confidence in government that would be necessary to give it all of the force available in society. We have no evidence at all yet that democracy can be restored peacefully, so it would be complete folly for citizens to surrender any means of force to a tyrannical government.
We shall have to address this issue again after we have secured our democratic institutions from economic power, and made our foreign and domestic policies benevolent. Until then I ascribe gun violence to our lack of democracy.
Australia did it. Aren’t we as smart as the Australian’s?
Historically successful revolutions occur when the population reaches a critical mass of economic despair and the state security forces stand down.
Ask Annie what the plan is Zach. Her education will save us all. It apparently taught her to belittle and attack people personally when faced with information that logic bombs her ideology. All kidding aside, yes the resistance may be against overwhelming odds it will at the very least be resistance as opposed to target practice. When you and other’s find a way to protect me from those with firearms without fire arms lemme know. I’ll get rid of mine………until then you should concentrate on curtailing actual criminals and their rights instead of other law abiding citizens rights. I hope at the very least that would make sense to you.
Right, well said it is so absurd that people make the argument you just destroyed it is pathetic
Sam and Tannenhouser, I agree. I think Zachary’s intent is good, but what I think the point he’s missing is that point about putting up some resistance and its impacts.
Let’s say everyone had a weapon and the government started using everything Zachary described. At the end of the day, the government still wants obedient slaves to work for it. If others saw this use of force being applied to their fellow countrymen, the government would soon lose all respect and authority and the rebellion would grow more widespread. A government is nothing without people.
If everyone turned in their weapons, then you get something like Catalonia. The government does not need to use such excessive force to steal people’s rights, and then it’s just a few angry protesters being beat up and sent to jail, and everyone moves on with their day, giving the government more power.
To quote Ron Paul:
“Is it really possible that the US government can kill millions of people overseas without it having and adverse effect on the mental stability of the American people? Is it really possible for Americans to continue living normal lives, mentally speaking, while their government is out killing millions of people on a regular basis? The US government’s mass violence abroad is the root cause of the horrible irrational violence that afflicts American society.”
Wow. Great quote from Ron Paul. Thanks.
MLK; The USA is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.
I now see gun ownership as irrelevant to maintaining “a well regulated Militia”. I think the “Deep State” has reached the same conclusion that they are no threat to their plans. The coup by the Synarchist Oligarchy against our Government (see EIR articles, after typing in their search box : “Henry Luce”), since FDR’s death to the present day, has gone on completely under the noses of our well-armed citizenry (last stat I read, years ago, was over a hundred million citizens owning over 300 million guns). So much for defense against home-grown tyranny. The beat goes on, and nobody is at the “Watch Tower” sounding the alarm. I have a few guns. I haven’t bothered practicing with them, nor even unpacking them, for many years now. They can sit and rust for all I care.
Total Crapola ! You should be embarrassed printing this dribble ! I now have one less newsletter in my email stack !
Thanks
Some NRA-related blog must have given the inhabitants there a link to this site. How on earth would they have found it otherwise?
Give up Zachary, these are men who need their guns to fee self empowered. Poor them!
If you’re dribbling when you type, you should put that in parentheses or something. If not, I think the word you’re looking for is “drivel.”
He probably meant to write “dribble”. Ever stood at a public urinal adjacent to one of the old white guys who comprise most of the NRA membership?
While it is noteworthy to know the history, I would suggest that we might consider that our constitution might be flawed. That it may need to be examined and even revised. When we really look at where we are as a country, it seems to me we have evolved into a deeply flawed society. I may be in a minority, but I was horrified when Obama announced the killing and disposal of Osama bin Laden and much of the country cheered. What happened to a fair trial? No, our president, a constitutional scholar, was judge, jury and de facto executioner. From our founding, we have been willing to use force and guns to get whatever we desired. We are doing this around the world overtly and covertly. We are the only country that used the atomic bomb. Not once, but twice. Both times on innocent civilians whose country was working out terms of surrender. And, Obama authorized funds to ‘improve’ our already absurd cache of nuclear weapons that our current president, Trump, is no using to threaten North Korea. The examples of our abuse of power and use of guns abound. Worse, following the Newtown massacre, a letter was sent to Obama and Congress by an Australian MP begging them to adopt the laws that were adoped in Australia with in 12 days of their only massacre. It was ignored. The NRA could not have the level of influence it does except in a country where so many ignore or even applaud violence in its many obvious and not so obvious forms.
Be careful what you wish for – a new Constitutional Convention is on the “wish list” of the Koch brothers. They’re closer to that goal than most people realize.
h**ps://www.prwatch.org/news/2017/03/13229/koch-brothers-bankroll-constitutional-convention
You got it right Deborah we Americans are a violent loving lot. I don’t own a gun, I was always fearful having so many children in our house that my ‘unloaded gun’ would be an accident where there’s no turning away from. I don’t have a problem with people owning guns either. You see the people I do know who a gun or two, are very responsible with their handling of their weapons. I don’t have an answer for the gun control issue either, because I just don’t. I mean even if we outlaw gun ownership tomorrow there will still be 300 million of these deadly weapons out there. But Deborah I think you are on to something, and that something is our culture. Maybe a national campaign to wise us up would help, I just don’t know. Although Deborah with your kind of thinking this in my opinion is where we Americans should start to get our society to where it must go. Joe
I’d hope your number is on the high side, but even if it isn’t, a buy-back is quite affordable.
I got this from Pew Research;
“A minority of Americans own guns, but just how many is unclear. More than a third of Americans say they or someone in their household owns a gun. There are by various estimates anywhere from 270 million to 310 million guns in the United States — close to one firearm for every man, woman and child.Jun 4, 2013”
Gun and ammunition sales are doing just fine, I guess. I hate this conversation, because it rubs so many Americans wrong. It doesn’t matter, gun control upsetting, gun ownership upsetting. I think what Deborah brought up about our culture, has a lot of merit. Other than that, I have no answer to this problem. I’m really on the fence with this whole issue. This is nothing new, I’ve always had reservations about what side to fall on when it comes to gun ownership.
This may tell you everything you need to know about me. When in Boot Camp in the Navy during target practice on the firing range, I shot the guy on the left of me target sheet. When the DI Instructor saw this he came over and put an eye patch over my one eye, and then I purposely shot the guys target on the right of me. Even with the bullseyes I made, the DI Instructor kicked me in the boot, and told me to get the hell out of here. I didn’t get my expert marksmen metal. You should have seen me when the Navy sent me for a Navy drivers license, that poor driving Instructor is still probably shook up after the wild ride I took him on. Moral of the story, if you don’t want to do it, then don’t be good at it. BTW I was great at doing my job though. Joe
John Whitehead is on to something with this….
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/10/john-w-whitehead/mass-shootings-the-military-entertainment-complexs-culture-of-violence-turns-deadly/
The right of the people to keep and bear arms. says it all. The author of this article is wrong and actually he is the one who is making things up. If you take away the right of the people to keep and bear arms it changes everything about America. It remain no different than other nations ever existed.
We don’t want to be like everybody else – that’s for sure.
“U.S. Leads World in Mass Shootings”
WSJ Updated Oct. 3, 2015 8:43 p.m. ET
The fact that you would actually cite “Sandyhook” in your essay is quite revealing to most patriotic people.
I just don’t think we will ever have a rational discussion about gun control. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 50% of the population does not think the government serves their interests and is therefore unwilling to cede anymore “freedoms” (if want to call them that) to the government. Even if we were talking about the federal government confiscating “cow dung” there would still be protests; this is our “cow dung” and we are not giving it up! While this issue is very important, it is intertwined with all the rest (globalization, immigration, healthcare) , making any rational discussion about it impossible. If people feel powerless or victimized in their lives, owning a gun can provide the illusion and emotional comfort that they are not. In some cases, gun ownership can be seen as the ultimate protest symbol against big government. This is in addition to more mundane reasons like self-defense. (IMHO, speaking as a non-gun owner, just an observer.)
Look at the dramatic increase in gun deaths and mass shootings since the most recent Supreme Court ruling and you will see where this is heading. We will soon be confined to our homes and have to hire armed guards driving armored trucks to deliver our groceries.
Repeal the 2nd.
Woops, huge “fail” as the kids say. Going after the 2nd Amendment based on LIES is a major failure in judgment. Believing everything the mass media reports, REGARDLESS that it is ALL highly suspicious, is a major failure in responsibility (as a reporter).
I’m not gonna start listing the evidence FROM THE OFFICIAL STORY which is contrary TO sane judgment and logic. You are the damn reporter. DO YOUR JOB. I’m only gonna stop believing anything you, Robert Parry, have to say.
The founding fathers were by and large an elitist group who only thought people who had property could vote and run the government. Do you think this bunch thought it would be a good idea for the “white and black trash” of this country to be roaming around with guns? I doubt that very much!
Annie, for once try thinking for yourself instead of repeating the wise words of public school education, media and the Hollywood elites.
What did Annie say which was in error?
No public school ever taught me the founding father’s were elitists and I can only assume that based on your remark you are not from this country, and in no way are you familiar with our public educational system, movies or media. You have really shown your ignorance in that statement.
No, public schools and history equals propaganda. so you probably never knew they were elitist oligarchs
Also Ibn Insha, I can see why you are anti-gun control, since you really can’t fight with words, or ideas.
“The real history of the Second Amendment was well understood both by citizens and courts in the generations after the Constitution and Bill of Rights were enacted. For most of the years of the Republic, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Second Amendment as a collective right, allowing Americans to participate in a “well-regulated Militia,” not an individual right to buy the latest weaponry at a gun show or stockpile a military-style arsenal in the basement.”
From The Supreme Court Decision
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/07pdf/07-290.pdf
Held:
1.
The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
…
e)
Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts and legislators, from immediately after its ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s conclusion. Pp. 32–47.
(f)
None of the Court’s precedents forecloses the Court’s interpretation. Neither United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 553, nor Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 264–265, refutes the individual-rights interpretation. United States v. Miller, 307 U. S. 174, does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes, but rather limits the type of weapon to which the right applies to those used by the militia, i.e., those in common use for lawful purposes. Pp. 47–54
1) Rifles were a necessity for the pioneers. Hunting provided “meat” and even today some families rely on hunting and surely this will be scoffed at in Alaska. 2) The second amendment has an independent clause and dependent clause and thus as written the amendment protects the right to own arms in order to provide for defense. 3) Up until a few years ago mass shootings were rare in the US; perhaps mostly confined to Mob wars. 4) Is it beneficial to have the ability to call millions to step up and protect the US from invasion? 5) What about Alaskans and those in other states where hunting is still popular and perhaps necessary? 6) It makes ZERO sense to “outlaw” continuous rapid fire guns and to allow a device to be “legally purchased” that does just that. (7) Does owning a rifle protect against government tyranny? I have my doubts as most modern weapons render these obsolete although we see them used somewhat effectively in some regions of the middle east. (8) Could the government have a buy back program and store these assault rifles in case of a dire need? Seems the owners should be given market value for their weapons and ammo. 8) Finally it seems surreal the framers of the Constitution would have ever envisioned a society without hunting rifles given the level of technology at the time. Madison was not a huge fan of the bill of rights and perhaps could have written with less ambiguity. Furthermore the founding fathers were against standing armies. Thus an armed citizenry was needed in case a militia was needed. Fast forward, Madison took care to insure change was possible via the “necessary and proper clause”. Thus one could argue, with a $ Trillion spent on defense every year, assault rifles are in fact no longer needed. In fact, we have a greater chance of being blown up in a nuclear holocaust via US hegemony than an invading army actually coming to the USA.
I have heard very little about banning all firearms. The things are tools, just like a calculator or fishing gear. Some people love to hunt, and for others the extra protein is a blessing. Besides, unless predatory cats and wolves are re-introduced, deer populations would explode. Kill two birds with one stone and let their numbers be curbed by hunters.
I’ve never heard of any wildlife which requires a repeating rifle or shotgun. For these weapons I’d institute the strongest restrictions – sort of like I’ve heard of in Switzerland. Any single and double shot weapons would have few restrictions other than evidence they’re properly insured for liability. If a burglar considers breaking into a dwelling a double-barrel twelve gauge loaded with buckshot ought to be plenty of deterrence. Single shots and doubles are still deadly devices, but murdering large numbers of people with them is necessarily more difficult.
A much more difficult problem for me is how to handle the handguns. I’d consider starting with mandatory insurance policies in case of their misuse or theft. I’d also want to start reversing the insane new laws allowing them to be carried into libraries, churches, bars, and such. People with concealed-carry would be investigated and periodically monitored!
Summary – if you want to buy or retain a repeater rifle, expect some serious regulations which would involve periodic checks from Deputy Billy-Bob to verify you still own it and that it is properly secured. Offer a buy-back for market value for those people unwilling to jump through those hoops. There will be people who decide to bury their guns in the backyard. Fine, but if they’re ever discovered, the fine would be enormous – maybe 1/10 of their annual income plus enough jail time to get their attention. Maybe a year or so. I don’t know how to handle the issue of the honest gun collector. He may be honest, sober, and certifiable sane. But what about next year when his undiagnosed brain tumor begins to grow. That relatively low probability event might be something we have to live with.
Technology is now available to make an excellent rifle or pistol in your basement. Again, if the new gun is ever traced to the maker, he or she will be in deep doo-doo. All known intermediaries will also be in trouble. The machines and CNC software exists, but properly structured penalties will make their use much less likely.
Swiss males in the military have their military weapons and some ammunition at home. Since Switzerland has a citizens militia that requires “refresher” military service each year, I have seen plainclothes Swiss in major city streets on the way to their military service loaded with their automatic rifles. One pauses the first time, but it then becomes completely unremarkable.
Perhaps the most interesting part of the Cartalucci/Landdestroyer article cited above is the complete lack of correlation between the level of gun ownership, the level of homicidal crime and the presence/absence of gun control laws in different countries. Cartalucci seems right in suggesting that we should look elsewhere for why such attacks occur so often in the US compared to other countries.
There is NOT a complete lack of correlation. The USA is WAY ahead of all the others in gun ownership and gun deaths. “Angry Arab” has a chart (sorry can’t link) in the last few days. The rest show a trend generally more guns more deaths (including suicides, which surely are a cause of alarm in any society).
The framers called them muskets. For those on the Supreme Court that ruled the 2nd Amendment an individual right that were basing their opinions on original intent, isn’t it a stretch to conflate muskets with assault rifles?
It’s a “stretch” which makes a rubber band look rigid by comparison.
On the old IndyStar forum – my very first – the gun nuts argued that if it went “boom” the second amendment applied. In reply to my question of whether a 16″ battleship cannon fell under the Amendment, the reply was that it most certainly did. Tanks, smaller artillery; It’s Their Right!
Why not just have ‘well regulated Militias’, and see how many come to sign up?
Yes, the absorption of the militias into the National Guard was a move against citizen power that may have been inadvisable. Centralization solves the problems of distributed power, and causes the problems of centralized power, by ignoring the problems of prevention of tyranny in the central government.
There is still the “unorganized militia” whose traditional meaning was every male citizen capable of bearing arms. I used to be a member of NRA, who, despite popular opinion, has a thorough-going knowledge of the 2nd, and knows its own history, as being established to ensure the citizens know how to shoot effectively, as the Union Army in the Civil War became somewhat known as “the gang that couldn’t shoot straight”. I’ve since dropped membership as I no longer see firearms as effective for defense against tyranny. Most citizens are likely to be seduced into “wearing Brown Shirts” for our Synarchist Oligarchy. They play us like fiddles at a hoedown. I don’t dance to their tune, however.
The formerly sane and responsible NRA taught firearm skills to many of us. They went off the rails in the 1970’s. About the best thing you can say about the NRA now is that it isn’t Gun Owners of America.
It is absurd for citizens under an honest, law-abiding, responsible government to carry guns; this is why I can go either way on the second amendment
We have a government which isn’t noted for being “honest”, “law-abiding”, or “reasonable”. The same can be said for all too many of the citizens. With the zillions of cameras adorning public places these days, we probably don’t need to “carry” the guns, but defending home and hearth is a valid concern as the public disorder resulting from crappy governance grows.
Please excuse my very deep ignorance ,here, since I am NOT a product of the American Culture. Don’t Americans get tired of talking about the same stuff over and over and over again with no or very little change?! Every time there is a mass shooting,Americans talk about Guns and Gun Violence and whatever Amendment and what it means or meant originally……….Sometimes vigils are held adorned with politically correct speeches and people hold hands and sing songs and articles get written and and and………..then, the thing gets forgotten and oops, you get the next mass shooting……………. and repeat the whole scenario!!! Anybody remember the detention of insanity?!
Someone once wrote a book called “The United States of ANGER”………….He meant to say that America is an ANGRY culture…………..that was based on his touring of the country………….
.https://www.amazon.com/United-States-Anger-Gavin-Esler/dp/0140269274
Wonder why?! Look at the endless history of WARS the country has gone through and is going through!!! It seems that many people in this culture just love violence and even enjoy it! Look at how glorified militarism is and how many weapons manufacturers there are………..look at how many movies are made to glorify violence and look at wars being broadcast live on TV……..remember shock and awe?!………..remember the “Mother of all bombs”?!…….remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki?!…….. remember the “orgasmic” experience air force pilots get from dropping bombs from airplanes flying 40,000 feet high?!……….remember “drones” turning people into ground meat?!
One cannot glorify violence and then get surprised when it happens where it is not expected!!! ………..A deep study of the American Culture is badly needed and believe me there are excellent books written about it but SELF EXAMINATION is not something many want to do………it is much easier to simple escape……..temporarily………….
sorry for the misspelling of “definition” of Insanity…………..
Detention of insanity; Perfect!
I do. I get tired of ît. Last night on the news it was hard to believe people were being interviewed about this same old stuff, when there won’t be anything done about the gun violence this time, as the time before, as the time before, and as ….! Our best last hope was Sandy Hook, to get something done. Everyone almost was on board. Then nothing! News last night said it took the Brady Bill ten years to get passed. How long did it take to dismantle it? These wealthy lobbies hold control.
Dear Dr. Soudy,
Thank you so much for a very needed post from one who is not a product of this insane asylum.
One of the biggest things I do not get, in modern times, is why alleged constitutional law scholar Larry Tribe flipped from the correct, “corporatist” understanding to an individualist one.
One should read an excellent article in the October edition of “Scientific American”, Guns and Violence: What the data say vs. what people believe.
Also people’s metal status can change, it isn’t constant, so how do you uncover and remove weapons from someone who has quietly or noticeably become a threat. People get brain tumors which can lead to terrible behaviour.
As a young boy, I remember waking up one night to screams from a neighbour’s house, “Don’t shoot me, don’t shoot me.” It was a respected lawyer having a row with his elderly mother-in-law who was there needing home support.
We don’t need guns !
More Guns Do Not Stop More Crimes, Evidence Shows
By Melinda Wenner Moyer
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/
I read every article you put out. But I cannot stand it when you show your utter ignorance about some of these events. They are STAGED events, specifically designed to usher in articles and opinions akin to those expressed in this article. YOU NEED TO DO YOUR RESEARCH! Nobody died at Sandy Hook, and this latest event, whether a false flag (where people may have actually been killed), or another completely faked event (need more evidence/input to know), it was designed specifically to goad idiots like you to make some profound interpretation of the 2nd amendament, where I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT IS YOUR AREA OF EXPERTISE! IS IT? Tell me, Mr. Parry! Is it?! The 2nd amendment exists for our own protection, and it exists to protect us from tyrannical rule, from the inside, or from the outside. Look at the “facts” regarding this event, and you’ll find that it is impossible that this one crazy goon could do all that is being reported. His gun would have MELTED!
I suppose it was inevitable some of these types would show up.
Come on Zac. Skeptics are healthy. Right or wrong, they challenge preconceived beliefs. :)
There’s skepticism, and then there’s bat-shit crazy.
That’s why he had 23 assault rifles with him.
Reading your post brings to mind just one word; certifiable.
In my future society there will be no guns permitted for anyone. This includes military and police. Nor will war and nuclear weapons be permitted. You may say this will never come to pass, but if you do, then I will say welcome to a species determined to destroy itself. Your disbelief in the possibility of a peaceful society based on mutual care is a major factor ensuring our extinction.
Notify me when you get all set up, I come live in your country mike.
Sign me up, till then I’ll keep my guns thanks
So you admit you have weapons. then how are these weapons working to protect you from fascist America? They are not and they cannot
The Germans had plenty of guns. Didn’t do much good against the modern state. You will need to find another way.
General strikes seem to scare the fascist state half to death.
Seems to work really well in France and Italy.
Lot less bloodshed.
BDS is the only thing that scares zionists
How does this keep you safe? I have never lived in a country which made me feel I wanted to kill a fellow person, and would not want to. Peace seems to be a dirty word to americans, and negotiation, discussion, seeing another point of view are weak and feeble. No thanks. I visited the USA for five days fifty years ago, and remember the soldiers all over the airports (Vietnam “heroes”, no doubt) and the reports were only of which of “our boys” had died-not the war itself.
Never wished to go back!!
When some 13 to 15 thousand people die in the US each year what more needs to be said, other then US citizens should not be allowed to bare arms. I agree with Mr. Parry’s interpretation of the second amendment, that it was not the intent of the founding fathers that is a god given right for the people of the new Republic to bare arms, but even if it were, things change, and certainly things have changed in many other ways. Now women can vote, and Blacks can vote and even if you don’t own property you can vote. The gun lobby, the NRA, is one of the culprits here, and the politicians who support their positions, and get pay back, with money and votes, not to mention the greatest problem being America’s love affair with guns which they seem to equate with freedom and power. If you go to the movies and notice all the shoot-em-up films you could also think we are a country enamored of violence, not to mention the American people’s acceptance of war.
This is all true, but we must consider how we shall resist tyranny when government is out of control? There were no armored vehicles, machine guns, tear gas, or military responses to strikes and public demonstrations in early federal times. Now we have no power whatsoever against oligarchy, but for those who have guns.
Of course I do not advocate the bad effects, no one does, but the question remains; we must find new ways to defeat tyrants before we give up the little power that citizens have.
Sam, I can understand your fear, on a certain level, however do you really think that those who are armed with guns can effectively stave off a government who has run amok and is trampling the democratic rights of it’s citizens? Not going to happen, and it’s not the right way to fight back. An educated citizenry is the best way, and one that is actively involved in letting their voices be heard. Unfortunately our fellow Americans are too complacent, too ignorant of what is going on, and too willing to suck up propaganda. Just think of how easy it was going to be, a cake walk in Iraq, and look at the devastation that continues to this day. Violence is not the answer to anything. Afghanistan is another good example why violence doesn’t work.
Chris Hedges recently commented, “Empires in decay embrace an almost willful suicide. Blinded by their hubris and unable to face the reality of their diminishing power, they retreat into a fantasy world where hard and unpleasant facts no longer intrude. They replace diplomacy, multilateralism and politics with unilateral threats and the blunt instrument of war.”
Not a way to go for the American people either.
Empires inevitably collapse, it happens throughout history, for many reasons. Some people think we are further down that road, while others believe that nothing could be further from the truth. I profess no special knowledge of where the US is on that spectrum, but it is obvious that there is something rotten in Denmark. In such a calamitous situation, you would not be protecting yourself against the government, you would be protecting yourself against your neighbor stealing your food. This is exactly what happened when the Soviet Union collapsed.
I’m betting that given a choice of which side to join in a battle against a tyrannical government stomping on the citizens rights. Most would join the side with means to resist. Don’t get me wrong Annie I’m sure there are a few souls who will join you on the line with your cardboard sign and educated indignation.
I agree that violence is in general not a solution to problems. But when we have a government by violence, we cannot surrender any of the few remaining tools that limit government aggression against citizens, however limited their effectiveness.
When we have restored democracy, if that is possible, we can re-examine the question of citizen powers. Until then, abuses of citizen powers must be ascribed to oligarchy, not to citizen powers.
There are no weapons available to the citizenry that can protect them from America’s police state. You can buy as many hand guns etc. that you want and you are out gunned by the Empire forces.
And restoring democracy is not my goal: the US was created as a democratic republic. And that will never come back.
Interesting; perhaps indeed democracy will never come back, but I wonder whether there is a realistic goal in government without restoring democracy in some form.
You are saying that Americans are able to fight and win against the greatest military and Air Force ever assembled complete with tanks and tactical nuclear weapons with assault rifles.
You must be really NRA brainwashed.
Vietnamese whipped them. Mujahaden will also.
Doctors kill more people than guns each year Annie. Shall we deny Americans access? Cars kill multitudes more….. most deaths by guns are suicides statistically speaking I think…. do they count?
The numbers of people killed by guns in the US grow each year.
Are you serious, comparing accidents with murders? Sounds sick.
Our gun deaths here are so high, they are not comparable with any other developed country on earth.
We are comparable only with countries at war.
What kind of human being would want their country to be the unsafest country in the world?
Look at the polls, you are in a minority of 8% that apparently don’t mind their loved ones being killed as sport.
Unless our government provides meaningful gun control, you will find the American public demanding the repeal of your blessed 2nd Amendment.
It’s time to end pleading for gun control and start the movement to repeal.
Repeal the 2nd nicely fits on a bumper too.
Control the greatest mass murderers of 100,000’s even millions, and the amateur mass murders will lessen.
Although some of the theses here would be attractive in a better regulated country than the US, I must respectfully disagree with a general attack on the Second Amendment, despite having suffered long from gun abusers myself.
First the historical thesis, that there was no intent of the founders to distribute military power among the people, is incorrect. They explicitly said that in many cases, and knew that the people would not support gun controls in general. Guns were a means of sustenance, personal and family defense in remote areas, and ensured that any population would have defenses against any hostile population. Certainly the public believed that guns were needed, and would not have supported the Constitution if it denied them.
This does not mean that anyone supported firing wildly in crowds, or frequent revolutions, nor does it mean that the founders would have supported distributing WMD among citizens. But where there were no WMD, and a standing military was firmly opposed, it made perfect sense. Jefferson’s statement about rebellion against tyrants was common thinking, and it is insufficient to call it isolated or denigrate him. I have run across several such quotes of the period without seeking them, so the idea was common.
But the Second Amendment raises the issues of (1) bringing distributed power of citizens into modern times and technologies; and (2) limiting the modern power of tyrants over citizens. Those are the basic questions to be addressed, and a balance must be found, or we shall have one extreme or the other. Part of the first issue is addressing the real causes of mass killings and how should they be prevented.
Very thoughtful comment, Sam F. Obviously there has to be some balance. I live in a very rural area, and have no kids, so I keep a handgun at my bedside, lock the door at night, and have a dog to bark and wake me up. I don’t think the general public needs access to hand grenades, RPG’s, surface to air missiles, or nuclear weapons. If the “black helicopters” come for us, violent recourse wouldn’t prove effective anyway. The “peace-keepers” could probably drone strike your house out of existence without leaving the office. It is a shame that thoughtful discussion is drowned out by the shrill voice of the NRA and the money they spread around Congress.
Explain then why did the Supreme Court rule for 150 years that the 2nd Amendment was not an individual right.
It’s due to the same right-wing extremists that have also reduced the taxes on the 1% causing the most inequality our country has ever known
It would be more accurate to say that the 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of homosexuals to be in the military than it implies an individual right to own a gun.
The “Police Story” stems from 2nd amendment. What we call police has roots in 2nd amendment and concept of militia revered by brain dead constitutional purists claiming that it is about individual ownership of arms. Not true. As Robert points out, It is all about right of wealthy, land owners, later corporate bosses and their operatives to form a temporary and semi-permanent paramilitary units to take the law in their own hands in many cases due to perceived lack of Sheriff physical power to enforce what oligarchs wanted enforced, namely their own law and their rule as they dictated it in state houses.
Such a semi-permanent militia units were used widely for many purposes from suppressing slave revolts, small farmers riots, and intimidating, exterminating native nations of Indians etc.,. The militias’ mythology and legal status encompassed as well known gangs of thugs on corporate payroll killing striking workers and their families along with US Army often using heavy artillery directed toward workers family [and children] leaving quarters away from locations of “valuable” factories or mines where actual strikes have taken place.
All that to induce workers surrender under threat of killing their women and children, a well know terrorist tactics of American army and private/public militias. But facing massive unrest corporate bosses figured out that it cost them to too much and they came out with an idea of a “police force” paid by taxpayers.
This brilliant idea meant that those killed, beaten by the police thugs were made to pay for this “pleasure”.And here we have, a gang of thugs tuned into revered members of society who want to break you or kill you, for your own good. What a mind job perpetrated over American brains or what’s left of them.
Agreed. Enough with the cop worship.
Few years ago a court ruled in NYC that police has no legal obligation to protect or even serve the public but to enforce laws and court decrees, in a case where uniform police purposefully did not interfere or report to headquarters the commission of crime, but wittnessed it from several feet away for long period of time (severe beatings with blood spilled) and then making no report about it at all.
The thuggery of police is built in the law.
Setting aside both sides (however distorted) of 2nd Amendment arguments:
“Those who intentionally stir hysteria and prey on the emotions of well-meaning people to push issues like gun control have ulterior motives – and coincidentally allow all of the actual factors that drive violence – socioeconomic disparity and destitution – to continue or even expand.
“If you are truly against violence, you must truly commit yourself to understand what really causes it, and not indulge in emotional campaigns pursuing irrational measures that not only will not stop violence, but will invite great amounts of the very exploitation and injustice that drives violence.
“Banning guns did not stop terrorists in Europe from obtaining completely illegal AK-47s used in Paris, France killing over 130 people, nor did banning guns stop a terrorist from using a truck in Nice, France to take the lives of over 80 people. Gun bans did not stop the alleged hijackers of the planes used on September 11, 2001 to kill nearly 3,000 people. […]
“Those who are determined to carry out premeditated mass murder like that which unfolded in Las Vegas, will do so no matter what implements they have at their disposal. Figuring out what factors actual cause an individual or organization to contemplate and carry out mass murder is the only way to stop or reduce future acts of violence.
“Examining the heavily medicated, violent, and intentionally divided population of America and and the socioeconomic doldrums they inhabit would be a good place to start.”
Another Mass Shooting, Another Grab For Guns: 6 Gun Facts
By Tony Cartalucci
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com/2017/10/another-mass-shooting-another-grab-for.html
I don’t know if this Cartalucci guy is on the payroll of the NRA or not, but if he isn’t, he ought to be. This was a masterpiece of distraction.
This is the first I’ve heard of the hijackers having guns. Facing passengers expecting their ordeal to be an ordinary hijacking, the determined men holding sharp cutting instruments could have done well enough with them alone.
The first part is pure nonsense. Of course professional terrorists are going to have guns. And bombs. And poisons. In fact, anything they feel they need. Disarming the amateurs will not be nearly as much a problem in the unlikely event it is ever attempted.
But thanks for the link anyhow. I’m now removing landdestroyer from my bookmark list.
Zachary,
For the record, I am not on any NRA payrolls, nor am a member of that organization.
In addition, the NRA is not an ARMS organization, it is a RIFLE association. Arms are weapons, Weapons are human killing purposed extensions and mechanisms. While rifles may be used as arms, they are not inherently arms.
The Second Amendment references Arms, which means all arms, from rifles to pistols to cannons, rockets and bombs.. Ownerships of all categories are categorically protected, and categorically restricted to well regulated use/purpose to support security for the free state in militia coordination. The Second Amendment does NOT permit or condone improper and irresponsible uses of weapons. For this, when someone shoots something or somewhere up the Second Amendment is not at issue. Blather about the Second Amendment is side-track blather and irrelevant.
Nor am I a member of the organization, Evangelista. However the NRA concern with citizens’ lawful rights to acquire, possess, collect, exhibit, transport, carry, transfer ownership of, and enjoy the right to use fire arms most definitely does include hand guns.
My intended point, Abe, is that NRA should not be demonized or made into some kind of Gun-Violence-Advocacy-Devil-Incarnate. for the rock-throwing convenience of hysterics.
The NRA is a group that advocates for responsible ownership of guns, long and short, and that provides, and encourages teaching of, gun-safety, which is not how to carry concealed, or any such, but how to safeguard firearms to prevent accidents.
There are lots of us who are others who advocate the same, many who don’t own firearms, many who do, many who hunt with them, and many who don’t, some of whom perceive firearms useful only in dealings with humans, and there in a particular classes of human interactions.
Note that the vast majority of women who own or maintain access to firearms, handguns particularly, stand in this last, for dealings with other humans only, class.
Disingenuous. The writer did not intend to imply 9/11 hijackers had guns. Skewing things won’t help unless you talking to simpletons.
You should take some time off and learn about other things he writes about.
Brookings Institution’s “Which Path to Persia?” Report
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.es/2012/10/brookings-institutions-which-path-to.html
US corporate-funded Brookings 2009 report conspires against the nation of Iran. Plot includes using terrorists, provoked war, economic warfare, and covert military and political subversion against the Iranian people.
US Legislator Brookings´ Illegal NWO “Path to Persia” I: The “Soft” Path
http://new.euro-med.dk/20170612-us-legislator-brookings-illegal-nwo-path-to-persia-i-the-soft-path.php
John McCain: Founding Father of the Terrorist Emirate of Benghazi
http://landdestroyer.blogspot.com.es/2012/03/john-mccain-founding-father-of.html
Well said, Abe. :)
Parry’s piece is just another attempt to draw a line between state rights and individual rights. It is motivated by La La Land idealism which has a serious blind spot with respect to understanding the Real World.
It is not an irrational measure to limit the amount of death capacity, from someone’s arsenal. That’s why we have driving and smoking laws. They are for the public good. The only reason we don’t have more common sense laws is the Republicans are well financed, and well organized, and have gerrymandered so many congressional districts.
As you describe Americans and their weapons, one would think you would be anxious to have more gun regulations, and more money spent on mental health?
Zachary, there’s no “distraction” here.
WC, Parry’s view is sound and realistic.
I believe that the NRA’s 2nd Amendment so-called “argument” is bogus on its face. The point of my preface remark is that the 2nd Amendment question is a red herring. I referred to Cartalucci in support of Parry’s article, not in opposition.
Cartalucci simply acknowledges (but does not endorse) the official conspiracy theory allegation that “They used box cutters.”
The fact is, the majority of lawful firearms owners in the United States are not and have no intention of killing another human being.
The article outlines six points indicating that violence is driven by socioeconomic factors, not access to firearms.
But governments never let a mass casualty incident “crisis” go to waste.
Ok, I misunderstood your point.
But the site will remain off my bookmark list. Consider his statement #1:
1. According to the FBI, more people die of barehanded assaults in the US per year than all rifle violence (“assault rifles” included) combined. In fact, homicide via personal weapons like hands and feet is more than double homicides carried out with rifles.
Then he proceeds to accuse others of chicanery for using the same tactics as himself.
During a debate, all data must be considered, not conveniently and conditionally picked through so the numbers add up in one’s favor.
What if I were to claim that the death toll in the US from monster .50 caliber rifles and pistols is but a fraction of those caused by spider bites. Or tetanus. Or bee stings. I’d be telling the truth, but with the intention of deception.
Homicide is the act of one human killing another.
I suppose spider bites, tetanus, and bee stings could be involved in certain homicide scenarios (ever have a kid show you the insect collection he keeps in a rusty can?). Otherwise, your argument would be total chicanery, Zachary.
How you manage your bookmark list is your business.
Abe & Zac
Advocating more gun control in a country where the government is completely out of control would qualify as wishful thinking in the extreme.
Advocating that “the government is completely out of control” would certainly qualify as extremist thinking.
If you wish, WC, you can join one of those “citizens militias” who share such thinking.
My experience is that the majority of lawful gun owners advocate safe and responsible use of firearms, and rational gun control.
Abe.
A government that has been co-opted and heavily indebted by special interests is no longer a country that is run for the people and by the people. If this is extremist thinking you haven’t been paying attention to what has been going on.
No responsible firearms owner is against rational gun control. What really worries the NRA and other pro-gun groups is the trend in history of emerging totalitarian states to enforce total bans on all firearms before they went berserk and started to slaughter their own people by the millions. I’ll spare you the horror-list as you are obviously smart enough to know already.
So, given the state of affairs in the government and who really controls it, the odds (if we go by the historical trend) would favor the US heading towards a totalitarian police state so the special interests can retain their power and influence.
What I keep asking you and Zac is where are your solutions? All I keep hearing are idealistic remedies that are shot full of holes when it comes to implementing them in a world that doesn’t conform to your morality and values.
Go rave about “totalitarian states” somewhere else.
NDAA 2012 , AUM
Israel’s out of control government has “guns for Jews” gun control, while Israeli politicians have openly encouraged illegal Jewish “settlers” to shoot to kill.
Crazed Jewish “settlers” in occupied Palestinian territory have license to parade around in public with guns on their hips and high-powered semi-automatic rifles slung over their shoulders, waving weapons at any “terrorist” who dares to protest the illegal Israeli occupation
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/israel-gun-policy-licence-kill-palestinians-151119080409657.html
If Americans knew that the overwhelming degree of deadly violence in Israel and Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory is perpetrated by Jewish Israelis, the party in the conflict with nearly all the guns and bombs and rockets…
http://ifamericaknew.org/
… then Americans would overwhelmingly support the realistic “solution” to this massive criminality:
Boycott, Disinvestment, and Sanctions (BDS) until Israel agrees to abide by international law.
Israel’s campaign of terror and annexation in Palestine must end.
The Israeli government, the Israel Lobby and the Hasbara troll army online are devoted to preventing Americans from knowing the truth about Israel’s gross violations of international law.
My husband, a political science professor, has always interpreted the Second Amendment the way Robert Parry does in this article. However, he hardly ever talks about it in social settings because people are so indoctrinated by the NRA’s rhetoric, they pounce on it viciously. The one point I haven’t seen in the comments so far is how large the NRA lobby is — how much money they spend on lobbying against gun control laws! And every time there is a violent gun incident such as we’ve just had, sales of guns goes up a lot.
I had a an idea that might work. If Congress does not want to pass effective life-saving gun control laws, anyone buying an assualt weapon(s) should be required to agree to surveillance, to having his personal life, communications,
videos he/she watches, everything about him surveiled. Any thoughts on that?
I’m glad you sighted that article. I read it on Global Research the other day and it makes sense. To give practical structure to the 2nd, we can look at the Swiss Confederation of its Cantons, which modeled itself on our own Constitutional structure: I don’t know if it still prevails, but all Swiss males between 18 and 55 are members of its militia or Army. They all keep their foot soldier’s gear in their homes, including military-grade rifles. They train regularly to insure they know how to shoot their rifles effectively. Unlike us, though, in these Post-WWII times, THEY actually do have a Government of, by, for, the people, and the General Welfare is well looked-after, so we don’t see mayhem in Switzerland despite the massive presence of military firearms. If WE retreated back to our boundaries of our Continental Republic and its Constitution, and devoted the monies and intellect and energy to our General Welfare, instead of indulging in projects of Imperial Conquest, we too would be like Swiss society.
I completely agree. But we would have to increase our education funding by at least 100 times of what we spend now and start teaching our real history to eventually reach a Swiss level of intelligence and humanity. I have little hope for us to reign in the empire before it collapses of its own self- important hubris and endless lies or the money runs out. Whichever comes first.
Are you really that ignorant? Australia, that had virtually no gun control passed stiff gun control laws after their last mass shooting, and haven’t had another since. Both of their political parties joined together to do the people’s will.
It is now finally going to happen here with 92% of Americans supporting real gun control.
Kiss your guns goodbye.
It’ll never happen. Too co$tly to collect over 300 million guns from 120 million unwilling citizens who already do not trust their government. It would also “tip their hand” and show their intentions, ruining plausible deniability. The Deep State (Synarchist Oligarchy) has apparently already reached the conclusion that the citizens guns are irrelevant and of NO THREAT to their agenda whatsoever. They don’t mind the occasional slaughter among the sheep. They don’t care about that, or about us. The gun slaughters may be useful to them, in that they will strengthen police state assets in the name of “Law and Order”. It is you who are unknowing of just what has been going on in this Country, and the rest of “Western Civilization” Australia included. FDR would have sounded the alarm, had he lived his full 4th term to January 1949( instead of Ike’s weak muffled warning until too late). He died and the Synarchists (the very ones who tried to coup FDR) took over the joint, slowly but surely, the need to assassinate FDR having been conveniently removed by natural causes.
I read Cartalucci’s article elsewhere, and it distorts the facts. As the Onion repeats for the fourth time, the USA keeps wringing its hands about the impossibility of stopping these crimes, while being the only country which persists in repeating them FAR MORE than any other “democratic” nation. The figures for gun deaths are far in excess of equivalent nations(!)-that many of the deaths are suicides is hardly praiseworthy for the laws or mentality of the population. The encouragement of violence is not only historical but comes from the top, and not just since January 2017, and the worship of militarism and tremendous overuse of power by 18,000 police forces does not help the people to feel safe and protected in the Homeland.
I liked this essay! The part about Jefferson and his hypocrisy was great. But the part I’m quoting needs to be emphasized.
I believe everybody understood that the American Indians were a temporary problem. They didn’t have either the technology or the population numbers to remain a continuing threat. But the South planned for slavery to be eternal, and didn’t want to get into a legal arrangement where some future government could de-fang State Militias. Thus the Second Amendment was necessary to placate them.
This one is a keeper, and is already on my hard drive.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery
Since slavery in its original form no longer exists, it would be prudent to remove/modify the 2nd amendment to reflect the changing times. Until the constitution changed, scholars will argue and defend/denounce the 2nd amendment, that’s just the fact without much of the changes in gun-ownership.
Garbage in and garbage out. Goth the link and the conclusion.
Create a false premise, found a false argument on that and advance a fatuous and irrelevant to anything conclusion.
But how can anyone argue with it? In order to throw bullshit back one must pick the shit up.
Zachary,
The Second Amendment to the UNITED STATES CONSTITUTION (which is NOT a STATE Constitution) says, as you quote Robert Parry quoting, ““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.”.
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution DOES NOT say any of the other stuff that you write, that Robert Parry writes, that any Supreme Court Justices write, or that anyone else writes.
Please note that the words do not contain anything about state militias, or putting down disorders or protecting citizens.
State militias are state creations. Putting down disorders is a policing function. The “people” of the United States are the citizens of the United States PLUS all others living in the United States, including Indigenous people and slave people and immigrants, who might have restricted rights excluding citizenship.
The Second Amendment does not reference “militias”, only one “militia”. By this the Amendment incorporates any state militias into one single national militia: The federal nation, the United States does not Constitutionally permit multiple militias. There is no divisionism inherent in the United States Constitution. You, and the other interpretors stick all that in.
There is no provision in the United States Constitution for use of the Second Amendment militia to put enforce slavery or slaughter indigenous peoples, whether the first may be assigned ‘disorderly’ or the second to, for their presence, incite ‘disorder’.
Tahe Second Amendment says, very simply and directly, that all of the people of the United States may arm themselves, and doing so obligate themselves in membership in a single militia, whose purpose is to provide security for the free state, meaning, the United States Constitution being for the Federal United States, the United States state in and of itself.
The purpose of an armed state of armed people is to insure each of the people full and equal rights to protect each his own and his neighbors’ and fellow citizens’ liberty This means that to prevent ones of the armed population going wild with outrage and shooting up others of the armed population (who have no obligation to carry their arms) the freedoms and liberties of each and all need to be recognized and respected so that none of the people except for criminal activities and intentions may be driven to feel such outrage as may drive them to go shooting wildly.
The United States today suffers from wild shooters because the inequalities inherent in a liberty suppressing police-state, where some who are professionally aggressive are armed and armored (with weapons or with ‘legal’ prerogatives) and others are interdicted, forbidden and prohibited from equal armaments and prerogatives..
The wild shootings are not aberrations, they are symptoms of the imbalances that have been permitted and encouraged. The wild shootings are the manifestations of the disease that has been permitted to rack and ravage the United States political state. The wild shootings of today, and the increases of them since yesterday and continuing tomorrow, are normal in a nation like the United States in its current condition.
Whether the United States’ sickness abates or kills the state will depend on whether the infecting disease is cured. There is no amount of Patent Cure prescription and bullshit blathering, or personal interpreting and slicing and dicing of meanings, or adding more restricting imposition to the load of oppressing legislation that is responsible for the illness, that will.cure the current United States problem, or make it go away or not get worse.
Nor will Robert Parry misconstruing history and cherry-pick bitching about Thomas Jefferson and blathering prissy petty aphorisms about slavery and southerners and these or those others he does not like, and knows not nor anything about in fact, because he knows them in caricature only, of his own mental imaginings, make anything better, or stop the sickness getting worse. Just as the problems that generated Black Lives Matter are not, in fact parochial to black lives, the problems that generate white ‘lone wolf’ shooters and ‘terrorist’ Muslim bombers, are not parochial to those. All are factioned because of factioning. The problem each faction sees through the lens of its own faction is common. Until this is recognized and the factional filibustering finishes the problems of violent reactive eruptions is going to get worse. For all,
Adopted on December 15, 1791, he Second Amendment (Amendment II) to the United States Constitution protected the right of the people to keep and bear arms. but that right was not unlimited.
The new Constitution empowered Congress to regulate a “Militia”. However, in terms of practical implementation of the Second Amendment provision for a national military force, significant control was left in the hands of State governments.
With all due respect, Evangelista, the caricature that inhabits your imaginary appears to have nothing to do with what Parry has written on the matter.
Abe,
It does not mater when exactly the 2nd Amendment was “adopted”. It does matter that it, like the other nine Amendments of The Bill of Rights group, was NOT adopted, stated, included, or written down to protect. The Bill of Rights Amendments were put into statement form to formally clarify content that was perceived included in the United States Constitution by the framers. This was evidenced by their decision that no Bill of Rights was necessary for the document they presented for ratification, because the rights that would be stated, that were proposed, were included.
The subsequent statements of the first ten amendments were for reiteration: To make absolutely sure that following politicians, legislators, judges and executives were formally noticed that the Constitution meant these things AMONGST OTHERS. In other words, the iterations in the Bill of Rights was purposed to establishing the timbre of the interpretation of the Constitution that the ratifiers intended.
The words of the Constitution are the ultimate law of the United States government, the Federal United States. If you read the words of the Constitution you should notice that they do not state law for the People of the United States, but state law for the government of the United States. Not the states, the United States. If you ignore this you get into the quandary he anti-electoral college complainers find themselves in, being unable to imagine how a popular vote majority can not elect a candidate to the President of the United States office, and unable to comprehend that the president of the United States is a president of the United states, the government, not the people, elected by the states, not the people.
The Constitution did not empower Congress to form a national military force, at least not as such. It provided for the Federal Congress to organize the people of the United States into a military force that included, army, navy, etc. The states provided the people, who remained state people, to serve the federal United States’ military needs, in ONE militia. The nuances are important to understanding the new state, the Federal State, and the balance perceived to be required to maintain the balance preservation of liberty was defined to require.
With all due respect, Robert Parry’s article is a caricature, because he, like all other supervenary interpreters draws upon whatever distortions and exaggerations he may reach that serve his purpose to produce his image product.
The Constitution did not empower Congress to form a national military force, at least not as such.
It really did, unfortunately: “the Congress shall have power to raise and support Armies”, though not fund them for more than 2 years a time.
We’ve that overvalued “hero” G. Washington to thank for the standing army and its adventurism. He really hated not being able to hang militiamen who went home rather than starve and freeze at his behest, so he made sure that the militia would not be the only force available to US rulers.
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.
Evngelista: you needed 726 words to distort the clear meaning of 27.
The Constitution of the USA reads and sounds like a make work project for lawyers. It is like an Insurance contract. Open to interpretation, confusing, obscure Or any other document written by lawyers, it is not meant to clarify, it is meant to be confusing so that lawyers can collect monstrous fees endlessly debating the document in front of their coleagues in the court houses across the land. and proof that if you want something to work do not have it written by a lawyer or a PHD.
Every legal document , by law should not be allowed to be more than 2 pages long and be easily understandable to everyone with average reading skills. Fine print and obscure phrases should be illegal and summarily dismissed in any court of law citing the fine print as a tool to mislead, scam, cheat, or what ever phrase comes to mind. Shakespear had it right when he wrote ” First kill all of the lawyers”. Has there ever been a group in history that has caused and justified more misery to foisted upon unsuspecting populations all through history?
Mary,
I quoted the 2nd Amendment in my comment. I did not distort it, I did not add to it, I did not enhance it, I did not modify it, I did not embellish it. If you read my comment, instead of only counting words, you might notice it to be about the U.S. Constitution, which contains the 2nd Amendment, about that Constitution being the law for the government of the United States and being law that those who assume positions in the United States government are Constitutionally required to obey.
The 2nd Amendment, like all of the others of the Bill of Rights, and most of the rest of the amendments to the U.S. Constitution, is ultimate law for the government of the United States, whether some may like it or not.
This is just as slavery was legal and a common practice in the United States when the Constitution was framed, for which the framers, whatever their personal beliefs, had to accept the situation of its legality and practice, and so seek compromises that could, at least potentially, control the legal institution, to slow its growth, at least encourage its practices to be maintained humane and keep the question of its practice open for continued consideration. No one could, because of the existing situation, force the institution’s end. Similarly, where the U.S. Constitution prohibits any in the U.S. government dictating gun laws that prohibit the keeping and bearing of arms, the channels open are discussion and compromise to assure greatest possible safety for the greatest number of The People. And encouragement of behaviors that commonly remind of and demand practice of, the self-restraint the Constitution was obviously written with presumption of being demanded and required.
In fact, the reason for laws like the 2nd Amendment being imposed on a government is to coerce those governing to exercise the powers entrusted to them to maintain the kind of equilibrium that prevents unwarranted eruptions of violence. The purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to take away too commonly resorted to “easy prohibition solutions” that the framers had the wisdom and education to recognize provoke increases of violent eruption, rather than encouraging restraining influence and restraint by the people, themselves, amongst themselves.
You are wrong. Look at the Federalist Papers, the arguments made by Congress at the time of passage and just as important, the Supreme Court decisions up until the last crazy court reversed settled law and 150 years of court decisions and gun control laws. In all that time, the 2ND Amendment had been ruled as a collective right, not an individual right.
You people who insist on the 2nd Amendment allows everyone to carry a gun and continue to cause mayhem will wake up soon a d find the 2nd Amendment abolished completely. With 92% of the American public insisting upon meaningful gun control, the present situation cannot stand.
As it turned out slavery was not eternal in the USA. If you don’t understand this, having it on your hard drive is not going to help you. Try to think about what just happened in Vegas and what has been happening throughout your lifetime. I’m referring the the individual and mass killing of innocent American citizens, by guns. People living in homes with guns (parents and children). People this government guarantees the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. You, included.
Do you not make any distinction between the arsenal this killer had and your defense of unregulated “firearms”? Is the kill capacity of the gun or guns a person owns of any relevance to you? Why are driving and smoking regulated, and are these types of regulations beneficial to society? Why should this citizen have the right to affect the life, freedom, and pursuit of happiness of 600 people? What about their rights, and the right of all citizens to go to concerts, malls, and other public places, without fear? No bot answers please.
Or wedding parties that your federal government seems to relish massacreing in far off third world countries. From the top down the US has to be the most murderous country on the planet. The entire culture is buried in a patina of violence the same as a hotdog is buried in mustard and ketchup.
Americans are all upset by the killing of 59 people in Vegas, but there was no outcry about the killing of 590 innocent villagers, men women and children by US soldiers in My Lai Vietnam. Or the hundreds of massacres committed around the world by your military. Where is the outpouring of sympathy for those slaughtered innocents? Well those people at that concert in Vegas just experienced the same terror as those people at My Lai as they were systematically being executed by a unit of the American Army in a far away place. In fact it was worse for them because for them there was no escape possible. There were no first responders. There were no sympathizers handing out pizza or ferrying them to hospitals.
The underlying causes of the problems with guns is that the entire society has been built on war, killing and right down to the street level violence. it is a huge part of the American DNA. it is glorified, exalted, romantisized, in video games, movies etc,it is marketed like cars, or food or furniture. There is no other nation on earth that finds killing so easy. In foreign lands or at home. Americans kill for geopolitical reasons, profit, domestic reasons, extrajudicial reasons, money, land to be famous for a minute or two or just for fun no matter anything an American citizen, or whatever branch of the American government can come up with is a good enough reason to kill.
Oh and by permitting an individual to accumulate 40 guns , you are also permitting him to slaughter 59 innocent people. it´s a given, he was allowed to have the weapons means that he is allowed to use them. What we permit , we approve. You give him the tools and he will use them.
Dan, I told my husband this the other day. Now the people in Vegas, and anyone else caught in a mass shooting, know what the people under the US weapons feel like EVERY DAY! We are a nation founded on genocide and human trafficking. Our economy is a war economy. They make money off the slaughter of others. Maybe people should focus on the disease, the government, instead of the symptoms. Until these people are brought to heel, nothing will change.
To your point:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-origins-of-public-carry-jurisprudence-in-the-slave-south/407809/
Don’t quite see how you work it out that the “Native Americans on the frontiers” were either on the frontiers or the “continuing threat” you mention later. You do realise that all of what is now United States territory was Native American land, don’t you? Their frontier started east of Jamestown and stretched all the way west to the Pacific coast. Any “continuing threat” came from Europeans committing genocide on the indigenous population, as they continued edging westwards, stealing Native American land and slaughtering the rightful owners along the way.
This mind set makes me understand where Israelis get the idea that their carpetbaggers are “settlers”, a term the corporate media has so slavishly adopted. They also keep describing Palestinians on their own land as a “continuing threat” as they move into Palestinian territory removing the rightful owners by any means possible, including violence and murder.
I cannot understand why, in the 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.” there is a comma after Militia, so that the whole sentence is lopsided. The comma after “arms” is also not needed.