Posted on 04/28/2013 10:04:18 AM PDT by marktwain
Almost every newspaper I have looked at for the last several weeks has had letters to the editor debating gun control. Most have missed one important detail: There is a "right" to have a gun.
There are two types of "rights." The first is related to what a state cannot do to you, and which you have naturally unless it is removed from you by a powerful entity like a government. The Bill of Rights of the American Constitution enshrines these rights.
A person has a "right" to freedom of conscience unless someone takes it away. Consequently, we have a right not to have a religion imposed upon us by the government. We have a natural right to speak our minds. We have a right to meet peaceably and petition our rulers for redress.
We have these without taking something from another person. All of these we have naturally if someone or some government doesn’t take them from us. All of these natural rights are outlined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights.
Another type of "right" is one we can only have if a state or government gives it to us. We have a right to health care only if a power exists that is strong enough to take property from one person and redistribute it to another.
The Constitution does not provide for the government bestowing these types of rights.
The second item in the Bill of Rights 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."
That is a basic right. It is also the supreme law of the land.
It is not necessary to argue for or against the ownership of guns. It doesn’t matter what statistics you can find for or against gun control. The brilliance of your argument is irrelevant. We have a "right" to be armed no different than we have a right to speak our minds.
Congress cannot lawfully pass any law infringing (a term used in the Constitution) on that right. In very basic terms, the Congress does not have the authority to "infringe" upon the Second Amendment of the Constitution.
President Barack Obama has no authority in this matter at all. None.
If the gentlemen and ladies in Washington wish to score some political points on this matter they could attempt to change the Constitution. Article 5 tells them what they would have to do. The Constitution can be altered.
The process is straightforward and familiar. First, an amendment can be proposed by either two-thirds of both houses of Congress, or by a national convention requested of the legislatures (not governors) of at least two-thirds of the states. The amendment then must be ratified either by the approval of the legislatures of three-fourths of the states, or by ratifying conventions held in three-fourths of the states.
The amendment would then become part of the Constitution. The president does not sign anything, and he or she is not legally necessary in this process.
Yet we continue to see debates in the media and between political parties about gun control as if we were discussing property taxes.
No, a critic may respond. We are talking about the limits we can put on a basic right. No one would assume that the right to be armed includes having a thermonuclear bomb in your basement.
Fine, but this is not what we observe. Instead, we see all kinds of arguments about controlling gun ownership in total or through incremental steps through legislation as if this was a serious exercise instead of political theater.
A stage play can create whatever reality the writers wish to portray. But gun ownership has a reality in the real world and until the constitutional issue is resolved, all we have is a dog and pony show on the Potomac.
Unfortunately, modern politicians and many letter writers seem incapable of understanding the difference between the two.
All so perfectly stated yet the GCA of 1968 still bars good people from that right.
Writers like this are the reason we are in danger of “losing” what few rights remain.
One cannot “lose” a Natural Right. You possess that Right even if the government decides to abrogate it. The author is dangerously close to saying that our Constitution “grants” us our Natural Rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even IF the 2nd Amendment were repealed we would still retain our Right to bear arms. That Right, and all of the others, predate the Constitution. All the BOR does is ENUMERATE certain rights.
Arguing things any other way sets us up for failure.
I like to keep up with what the liberals are saying. Last night on PBS, the show “Need to Know” hosted by the ultra lib Ray Saurez had as guests three 2nd amendment “expert scholars”.
One was a woman, Joyce Lee Malcolm of George Mason Univ. Law School and I was expecting her to be the worst of them! Boy, was I wrong!
She was outstanding and put the 2 lib professors in their place with history and facts. She had them stuttering a couple times.
Here is one of her recent articles, and IIRC she has a book also.
Joyce Lee Malcolm: Two Cautionary Tales of Gun Control
After a school massacre, the U.K. banned handguns in 1998. A decade later, handgun crime had doubled.[snip]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323777204578195470446855466.html
Correctly stated. I still wonder why there is a discussion on going (rhetorical) about this subject. If the asshats truly want to abridge our rights, write the amendment and submit it for a vote. If it’s yes, then the radical left wing extremist demokkkrat scumbag socialists will be dancing in the streets. If it’s no, we’ll see the petulant little lord fauntleroy throw another tantrum and whine about it not being fair.
I saw this movie the other night “The Brave one” with Jodie Foster which is like a Death wish movie but with a female vigilante. What it’s about is Foster plays this woman who was walking through a park with her fiance and these punks mug them and beat her fiance to death. So for the rest of the movie, it goes into Death wish mode. Foster buys a gun and starts going vigilante, then eventually killing the muggers. So I read this comment somebody put on Veehd.com about the flick “If she had a gun in the first place it would have been a very short movie” LOL! That cracked me up. SO00 freakin’ true! It got me to remember, liberals are not only trying to sell gun control, they are also trying to sell you Utopia, this idea that society is 1000% safe, perfect and heavenly. That we don’t need a gun for protection, you live in Utopia where everyone is nice and perfect and rape and murder never happen and the government is nice and will never go tyranny and people buy into that and what happens? They get killed. They get raped, murdered, brutalized. Why? Because they can’t defend themselves! Why? Because liberals have made them believe that it’s a safe world out there when it isn’t and so many people buy into that until it’s too late.
+1.
It is all well and good for logical, well-explained arguments to be put forth to honorable and rational opponents. However, for these gun-takers, this is just another in a long line of ‘things we have to get rid of.’
Get rid of in order to enslave you. There isn’t any talking with these people, there isn’t any discussion, there isn’t any compromise. The time for this is done and over.
The time for more permanent action is here. Come and get them.
“I still wonder why there is a discussion on going (rhetorical) about this subject.” The discussion allows us to identify those in the enemy camp. Isn’t freedom of speech grand? Truly there is no debate to be had regarding any of our natural rights. A verbal proposal should be met with an immediate verbal rebuke coupled with the understanding restrictions of our rights would not be tolerated. Failing to impress upon the aggressor the folly of enabling and enforcing restrictions, a physical response is justified in self-defense. Whether each of us has any natural rights to exercise is dependant upon the degree any of us are willing to engage the enemy. Life? Liberty? Property? Will you defend them or not is the only question.
As do NFA and FOPA.
I’ve tried to explain this very concept, which seems so simple, but even some FReepers resist it
The author's idea here is sound, but he blows it by using an incorrect term. A government can't grant rights of any kind. They can only bestow privileges, or trample upon natural, God-given rights.
Our natural rights are inalienable, due the the simple fact of our birth on this planet. All people have the same rights as Americans, whether their governments choose to recognize them or not.
Our government may single me out as being someone who has a 'right' to healthcare, but that's a suppressive misuse of the language. I don't have any right to another person's labor or treasure, just as they have no intrinsic right to mine. I can only be granted the privilege of taking part of another's rightfully owned labor or treasure by the point of a gun or threat of imprisonment.
Government is force.
“Government is force.” Correct. The possession of arms by the citizenry and the willingness to employ them in the event of the imposition of tyranny is the only effective means of response available. The example of the bully and the bullied is obvious to anyone with eyes to see. Disregarding thousands of years of human history of course.
We are told we should not judge all Muslims because of the acts of a few BY THE EXACT SAME PEOPLE WHO tell us that we must give up our 2nd Amendment rights because of a few criminals.
We are told by our government that the human debris in Egypt can be trusted with our military technology but the same government, in their own words, tell us that we cannot be trusted with little fire sticks.
Must be nice to be a communist liberal as you can easily have two, or more more, mutually exclusive thoughts in your mind without any sense of hypocrisy.
Obviously our government must be under the control of some external forces as their decisions seem to be falling against honest Americans and in the favor of criminals internal and external.
It’s funny how the left is always saying that you have a right to this and you have a right to that and such and such is a civil right, but the right to bear arms, which is guaranteed by the 2nd amendment, shall be denied.
They are trying to paint themselves as the originators of rights, and they can go to Hell.
I get nothing from them, and I want nothing from them.
That bothered me a little as well. Repeal the BOR and we continue to retain our natural rights. It’s fallacious to assume our government could remove something they never bestowed.
My biggest complaint is that I never heard that argument while the Senate was debating S649.
In my understanding of the Constitution, it’s not a right, but an obligation, of every citizen to help defend their country if called upon to do so. But hey - I’m an extremist.
The Constitution can be rendered impotent only if it is not defended, by whatever it takes. This is where the second amendment kicks in, and why the second amendment is first and foremost on the liberal’s hit list.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.