Posted on 11/03/2013 5:56:29 AM PST by 2nd amendment mama
Click here to download a pdf of Guns & Ammo‘s column Let’s Talk Limits. Technical Editor Dick Metcalf [above] penned the editorial for the December issue. Metcalf, a writer whose technical knowledge (or lack thereof) has earned him brickbats before, bases his editorial on a distinction between “infringement” and “regulation.” “I bring this up,” Metcalf writes, “because way too many gun owners still believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement. The fact is that all Constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.” That, dear reader, is a major WTF moment. One of many . . .
Metcalf’s dietribe [sic] turns to the antis’ favorite justification for infringing on our natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms: you “Can’t yell ‘FIRE!’ in a crowded theater.” Yes. Yes you can. It’s just that you’re legally responsible for what happens next. And what happens next in Metcalf’s editorial is bizarre—especially for an article that appears in a gun magazine:
Many argue that any regulation at all is, by definition, an infringement. If that were true, then the authors of the Second Amendment themselves, should not have specified “well-regulated.”
You’re kidding, right? Metcalf doesn’t know that “well-regulated” is “referring to the property of something being in proper working order“? That it has nothing to do with government regulation? No way!
Way. Sure Metcalf’s bone-headed, uninformed, patently obvious misinterpretation of the Second Amendment’s introductory clause isn’t as bad as the antis’ assertion that the 2A only applies to Americans in a militia, but it’s the next worst thing. Coming from a gun guy, a man who trumpets the fact that he co-wrote The Firearm Owners Protection Act and taught college seminars on Constitutional law, well, I’m speechless.
Too bad Metcalf isn’t. Once again, he turns to the antis’ well-worn fundamentally flawed pro-regulation arguments to advocate gun control. He deploys ye olde auto analogy to defend state-issued carry permits against readers who believe that Second Amendment is the only authority they need to bear arms.
I wondered whether those same people believed that just anybody should be able to buy a vehicle and take it out on public roadways without any kind of driver’s training, test or license.
I understand that driving a car is not a right protected by the Constitution, but to me the basic principle is the same. I firmly believe that all U.S. citizens have the right to bear arms, but . . .
I’m going to stop there. Anyone who says “I believe in the Second Amendment but–” does not believe in the Second Amendment. They are not friends, they are not frenemies, they are enemies of The People of the Gun.
More than that, whether or not these nominal gun rights supporters (e.g., President Obama, Senator Charles Schumer) “believe” in the Second Amendment is irrelevant. As stated above, the right to keep and bear arms is a natural right, stemming from our natural right of self-defense. It doesn’t require belief, faith or political justification.
Equally, the right to keep and bear arms is a civil right. Wikipedia defines the term thusly:
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals’ freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one’s ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.
Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples’ physical and mental integrity, life and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, national origin, color, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or disability; and individual rights such as privacy, the freedoms of thought and conscience, speech and expression, religion, the press, assembly and movement.
I have a major issue with the word “unwarranted” (wikipedia won’t let me delete it). But the point is made: Americans have a civil right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by . . . wait for it . . . the Constitution. Specifically, the Second Amendment. This despite the fact that . . .
Civil and political rights need not be codified to be protected, although most democracies worldwide do have formal written guarantees of civil and political rights. Civil rights are considered to be natural rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America that “a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.”
So civil means natural, and natural means inviolable. Except by people who support their violation. People like Dick Metcalf, who ends his pro-gun control polemic by asserting that Illinois’ new carry law—mandating that citizens must complete 16 hours of training to “earn” the right to bear arms— is not “infringement in and of itself.”
“But that’s just me . . .” Metcalf closes. Yes it is. And I believe that anyone who supports a gun magazine that prints this kind of anti-gun agitprop is supporting the diminution and destruction of our gun rights. Or is that just me? [h/t b0b]
Ping!
Up for renewal, won’t be renewing my subscription.
That’s a great video! I’ve known Niger Innis for about 15 years and he’s a great 2nd Amendment supporter!
I quite buying those kinds of magazines years ago. They are nothing more than a gun maker paid advertisement.
I don’t know how many articles I’ve seen on the Keltec KSG only to find out you cannot buy the damned thing ANYWHERE! The same goes for their PMR-30. VAPORWARE in my book, and a lot of these gun mags get paid to support it.
That said, the writer is a fool who has given up on asserting his rights and finds it much easier to go-along/get-along and appease the gun grabber nuts with his misinterpretation. There is no part of “....shall not be infringed” that can be interpreted as being subject to regulation.
Cancel your subscription to Guns & Ammo!
I dint subscribe but I will add it to the list of liberal media prostitutes.
Was thinking of subscribing; that now is a settled issue.
Also, no Web hits. Their ad dollars are also derived from Web hits. Don’t feed the digital beast, either.
If I had one, I would certainly cancel my subscription to Guns and Ammo.
You’re right that video is very encouraging. See Post #2 for video.
FYI ping. What you were talking about on another thread.
this is reminiscent of that car magazine giving the auto-exploding Volt top honors when nobody wants it, nobody buys it and it catches fire.
Yes, my subscription runs until July 2015. I am going to cancel and hopefully get a refund.
You had to know the powers-that-be would infiltrate organizations. Look for more of this, not less.
He has been a contributor to Shooting Times magazine for more than thirty years and today serves as the Technical Editor for InterMedia Outdoors. Dick is a veteran of the U.S. Army and a former faculty member of the history departments at Yale and Cornell Universities.
[ well-regulated ] - studying how people used words and their definition is the first thing he should have researched...
Even as a kid, I knew that meant - organized, trained, armed, supplied, and ready to fight...not held up at the capitol waiting for regulations and govt. oversight to determine how the militia was going to do their job...
maybe my elementary grade teacher who explained the US Constitution to the 3rd was uncommon - or she took her job seriously to educate her kids and explained all this stuff to us...at a time where we thought this was just commonplace and it would never have to be defended...geez...what an idiot...and it’s been published!
I can buy any kind of motor vehicle from anybody and drive it anywhere and at any time I care to on my own property.
Just confirmed w/hubby that we DON’T subscribe...and we WON’T be, either!
Apparently this guy didn’t learn from Zumbo over at Outdoor Life.
Just sent it viral through the Second Amendment Sisters Facebook page and will post it to the front page of our website when I get back from church!
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