Posted on 12/29/2017 9:08:02 PM PST by Oshkalaboomboom
If theres a reason why Hollywood should just stay out of politics, especially gun politics, and this is your classic example. Ed Asner and Ed Weinberger, a screenwriter, decided to teach the National Rifle Association a history lesson on the left wing site Salon. It dropped a little before Christmas, and it ended with both men getting a face full of buckshot. They argued that our Founders were pro-gun control, which is odd given that the first shots fired in our American Revolution at the battles of Lexington and Concord, were in response to British soldiers trying to seize our guns. Still, lets go through their arguments:
Now that we have your attention, lets consider the case made by the NRA, its Congressional hired hands, the majority of the Supreme Court, and various right wing pundits who claim the Second Amendment is not simply about state militias but guarantees the unfettered right of everyone to own, carry, trade and eventually shoot someone with a gun.
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First, heres that elusive Second Amendment as it now appears in the Bill of Rights: 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.
Arguably not the clearest amendment in the Constitution. And thats the problem with it: While stating the need for a well-regulated Militia, does it at the same time also guarantee the individual citizen the personal right to keep and bear arms? In 2008, Justice Antonin Scalia, ruling for the Majority, said that it was. Ignoring over 200 years of precedent, historical context, the Framers Intent and the D.C. laws of its elected officials, Scalia relied solely on the text, arbitrarily dividing the Amendment into two parts. The first a well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State he called the prefatory clause. The second part the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed he called the operative clause. Claiming that second part was all that really mattered; Scalia discarded as irrelevant that inconvenient reference to a state militia.
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Here is Madisons first draft of the Second Amendment:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, a well-armed and well-regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
Madisons intent could not be more obvious: his Second Amendment refers only to state militias. If not, why include that exemption for what we now call conscientious objectors?
When Madisons amendment was rewritten by a joint committee from the House and Senate in 1791, the religious exemption was lopped off as too cumbersome in language and too complex to enforce. Thus, the Amendment as it now stands.
Okaywhat am I missing here? Asner and Weinberger really just ignore the Supreme Court to peddle a recycled liberal talking point. Of course, the anti-gun Left peddled the tired and disregarded state militia provision, just as they ignore the Citizens United decision and its implications on expanding free speech rights. Also, this line, the unfettered right of everyone to own, carry, trade and eventually shoot someone with a gun is just pure trash. Law-abiding gun owners are not killers in waiting. Second, its not an unfettered right; Justice Scalia said so in the Heller decision, which they dont mention in their piece:
Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Courts opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of fire- arms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.
You hear that guys. You have the right to own a firearm unconnected to a militia, but states have the right to impose their own restrictions, like on concealed carry rights. This is a rather explicit recognition of federalism, along with limiting the Courts impact so as to not produce challenges to laws prohibiting domestic violence abusers, the mentally ill, and convicted felons from owning firearmsall common sense provisions. Stephen Gutowski found some of Madisons quotes about the Second Amendment as well. It doesnt help the pro-gun control hypothesis thats rather shoddy in this piece. In fact, if these two guys had read Heller, they would see its not some SCOTUS opinion intended to turn the country into the Wild West. Anti-gunners, you guys have lost this debate. Gun rights have expanded since this landmark 2008 decision. Every state recognize concealed carry rights, even in Washington D.C. The Second Amendment isnt going anywhere. Deal with it.
Stephen Gutowski @StephenGutowski Replying to @StephenGutowski "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." - George Mason, during debates in the Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788
Stephen Gutowski @StephenGutowski Here's a little more on the history of the 2nd Amendment. During the debate on whether to ratify the Constitution several states offered amendment suggestions. Here's Virginia's own from June 27, 1788. pic.twitter.com/CryqVO2rqG
Stephen Gutowski @StephenGutowski Replying to @jnuzzi08 State militias weren't the intention of the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment protects the right of "the people" from infringement by the federal government. The militia referenced is, as George Mason said, the whole of the people.
Red Asner never did get to play Joe Stalin, his dream role he discussed in an interview. Something about what he got accomplished BESIDES killing tens of millions of people.
"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand? After all, you knew ahead of time that those bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose. And you could be sure ahead of time that you'd be cracking the skull of a cutthroat. Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there on the street with one lonely chauffeur -- what if it had been driven off or its tires spiked. The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
The right to bear arms might have been said as “the right to self defense”. That makes it consistent with our other rights.
I find it interesting that the Dred Scott vs Sandford lists the rights citizens of the USA have, on which is “The right to keep and carry arms wherever they went.”
And I still get a thrill when Ed Asner gets slugged in the face by Robert Mitchum in El Dorado.
Not to moron libs, anyway. It is so simple; the first part acknowledges the need for and desirability of a citizen militia. The second part states that the right to keep and bear shall not be infringed. Nowhere does it limit the keep and bear to that militia. End of discussion.
Bkmk
Actors are people who pretend to be other people from other times and places. In essence they are storytellers. Their job is to communicate by voice, inflection , physical appearance, etc. A situation, or event. So their job is to communicate well. But does that inherently make what they are communicating more important or relevant than what others think, say or believe? Obviously, they seem to think so. But it doesn’t. What they are saying or doing is no more relevant that what the next guy thinks. And it’s time Americans stopped treating actors, writers and directors as some kind of sage or prophet. They are just people who tell stories.
CC
Exactly.
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