Posted on 12/07/2002 5:35:24 AM PST by geedee
The Ninth Circus Court of Appeals has ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply to individuals but only to government-run militias. This is the same court that said "under God" does not belong in the Pledge of Allegiance. Rest assured, this court will be overturned - yet again.
Again: liberals look at the Constitution, see what's written and deny it's there, or see things that aren't there and put them in. Judge Stephen Reinhardt ruled, "[W]hat the drafters of the amendment thought necessary to the security of a free state was not an unregulated mob of armed individuals such as Shays' band of farmers, the modern-day privately organized Michigan militia, the type of extremist militia associated with Timothy McVeigh..." He says that "well-regulated" confirms that militia can only reasonably be construed as referring to a force established and controlled by government.
If you apply yourself intellectually, you can get pretty close to original intent of the Founding Fathers in documents such as the Federalist Papers. Shays' Rebellion is just a convenient thing for Judge Reinhardt to use. The trick here is saying that the Founders didn't know that the Michigan militia and Timothy McVeigh would pop up. True enough. But he then assumes that if they had known about them, they'd have agreed on banning guns!
This is a Typical Liberal Smearing of People They Disagree With as Evil
This judge believes that you people who support the Second Amendment might as well be Timothy McVeigh. You single women who buy a gun because your ex-husband threatened to kill you, or you shopkeepers and target shooters you're all Oklahoma City Bombers. (Notice: "bomber," he didn't use a gun.) Reinhardt writes that the phrase "well-regulated" means that militia refers to an established government military, yet he later admits that the Second Amendment was written before the government had a standing army!
If the Constitution meant to ban private arms, George Washington would have dispatched troops to round up guns, wouldn't he? He'd at least have called for them to be turned in. All the proof you need of this amendment's purpose is that Founders would not have existed as free men had they not taken up arms against an oppressive government.
When they won, they had the humility and wisdom to say, "If this new government gets too oppressive, future citizens must have the right to do what we did." Reinhardt is saying that only government has freedom, and only it can grant the people liberty. 100% wrong. The Constitution says what the government cannot do, not what We the People cannot do. Our rights come from a Creator, they wrote, not from other men. The people who founded this nation didn't just say, "Hey, we're independent, so leave us alone, Georgie." They fought to free themselves and if you doubt it, you should listen to my EIB Primer on Liberty. It's something you have to hear.
You stated it so eloquently even a dummy like moi can comprende.
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