Posted on 08/02/2023 5:10:07 AM PDT by marktwain
Related to a recent article about how Judge Roger T. Benitez is working hard on defending the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution against numerous infringements created by the California government, a poster wrote:
Working hard.?? What is it, like twenty-seven words.?
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.
Many Second Amendment supporters feel similar frustrations. Sometimes the complaint is shortened to four words: …” shall not be infringed“!
Perhaps the most famous case where a judge simply quoted the Second Amendment was the case of U.S. v Miller, brought to the Supreme Court in 1939 by the anti-Second Amendment Roosevelt administration with the connivance of the Roosevelt-appointed anti-Second Amendment judge Heartsill Ragon. From a previous AmmoLand article:
Then in 1939, the Miller case was set up by Heartsill Ragon. Ragon was an anti-Second Amendment ideologue and a President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) ally appointed from Congress to the federal judgeship. The case went to the Supreme Court without opposing counsel or briefs. The Supreme Court refused to rule on whether a sawed-off shotgun (having not been presented with any evidence to the contrary) was an arm protected by the Second Amendment.
The problem with simply saying “What is it, like 27 words?’ or “Shall not be infringed” is the primary power of leftists/progressives has always been the power to control the language by insisting on their definitions and their interpretations of language. The Progressive response to the Second Amendment has been “it is a collective right,” not an individual right, or that “the people” mean only state governments or consists of those people which governments allow to exercise
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Eventually it will come down to using our weapons against our so called government to protect our God given rights.
Can’t come soon enough.
I’ve got four words for these commies. Up against the wall!
I read Dean’s blog every day. http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/
The Libs like to be Verbose, It gives them more words to parse and word salad games to play.......
The Bill of Rights restricts the government. It does not restrict the people. The people have the right to self-defense. That’s inalienable and can’t be restricted in any way. The Second Amendment is a statement that the government cannot try to restrict it.
All gun control laws have this whole thing backwards.
Well, to,help the feckless who are attacking the 2nd a’s “original intent”, let’s look to our Founding fathers for what they intended and meant by the second amendment
Gun Quotations of the Founding Fathers
“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined...”
- George Washington, First Annual Address, to both House of Congress, January 8, 1790
“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
- Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Constitution, Draft 1, 1776
“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787
“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787
“The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”
- Thomas Jefferson, Commonplace Book (quoting 18th century criminologist Cesare Beccaria), 1774-1776
“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.” - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785
“The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824
“On every occasion [of Constitutional interpretation] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying [to force] what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, [instead let us] conform to the probable one in which it was passed.”
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
“To disarm the people...[i]s the most effectual way to enslave them.”
- George Mason, referencing advice given to the British Parliament by Pennsylvania governor Sir William Keith, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adooption of the Federal Constitution, June 14, 1788
“I ask who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers.”
- George Mason, Address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 4, 1788
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed, as they are in almost every country in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops.”
- Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, October 10, 1787
“Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of.”
- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, January 29, 1788
“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country.”
- James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves…and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms… “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
- Richard Henry Lee, Federal Farmer No. 18, January 25, 1788
“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.... The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.”
- Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778
“This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty.... The right of self defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
- St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1803
” The balance ofpower is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up. Horrid mischief would ensue were one-half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves.”
- Thomas Paine, “Thoughts on Defensive War” in Pennsylvania Magazine, July 1775
“The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
- Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788
“The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833
“What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.”
- Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, I Annals of Congress 750, August 17, 1789
“For it is a truth, which the experience of ages has attested, that the people are always most in danger when the means of injuring their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the least suspicion.”
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 25, December 21, 1787
“If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.”
- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 28
https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/gun-quotations-founding-fathers
And just to be absolutely clear, the second amendment did not state or mean that ONLY militias, well retu,ated, could or should own guns, it meant every citizen has the right!, as seen in many of the statements by our Founding fathers.
Doh- I meant “well regulated”
The NFA of 1934 needs to be found to be unconstitutional. That law is next to fall just like Roe v. wade was reversed.
Admiral Yamamoto reportedly told the Japanese generals that they could not invade America. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.
They do not care about the 1st why should they care about the 2d or any others that stand in their way.
https://www.casd.uscourts.gov/Judges/Judge-Info.aspx
“The Progressive response to the Second Amendment has been “it is a collective right,” “
If that be the case then freedom of speech not an individual right but a collective right exercised by Public Radio.
“primary power of leftists/progressives has always been the power to control the language by insisting on their definitions and their interpretations of language.”
This is exactly the problem that we face today with liberal trash in charge.
Jack Smith is rewriting Federal Law to enforce his agenda.
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More 2nd Amendment related articles on FR's Bang List.
Correct. As time passes, the sheeple become more and more ignorant of their status relative to ‘the government’, losing sight of the fact that they, themselves, ARE the government. There is no longer any understanding of history, why our nation was founded, and upon what principles it is based.
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