Posted on 08/03/2006 7:03:58 AM PDT by steve-b
WASHINGTON - We're going through one of those phases where people are reading the news and talking about buying guns.
As someone who's blogged for years under the pseudonym "Armed Liberal," you'd think that I'd clearly approve. And part of me does, in no small measure because it reflects a shift in the consensus away from "helpless citizen" toward "citizen with the intent to be more self-reliant."
And, to be honest, I see this issue largely as one of attitude. I've said in the past that the largest impact of gun ownership is symbolic, like a Sikh's knives. Owning a gun — and the attitudes that come with it — symbolize the notion that, first and foremost, we are adults who have the freedom to be entrusted with dangerous tools.
But gun ownership is not entirely symbolic, and there's the rub.
While I believe that everyone should have the right to own a gun (with the obvious exceptions of the criminal and the insane), that doesn't mean everyone should choose to own a gun.
That's because while I believe in rights, I also believe in responsibilities — and I don't think they can be separated. You want rights? Great. You have to take a good helping of responsibilities to go with them.
So let me take a moment and talk to the people who are reading the news and thinking of heading to the gun store.
First, go sleep on it. Owning a gun is an immense responsibility (one that too many people take far too lightly). If you own a gun, you are responsible for it 24/7/365; are you really prepared for that?
A gun is not a magic talisman that will make your problems go away by possessing it or brandishing it. While I'll acknowledge that many confrontations do end when the bad guy sees a gun, I'll suggest that assuming that will apply in your case is cargo-cult thinking at its worst.
So simply owning a gun doesn't by itself make you a whole lot safer; famed firearms instructor Jeff Cooper said that "owning a gun doesn't make you armed any more than owning a piano makes you a musician."
So you have to adopt a set of behaviors and habits.
Some are about the security of the gun — keeping it from being stolen, or from letting children have access to it. Buy a gun safe. Use it religiously. I had one firearm stolen from me 20 years ago, and it still weighs on me today.
Some of it is about self-knowledge. There's a little bit of crazy in all of us. Is yours fully under control? Are you sure? Would your friends all agree? What if the answer to that question isn't an immediate and obvious "Huh? Of course it is"?
And if you aren't 100 percent sure that five of your closest friends would answer the same way, think hard before you head to the gun store. Self-restraint is not a habit our modern life cultivates, but it is one that is simply mandatory for people who possess dangerous tools.
Some of it is about committing to some basic level of competence in order to make the gun a useful tool. There are classes you can and should take almost anywhere. They range from the big-time schools, like Gunsite (www.gunsite.com), Insight (www.insightstraining.com) and Thunder Ranch (www.thunderranchinc.com). To local instructors like Mike Dalton (www.isishootists.com/training.htm) in Los Angeles, NRA classes or other private classes at ranges throughout the area you live.
While it may seem cumbersome to think about all this, the demands really aren't that high. The gun is dangerous and valuable, so secure it. It can make bad attitudes and bad behavior deadly — make sure yours are well under control.
And finally, remember that owning a gun isn't nearly the same thing as being able to use one safely and effectively, so learn how to use it. If you can't comfortably go that far, please don't buy a gun. It's that simple.
If you can comfortably go that far, welcome to the community.
Personally, I need to get to the range this weekend....
And yet some of them have. Perhaps you could explain what justification you see for not considering the immunity from federal infringement of the right to keep and bear arms as being among the "privileges and immunities" of US citizens? What justification is there for the Second Amendment not having been "incorporated"?
I support the immunity from "federal infringement" extending to people regardless of race, as the 14th Amendment intended.
So much for your all white militia of the 1792 Militia Act.
So you see the Fourteenth Amendment as being limited to just racial issues, despite that there is no mention of race whatever in the amendment?
Does this mean that naturalized immigrants from Ireland were not granted state citizenship by the Fourteenth Amendment?
No.
They also share the immunity to federal infringement.
Why do you ask? Trying to muddy the water?
Once again, here are the relevant words from the Fourteenth Amendment:All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens ... of the State wherein they reside."
Do we agree that the Fourteenth Amendment granted to some persons the entire rights, privileges, and immunities associated with STATE CITIZENSHIP? This is not a protection from FEDERAL infringement, it is an extension of STATE citizenship to people who previously may have been denied such citizenship.
I would summarize the Fourteenth Amendments effects as follows:
It grants state citizenship to some persons, including all rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed to such citizens.
It grants US citizenship to some persons, including ALL "privileges and immunities" of US citizenship.
Then, according to some such as yourself and RP, the Fourteenth Amendment fails to apply the the protections deemed by our Founders as so essential that they chose to enumerate them in the Bill of Rights. ALL privileges and immunities, except those so important that they were enumerated by our Founders.
Later courts have recognized that the Fourteenth was not so limited and have exercised their own judgements about what is basic and essential to liberty. And still they have not yet incorporated the Second Amendment.
Do you justify your opinions by pickng and choosing just the court decisions that you agree with? Or are you able to articulate consistent reasoning that would justify your opinion that the Fourteenth Amendment does not include the immunity from infringement of the right to keep and bear arms?
"The only privileges which the Fourteenth Amendment protected against state encroachment were declared to be those ''which owe their existence to the Federal Government, its National character, its Constitution, or its laws.'' These privileges, however, had been available to United States citizens and protected from state interference by operation of federal supremacy even prior to the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Slaughter-House Cases, therefore, reduced the privileges and immunities clause to a superfluous reiteration of a prohibition already operative against the states."
1) It declared that the freedmen were "citizens of the United States" with privileges and immunities that were protected from state infringement. I listed some of these previously.
2) It declared that Citizens of the States were also "citizens of the United States" with privileges and immunities that were protected from state infringement. Which was redundant, since that was already guaranteed under the Supremacy Clause (federal law trumps state law).
3) It declared that freedmen were Citizens of the State in which they resided. It did NOT include all rights, privileges and immunities guaranteed to such Citizens. The state could, and in some cases did, prohibit them from voting, for example. Before and after the 15th amendment.
4) It declared that no State could deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process.
5) It declared that that States must offer all persons equal protection under their State laws.
Any "incorporation" of a right has been done under #4 as "fundamental to liberty". Free speech, unreasonable searches, etc. These rights, being fundamental to liberty, apply to all persons, citizens or not.
Do you see allowing an illegal alien or some terrorist the RKBA?
You left out "imprisoned felons". By your thinking, if the Fourteenth extended to the RKBA, then imprisoned felons would have an enforceable right to keep and bear arms. That some classes of people forfeit, through their own lawlessness, any or all of their rights, in no way justifies the infringement of the rights of others.
Please tell me what rights, privileges or immunities of citizens of Virginia were not extended to persons whose citizenship was mandated by the Fourteenth Amendment.
Denying citizenship to newly freed slaves was an evil act perpetrated by many states after the Civil War. After the Fourteenth amendment was passed, those same states perpetuated their evil by inventing new classes of citizenship designed to circumvent the protections that their new citizens should have had.
paulsen opines:
"-- There is no basis for anyone to believe that the BOR applied to the states before the 14th amendment.
-- even better are the U.S. Supreme Court cites after the ratification of the 14th.
My favorite is Twitchell v. Pennsylvania which the Supreme Court (unanimously) disposed of by citing the original understanding that the Bill of Rights restricted only the federal government, not the states. --"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is abundant basis for anyone to believe that the BOR applied to the states before the 14th amendment as Amar proves at:
THE BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT
Address:http://www.saf.org/LawReviews/Amar1.html
As to Twitchell, Amar notes:
"-- Twitchell is in fact an embarrassing joker.
Counsel explicitly argued, among other things, that Pennsylvania had violated "due process of law," but invoked only the Fifth Amendment-a (literally) fatal mistake, for the Court simply rejected the claim with a quick citation to Barron.
[269] But again, what does this prove? If Twitchell's silence is evidence that the Fourteenth Amendment does not incorporate earlier amendments, it is equally strong evidence that the Fourteenth does not require state due process. But in light of the plain words of the Fourteenth Amendment, this latter claim is absurd.
Twitchell's silence thus proves too much-and therefore nothing at all. Or more precisely, it proves that, contrary to Berger and Fairman's glib assumptions, only "oversight will account for the omission;" "bench and bar are not alert to every new and relevant enactment;" and the Court did not pay careful attention "before disposing of the petition of one sentenced to death."
[270] Frankfurter notwithstanding, Twitchell's embarrassing silence shows no "contemporaneous understanding" and has no "significance" to the incorporation debate. --"
4) It [the 14th] declared that no State could deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process.
Any "incorporation" of a right has been done under #4 as "fundamental to liberty". Free speech, unreasonable searches, etc.
These rights, being fundamental to liberty, apply to all persons, citizens or not.
Do you see allowing an illegal alien or some terrorist the RKBA?
At #282 you admitted that a fundamental right "-- may not be taken away by man without individual due process. --"
Our right to arms is indisputably/rationally "fundamental to liberty".
You claim otherwise, without support - other than to say, obviously, -- that we can regulate use of arms by criminals.
-- Can we decree certain men to be 'criminals' without due process?
Two bits you can't honestly answer that question paulsen; -- as you are hoisted on your own words about due process.
Don't beg. They're irrelevant to the claim for a blanket application of the Bill of Rights to the states, as demonstrated by your continued lack of sources, cites or quotes from any authority to the contrary.
And it seems to be beyond their limited cognitive abilities to grasp that the federal government owes its existence to the states rather than the other way around.
Anarchists for centralized government. Beyond Orwellian.
Many states at that time included the equivalent of a Bill of Rights in their Constitutions. Is it your claim that those rights of citizenship guaranteed to all Virginia citizens were not, by operation of the Fourteenth Amendment, extended to persons identified in that amendment?
How is it consistent to believe that extending state citizenship to residents of Virginia included all privileges and immunities of citizenship in that state, but that extending US citizenship somehow witheld the most important enumerated rights of US citizens?
It's certainly no surprise to me that later courts have not viewed the Fourteenth in this way.
Are you suggesting that I list the Supreme Court decsions "incorporating" various aspects of the Bill of Rights? Many have been discussed previously, but, despite the fact that a super-majority of states passed the Fourteenth Amendment, they are just shrugged off as illegitimate because they violate "federalism", which seems to mean that the states are prohibited from surrendering power to the central government in excess of what our Founders approved of, even if done Constitutionally.
And some did not. And some don't.
"In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars", does your state guarantee a trial by jury?
I'm suggesting you list the Supreme Court decisions making a blanket incorporation.
[crickets]
I'm not interested in a blanket incorporation nor do I make the claim that any case has accomplished that. Nevertheless, I have not heard a convincing argument that the right to keep and bear arms is not deserving of "incorporation".
Our Founders were criminal traitors under the existing laws of the colonies and were forced in many case to steal from their own government the arms used to establish our nation. That they had any intention of tolerating the government being in the business of infringing the right to keep and bear arms is laughable.
That our Founders considered the right to keep and bear arms about as basic and essential for maintaining freedom as anything can be is indicated by the importance given to that right by enumeration in our Bill of Rights. The Second Amendment does not create that pre-existing right.
I can't see how anybody truly motivated by a desire to preserve liberty can justify any state infringing the right to keep and bear arms.
Another advocate of law making from the bench.
And yet, despite the fact that the Second Amendment does not limit itself to action by Congress, you would agree with reading that limitation into it. Are you not then in support of those on the bench who claimed it was only a limitation on federal action?
Mojave said: "Another advocate of law making from the bench."
And yet, despite the fact that the Second Amendment does not limit itself to action by Congress, you would agree with reading that limitation into it. Are you not then in support of those on the bench who claimed it was only a limitation on federal action?
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