Posted on 12/04/2006 2:04:25 PM PST by neverdem
News By Us, not news bias
This caught my eye this morning: Paul Helmke’s anti-liberty rant Guns and Governing, on The Huffington Post, December 1, 2006. Helmke is head of The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence. Here is my response, December 1, 2006.
First of all, very first of all, when it comes to guns, there is no governing to be, with the exception of protection of the Bill of Rights. Since the right to bear arms is absolute, there is no governing over it. there can be only protection; you protect the rights of the people on that and that’s your oath. Simple. Anything else is an attack.
Refusal to understand this not only reflects a poor understanding of the law and practical values in America, but reveals a hidden agenda to overthrow us all. All of us, not just those who support rights, but all of us. That would include Mr. Helmke, himself, unless he wishes to own a gun secretly.
In fact, if any anti-gun activist owns positively any sort of weapon in the home for self-defense – I don’t care if it’s a baseball bat! – he/she supports self-defense and the use of up to lethal force. Or, don’t they realize what they’re saying and doing? Most anti-gun nuts do in fact own weapons. Right, Rosie? N’cest pa, Dianne?
The second amendment isn’t about guns, it’s about personal sovereignty and the use of force to back it up.
Anti-gun activists, therefore, are to be discredited utterly.
In three itemized issues, Helmke lays out mention of straw purchases, political clout of the gun rights lobbies versus election wins, and he mentions gun violence.
The first two arguments are themselves straw arguments, since straw purchases are way exaggerated as many, many writers have pointed out in the past in detail, and since the election wins and losses are not gun rights based, but far, far more based on republican disappointments, border control issues and size-of-government issues. Every voter knows it. It is silly to write that republicans lost because they listen to the NRA when voters (readers) know darned good and well their own minds and why they didn’t vote republican this time around.
The third argument got my attention: Gun Violence.
Again, there is the call for sensible gun laws, but in fact there is no such thing as a sensible gun law. Could there be such a thing as sensible censorship? The only sensible gun law exists purely as a civil right, and it is absolute. If you want sensible gun laws, try no one under eighteen owns a gun, felons don’t own a gun, and non-citizens don’t own a gun, and then, repeal all gun laws. Now, that’s sensible.
Here is my analysis as Mr. Helmke’s piece summons of me.
The Second Amendment was made absolute and impervious to due process for a reason. The Founding Fathers knew very well what they did not want any more of – no more over-reach, no more abuses of powers, no more warrants without local supervision (jury) and more – and just as certainly as the fact that they ratified it all, they knew that it all had to be backed by force forever. That force is in the hands of the People, individuals like you and me, and it is this sovereign authority that cannot be infringed. It is being infringed various different ways. It is your authority which is being infringed. Remember that gun control is attacking not guns, and it’s not attacking violence; it is attacking individual sovereign authority which is backed by lawful force.
In many ways, Americans are being bluffed out of their sovereignty.
Attacks on guns are attacks on personal sovereignty to undermine the power of the People to remain in control over the country: gun control is an attack to wrest that control from the people in an immense transfer of authority, convincing people or coercing people out of it. Remove the lawful force of the people, and the rest can simply be taken unopposed.
Many laws toward that goal come in the form of anti-crime measures, so that little by little, the people surrender – Americans cooperate – in handing over what they think will help fight crime. Americans will do a lot and put up with a lot if they believe it will help.
It’s a scam, a trap. Because of the sovereignty of the People and the People’s own lawful force to back it up, the idea of one-sided force in this country is a trap.
Helmke summarizes, “More guns are likely to make a home, a state, or a country more dangerous, not more safe.”
This is, of course, wholly untrue, and I’ll say just where.
Well, America, if you want to help fight crime and violence, listen up.
I’ve said a thousand times that police have no mandate to protect individuals. Most officers will nod and agree with this if asked. I’m surprised that some younger officers are not even aware of it. Hell, even some legislators aren’t aware of it, but it’s true. This is important for everyone willing to help to fully understand. As always, I am speaking not to gun owners, but to non-gun owners and the impartial, people looking for both sides of the issue. Heads of household who really want to understand. I know it’s hard to accept, but every head of household must come to understand that police don’t have to protect you.
Police join law enforcement to help, but in actuality, in the most critical moments of a crime emergency, you are on your own.
As benign as it might sound at first, ‘governing’ guns and people who own them means restricting before-the-fact your right to act at the moment action is needed most – when you are facing grave danger alone, and let’s be realistic: only you have the right to make that call. I support the idea of investigation for reasonableness under the circumstances, but before-the-fact restrictions (gun control) are entirely unreasonable and unlawful. It grows crime by permitting it to succeed unopposed in case after case after case, hundreds of thousands of times every year.
Equally realistic is the fact that some Americans believe preparedness in self-defense to be an unwanted burden. Their over-reaction of being expected to grow up and protect loved ones manifests itself as name-calling gun owners as Cowboys and Vigilantes. It’s merely a denial or a refusal to take responsibility for something that unavoidably belongs only to them.
For an example of this, please visit the YouTube Video Confession Of A Rat: An anti-gun newspaperman admits to his wife (and to himself) that he can’t be counted on to protect her life.
‘Governance’ over guns and people who rise to meet their responsibility is a ruse to disarm individuals to pave the way to grow crime to the advantage of officials. In a very obvious way, the anti-gun crowd uses the crowd who refuse this burden to increase numbers of anti-gun voters. Minions. Minions by the millions.
As I say often – very often – personal disarmament is a trap for the American household and a payday for officials.
Who is the real thief in this issue?
Why is the Second Amendment absolute and made impervious to due process? Why can there be no such thing as so-called sensible gun laws?
Because the individual victim of crime is the first line of defense, and no matter what law you write, we always will be. Gun control takes away the power but leaves the ultimate accountability, the typical bureaucratic trap. This is anti-violence? This is American? Is it good for your household to be denied the power, but left with the responsibility anyway?
The individual is now and always will be the first line of defense. And when crime is an excuse to transfer liberty and authority out of the hands of the people, this then makes the citizen the first line of defense for the entire nation. Taking away that anywhere/anytime, instance-by-instance defense is in no way sensible.
I have some concerns about her. But so far I don't see anyone better on the Repub side, at least no one who wants it.
And, in fact, she says she doesn't want it either. But for now there isn't anyone else.
Ehh, that depends on what you mean.
I don't think it's a good idea for a random citizen to be able to walk into a Wal-Mart and buy an anti-tank rocket capable of blowing up a store or something. If you want to define THAT as a gun, I'd say, no, there are some sensible gun laws.
As far as regular stuff goes? I tend to agree.
I started to post the same thing and fortunately read down and saw that you did a better job of it than I could.
Thanks for the post and thanks to thackman for the ping.
TW, thought you might be interested.
Stem Cells Figure Prominently in 2006 Election
ABOUT THOSE IMAMS(RICHARD MINITER EXPOSE')
Beyond Hegemony More interesting as a series of thought experiments, it doesn't do justice to our current engagement with a resurgent Islam.
From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.
There is not a word in the Miller opinion to support the "collective" right notion. What there is, which is arguably reading limitations into the Second Amendment that aren't there, is a holding that guns only qualify as a Second Amendment-protected right if they are a type which can have a military use. As you probably know, the court in Miller did NOT hold that the defendants didn't have a right to own the sawed-off shotguns in question -- the court remanded the case to the lower court for a determination of fact on whether sawed-off shotguns had any legitimate military use. The historical facts show clearly that they do, but the lower court never addressed the remanded case, as one defendant had died and the other had agreed to pay a fine and be done with the whole thing.
Any legitimate reading of the Miller decision concludes that while it did not confirm our individual right to own "Saturday Night Specials", it most certainly DID confirm our individual right to own any and all guns that have potential military applications, which obviously includes full-auto machine guns, 50 calibers, guns with large capacity magazines, bayonet mounts, flash suppressors, pistol grips, folding stocks, and grenade launchers.
So 'people means the states? That means that the 1st, 4th and 10th Amendments are for the states?
If that is true then the 10th Amendment is written very strangely. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." would mean 'The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the States.'
Doesn't make much sense does it?
My take is that the states reserved for themselves the right to regulate concealed carry.
Open carry cannot be infringed. IMHO. ???
The prosecution also asked that the Supreme Court find that only members of a militia and certain others were protected by the Second Amendment. The Court did not agree and pointed out that people called for militia duty were expected to appear bearing weapons supplied by themselves.
Hear hear. Ya know, having grown up with things like that - I have even more respect for her. Condi's got my vote.
How did you shift the burden of proof to the defendant?
Neither the Supreme Court nor any appeals court has the authority to decide controverted matters of fact. With a few exceptions, neither does Congress. The job of fact-finder is reserved for juries (or, when jury trial is waived, bench-court judges).
If a store owner were indicted for having sold a bottle of O'Douls on December 2, 2006, in violation of a law against selling alcohol on Sundays, and he were to appeal the indictment on the grounds that December 2 was a Saturday, the appeals court would likely quash the indictment on the basis that December 2 was a Saturday and there could be no argument about that. On the other hand, if he were to argue that O'Douls wasn't alcohol, the prosecutor might argue that it qualified. Such a claim by the prosecutor might be sufficient to prevent the indictment from being quashed (though unless the prosecutor could come up with some pretty compelling evidence at trial, the case would go nowhere).
That's the norm with affirmative defenses. If someone is charged with possession of stolen property and they present a bill of sale showing they purchased it from an apparently-legitmate dealer, they're off the hook. It's they, however, who bear the burden of showing how they got the item.
Showing that a shotgun is a military weapon would be pretty trivial; the burden should not be terribly high. The Miller test would be aimed more if, e.g., someone was found with many bottles of distilled (and tastefully blended) alcohol on which no taxes had been paid, and tried to argue that they weren't booze, they were really Molotov cocktails that he'd prepared in case his land was invaded and, as weapons, they were immune from taxation. Do you think a jury would buy that excuse?
Up until around the 1950s people were able to buy dynamite at most rural hardware stores. That's a century and a half after the founding of our Nation. Somehow we were able to survive without restricting the freedoms of the law-abiding.
The National Firearms Act of 1934 was the knee-jerk response to the gangsterism created by the Eighteenth Amendment outlawing alcohol. This wrong-headed attempt to legislate morality resulted in unprecedented gangsterism aimed at protecting the lucrative trade in illicit alcohol.
If you want to see the future of trying to eliminate crime by disarming the law-abiding, you only need to look at Great Britain. People there have been jailed for defending themselves from violent criminals and the government has encouraged people to turn in knives as a crime-fighting step. When sharp pointy sticks are outlawed only outlaws will have sharp pointy sticks.
The crime problem, such as it is, is the result of failing to teach and enforce discipline in our youngsters. A judge years ago, in sentencing a horse-thief, stated that he had seen many men who needed killing but had never seen a horse that needed stealing. Horse thieves were hanged.
But the honest road is not going to appeal to people who can see that trading in illicit drugs is easy money with apparently little risk. The War on Some Drugs has created an industry for criminals that will never go away. Wishfully thinking that laws requiring me to prove I am not a criminal, or which force me to wait 10 days, or which force me to purchase a safe, or which limit me to underpowered arms, will NEVER decrease crime. Because the criminals don't obey these laws.
I don't claim expertise on affirmative defenses, but wouldn't the existence of an affirmative defense have to be spelled out in the law? I don't understand how the protections of the Second Amendment can become a "defense" to an unConstitutional law.
In the Miller case, why would the prosecution be burdened with proving that Miller never bought a stamp? Why is Miller not saddled with proving that he did?
If the crime that Miller is accused of violating requires that the weapon lack usefulness to a Militia, how is that not a burden for the prosecution?
Interesting.
I ran across the following the other day while reading Jefferson's First Inaugural Address...
"...a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war, till regulars may relieve them..."
Seems to me that Jefferson believed that citizens should certainly be prepared to be that first line of defense. A citizen can't be prepared without owning and knowing how to use a weapon. My question would be did he take it a step further and consider it an obligation for them to train together in order to be a reliable force until the "regulars" could take over?
Jefferson wrote a letter to his nephew, I believe it was, admonishing him to take healthy walks and always take his gun along. In the letter he opined that games of the ball were too strenuous on the body but that the walk was much healthier as long as one took the gun along. He thought walking and shooting was a very healthy thing indeed.
Now compare that letter with the one he sent to the Danbury Baptist Congregation regarding church and state. In that letter he mentioned the First Amendment as "effectively creating a wall between church and state". IOW, a metaphor.
Why is it that courts have embraced his letter to the Danbury congregation as law and ignored his letter to his nephew?
Could it be AGENDA?
Of course it was agenda. Hugo Black deliberately misinterpreted Jefferson's wall and thus rewrote the First Amendment. I am appalled and frightened at the number of Americans who believe the rewrite as fact.
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