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Posted on 06/12/2007 4:23:30 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Repeal Second Amendment, Analyst Advises By Nathan Burchfiel CNSNews.com Staff Writer June 12, 2007
(CNSNews.com) - The Second Amendment guarantees the right of an individual to own guns and for that reason should be repealed, according to a legal affairs analyst who opposes gun ownership.
"The Second Amendment is one of the clearest statements of right in the Constitution," Benjamin Wittes, a guest scholar at the center-left Brookings Institution, acknowledged in a discussion Monday. "We've had decades of sort of intellectual gymnastics to try to make those words not mean what they say."
Wittes, who said he has "no particular enthusiasm for the idea of a gun culture," said that rather than try to limit gun ownership through regulation that potentially violates the Second Amendment, opponents of gun ownership should set their sights on repealing the amendment altogether.
"Rather than debating the meaning of the Second Amendment, I think the appropriate debate is whether we want a Second Amendment," Wittes said. He conceded, however, that the political likelihood of getting the amendment repealed is "pretty limited."
Wittes said the Second Amendment guarantee of the right to bear arms meant more when it was crafted more than 200 years ago than it does today. Modern society is "much more ambivalent than they [the founders] were about whether gun ownership really is fundamental to liberty," he said.
"One of the things that they believed was that the right of states to organize militias, and therefore individuals to be armed, was necessary to protect the liberty of those states against the federal government," Wittes said. "This is something we don't really believe as a society anymore."
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
And now the left openly calls for tyranny. Their spots revealed at last...
This guy should be put on display in a museum. He’s the world’s rarest object: An intellectually honest leftist.
Just who is this "we" - got a mouse in your pocket?
Never underestimate the ability of an intellectual to ignore pertinent facts.
“then it is time to refresh the liberty tree.”
now and again, the tree of liberty must be nourished with the blood of patriots and tyrants....it is its’ natural manure.
Thomas Jefferson
(what beautiful prophetic words.)
As is “Anything Not Prohibited is Mandatory”?
Over a LOT of dead people's bodies.
This anal-ist’s name really should be Half Witte.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here.
The gist is once the powers that be start talking about the extreme, those extremes of today become the norms of tomorrow.
Collectivist are feeling there oats because the electorate are too ignorant, keep our powder dry.
No Guns ~ No Rights!
His being one of the first.
Well, at least he’s honest.
Great idea! There are a plethora of countries out there who have no rights to be armed. Most of them, in fact. Let the hoplophobes simply move where they are comfortable.
William Flax
that rather than try to limit gun ownership through regulation that potentially violates the Second Amendment, opponents of gun ownership should set their sights on repealing the amendment altogetherThe Bill of Rights weren't independent amendments, they were preconditions for ratification. When the Constitution was first ratified, there weren't nine states with unconditional ratifications - the nine states threshold was met only by including those states that ratified only on the precondition that a Bill of Rights be included.
In other words, should the Bill of Rights be repealed, in whole or in part, the Constitution would no longer be ratified, and the Federal Government would no longer have any legitimacy.
Of course, no government has legitimacy absent the consent of the government, and no people who have been disarmed have can consent (consent being meaningless unless refusal of consent can be enforced). So the fundamental truth is that no government that infringes on the IRKBA can be legitimate.
But in the case of the US, it's direct and immediate. No 2nd Amendment == no legitimate federal government.
I think this guy is actually being quite honorable, admitting what he wants. 99% of the anit-gunners lie about their real intentions.
Repeal it, I dare you. You just have to ask yourself one question... Do you feel LUCKY, punk?
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