Posted on 08/04/2007 10:30:58 AM PDT by 2nd amendment mama
In the aftermath of the Petit family slayings in Cheshire, we all reached for explanations: How do human beings sink this low? How could this tragedy have been prevented? Why? There are so many nagging questions. They all need to be asked. And maybe some old arguments need to be hashed out again.
Why not a more stringent "three strikes and you're out" law in this state? Connecticut's version is so weak that it's more like "30 strikes and we'll think about it while you strike again."
Why not speed up the criminal trial process for repeat violent offenders? Get them off the streets. It's been proposed many times. Most people agree it should be done. It never happens.
Can't we better monitor the probation process?
Can't we do a better job of predicting -- figuring out which non-violent criminals are about to turn violent?
Are home alarms really effective?
How about dogs?
But somehow all of these ideas pale before the barbarity of this particular crime.
That is why one old question is worth asking again. It is this: What if the Second Amendment is for real? Is it possible that it should it be revered, just like the First Amendment?
Sam Ervin said, "The Constitution should be taken like mountain whiskey -- undiluted and untaxed." Maybe that applies to all of the Constitution.
Is it possible that the Second Amendment is not a quaint and antiquated remnant of a world that will never return, but an idea as relevant and sound today as when it was written?
Is it possible that we are not talking about the right of the government to form a militia when there is no standing army, but the right of the individual to defend himself, or herself, against both tyranny and lawlessness? Maybe we are talking about the right of self-defense -- the right of the individual to take up arms against a government that wants to oppress, be it foreign or domestic. And the right of the individual to defend himself against criminals, brutes, and barbarians when local police seem unable to stop them.
Might the Second Amendment matter almost as much as the First?
I think the answer is yes.
And just like the First, the Second is practical, newly relevant, and far wiser than the watered-down alternatives.
I don't think George Bush wants to impose martial law on his fellow citizens. But he has diluted habeas corpus. And he has enlarged Big Brother. You have to stop and think about a government that wants to control the thoughts and behavior of its people.
Should such a government be permitted to disarm them as well?
And whereas the reform of the criminal justice system along some of the lines suggested above (a real "three strikes" law and faster trials for violent offenders) would not have saved the lives of Jennifer, and Hayley, and Michaela Petit, a gun might have.
I don't say it would have.
I say it might have.
Had Dr. William Petit had access to a gun and known how to use it, he might have been able to dispatch the two perpetrators, who were armed with only an air gun and ropes.
Moreover, the three victims here were women.
What if Mrs. Hawke-Petit had been trained in the use of firearms? Suppose she had been able to get to a gun after her husband was beaten into unconsciousness by the invaders? Or when she was forced to take one captor to the bank to fetch him money?
It's worth thinking about.
Women and children are now the major targets of predators in our society. Government is not protecting them very well. Many professional women who work in cities know this and take courses in self-defense. A gun may be the only realistic self-defense against the sort of criminals we are talking about here.
And if a few women took care of a few thugs in cases like this; if a few stories like this one ended in a different way -- with a woman blowing one of these brutes to kingdom come -- it might be a deterrent. Lives upon lives might be spared.
A friend of mine said: "The gun nuts are back."
They are.
And they are right.
Mind you, we are talking about arming people who are trained and know how to use a weapon.
No one should have a gun who has not been trained.
Just as one gets training in handling a boat, motorcycle, or car, one must learn how to use and safely store a gun. (The National Rifle Association maintains an extensive national network of programs in firearms training and education.)
And, obviously, no one would be forced to own a gun.
A second caveat: Encouraging citizens to arm themselves is no "answer" to crimes like the Petit murders.
An "answer" does not exist.
But it is one of several remedies when we are faced with palpable evil.
All possible remedies should be on the table:
-- Various reforms of the justice system, like a real three-strike-law for predatory offenders.
-- Better psychological treatment for troubled youth.
-- Religious training, in both love and self-restraint, especially when people are young.
-- Prison programs that both retain the hard core and educate the educable.
-- More and better home alarm systems.
-- More cops visible in more neighborhoods.
-- Dobermans.
All of these approaches have merit.
So does self-defense.
None of these options "fix" a society that can produce human beings who torture and kill the defenseless for sport.
No one step or program can plug every hole in America's justice system, or its soul.
But there are times when a gun in the hands of a potential victim may save a life.
Let's admit -- since the murderers, and druggies, and psychos, and thieves already have guns -- that arming the peaceful, law-abiding, decent, and productive people, whether in a school, or a private home, or on the way to a parked car, is an option that also has merit.
--------
Keith C. Burris is editorial page editor of the Journal Inquirer.
I'll bet that 475 barks!
I saw a .41 for sale when I was looking for the 45. It was VERY high priced. Didn't know about the 357. Seems like a big frame for that caliber.
Are all of yours the 5.5 barrel?
"The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government ..."
-- US v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)
This ruling has stood for 132 years and it stands today. When it comes to the RKBA, state laws are limited only by their state constitutions.
Now, if telling you this makes me a non-conservative, so be it. But you need to know who protects your individual gun rights -- and it ain't the second amendment. If it did, we'd have concealed carry in every state, wouldn't we?
I am not going to just sit around, complacent, thinking that my individual RKBA is protected from state infringement by the second amendment when it isn't -- sounds like something Sarah Brady would want me to believe.
Beware of the sub rosa gun control supporters on this forum who want you to believe your rights are protected when they're not. They're after your guns, either intentionally or through their own willful ignorance.
I keep my 870 in the wall rack by my bed with 3 rounds of buckshot in the magazine, right above the S&W .38 spl lying on the night stand.
Just for the record, normally there are no kids in our house. When the grandkids come to visit several times each year all the guns are locked up except when we take a .22 pistol and a .22 rifle out to the back yard for them to shoot under close supervision. Next time they're here I plan to introduce my 11 year old granddaughter to my wife's .410 shotgun using the 2-1/2" shells, but my grandson, who will be 6 by then, is still a little too young to handle anything more than a .22 single shot rifle.
I hope to instill a love and respect for firearms and the shooting sports into them the way I was taught by my grandfather in the 1940s and the way I taught my son and daughter in the '60s and '70s. With all the incredible array of electronic games and toys available today, playing cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians( (oops, make that native Americans) with cap guns and broomstick horses like my generation did in the 1930s and 40s probably seems like something out of ancient history to today's kids. Somehow I don't think that zapping an electronic image of a space monster on a TV screen with a wireless control stick is good training for handling real world bad guys like those 2-legged monsters in CT.
LOL!
I figured, but I still like to pimp the page...it belongs to my sister!
They are all 5.5. Tne .41 is blued, there is one jut like it on Gunbroker for $485 "Buy it Now"
The problem is that a state constitution's guarantee of the RKBA doesn't protect us from federal gun laws. That's why we need a USSC decision on a 2nd Amendment case that would both rule the 2nd protects and individual right and not a collective right, and would also incorporate the 2nd Amendment into the 14th as most of the other BOR amendments have been. Once the 2nd is incorporated into the 14th it would, in theory at least, protect the RKBA from both federal, state, and local infringement. But only IF the court also decides that it protects an individual right and not just a corporate right.
It would be great if the current court would use the pending appeal of a lower court's overturning of the D.C. gun ban to do all that, but with only 4 reasonably dependable votes on the high court that's very unlikely IMHO. Since the D.C. is not a state and is ultimately governed by Congress, the 2nd applies there anyway without incorporation. But that hasn't stopped the D.C. liberals from enacting the harshest gun laws this side of the UK because of the corporate right interpretation that has prevailed for over a century. That shows that even incorporating the 2nd wouldn't break the lib's gun-grabbing habit unless the court also rules that it protects an individual right.
bttt
Too bad it takes the murders of innocents to get the liberals to figure out the importance of the 2nd Amendment.
“Tell that to the citizens of New Orleans.”
They bought the Koolaid, they drank the Koolaid, and now they live by the Koolaid.
(Tony Montana voiceover)
“Say hello to my leetle friend.”
(Tony Montana voiceover)
“Say hello to my leetle friend.”
I will be temporarily giving up my CCW rights. I’m moving to a state that isn’t reciprocal...the CCW class will be my first stop when I get there (so I’ve been told) :)
I’m sure my .45 will miss me for the few days it doesn’t get to go with me on my errands.
That is correct. A constitutional federal law trumps state laws to the contrary.
"Once the 2nd is incorporated into the 14th it would, in theory at least, protect the RKBA from both federal, state, and local infringement."
Correct. But if some future liberal U.S. Supreme Court defines "arms" as not including handguns, or "bear" as not including concealed carry, or "keep" as keep in a state armory, we're in deep do-do. That decision would affect every state, whereas now it would only affect federal laws.
I'm confused as to why some feel that incorporation is a good thing. Given the way the U.S. Supreme Court has defined "speech", "privacy", "eminent domain", "religion", and a whole host of other issues, I'm not real confident that they'll realize their error and start ruling "our" way when it comes to the second amendment.
The Bill of Rights was never meant to apply to the states. If one state infringed speech, you could move to another state. What was it, the individual states were "laboratories of freedom" or something like that?
--- For instance, if there's nothing in a state constitution about the right to keep and bear arms [and States can change their constitutions by super-majority decisions], - then --- States can ban all guns if they so chose.
Thank you for posting this (#63). To think that state's rights may impose on our Constitution when in conflict with one or more of it's provisions (limitations on government) does not, a conservative make. It reminds me of one in search of paper to stoke a fire and, finding none, reaches for this 'parchment' (with many signatures) and proceeds to light it and toss it into the stove.
The notion that states could undo protections galvanized in the union to which they voluntarily subscribed is anything but conservative. I'll gladly join you in shoving this fact in the faces of those who continue to perpetuate this fraud.
The 1875 Cruikshank decision is often cited by socialist/statists:
"The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government ..."
This ruling has been discredited since it was first made by a 'jim crow' court, intent on keeping ex-slaves in their place.
Now, FR's Sarah Brady types use Cruikshank to justify their sub rosa gun control efforts; -- and it is intentional, bet on it.
States can refuse to honor unconstitutional federal 'laws'. -- In fact, it is a state officials sworn duty to do so under Article VI, - and under the 10th Amendment.
That's why we need a USSC decision on a 2nd Amendment case that would both rule the 2nd protects and individual right and not a collective right, and would also incorporate the 2nd Amendment into the 14th as most of the other BOR amendments have been.
The 'incorporation doctrine' of previous courts should be repudiated. -- All of the first ten amendments have always applied to all levels of government in the USA.
Once the 2nd is incorporated into the 14th it would, in theory at least, protect the RKBA from both federal, state, and local infringement.
The 10th Amendment specifies that some powers are prohibited to States by the US Constitution. The power to infringe on our right to own and carry arms is prohibited by the 2nd.
Beware the man who uses 'majority rule' rhetoric to claim that State/local gov't can ignore that Amendment.
Damn you can bloviate and still say nothing of value.
You seem to equate intentional murder with planned self defense which is just plain stupid and displays your ignorance.
Further, have you noticed that NOBODY has agreed with you? There is a reason for that.
You cannot tell the difference between a God given right and a social contract.
Finally, you said that you will not post your bs anti-gun dogma on FR.
Good, as it is neither appreciated nor valued.
So does Chuck Norris...oh, wait...
by Ralph Nader
Listening to what passes these days for debates in the U. S House of Representatives and the U. S. Senate, it is easy to get the impression there are no new ideas left - certainly no new progressive ideas or suggestions that there might be solutions to the nation's multitude of social and economic problems.
At best, what little energy progressive members can muster is exhausted on efforts to halt the rollback of existing programs. The dimming of the vigor and effectiveness of the national legislature is placing a new focus on state legislators, who for so long were regarded as poor cousins to their national counterparts in Washington.
But, that's changing in many states. Progressive groups and low and moderate income families and minorities are often finding state legislatures-and city councils-more responsive to their needs than the lawmakers in Washington.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis envisioned the state legislatures as "laboratories of democracy" willing to tackle new and innovative approaches in meeting the needs of society.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
States as laboratories for socialistic freedoms? -- I'll pass.
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