Posted on 08/25/2007 3:09:54 PM PDT by Atlas Sneezed
And there was a reason the founders placed the capitol in a neutral city that was not part of any state. It was meant to prevent a state or local jurisdiction from exercising arbitrary control over the capitol, federal goverment, and its employees. I think Congress and federal empolyees should be exempted from all the local DC gun control laws.
No, Mr. Gossett, the real scourge is feel-good, do-nothing victim disarmament zones like Virginia Tech. (Actually, 'do-nothing' is not quite correct. Perhaps 'evil-enabling' is a better term.)
Why does anyone have such trouble with the language of 2A? To refer to the right of the people, means the people have a right. And we well know the Founders’ position on the source of rights: it is NOT convenience, security or practicality.
The militia depends on the right, not the right on the militia.
Guns are not for hunting Bambi. They are for keeping the despot at bay. There are millions of would be despots waiting in line for the day guns are outlawed.
The real problem with Virginia Tech is that the only person with balls was a 75 year old man.
The NRA’s backing of a legislative fix of the DC gun ban before the case can be heard by SCOTUS may be related to the NRA’s understanding that a win by pro-2A forces in court would serve to reduce the NRA’s raison d’etre, at least as a political entity.
Excellent post with cogent points from both sides compared and contrasted to expose the gunphobes for what they are.
The money paragraph: “Rothstein agrees the Court is not likely to find the ban an effective solution. “Guns can come in from outside D.C. because criminals can get guns. It is only the law-abiding people that are restricted by the handgun ban. The Court may hold that the ban is not effective in promoting this compelling state interest,” Rothstein says. (There is no question that handguns flow into the District, despite the ban. Last year, D.C. police confiscated 2,655 unregistered firearms.)”
In a nutshell and boiled down to molasses, as they say.
Well they say the “Pen is Mightier Than the Sword “
So the bans etc should be on the radio and TV which can reach millions with any manner of rumors lies etc that cause riots wars etc
I can think of one...Hillary.
With regret, I cannot take any article seriously which misquotes the 2nd Amendment in the very first line.
A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, (ONE COMMA)the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.”
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a39388c210c1b.htm
Best regards,
This is the first I've heard of capitalization of words in the second amendment having "special significance". I recall all the discussion of clauses and commas, but nothing about use of upper case...
On another thread, I offered some of the Founders own words to illustrate their simple 2nd A dictum: [emphasis added]
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed -- unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
--James Madison
"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
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials."
-- George Mason
"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American."
-- Tench Coxe
"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-- George Washington
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion."
--Andrew Fletcher (1655-1716)
"No freeman shall [ever] be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]"
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), proposed Virginia Constitution, June 1776, in Thomas Jefferson's_Papers
"To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them."
--George Mason (1725-1792), June 14, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United states who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms..."
--Samuel Adams (1722-1803), in_Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."
-- Tenche Coxe to James Madison. Federal Gazette. 1789
"The great objective is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun."
--Patrick Henry
"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."
-- Thomas Jefferson
I cannot understand how these simple ideas and utterances of the Founders can be miscontrued, especially this one:
"The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."
--Thomas Jefferson
http://www.geocities.com/gene_moutoux/diagramamend2.htm
-bflr—
A well regulated militia would always be a necessary check on tyrannical government. The founders knew that as long as the government had sole possession of weapons the citizens would be slaves. An army protects and defends against external enemies. A militia protects and defends from within. Further, the “well regulated” language only meant that the most resourceful method of both resisting and overthrowing tyranny required organization and a meeting of the minds and commonality of not only purpose but a commonality necessary to replace the government with the shared vision and ideas of it’s members. Being well regulated and organized necessarily would require the building of a concensus. And by extension, a concensus requires yet still democracy. Therefore, those that threw off and replaced tyrannical rule would at least be borne of democracy itself ensuring the greater potential for freedom. (Can anyone point to where they’ve ever read or heard my argument?)
As for gun ownership being a personal right, there are quotes galore from the founders and a the Bill Of Rights speak for personal rights as the DC Court correctly held. Guns put food on the table. They kept the wicked at bay. And it was so generally accepted that the individual has a natural right to defend life and property which was so core and central to everyone that it never dawned on the founders that one day society could become so diseased and otherwise duped and brainwashed into thinking that these natural rights were rights given by government.
I’m with you in spirit 100%, but half of those quotes are bogus.
Bumped for future reading...
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