Posted on 10/01/2007 11:05:51 PM PDT by neverdem
In the fall of 1997, I started collecting guns I really didn’t need to own. One Saturday in October of that year, I headed to the outdoor range with a few of my friends, our assault rifles, and a few hundred rounds of ammunition. While we were there, one of my friends complained bitterly about the anti-gun rhetoric spewed by one of his former sociology professors – a man we shall refer to as Gary (because that’s his real name).
Specifically, my friend was annoyed that Gary spent valuable class time arguing that the 2nd Amendment protects the citizen’s right to own guns but not to own bullets. With a straight face, his professor had argued that the key to reducing gun violence in America is to enact a legislative ban on the manufacture, distribution, and sale of bullets. This, he thought, would actually pass constitutional muster.
Gary’s proposed bullet ban makes him sound a lot like the segregationists I knew when I was a child in Mississippi in the 1960s. They didn’t like “colored people” and didn’t want them to vote. But they could not actually keep them from voting so they found ways to construct laws that would have the same effect without actually banning blacks from the voting booths. After all, a law that required literacy among voters was really just a way to promote public education, which, after all, is in the best interests of all, regardless of race.
As a professor in a Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice, Gary should have some familiarity with the case of Griffin v. California (1965). After the case of Malloy v. Hogan (1964), all states were required under the Fourteenth Amendment to extend the Fifth Amendment “self-incrimination” privilege to defendants in criminal cases. The case also extended the privilege to witnesses who were not defendants, even in pretrial proceedings such as preliminary hearings.
However, since prosecutors did not like this particular constitutional right, they tried to subvert it indirectly by asserting, for example, that the defendant’s choice to “take the fifth” was itself unequivocal evidence of guilt. The assertion, generally made during the prosecutor’s closing argument, was sometimes the last thing the jury heard before the onset of the process of deliberation. But, thanks to Griffin v. California, this act of allowing a government agent (a prosecutor) to indirectly subvert a constitutional right –simply because he found it distasteful (and/or dangerous) – was ruled unconstitutional by the end of 1965.
At first, I was under the impression that Gary’s support of a federal law banning ammunition was born of constitutional ignorance. But, in April of 2007, another student approached me with yet another complaint about his anti-gun rhetoric. Again, it was his specific assertion that the 2nd Amendment allows citizens to own guns but not ammunition. In other words, he has been making the same silly argument for over a decade while drawing a paycheck from the very citizens whose rights he wishes to subvert.
This kind of persistence leads me to believe that Gary’s problem is not born of ignorance of the constitution. Instead – just like the prosecutors subverting the “self-incrimination” privilege in the 1960s – he is hostile to those portions of the constitution that interfere with his specific occupational goals. More ambitious than the prosecutor’s goal of restricting the freedom of the criminal is the sociologist’s goal of restricting the freedom of the lawful gun owner.
Until now, no one (to my knowledge) has publicly challenged Gary’s silly proposal. But imagine he had a different goal; namely, that of restricting a woman’s so-called constitutional right to have an abortion. Imagine further that he took a similar tactic by indirectly attacking that constitutional right, which, unlike the right to bear arms, is written nowhere in the Bill of Rights. Specifically, imagine him going into a sociology class and suggesting that a woman has a right to an abortion but that abortion clinics could be lawfully banned. Or imagine him saying that forceps or suction tubes could be similarly banned. The possibilities are almost endless but the reaction from feminists would be uniform and loud.
Our college campuses need an organized response to anti-gun extremists like Gary – one that has the same level of enthusiasm and visibility that the campus feminists have enjoyed for decades. Thanks to some fairly recent decisions by the Supreme Court such a response is entirely possible because colleges collecting mandatory student activity fees are no longer able to deny funding to student organizations they deem to be offensive. This applies to all clubs – even those celebrating the 2nd Amendment.
There can be no better response to an anti-gun extremist like Gary than to establish a 2nd Amendment club at the local state college or university. And to those who have already done so I would suggest making a funding request to your university for an afternoon’s supply of ammunition. Taking your 2nd Amendment club to the gun range at the taxpayer’s expense will surely get under the skin of your liberal administrators.
Professors like Gary think they are exploring fertile intellectual ground with their latest anti gun schemes. It’s up to us to show them they are shooting blanks and, therefore, just a generation away from extinction.
Dr. Adams article also appears in the September issue of Shooting Sports Retailer.
Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel: Confessions of a Conservative College Professor.
IMHO, this is a pretty good idea that would freak the campi left out.
The ROTC has been effectively frozen out by the hippies - by all means bring them back into the realm of academia. There once was a Scout merit badge for marksmanship, and scouts were able to bring their qualifying rifles to school ranges to obtain it.
Nanny State 911! (Beware, there's a little profanity.) The profanity was edited.
Tribal Members Join in Effort To Assist U.S., Iraqi Forces (30,000 Volunteers .........)
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.
Bang
BTTT
So, when we are opposed to something the MSM prints, we can enact legislation which bans the manufacture, sale and distribution of newsprint?
I mean, after all, the Constitution DOES guarantee a free press but it does NOT guarantee the right to own paper - right?
Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, commander-in-chief of the Japanese Navy during World War II, said, ‘’You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass.’’ He meant he was afraid of civilians with military rifles, not the National Guard.
Isn’t it funny how the people who seem to distrust our government the most are the ones who are willing to relinquish all of the people’s weapons so that the government is the only one with weapons?
The Second Amendment was written not only for people to protect themselves from personal attack. The Founding Fathers also had a deep distrust of government. Without our weapons, what recourse would we have when all of our other rights are taken away?
The second amendment protects my right to keep and bear arms. An unloaded gun is not an “arm”, it is a paperweight.
I looked, and I believe that the old marksmanship merit badge has been split into separate rifle and shotgun shooting merit badges. Here's a web page on current and former merit badges: http://www.scouters.us/homemb.html.
Current merit badges:
Rifle Shooting (123) 1987-present (Rifle & Shotgun Shooting (97) 1967-87)
Shotgun Shooting (124) 1987-present (Rifle & Shotgun Shooting (97) 1967-87)
Former merit badges:
Rifle & Shotgun Shooting (97) 1967-87 (Marksmanship 1911-66)
Marksman ~~~ 1910-11
Marksmanship ~~ 1911-66 (Marksman ~~~ 1910-11)
The information on the right hand is the predecessor merit badge. It appears that the evolution was:
Merit badge workbooks for the two current merit badges are available here: Shotgun Shooting Merit Badge Workbook, Rifle Shooting Merit Badge Workbook
I’m not interestered in restricting the rights of anyone. The left is. I’m interested in the author’s suggestion to restore rights, i.e. getting the respect for the Second Amendment back on campus. Try to get these kids to push for their rights on campus. Getting them to a range wouldn’t hurt.
Maybe someone can help me here. After what case were all states required under the Fourteenth Amendment to extend the Second Amendment protection to all persons?
GRRRRREAT idea! Thanks for the ping. BTTT!
Surely, in representing to the Supreme Court that Heller “may lawfully possess a rifle or shotgun to protect himself,” Appellees did not mean to suggest that Heller would be limited to operating such a rifle or shotgun as a club or as a thrown object.
Thanks for the ping!
The Federal government may not legally restrict the free exercise of a God-given right, but a state government may.
< /sarcasm>
“In other words, he has been making the same silly argument for over a decade while drawing a paycheck from the very citizens whose rights he wishes to subvert. “
This infection by those who hate America, are in all the schools. From elementary to the colleges, they infest every nook and cranny, indoctrinating the students as best they can.
Clubs on campus will not be enough. Trying to get on School Broads will not be enough. The best thing to do is avoid these teachers like the plaque that they are. Do not send your kids to these schools and prop these the socialists up. Take away their funds, where can they go? They are not smart enough for a real job.
DuncanWaring wrote:
I see your point.
The Federal government may not legally restrict the free exercise of a God-given right, but a state government may.
< /sarcasm>
There is no sarcasm in the point being made.
There are FReepers here who [using a conservative guise] advocate the socialistic idiocy that a State gov't is not bound by the 2nd.
To them, a majority can prohibit guns.
Or anything else.
And following their argument you would expect them to scream how illegal the '34 NFA and "68 GCA are unconstitutional as it's a "state" issue. However you never hear a squeak out of them. Bipolar thinking at best.
Why didn't God give this right to, say, illegals in this country? Quite unlike God to be selective, don't you think?
Who said God didn't give illegal aliens the right to defend themselves?
Certainly not me.
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