George Allen: The Supreme Court will rule on gun rights

That is question before the U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 in the case of District of Columbia v. Heller. This case directly challenges the District of Columbia’s ban on handguns. In 1976, D.C. officials imposed a strict gun-ban law to supposedly curb increasing gun violence. But security guard Dick Anthony Heller believes he has a right to keep a handgun in his home and filed a lawsuit against the District. U.S. courts so far have agreed with Heller and ruled that the Second Amendment “protects an individual right to keep and bear arms … for such activities as hunting and self-defense.” D.C. officials have appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

Heller is the first pure Second Amendment case the U.S. Supreme Court has heard since the landmark United States v. Miller case in 1939. In that case, the court found—perhaps because Miller himself was not represented in the court—that there was no evidence that the defendant's possession of a short-barreled shotgun was related to the purposes of the Second Amendment. Unfortunately, the Miller decision has been misinterpreted by lower courts as indicating that Second Amendment rights are not meant for individuals but for State militias such as the National Guard.

D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty believes that only more violence will ensue if the Heller ruling is upheld. However, guns do not kill or rob people; criminals do. Criminals intent on misusing firearms and committing violent crimes such as murder, rape or robbery simply ignore such “gun-free zones” and are free to assault undefended people. Violent criminals prefer their victims to be unarmed. We have seen this throughout the country; D.C. presents daily examples of this criminal behavior.

In Virginia, when we abolished the lenient, dishonest parole system, we rejected the “holy criminal” apologists’ views; we sentenced violent criminals to longer terms. A government can lock up all the guns, but if criminals are loose, we are not safe. Rather than take away the right of law-abiding citizens to protect themselves, their families and their property, the government has a primary responsibility to protect citizens from criminals.

The results of the two competing philosophies are clear and instructive. The District of Columbia, with its gun ban, continues to have high crime rates. Its law-abiding citizens and visitors have been prohibited from possessing firearms the past several decades and crime-ridden D.C. is surely not the model of a safe place. Across the Potomac River in Virginia, during my service as Governor, we passed a “concealed carry” law and abolished parole resulting in dramatic increases in time served for violent felons. Since 1995, the violent crime rate in Virginia has declined by nearly 23 percent. The murder rate is down by 30 percent and the forcible rape rate has dropped by more than 15 percent. This is a logical result when one realizes that most crimes were being committed by criminals, not guns.

By referring to our history and secession from the British Monarchy, we can be enlightened on one of the reasons for inclusion of “the right to bear arms” in the Bill of Rights. The British tried to disarm the colonists, forced them to pay for the established Church and quartered the King’s soldiers among the colonists. Indeed, the Bill of Rights protects the peoples’ freedom of religion, assembly, and expression; citizens have to right to petition their government, to have due process and to bear arms. The Bill of Rights also provides other individual protections against taking of property, cruel and unusual punishment, and quartering of troops. On the basis of this historical context, it is therefore logical that a government prohibition against a law-abiding citizen who owns and possesses a handgun is a preposterous, clearly unconstitutional infringement of that natural and fundamental right to self-defense.

In correspondence with John Cartwright in 1824, Thomas Jefferson noted that “power is inherent in the people” and that “it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.” Second Amendment rights are inalienable and essential to personal self-defense. Let us hope that the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will read our history and properly allow our reasonable freedoms to endure.

The foundational principles of the Bill of Rights should truly continue to apply in the United States of America.

-George Allen, former Governor and Senator of Virginia, is currently the President of George Allen Strategies and serves as the Reagan Ranch Presidential Scholar. To learn more, visit www.georgeallen.com.

The Administration asks SCOTUS on the one hand to find an individual right, and on the other to proceed as if they were not dealing with a right at all.

This is all so damn confusing. However, with my crystal ball let me predict a very nasty '08:

The social fabric is coming apart at the seams. I've heard with my ears (screaming and 'f'-bombs being dropped in places one would least expect) and seen with my eyes (repo-ed cars on flatbed tow trucks- one which evoked a gang reaction in an area one would not expect) as well as being solicited recently to give money to tattooed individuals needing gas money. And there have been other signs as well.

This relates to the topic at hand by noting how ironic it is to be looking at an up-coming summer (maybe sooner) that could be explosive to the point where self-defense may depend on the 'people's' access to arms- while the courts twiddle their thumbs.

Recessions in the past have come and gone. This time, the combustible mix of malcontents, uneducated, thugs, gangsters, etc. may have serious ramifications. We'll know in two or three months, and if not by then, when the Clintons pull the rug out from under Obama, it'll be on.

Doesn’t every state Constitution accept the fed constitution as governing law so the 2nd A still works?

Clauses 2 and 3 of Article VI of the federal Constitution requires all state officials to uphold the federal Constitution. But in the same breath, I'll say don't overlook the Founder's division of federal and state government powers reflected in the federal Constitution.

Indeed, as evidenced by your reply, confusion about the scope of the federal Constitution has existed possibly from the day that it was ratified to the present. But you're in good company. Even the late 19th century USSC has shown, in Presser v. Illinois 1886 for example, that it was possibly not aware of John Bingham's words about the 14th Amendment which had officially changed the scope and clarified the purpose of the federal Constitution's privileges and immunities.

Bear in mind that the states ratified the original part of the federal Constitution on the condition that they would be able to make a bill of rights for it; several states had their own bills of rights. When the federal BoR was later being drafted, James Madison officially proposed that the states be required to respect at least some of the privileges and immunities that were being incorporated into the federal BoR. It turns out that Madison's proposal was ignored. The states evidently wanted to be benevolent dictators for the people.

For further clarification of the division of federal and state powers that the Founding States incorporated into the Constitution, a concept which has been largely forgotten these days, consider the following. Politically correct interpretations of the Constitution aside, just because the 1st A. of the federal Constitution forbids the federal government from making laws pertaining to religion, speech, etc., doesn't mean that the states couldn't write laws to limit these basic freedoms. In fact, Jefferson noted that the states weren't bound by the 1st A.'s prohibition on certain powers of the federal government.

"3. Resolved that it is true as a general principle and is also expressly declared by one of the amendments to the constitution that ‘the powers not delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people’: and that no power over the freedom of religion, freedom of speech, or freedom of the press being delegated to the US. by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, all lawful powers respecting the same did of right remain, & were reserved, to the states or the people: that thus was manifested their determination to retain to themselves the right of judging how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged without lessening their useful freedom, and how far those abuses which cannot be separated from their use should be tolerated rather than the use be destroyed; and thus also they guarded against all abridgement by the US. of the freedom of religious opinions and exercises, & retained to themselves the right of protecting the same, as this state, by a law passed on the general demand of it’s citizens, had already protected them, from all human restraint or interference: ..." --Thomas Jefferson, Kentucky Resolutions, 1798. http://tinyurl.com/oozoo

So Chief Justice Marshall who wrote the majority opinion in Barron v. Baltimore 1833, was evidently aware that the limited scope of the federal Constitution's privileges and immunities was not an oversight, even if John Bingham, the main author of Sec. 1 of the 14th A. was not. However, I agree with James Madison and John Bingham that the limited scope of federal privileges and immunities created an awkward situation.

Finally, let's compare the 2nd and 10th Amendments with Sec. 1 of the 15th Amendment, for example, to see how the Founders implemented their idea for determining the scope of government powers limited by the federal Constitution.

2nd Amendment: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
10th Amendment: 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.
15th Amendment, Section 1: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Although the 2nd A. acknowledges the states, it doesn't explicitly prohibit a certain power to the states as required by the 10th A. and exemplified by the 15th Amendment. The 15th A. explicitly prohibits both federal and state governments from abridging voting privileges based on race.

The only thing to do is ban cars for everyone. That will stop all automobile deaths...There are people out there who believe that. Many of them are in the planning community, busy designing all kinds of connecting trails to let people walk to public transportation, when they get around to trying to ban cars...

I have always maintained that the hoopla surrounding SUVs and 4x4 vehicles has very little to do with gas guzzling and a lot more to do with being anti-gun and anti-hunter. To a moderate degree anti camping. Think of the plan ALGORE first posited in his original book way back from the 70's (forget the title but it played a role in the 2000 election) where he advocated banning the internal combustion engine and a forced movement of populations to coastal cities so that the interior of the nation could be returned to pristine wilderness. I kid you not. Now bear with me and think about this 'cause it could lead into the fringes of areas lined with some ummmm tin foil.

The ELF terrorists blow up Hummer Dealerships allegedly because of their anti-green resource guzzling elements. Many legislators are upping the mpg requirements way beyond what is possible for 4x4s to actually go off road. Without 4x4 capability two things can be accomplished.

First: A lot of hunters will be unable to reach hunting grounds safely in inclement weather or in rural areas where terrain is more extreme than usual. It will also severely impact folks who own hunting camps for a living as well as professional guides (a small percentage perhaps, but we're still talking livelihoods) and all the ancillary industries that support recreational hunting. THAT is a huge statistic, not that the communists & globalists that are pushing such plans even care. If there is no way to get to the hunting area and no way to haul the game home then there is no more need for "sporting use" firearms. Suddenly that bolt action scoped rifle is a true sniper rifle and must be banned. The shotguns will be wmd's and banned. Handguns suitable for hunting will go just as easy and small handguns for self defense will then be even easier. Especially in that political climate.

Second: Consider the need for a government in an emergency or perhaps catastrophic situation to control movement. How is this accomplished? Over the short term, like 911 you can simply ground everybody. No vehicles on the roads except military or police. Martial law. In the long term, folks have to drive. Work, school, grocery, etc. How then will a government entity control the movement of a population for a long period of time? Roadblocks. Checkpoints. Think USSR old school. A lot of folks will wonder about the ability of any government to regulate the GO-zillion miles of secondary roads and the obvious answer to many will be "no." But that's for personnel. But if you wanted to prevent passenger vehicles from traveling between cities or townships (in rural areas) then it's a pretty small matter of cratering these roads in such a manner as to create permanent obstacles to passenger cars. It can be done with civilian road equipment or a small application of explosives. That might take some time but it's doable over the long haul.

The publics options in getting around such restrictions? Horseback. Motorcycles (requires skill beyond most folks abilities) and .... you guessed it .... 4x4 vehicles. With very little training (certainly a part of every truck owners normal abilities if he uses his 4x4 for real) anybody can take something like H2, H3, Range Rover, or Ford Explorer (you can name any vehicle you wish, but you get the idea) anywhere cross country and roads really aren't all that necessary. They would certainly make easy detours around blocked secondary roads. In such freedoms lay the roots of an insurgency.

Americans are sheep, mostly. Sure there are sheepdogs but we are vastly outnumbered by the wolves. If you don't understand these references there is an essay you MUST read: "People: Sheep, wolves and sheepdogs" and you will truly be enlightened.

Understanding the sheep nature of the vast majority of Americans (the fault lies in the propaganda of the educational system) and that the likes of the WWII generation are forever gone then you can see how easy it could be to establish total control over the nation. We've been prepped to accept exactly these circumstances for a century and actively so since the 1960's. Via education, legislation and the Democratic Party's nanny state.

The agenda has been very careful to be advanced in tiny increments. The groundwork was accomplished over generations via education and media. The pressure was ramped up over the threats presented by a variety of crisis situations, like the cold war. That was something with global implications that affected the whole world. When that went away (mostly but now resurgent) the great majority of communists and their masters in the globalist movement were lost and found shelter with the other nutcakes in the extremist environmental groups. These have always been funded by communist groups but now get a lot of funding from NGOs in the United Nations and groups funded by George Soros and Ted Turner etc. A lot of the Hollywood set give mega bucks to these groups all the time. I don't even know if they're aware of the real agenda for the long term. Maybe.

The environmental movement provides a whole plethora of "causes" to save the planet. That is what the agenda requires. An imminent danger to the whole planet caused by man's stupidity that can be changed IF man is willing to change. By this it means major, sweeping and immediate societal changes.

This is what folks like Dianne Feinstein are talking about (Hillary and Obama, too) when they mutter to the media that we're all going to have to surrender some minor constitutional liberties. Look at the European Union and take a gander at the proposed North American Union (a work literally in progress) and glimpse our near term future. Because believe you me, it all ties in together. As it continues to progress, more and more folks will either be shutting up about tin foil people or buying a supply of their own.

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