Excellent!
Posted on 03/16/2008 2:51:10 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
Guns were an essential tool in frontier life when the United States was formed hundreds of years ago, and even today the right to carry them remains a fundamental part of the country's identity.
Hence the heated emotions surrounding an issue that comes before the Supreme Court this week -- how modern society should interpret gun rights that were written into the Second Amendment of the Constitution during a very different era.
The deadly impact of gun-toting criminals in recent years has made its way into the nation's conscience with a spate of gruesome mass shootings, particularly at schools and universities.
But the massacres, such as the nation's worst school rampage to date when a 23-year-old South Korean gunman at Virginia Tech University killed 32 people including himself last year, have largely failed to rouse any widespread movement against the right to bear arms.
Instead, the local press in Blacksburg, where the shootings occurred, focused on the opposite notion after the fact -- whether the killings could have been prevented or reduced if students or professors were allowed to carry guns in class.
America's love for guns "comes from the history and the geography of the nation, the fact that it was a very decentralized, sparsely populated frontier-dominated culture without a sense of a sovereign government," said William Vizzard, a professor of criminal justice at California State University.
The reason that even some liberal Americans will not take up the cause for abolition of guns is a relic of that older time, a "political cultural trend from the frontier society that was very self-reliant," Vizzard said.
When the first colonists arrived on what are now US shores, it was an every man -- or at least every group -- for himself mentality that ensured the strong survived and which fueled settlers' fights with Native Americans already on the land, the French arriving from Canada, and the Spanish moving up from Florida.
And once the United States gained its independence from Britain the founding fathers determined that an armed population was the best way to resist takeover by dictatorship or aristocracy, according to Eugene Volokh, law professor at University of California Los Angeles.
The United States' third president Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence of 1776 and one of the main authors of the US Constitution of 1787, believed firmly in this principle.
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms in his own land," Jefferson wrote. "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
And the Second Amendment to the Constitution, added in 1791, assures that: "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."
According to Justice Joseph Story, the "right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic, since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers," he wrote in an academic paper.
However, he noted that "among the American people there is a growing indifference to any sense of militia discipline," and questioned "how it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization."
Today, a large part of what pushes millions of Americans to join the powerful gun lobby the National Rifle Association (NRA) is a "you're not-gonna-tell-me-what-to-do reaction to government," accord to Vizzard, a former agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
In addition, sheer consumerism plays its role.
"Each culture develops its interest in something, and in the United States' consumerism, guns are just a part of that."
If toting guns is central to our heritage, shooting tyrants is a close second, and I fear, could come to fruition sooner rather than later.
for later
Bump
I went to the range for the first time today - shot my husband’s M16 and my son’s Mini 14 (I think) - amazing! I completely missed the target (50 yards) the first two shots, then didn’t miss again. My Marine was very pleased with my accuracy.
No, they did not. They determined that a well regulated Miltia was necessary to the security of a free state. Not an armed populace.
It's right there in the second amendment.
“I went to the range for the first time today”
Hope you enjoyed it! My wife and I shoot frequently. Shooting is a fine sport and you can spend a lifetime mastering it.
I did enjoy it, thanks! My husband just taught my son to shoot after Christmas, so it was neat or him to show me his weapon and sort of teach Mom. ;^)
Hey Frenchy. The reason we have a second amendment is so we don’t have to run amuck lopping off heads when we have had enough. With a second amendment we don’t get to choose between cake and hunger.
So which will guarantee the rights of you and I, the regulated militia (and regulated by who?) or the armed populace?
The frogs know all about guns, especially how to surrender them to their occupiers du jour. Is the author a Moozie?
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.
To whom, in your view, does "the People" refer?
Bump for popcorn.
Your replies on 2nd Amendemnt threads are exhausting.
Excellent!
It is good to see the young taught how to use firearms.
Way to go! We just got back from zeroing in a new rifle. You’d like this one. I’ll let you know when I have pictures up. :-)
Paulsen, you’re hopeless. What do you think the militia was comprised of? If you were intellectually honest, you would know our founders were leery of standing armies and militias were formed as needed. Many states didn’t form militias because they had no need. Therefore it was incumbent upon all able-bodied Americans to be armed and trained via individual ownership of arms. This way the militia could be formed on an ad hoc basis, and then disbanded as the need had passed.
Every other amendment to the Constitution concerns individual rights and when your argument is posited the courts have interrupted it in favor of the individual.
We shall see.
And you sir are full of excrement.Got that?
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