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Defining the Right to Keep and Bear Arms
FrontPage Magazine ^ | April 03, 2008 | Thomas A. Bowden

Posted on 04/03/2008 6:22:53 AM PDT by K-oneTexas

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1 posted on 04/03/2008 6:22:53 AM PDT by K-oneTexas
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To: K-oneTexas

To all the liberal legislators out there reading this. You will try to take away our right to self defense. You will not succeed.
Seizing legal guns from honest, law-abiding citizens is necessary in order to bring about a totalitarian system, which is your ultimate goal.
I suggest you don’t try it.


2 posted on 04/03/2008 6:30:27 AM PDT by Leftism is Mentally Deranged
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To: K-oneTexas

You can read about citizens who have successfully defended themselves at the following address. They are most interesting.

http://www.claytoncramer.com/gundefenseblog/blogger.html


3 posted on 04/03/2008 6:31:51 AM PDT by Eurale
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To: K-oneTexas

Boo Yeah..

4 posted on 04/03/2008 6:31:52 AM PDT by xcamel (Forget the past and you're doomed to repeat it.)
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To: K-oneTexas; robertpaulsen

I’m sure RP will have a different opinion on this article.


5 posted on 04/03/2008 6:33:20 AM PDT by Pistolshot (Remember, no matter how bad your life is, someone is watching and enjoying your suffering.)
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To: K-oneTexas

The Constitution doesn’t say anything about “private emergencies.” It says that the RKBA “shall not be infringed.” Revolvers are arms. So are F-22s and nuclear bombs.


6 posted on 04/03/2008 6:34:54 AM PDT by arthurus
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To: K-oneTexas
Cannons................ have no legitimate use in a private emergency, and their very presence is a threat to peaceful neighbors.

Depends on what the meaning of "cannon" is.


7 posted on 04/03/2008 6:35:36 AM PDT by ladtx ( "Never miss a good chance to shut up." - - Will Rogers)
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To: K-oneTexas
Contrary to an often expressed worry, therefore, a right to keep and bear arms in no way implies that citizens may stockpile weaponry according to their arbitrary preferences. Cannons, tanks, and nuclear weapons have no legitimate use in a private emergency, and their very presence is a threat to peaceful neighbors.

The phrase "shall not be infringed" implies in its turn that the would-be ruling class may not use government to impose their own arbitrary preferences on what citizens may or may not own.

It so happens that I consider the "machine gun" ban to be one of these arbitrary preferences. My neighbors have nothing to fear from me having a full-auto capable M16, mainly because I couldn't afford to shoot it full-auto. But requiring a Class III license for me to own one is still an infringement.

In 1934, it was the automatic weapons, in 1964 it was mail-order, in 1994 it was high-cap mags....where does it stop?

Baa-aaa.....

8 posted on 04/03/2008 6:37:48 AM PDT by thulldud (Insanity: Electing John McCain again and expecting a different result.)
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To: K-oneTexas

this guy is a gun grabber in disguise....there should be NO regulations regarding the owning of firearms...the second amendment was written so that ordinary citizens have the capability to rise up against a run away government. That means that any weapon the military has, the citizens not only have a right, but an obligation to own and possess...the second amendment is the constitutions reset button....


9 posted on 04/03/2008 6:38:32 AM PDT by joe fonebone (Screw McPain....J. Fred Muggs for POTUS)
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To: K-oneTexas
"Thomas A. Bowden is a senior writer for the Ayn Rand Institute..."

Thomas A. Bowden is an idiot who obviously hasn't studied history. Many individuals owned "weapons of mass destruction" (aka "cannons" and armed sailing ships), so his little rant about "Cannons, tanks, and nuclear weapons have no legitimate use in a private emergency, and their very presence is a threat to peaceful neighbors" is so much bull****.

There are a few individuals even today who own artillery pieces, tanks, prop and jet fighter aircraft, NONE of whose "...very presence is a threat to peaceful neighbors".

10 posted on 04/03/2008 6:43:52 AM PDT by Wonder Warthog (The Hog of Steel-NRA)
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To: K-oneTexas
I completely disagree with the writers premise. The right to keep and bear arms was not retained for the narrow purpose of defending the home against a burgular until police arrive.

The RKBA was retained so that any citizen could be an immediate, effective defender of liberty.

This sentiment was stated in the Declaration of Independance:

"That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

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.

The framers intended to give the people the ability to defend their liberty, and penned the 2nd Amendment to guarantee our right to keep and bear Arms so that I can defend my liberty in a free State.

"We the People..."

11 posted on 04/03/2008 6:50:07 AM PDT by Bryan24 (When in doubt, move to the right..........)
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To: K-oneTexas

My unalienable Right to Keep and Bear Arms has already been “defined” by the founding fathers of this once great nation. It is not a “collective” right, it is not a “theoretical” right, and it is not one reserved for the government or the state to arm a militia.

It is a natural human right given to us by our Creator. One that allows us to defend ourselves against the beasts of nature and the tyranny of man.

Our founding fathers knew this to be true and self evident; and they were way smarter than the crop of people that occupy the same ground today.


12 posted on 04/03/2008 6:53:41 AM PDT by Lancer_N3502A
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To: Bryan24
"It is impossible to invade the mainland of The United States, there would be a rifle behind every blade of grass."

WWII Japanese Admiral Yamamoto (mastermind of the attack on Pearl Harbor)

13 posted on 04/03/2008 7:03:27 AM PDT by TYVets
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To: Lancer_N3502A

The trick is to try to believe our forefathers had figured out a way to disarm the citizenry but still give them the right to arm themselves for the purposes of being ready to participate in a militia.


14 posted on 04/03/2008 7:03:37 AM PDT by umgud
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To: Leftism is Mentally Deranged

WHY THEY WANT OUR GUNS!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73SsNFgBO4


15 posted on 04/03/2008 7:06:52 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: K-oneTexas

We need to be thinking about the next major phase of the argument which I think will deal with scope and extent: Is it a “Right”, a noun modified by the words “to keep and bear arms” to show what kind of right, or is it a “right to keep and bear arms”, a noun clause with a (so far undefined) meaning of its own.

The argument will be that it’s not a right which happens to be to keep and bear Arms but that it is a more limited right to keep and bear Arms and regulation beyond those limits is not infringement of the right to keep and bear Arms itself.

They will point to Jefferson, “No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms…”, Sam Adams “...who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms...” and the early State declarations of rights which used words like “defence of themselves and the State”.

They will then try to constrain the right to keep and bear Arms in a way that many will not like.


16 posted on 04/03/2008 7:10:45 AM PDT by KrisKrinkle
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To: TYVets

Some time in the early 80s, I attended a speech by the late Arkady Shevchenko, then the highest ranking Soviet official to defect to the West. He had been their top guy at the UN.

He spoke, interestingly, at KENNESAW COLLEGE — and we all know what Kennesaw is famous for! I’m proud to have played a a small role in helping Mayor Darvin Purdy get that legislation through the Kennesaw City Council.

His talk dealt with the clear intent of the leadership of the old Soviet Union to somehow take America. He mentioned their ICBMs and the nuclear blackmail threat they posed.

Then he broke from his prepared remarks and offered the audience this wisdom:

“The leaders of my country are as AFRAID OF YOUR 200 MILLION PRIVATE FIREARMS as they are of your ICBMs. NEVER GIVE UP YOUR GUNS.”

Frankly — and, while he had to be careful as he was under FBI protection at the time, Shevchenko alluded to this in his remarks — I’m as concerned about some domestic tyrant (say, a Hillary, Barack HUSSEIN Obama or Chuck Schumer) as I am about some foreign enemy.

And it is THAT threat about which the Founding Fathers were concerned that prompted them to leave us the Second Amendment.

The BIG question is: WILL WE KEEP IT?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j73SsNFgBO4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg9q9sxJFnA


17 posted on 04/03/2008 7:21:21 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: K-oneTexas
"But regardless of how the Court may interpret the Constitution, citizens deserve a legal right to own a handgun for self-defense."

That is correct. If the majority of citizens, speaking through their elected representatives, want handguns for self defense, that is their right.

Similarly, if the majority of citizens, speaking throught their elected representatives, do NOT want handguns for self defense, that is their right also. The DC City Council, elected by the voters and residents of DC, passed a law in 1976 prohibiting handguns.

So in summary, according to the author, citizens have a right to choose how they will live together .... provided they choose the author's way.

18 posted on 04/03/2008 7:21:50 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
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To: K-oneTexas
"The right of self-defense is included and implied in the right to life."

That is correct. It is a God-given inalienable right.

The right of self-defense with a weapon, however, is regulated by each state as to 1) who may keep a weapon for self defense, 2) which weapons may be used for self defense and 3) the conditions under which those weapons may be used for self defense.

19 posted on 04/03/2008 7:26:30 AM PDT by robertpaulsen
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To: robertpaulsen

So you’d be ok with a city legalizing slavery if the majority voted for it, in spite of the US constitution’s stance on the subject?

I really don’t get why you don’t understand the concept of ‘supreme law of the land’.


20 posted on 04/03/2008 7:27:10 AM PDT by MartinStyles
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