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GUNS ARE A GOD-GIVEN RIGHT
boblonsberry.com ^ | 06/26/08 | Bob Lonsberry

Posted on 06/26/2008 6:59:27 AM PDT by shortstop

In a way, it doesn't matter what the Supreme Court decides.

Right will still be right, wrong will still be wrong, and freedom will still be freedom.

Sometime this morning – it may already have happened by the time you read this – the Supreme Court of the United States will announce whether the Second Amendment is an individual right or a state right.

At issue is whether the Bill of Rights empowers the state to organize an army to keep you subdued or whether it guarantees you the right to arm yourself against the oppression of the state.

And that is the issue.

The Second Amendment isn't about hunting or target practice. It's not about pretty guns and ugly guns and it's not about pioneer times and marauding Indians. It is about the right of the individual to rise up in violent might to protect himself, his family, his property and his freedom.

We don't say that anymore, but the Founding Fathers never said anything different. Their view was clear: Guns are a last-ditch protection against encroachment on liberty. In a Constitution built around checks and balances, the people are the check on the government, and guns are the final means of maintaining that check.

That's why we have the Second 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.”

Gun banners, using a 20th Century meaning of the word “militia” -- National Guard – say the Second Amendment gives the state the right to organize an army. Freedom lovers, understanding what the founders meant by “militia” -- every adult citizen capable of defending the community – know the Second Amendment gives individuals the right to own guns.

Unfortunately, for most of a century, this individual right has been denied by the federal courts. Though originally universally understood, its meaning has been obscured and forgotten – probably intentionally.

Which gets us back to today's case.

Maybe the court will side with freedom, maybe it will side with oppression.

But that won't change the facts.

And the facts are that freedom exists whether it is recognized by the government or not. In its history, the Supreme Court has said that black men can be property and that your home can be taken against your will if the government can get somebody else to pay more taxes on it.

Throughout our history, there are repeated examples of the government seeking to strangle certain individual rights. But also throughout our history, there are repeated examples of individuals nonetheless claiming those rights and, invariably, ultimately forcing the government to recognize them.

That is the story of civil rights in this country.

And the Second Amendment is a civil right.

Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus because the government refused to recognize Fourteenth Amendment rights. Rosa Parks sat in the front of the bus because she asserted a right the government did not yet recognize.

In the end, Rosa Parks won.

Susan B. Anthony was fined for voting because the government refused to recognize that “all men are created equal” included women. Susan B. Anthony was fined for voting because she asserted a right the government did not yet recognize.

In the end, Susan B. Anthony won.

Or, more correctly, freedom won.

In fact, Rosa Parks was right and the government was wrong. Likewise, Susan B. Anthony was right and the government was wrong. Freedom exists as a gift from God. Government may suppress it, but it is immoral and wrong to do so.

When the Supreme Court said that neither Dred Scott nor any black person could ever be a citizen of the United States, or file a law suit in court, it was wrong. The fact was that God made Dred Scott free and the laws and courts made him a slave. They could only do so, they could only deprive him of his liberty, through forceful oppression.

And the same is true today.

We can only be deprived of our liberty through forceful oppression.

And being denied the right to own an implement of self-defense – a gun – can only occur through forceful oppression.

The fact is that free Americans believe and claim that the Second Amendment – like the First Amendment before it – is an individual right. The Founding Fathers were wary of standing armies, and had in the body of the Constitution already empowered the government to defend the nation with an Army and Navy. It is illogical that in the list of individual rights it would reauthorize the government to arm itself.

Rather, in the Bill of Rights, as the Founding Fathers specifically sought to protect the people from an overpowerful government, the only reasonable interpretation of the Second Amendment is that it was intended to arm the people as a balance against the arming of the government.

Natural law guarantees the right of self-defense. The Constitution guarantees the means of self-defense.

The government can deny that. But it can only do so through oppression.

Today we will learn whether or not the Supreme Court supports the continued oppression of Second Amendment rights. All across our country, laws suppress the will of the Constitution in regard to the “keeping and bearing” – owning and carrying -- of arms. The Supreme Court will either ratify that oppression, or begin the long process of rolling it back.

But either way the principle is true and unchanging. We have the right to own guns. It is a civil and natural right. It can no more be limited or put to a vote than any other liberty.

And someday our courts will recognize that.

Until then, the fight for American freedom continues.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; heller; lonsberry; secondamendment; shallnotbeinfringed; supremecourt
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To: cpforlife.org

“Those 4 should be impeached and as Rush just said how scary it is for the fate of the Nation to be dependent on how ‘Justice’ Kennedy happens to feel on any given day.”

What Pi**es me off is that everyone is so excited that the great robed ones have affirmed thier constitutional right — as IF they had a right to take it away!

They have no such right!

Those that we entrust to uphold the constitution are busy trying to change it!

They need to be put in their place.

Don’t hold your breath!

STE=Q


21 posted on 06/26/2008 11:53:47 AM PDT by STE=Q ("These are the times that try men's souls." -- Thomas Paine)
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To: STE=Q
The bill of rights is intended to empower ‘the people’.

The rest of your post makes it clear you understand where power comes from so this statement must have been some left wing phrase that accidentally stuck :) As you know, the Bill of Rights is not intended to empower the people, power inherently belongs to the people as a birthright. The Bill of Rights was intended to clarify that relationship and make special protections just in case either the state or federal governments tried to overstep their bounds. The 10th amendment makes this crystal clear. The 10th Amendment is probably the least quoted of the amendments and yet is the most far reaching and powerful of them all.
22 posted on 06/26/2008 12:37:37 PM PDT by contemplator (Capitalism gets no Rock Concerts)
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To: contemplator

You write:

“As you know, the Bill of Rights is not intended to empower the people, power inherently belongs to the people as a birthright.”

Well, yes, I make it clear that it delineates what the founders believed were inherent rights.

You further write:

“The Bill of Rights was intended to clarify that relationship and make special protections just in case either the state or federal governments tried to overstep their bounds.”

Any document intended to ‘clarify’ and make special ‘protections’ to our inherent rights — such as the bill of rights — is empowering in the sense that it confirms those inherent rights.

I also understand that these delineated rights do not preclude other rights of the people, as the 10th amendment makes clear:

‘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.’

http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#Am10

I agree with you when you say that ‘The 10th Amendment is probably the least quoted of the amendments and yet is the most far reaching and powerful of them all.’

You sound like someone with a great understanding of the constitution.

Thanks for the reply.

STE=Q


23 posted on 06/26/2008 3:26:44 PM PDT by STE=Q ("These are the times that try men's souls." -- Thomas Paine)
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To: STE=Q

Unfortunately, the prevailing wisdom is that the 10th Amendment is superfluous and unnecessary as it is simply the statement of a ‘truism’. It may be a statement of fact, yet every day laws are passed which infringe on existing rights and go unchallenged. The 10th amendment, like the rest of the amendments was put in as a precaution, yet is is completely ignored for the most part. The flip side of this is that practically every law passed takes away our right to do something or another and that if the 10th were exercised to it’s utmost it would be hard for legislators to pass anything. I suspect this is what the founders had in mind. It’s a shame because anything worth doing should be able to withstand vigorous debate. I’m by no means a constitutional expert, but that’s the way things appear from my corner of the swamp.


24 posted on 06/26/2008 5:25:07 PM PDT by contemplator (Capitalism gets no Rock Concerts)
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To: pgyanke

Nukes are the most powerful, efficient, and strongest deterrent of today’s weapons of war.

Maybe half a suitcase nuke would be good to level a few blocks if ground absolutely must be conceded.


25 posted on 06/26/2008 8:07:43 PM PDT by wastedyears (Obama is a Texas Post Turtle.)
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To: sagar
Gun is a MAN MADE right. Even freedom of religion is a man made right.

I'm surprised no one else called you on this... it's terribly ignorant of the minds of the Founding Fathers. You can read their minds in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Federalist Papers to see that they understood very well the Natural Law in that man does not confer rights to each other. Each person has inalienable rights endowed in us by our Creator. The only thing man can do is allow or restrict our exercise of these rights.

What is "man-made" is government. To this government, man has conferred certain and defined powers and authorities for the common good.

26 posted on 06/27/2008 5:45:22 AM PDT by pgyanke ("Huntered"--The act of being ignored by media and party to prevent name recognition)
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To: STE=Q
What Pi**es me off is that everyone is so excited that the great robed ones have affirmed thier constitutional right — as IF they had a right to take it away!

No, everyone is excited because the last (ammo) box did not have to be used. I truly believe that a civil war was averted over this decision.

27 posted on 06/27/2008 6:01:52 AM PDT by Centurion2000 (Beware the fury of the man that cannot find hope or justice.)
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To: contemplator
The line has to be somewhere between a pea shooter and a nuclear weapon, but where and why?

  I think it's all about an individual defending his home. A nuclear weapon is overkill for home defense, but a pea shooter loaded with tranquilizer darts is a neat trick and a shot gun loaded with rock salt is quite an attention getter. A fallout shelter with an inventory of tazers, flash grenades and tear gas becomes a deterrent when enough people own them. It's really the little things we do that will someday make no knock home invasions a thing of the past.
28 posted on 06/27/2008 6:12:31 AM PDT by Maurice Tift (You can't stop the signal, Mal. You can never stop the signal.)
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