"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
Posted on 02/22/2014 10:25:10 AM PST by mandaladon
Pro-gun advocates will likely be relieved that John Paul Stevens, 93, is now retired and no longer serving as a member of the Supreme Court. In his upcoming book, “Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution,” he argues for a slight change to the Second Amendment that would fundamentally alter its meaning.
As written by the Founding Fathers in the U.S. Constitution, the Second Amendment reads:
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. Stevens argues that the authors of the Second Amendment were mostly concerned about being oppressed by a national standing army, not so much about the right to self-defense.
So in order to reflect the changing times, he says, the Second Amendment should be altered to add five key words:
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the militia shall not be infringed.
“Emotional claims that the right to possess deadly weapons is so important that it is protected by the federal Constitution distort intelligent debate about the wisdom of particular aspects of proposed legislation designed to minimize the slaughter caused by the prevalence of guns in private hands,” Stevens writes in his defense of the change.
Stevens retired in 2010 after serving on the nation’s highest court for 35 years.
The odds of his crusade to transform the Second Amendment has little chance of even receiving serious consideration as Americans have rejected gun control efforts at the state and federal levels.
(Excerpt) Read more at theblaze.com ...
Punctuation is a clarifier...
She helped her Uncle Jack off the horse.
She helped her Uncle, Jack, off the horse.
Control-freak nut and SCJ. How does that happen?
I don’t need their help to understand my Constitution.
Absolutely.
In my summary of the Federalist Papers regarding the 2nd Amendment, which I recently reposted, it is clear in Federalist #29 that Hamilton's minimum expectation of the citizenry was that they would assemble periodically to prove that they could use their arms.
``The project of disciplining all the militia of the United States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of being carried into execution. A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.
-PJ
How much damage have Marx, Engels and Keynes done from the grave?
States could pass laws stating that all citizens serve in the militia.
Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say “what should be the reward of such sacrifices?” Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
Stevens with his words shows how far away he has been from a free people. It bothers me that such people get to be high judges in a free society.
“The militia was the general citizenry,................”
Might I add that the citizenry was ALREADY ARMED, militia or
no militia. I recommend James Madison’s ‘Federalist 46’ for
details.
Oppression by a standing army is resisted by making certain that the government does not possess a monopoly on lethal force, thereby enabling the citizens upset the plans of the wicked. It is not a hard concept to understand, which means that those who advocate for gun control, are in fact advocating for a repressive government, and lying when any other reason is given.
“Who are the Militia? The whole of the People, except for a few politicians.”
Attrib. to Noah Webster, nephew of Daniel Webster, MA congressman.
The original meaning is all there, plain to see.
-PJ
The people of the Ukraine to not agree with this Stevens moron.
Wish he’d retired in 2007.....
So, Stevens would have us believe the US existed almost 250 years since the constitution was adopted, and no one in all that time knew what the founders meant until it dawned on him during the 21st century? Even the founders who lived years after the constitution was adopted never realized what they meant.
What a self-important fool he is, but unfortunately, the left is made up of millions just like him.
Amazingly everyone thought the first 10 amendments were about individual rights all this time
Yea! Keep on wishing you old SOB!!!
The left loves to point out our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness but what value is a right to a life I cannot effectively defend?
Unacceptable.
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