Posted on 08/14/2019 9:17:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
There are two competing theories being debated today about American individuals’ “right” to gun ownership.
The original theory is that Americans enjoy a fundamental right to self-defense, in order to preserve one’s person and property against any neighbors or government agents who might act against one’s individual liberty. This is a natural right that predates our government’s formation, and was therefore enshrined in the Constitution by some very forward-thinking liberals of their time. In the words of 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.
It should not be difficult for anyone with a passing grasp of the English language to understand that it is the “right of the People” that is protected in that sentence, and it is clearly not the expression of a peculiar power owned by the newly-founded centralized government created by our Constitution. Such straightforward, simple language in our Bill of Rights was actually suggested by Samuel Adams and John Hancock to accommodate the antifederalists at the Massachusetts Convention of 1788 and to avoid confusion about the new government’s limited powers, meant to guarantee that “the Constitution shall never be construed… to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
Adams thought far too much of future generations, clearly, because a second, competing theory has emerged within the last 100 years which suggests that gun ownership is not a right, but a privilege granted by the government, and the kinds of firearms allowed to peaceable citizens depends on what neighbors and government agents would deem allowable at any particular point in time.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
This is why the former needs to be accepted.
I have had freepers insist i aupport another gun grab via the red flag rules. Our problem with an Anti Constitutional abusive government clearly comes under threat from our neighbors and “fellow Patriots”.
I am thinking if NOAA has fully automatic weapons, our right to have the same is protected. Whatever means the clearly abusive government has, we should be able to obtain.
Shall not be infringed is pretty hard to understand, I know.
My fellow freepers are telling me that anyone who thinks like I do, are on their own.
They will turn up the t as trains of patriots go to ovens.
So be it.
.
They are correct.
Just as an aside I disagree that the 2nd Amendment is, as written, “straightforward”. If it was straightforward it would not have taken until 2008 and the Heller decision to end the tired old argument that gun rights only belong to Government sponsored militias.
Just like conservatives “hoped” the Supreme Court would find the 1986 ban on manufacture of machine guns unconstitutional, conservatives “hoped” the Supreme Court would find Obamacare to be unconstitutional.
We are stupid for allowing this.
I have yet to see a red flag rule that I would support. However, I can imagine something along those lines being a good thing if it was purely temporary - in the same way police can hold you in jail for a short time without bringing charges.
What part of “shall not be infringed” don’t these people understand?
Not according to the Constitution, so not just no! He gave them the bumpstock ban.. that wasn’t enough.
He will give them this. Historically speaking, you honestly think that’ll appease them?
Lol.. the historical evidence does not support a free nation giving up their last defense.
Our IRS abused their power, the FBI, NOAA with fully automatic weapons..
1+1
I did not like the last appeaser in chief and i wont like this one, or the next one.
So I cancelled my grassroots door to door campaign support for trump.
I have had freepers insist i aupport another gun grab via the red flag rules.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
momincombatboots meant that people are telling her she still has to vote for R jerseys even if they are gun grabbers.
I agree with her, and it is coincidently the same people who have been blocking border and interior enforcement and support amnesty.
If we do not replace the Flimsey Grahamnestys, they will disarm us and give our country to fraudulently documented foreigners.
???
Do I understand, then, that you OPPOSE “red flag” laws?
Mo, i oppose all infringement and anyone who endorses infringement. If the us government can have a missile silo, so should I.
I oppose the backdoor militarizing of civilian police to circumvent posee commitatus (sp).
I opposed the bump stock ban, while a lot of folks suppoeted it.
Good article. Everything the left does is deceitful.
United States vs Miller.
OK … I think we're on the same page. Just not the same bank account. Minuteman III is just a hair too expensive for me ...
A Well Regulated Militia?
Lost in the gun rights debate, much to the detriment of American freedom, is the fact that the Second Amendment is in fact an “AMENDMENT”. No “Articles in Amendment” to the Constitution, more commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights, stand alone and each can only be properly understood with reference to what it is that each Article in Amendment amended in the body of the original Constitution. It should not be new knowledge to any American the Constitution was first submitted to Congress on September 17, 1787 WITHOUT ANY AMENDMENTS. After much debate, it was determined that the States would not adopt the Constitution as originally submitted until “further declamatory and restrictive clauses should be added” “in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its (the Constitutions) powers”. (This quote is from the Preamble to the Amendments, which was adopted along with the Amendments but is mysteriously missing from nearly all modern copies.) The first ten Amendments were not ratified and added to the Constitution until December 15, 1791.
In this Light: “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.” What provisions of the original Constitution is it that the Second Amendment is designed to “amended”? THE SECOND AMENDMENT IS AMENDING THE PROVISIONS IN THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION APPLYING TO THE “MILITIA”. The States were not satisfied with the powers granted to the “militia” as defined in the original Constitution and required an amendment to “prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers. “(Again quoting from the Preamble to the Amendments.)
What was it about the original Constitutional provisions concerning the “Militia” that was so offensive to the States?
First understand that the word “militia” was used with more than one meaning at the time of the penning of the Constitution. One popular definition used then was one often quoted today, that the “Militia” was every able bodied man owning a gun. As true as this definition is, it only confuses the meaning of the word “militia” as used in the original Constitution that required the Second Amendment to correct. The only definition of “Militia” that had any meaning to the States demanding Amendments is the definition used in the original Constitution. What offended the States then should offend “People” today: “Militia” in the original Constitution as amended by the Second Amendment is first found in Article 1, Section 8, clause 15, where Congress is granted the power: “To provide for the calling forth the MILITIA to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrection and repel Invasions.” Article 1, Section 8, Clause 16 further empowers Congress: “To provide for the organizing, arming, and disciplining, the MILITIA, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;” Any “patriot” out there still want to be called a member of the “MILITIA” as defined by the original Constitution? Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1 empowers: “The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the MILITIA of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;” The only way the States would accept the “MILITIA” as defined in the original Constitution was that the Federal “MILITIA” be “WELL REGULATED”.
The States realized that “THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE” required that the “MILITIA” as originally created in the Constitution be “WELL REGULATED” by a “restrictive clause.” How did the States decide to insure that the Constitutional “MILITIA” be “WELL REGULATED”? By demanding that “restrictive clause two” better know as the “Second Amendment” be added to the original Constitution providing: “THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.” The States knew that “PEOPLE” with “ARMS” would “WELL REGULATE” the Federal “MILITIA”! Now read for the first time with the full brightness of the Light of truth: “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.” For those still overcome by propaganda: The Second Amendment declares by implication that if the “MILITIA” is not “WELL REGULATED” by “PEOPLE” keeping and bearing arms, the “MILITIA” becomes a threat to the “SECURITY OF A FREE STATE.” The “MILITIA” has no “RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS” in the Second Amendment, rather it is only “THE RIGHT OF THE “”PEOPLE”” TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS (that) SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.”
From the suppressed and out of print 1982 Senate Report on the Right to Keep and Bear Arms....
You really need to read the 1982 Senate report on the 2nd Amendment. I have a paper copy. Very hard to find a complete copy on line.
https://guncite.com/journals/senrpt/senrpt.html
“The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner.”
19th century cases
16. * Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878).
“If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the (p.17)penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege.”
17. * Jennings v. State, 5 Tex. Crim. App. 298, at 300-01 (1878).
“We believe that portion of the act which provides that, in case of conviction, the defendant shall forfeit to the county the weapon or weapons so found on or about his person is not within the scope of legislative authority. * * * One of his most sacred rights is that of having arms for his own defence and that of the State. This right is one of the surest safeguards of liberty and self-preservation.”
18. * Andrews v. State, 50 Tenn. 165, 8 Am. Rep. 8, at 17 (1871).
“The passage from Story (Joseph Story: Comments on the Constitution) shows clearly that this right was intended, as we have maintained in this opinion, and was guaranteed to and to be exercised and enjoyed by the citizen as such, and not by him as a soldier, or in defense solely of his political rights.”
19. * Nunn v. State, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846).
“’The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed.’ The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed, or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia, so vitally necessary to the security of a free State.”
And the SCOTUS case that led to the Civil War..
Are Negros citizens...Dred Scott
“It would give to persons of the negro race, who are recognized as citizens in any one state of the Union, the right to enter every other state, whenever they pleased.... and it would give them full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might meet; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to KEEP AND CARRY ARMS wherever they went.”
United States vs Miller.
The reason Miller was agreed to by the SCOTUS is that there was no opposition to give testimony at the hearing. Only the US Government side was heard as Miller was then dead.
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