Posted on 05/10/2002 5:50:25 AM PDT by Joe Brower
More Guns for Everyone!
By BOB HERBERT
May 9, 2002
Let's see. What America needs is more guns in the hands of more people, right?
That would almost certainly be the result of a new and potentially tragic initiative by John Ashcroft's Justice Department. In a reversal of federal policy that has stood for more than 60 years, the department told the Supreme Court this week that individual Americans have a constitutional right to own guns.
That sound you hear is the National Rifle Association cheering.
The N.R.A. has seldom had a better friend in government than Mr. Ashcroft. That was proved again on Monday when the Justice Department, in a pair of briefs filed with the court, rejected the long-held view of the court, the Justice Department itself and most legal scholars that the Second Amendment protects only the right of state-organized militias to own firearms. Under that interpretation, anchored by a Supreme Court ruling in 1939, Congress and local governmental authorities have great freedom to regulate the possession and use of firearms by individuals.
In the briefs, submitted by Solicitor General Theodore Olson, the department boldly and gratuitously asserted, "The current position of the United States, however, is that the Second Amendment more broadly protects the right of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engaged in active military service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms, subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse."
The move was gratuitous because there was no need for the government to take a position on the Second Amendment in the two cases for which the briefs were submitted. In both cases the Justice Department is defending gun laws. In one case it agrees that a man under a restraining order because of domestic violence should not be allowed to have a gun, and in the other it is opposing the appeal of a man convicted of illegally possessing machine guns.
The reference in the briefs to restrictions on "firearms that are particularly suited to criminal misuse" is interesting, and disingenuous. No gun is more suited to criminal misuse than a handgun, and that's exactly the type of weapon that Mr. Ashcroft and his N.R.A. pals are trying to make available to more and more American men and women.
I had a .45-caliber pistol hanging low on my hip many years ago when I was in the Army. And I can tell you, I'm not anxious to think about that kind of weapon (or something smaller and easier to conceal) being in the pockets and the purses and the briefcases and the shoulder holsters of the throngs surrounding me in my daily rounds in Manhattan.
How weird is it that in this post-Sept.-11 atmosphere, when the Justice Department itself is in the forefront of the effort to narrow potential threats to security, the attorney general decides it would be a good idea to throw open the doors to a wholesale increase in gun ownership?
Mr. Ashcroft telegraphed this transparently political move nearly a year ago in a letter to the N.R.A, which just happened to have been a major Ashcroft campaign contributor. The letter went from Mr. Ashcroft, who was already the attorney general, to the N.R.A.'s chief lobbyist, James J. Baker. Mr. Ashcroft wrote, "Let me state unequivocally my view that the text and the original intent of the Second Amendment clearly protect the right of individuals to keep and bear firearms. While some have argued that the Second Amendment guarantees only a `collective right' of the states to maintain militias, I believe the amendment's plain meaning and original intent prove otherwise."
Now that view is the policy of the Bush administration. It will encourage aficionados and accused criminals to challenge gun control laws on constitutional grounds.
"Now defendants are going to try to make this Second Amendment argument, relying in part on Ashcroft's position," said Mathew Nosanchuk, the litigation director for the Violence Policy Center, a Washington group that advocates gun control.
The center has pointed out that in 1999, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 28,874 Americans were killed with guns.
Neither Mr. Ashcroft nor the N.R.A. seems particularly concerned.
The 2nd Amendment guarantees the right of the people to desolve their government, with the same tools the government will use against the people, to stay in power, if need be.
The 2nd Amendment is a Death Warrant to a despotic empire, and ours is demanding a stay of execution while they 'contain emergencies'. There will always be a new 'emergency'.
Read the 2nd Amendment again, with new eyes. You now know why many politicians and their kneepad sycophants fear those words...
They also believe in self-preservation.
Of course they do. The Constitution says, in part, "The right of the individual to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
I really don't know what all the fuss is about. Sure, there are gun control laws, and some of us on this thread would probably like to see them all done away with. But no President in this history of the U.S. has ever publically proposed going door to door to collect guns from the citizens. (They may have wanted to do that, but they never publically admitted it.)
Here's what the "fuss" is about. You agree that we have a "right" to bear arms
Of course they do. The Constitution says, in part, "The right of the individual to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
If you have a right to do somthing, then you don't have to get permission to do it. You just do it. Contrast that to a privilege. If something is a privilege, then you have to as permission and that permission my or may not be granted.
Now look at the "Brady" (may that despicable hag rot in hell forever) law. This requires you to obtain government permission pefore you purchase a gun. The permission can be witheld or not at the whim of the government. With the passage of the Brady law, your "right to keep and bear arms" was destroyed. You now have the "privilege to keep and bear arms" and again this can be revoked at any time by the government. This is what the fuss is about.
I don't expect him to. That is why this stuff is all bilge water. It means nothing. Even the liberals are not serious about going after "sporting guns." At least, they are not serious about that yet. That will come later.
People with this kind of thinking never cease to amaze me. Liberal elitists.
That's the major flaw in the elitists thinking.
The anti-2A crowd are afraid of allowing citizens, criminal or law abiding, to be armed. Their flaw is that by making gun possession "illegal" the law abiding citizen will be disarmed while the criminal stays armed.
Their misguided policies create a government sanctioned victim class, but the elitists don't want to be victims so they arm themselves. Rosie O'Donnel and her armed body guard, Senator Dianne Feinstein and California State Senator Don Perata, all examples of elitists' double standards.
By definition, a criminal will not obey the law and in fact will exploit the law to his advantage.
Gun free school zones, gun free aircraft, disarmed women in Chicago, rising violent crime rates in England and Australia, all examples of the exploitation of the victim class.
You can legislate actions but you cannot legislate morality.
Great! I only have 3 and I would really like at least 2 more.
a.cricket
Don't think small. I'd like to get one medium caliber weapon to round out my "arsenal".
Bingo -- well stated. And that, my friends, is why a free nation based on the concept of fundamental, individual liberty MUST instill character in it's people, because character enables trust, and assures everyone that people will behave themselves when no one is looking. Nothing else can do it.
A corollary to this would be a favorite phrase of my brother: "You can't fix stupid." Of course, many a political career is based on attempting to do just that...
Why do you suppose that would be?
Here are two of many possibilities:
First, taking Olson's viewpoint:"the application of the laws at issue in both cases reflected the kind of narrowly tailored restrictions by which that right could reasonably be limited. Consequently, there was no warrant for the court to take either case"
Other opinions hold (I think this is yours?) that they DON'T want to take a chance of having this resolved at SCOTUS, in case the right of the individual is upheld. That's the skeptics view, and even I, a Bush supporter, concede that there is a great deal of antidotal evidence to support that view.
I believe Bush & Co DO want this at SCOTUS, and that they expect SCOTUS to affirm the individuals right to own/carry. I think everyone here would agree that this is the best of all possible outcomes.
Statistical Facts Gun-haters Run From
-Empty-Barrel Gun Policies-A legacy of nonsense from Clinton, Blair, and the Left--
-A Problem With Guns (Long... but SOOOO good)--
-Swiss Gun Laws- and some rebuttal to HCI "spin"--
Shooting More Holes in Gun Control
HCI Aussie Style (read it and weep-or laugh)
Because the author of this article thinks the general population cannot be trained to use a handgun properly. People who think like this ought to consider how 1 in 5 automobile drivers are incompetent and yet have driver's licenses. I trust lawful citizens with firearms much more than I trust some people who drive on the road.
Seems like violent crimes against people are reduced when the criminals fear their intended victims may be armed -- at least armed carjackings in Texas have just about completely dried up since then Governor Bush signed the concealed carry law.
It also seems that when criminals who use guns in their crimes are treated more harshly than those who don't, they lose their fervor to use guns against their victims.
It seems to have slipped my mind.... Tell me again why allowing citizens to be armed and severely punishing criminals who use guns are bad things...?
Maybe we could just punish criminals according to the laws already on the books and not treat citizens exercising their God given right to feel secure in their person like they are criminals. Might be worth a try....
If they wish to ignore history, they need only glance at Israel, where women with concealed weapons kill suicide bombers in supermarkets.
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