Posted on 08/25/2004 2:09:41 PM PDT by yonif
Declaring "the front line of the war against terror once again involves the citizens," Republican Alan Keyes said Tuesday he believes the U.S. Constitution grants properly trained private individuals the right to own and carry machine guns.
"You're not talking about giving citizens access to atom bombs and other things," the former presidential candidate said. "That's ridiculous."
But the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate argued the founding fathers intended the Second Amendment to allow people to carry the types of weapons "customarily carried in those days by ordinary infantry soldiers."
"And, yes, does that mean that in this day and age people would have the right to have access to the kind of the weapons our ordinary infantry people have access to? With proper training and so forth to make sure that they could handle them successfully, that's exactly what was meant."
Keyes made the remarks at a news conference he called to attack the "ideological extremism" of his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barack Obama.
The Republican lit into Obama for voting against a bill in Springfield earlier this year that would have allowed people who use handguns to fend off home invaders or attackers to argue self-defense as a possible legal defense against prosecution for violating any local anti-firearm possession ordinances.
The measure passed the Legislature with bi-partisan support, but Gov. Blagojevich vetoed it last week.
Keyes called Obama's vote against the measure an "appalling . . . lack of common sense."
"This seems to be a man who is absolutely determined to make the world safe for criminals, while making sure that law-abiding citizens have no opportunity to defend themselves against the criminals," Keyes said.
Keyes said he supports a system in which guns would be treated similarly to automobiles, with people being required to undergo different levels of training before they would be allowed to own and carry various sorts of weapons.
"I always remind -- even people who support the Second Amendment -- that it has two parts: the right to keep and bear" arms, Keyes said. " 'Bear' means to carry, to carry around. . . . I think it has been proven empirically that . . . allowing law-abiding citizens this access to conceal-carry actually reduces crime."
Keyes said he owns two firearms himself: a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol and a .38-caliber "six-shooter." But he said he does not keep them at his new home in Calumet City.
Keyes only indirectly answered a reporter's question about whether he would "be comfortable if the entire society was walking around with Uzis, as long as they were properly trained."
"Have you ever been to Israel?" Keyes asked the reporter. "Because if you've ever been to Israel, you wouldn't ask that question. And in the midst of terrifying dangers, you walk around the streets of Israel and you see every other person carrying arms and Uzis and so forth and so on, and believe me, you do not feel less safe on that account."
Machine guns, or fully automatic weapons, are firearms that fire multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger.
Thomas Ahern, a spokesman for the Chicago division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said private individuals can only own such weapons if they apply with the bureau and clear a series of hurdles, including a background check, fingerprinting and the OK of local law enforcement officials. Additional paperwork is required any time the weapon is to be transported.
"It is heavily regulated," Ahern said.
A spokesman for Obama defended the Democrat's record on guns.
"Certainly he believes in the Second Amendment, but he also believes in common-sense gun safety laws, such as the federal ban on military-style assault weapons." said spokesman Robert Gibbs. "If Alan Keyes truly was concerned about public safety, that would be his position, as well."
It sounds like he was supporting the requirement that we get permission from the government before we can own "various types of weapons" (vague)... That doesn't square with the second amendment at all...
However, if he DID NOT say that, and it was just a scumbag reporter's words, then I will take back what I said regarding Keyes and this issue.
Keyes never said -- carry machine guns. Here is a more
fair description of the press conference...
Keep this in mind please friends, whenever you hear a
news story about Keyes...
http://www.illinoisleader.com/news/newsview.asp?c=18984
State Senator Ed Petka [R-Plainfield] and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Alan Keyes held a joint press conference Tuesday to express strong disapproval of Governor Rod Blagojevich’s August 20 veto of a bill Petka introduced that would protect citizens from prosecution if they used a firearm to defend themselves from an intruder.
Petka said he plans to ask the legislature to override during the fall session.
“The founding fathers did not intend us to live in a culture with police on every corner,” Petka told reporters. “People should be able to defend themselves.”
The founders words "well regulated" means "well trained."
I would have to be nuts to try to defend myself against anyhing you just fired at me.
Thank you for a sane word on a thread about THE SECOND AMENDMENT attended by multiple supporters of putting a Daley clown in the Senate.
I have no say in Obama's positions.
I do have a say in what passes for "republican."
So do all "r's."
and getting support from the GOA or NRA IS contingent on positions one takes on registration, licensing and right to carry, apart from government permissions.
What one says in public regarding such things impacts donations to their cause and votes. It's common sense.
licensing like cars require, is an infringement.
never thought that was a debatable item around here.
whatever... I guess my position on that doesn't matter anymore. have fun is all I can say.
wow.
Oh well, back to the drawing-and-quartering board...
The Second protects that power from the feds.
Incorporating the 2nd under the 14th will require that a minimum federal standard of 2nd amendment right be sestablished and enforced upon the states (they will be able to exceed that minimum- but not fall below it).
If that is done faithfully to the Constitution it will be like Keyes envisions here. Advanced weapons will be more restricted, but available.
saber too.
However, they never said anyting about getting government permission.
Being properly trained in weapons is one of the responsibilities we as citizens have. It's OUR responsibility to do so, not the government's to mandate.
It's up to us to ensure we are well-trained, and well-regulated. Government cannot, consitutionally, dictate what the training is or even require the training.
The day we have to go to the government to get permission to exercize our second amendment rights is the day we cease being a constitutional republic...
Now on this thread you attack Keyes because his beliefs on a few issues aren't conservative enough for you, and we're supposed to believe you? Me thinks you are wholly disingenuous.
Face it. You don't like Keyes conservative views on the social issues and his deeply held religious beliefs. This is not a problem for you with Specter because he is neither religious nor socially conservative and thus you support his re-election.
Neither are you genuinely concerned about a Republican majority in the Senate, like you were several months ago, or you would support Keyes even if you believe he has little chance of winning.
And don't you come back until the day after Keyes loses!
Remember, it will still be a "moral" victory if Keyes gets 35%!
And when you come back, you must leave again if Keyes runs for any other office, until he loses again.
Shush.
Don't make trouble for yourself.
Apologize to him, move along, and don't do looking for trouble again, OK?
Just a word to the wise.
We have to learn our place in the pecking order, the likes of you and me.
Ours is not to question why, etc.
So "Trust and OBEY", that's the keyword.
I don't know how YOUR state works, but in every state I've lived in, the state constitutions have had an equivalent of the second amendment.
Try again.
"Who cares?"
Alan Keyes
http://www.keyes2000.org/
Second Amendment Rights
I am a strong supporter of the 2nd Amendment. The 2nd Amendment is still in the Constitution of the United States, contrary to what some elites would like us to believe.
And the 2nd Amendment was not put into the Constitution by the Founders merely to allow us to intimidate burglars, or hunt rabbits to our hearts' content. This is not to say that hunting rabbits and turkeys for the family dinner, or defending against dangers, were not anticipated uses for firearms, particularly on the frontier -this is true. But above all, the Founders added the 2nd Amendment so that when, after a long train of abuses, a government evinces a methodical design upon our natural rights, we will have the means to protect and recover our rights. That is why the right to keep and bear arms was included in the Bill of Rights.
In fact, if we make the judgment that our rights are being systematically violated, we have not merely the right, but the duty, to resist and overthrow the power responsible. That duty requires that we maintain the material capacity to resist tyranny, if necessary, something that it is very hard to do if the government has all the weapons. A strong case can be made, therefore, that it is a fundamental DUTY of the free citizen to keep and bear arms.
In our time there have been many folks who don't like to be reminded of all this. And they try, in their painful way, to pretend that the word "people" in the 2nd Amendment means something there that it doesn't mean in any one of the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights. They say that, for some odd reason, the Founders had a lapse, and instead of putting in "states" they put in "people." And so it refers to a right inherent in the state government. This position is incoherent, and has been disproved by every piece of legitimate historical research. For example, at one point in Jefferson's letters he is talking about the militia, and he writes "militia, every able-bodied man in the state . . . - (every man capable of carrying arms)." That was the militia. It had nothing to do with the state government. The words "well-regulated" had something to do with organizing that militia and drilling it in the style of the 19th century, but 'militia' itself referred to the able-bodied citizens of the state or commonwealth - not to the state government.
It would make no sense whatsoever to restrict the right to keep and bear arms to state governments, since the principle on which our policy is based, as stated in the Declaration, recognizes that any government, at any level, can become oppressive of our rights. And we must be prepared to defend ourselves against its abuses. But the movement against 2nd Amendment rights is not just a threat to our capacity to defend ourselves physically against tyranny. It is also part of the much more general assault on the very notion that human beings are capable of moral responsibility. Consider, for example, the phony assertion that certain weapons should be banned because 'they have no purpose except to kill people.' This debate is not about certain kinds of weapons that kill people; all kinds of weapons can kill. It is people that kill people, and they can use countless kinds of weapons to do so, if killing is in their hearts.
So let's get down to the real issue: are we grownups, or are we children? If we are grownups, then we have the capacity to control our will even in the face of passion, and to be responsible for the exercise of our natural rights. If we are only children, then all the dangerous toys must be controlled by the government. But this 'solution' implies that we can trust government with a monopoly on guns, even though we cannot trust ourselves with them. This is not a 'solution' I trust.
Advocates of banning guns substitute things for people, but this approach won't wash. It is the human moral will that saves us from violence, not the presence or absence of weapons. We should reject utterly the absurd theory that weapons are the cause of violence.
Anyone who is serious about controlling violence must recognize that it can only be done by rooting violence out of the human heart. That's why I don't understand those who say 'save us from guns,' even while they cling to the coldly violent doctrine that human life has no worth except what they 'choose' to assign to it.
If we want to end violence in our land, we must warm the hearts of this people with a renewed dedication to the God-given equality of all human beings. We must recapture the noble view of man as capable of moral responsibility, and self-restraint. Purify the heart and we will not have to worry about the misuse of weapons.
It is the business of the citizen to preserve justice in his heart, and the material capacity, including arms, to resist tyranny. These things constitute our character as a free people, which it is our duty to maintain. If we want to hold on to our heritage of liberty, we must first and foremost strengthen our confidence in our own moral capacity, and encourage such confidence in our fellow citizens. Only a people confident that it can behave like grown-ups will be justified in asserting its right to keep and bear arms, because it will be a people responsible to use them only in defense of ourselves and our liberty But if we want that to be true, then we shall have to return, as a people, to that same humble subjection to the authority of true moral principle that characterized our Founders, and that characterized every generation of Americans, until now. We must regain control of ourselves.
Most deeply, then, the assertion of 2nd Amendment rights is the assertion that we intend to control ourselves, and submit to the moral order that God has decreed must govern our lives. And just as we have no right to shirk our duty to submit to that moral order, so we have no right to shirk our duty to preserve unto ourselves the material means to discipline our government, if necessary, so that it remains a fit instrument for the self-government of a free people.
It's actually quite stunning.
Yeah...
Sad, too.
Again.
I would have to be nuts to try to defend myself against anyhing you just fired at me.
;-)
Shush!
Don't make trouble!
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