Keyes: Constitution protects machine gun ownership [describes Israel as an example]

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | August 25, 2004 | SCOTT FORNEK

[tame]

I just did a quick read of this thread. I simply cannot comprehend the obtuse Keyes bashers. Here you have the only nationally known politician having the guts to say we have a right to machine guns, and the left leaning bashers are arguing he is not conservative enough on the right to bear arms, ROTFLMAO!

They are more concerned with machine-gun-Alan's supposed lack of fidelity to gun rights than they are with President Bush's anti-gun stands. The irony is too thick.

Then, Obama's cheerleaders have the nerve to suggest they get banned or suspended because they're winning the argument, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA. But that logic, the trolls are intellectual gods, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

[El Gato]

What the good Rabbi doesn't mention is that Israel sends full auto machine guns or submachine guns home with it's reservists. While they don't "own" those guns, they control them and their ammunition. Not quite as open a system as the Swiss, but not all that far from it either, especially when compared to our own system. The number of reservists relative to the population in those two countries is also much much higer, since service is universal and reserve obligations are much longer than in the US.

[El Gato]

You now have done as much as most voters will, and you are left with the impression Keyes wants us to be able to buy an Uzi at Wal Mart.

I'd prefer an UZI or better yet a Thompson or something else in .45 acp, that sounds pretty good to me. It is after all what Madison and the other founders, including all those that voted for or voted to ratify the second amendment intended.

[henderson field]

Captian Kirk, you are exactly right. In a world full of corporate mush and political equivocators, here's a guy who steps up and has a point of view that he's standing up for. Very refreshing. As for Mr. Obama, he's a little Marxist weasel who couldn't be trusted to check the punctuation of our blessed Constitution. He should be deported. These are dangerous times and the police, as well-meaning as they may be, cannot protect everyone. Under these circumstances, we might consider making gun ownership mandatory.

[Luis Gonzalez]

The Second Amendment is pretty unique in the fact that it is the only Amendment with a preamble.

Why not just simply say:

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

Why did the Founders decide to qualify the people's right?

In essence, Laurence Tribe bases his pro gun control argument on the meaning of that preamble, saying that the people's right to keep and bear arms exists only as those rights apply to an actual State's militia; a "well regulated" State's militia.

Tribe's argument is that the Amendment applied to the State, and that it meant that the State was able to limit possession of arms to an actual State's militia, there to protect itself against the Federal government.

That's the Amendment read from the left.

I read it from the right, and from the right it says that the people's right to protect itself against anything that would destroy our Constitutional Republican form of government, is essential to the continued survival of our Constitutional Republic, and that as such, our right as individuals to bear and keep arms must not be infringed.

So, in a nutshell, the government is not constitutionally limited from requiring citizens to register their weapons, and I'm pretty sure they can constitutionally tax them. I don't even think that the State is limited from requiring people to show some sort of proficiency as a requirement of ownership, after all, the Second Amendment mandates the State to maintain a militia, and the individual has a responsibility to be proficient in the use of his weapon, so that he may bear arms in common defense when necessary. It stops when the government begins enacting laws restricting the ability of the people in general to keep arms.

So, what's left?

Only the definition of "arms" that individuals can "keep", and how does "bear" impact the definition of "keep", as it relates to "arms"?

But that's a subject for another day...I have to get some sleep.

[Jim Robinson]

You need to wake up.

[Luis Gonzalez]

"I read it from the right, and from the right it says that the people's right to protect itself against anything that would destroy our Constitutional Republican form of government, is essential to the continued survival of our Constitutional Republic, and that as such, our right as individuals to bear and keep arms must not be infringed."

So, you don't agree with that statement?

[tame]

I have to get some sleep

Jim: You need to wake up.

Good one :o) hee hee hee.

[Jim Robinson]

You posted a huge string of nonsense. The second amendment means exactly what it says.

[tame]

In other words, Jim is asking "What part of 'shall not be infringed' don't you understand?"

[tpaine]

Jim Robinson wrote:

Appears to me that the second amendment protects our right to keep and bear arms from being infringed upon by any government.

______________________________________

Thank you.

We can agree that States do not have the power to ignore the Constitution on basic individual rights.

Keyes often gives the impression, [mostly in the heat of his speeches], that he thinks otherwise.
This confuses some of his supporters into thinking he advocates State controls over some of our unenumerated rights.
Unfortunately, imo, he never gets around to clarifying those issues quite enough.
-- Maybe next year..

[Jim Robinson]

I don't think so. Paraphasing of couse, but I've heard Keyes say many times that our unalienable rights come from God and that no government can deprive us of same. I think it would go against his deeply held religious beliefs to say otherwise.

[Luis Gonzalez]

I gave a summary of Laurence Tribe's argumen--before the Supreme Court I believe--when he argued in favor of gun control, and said that it wasn't the way I read the amendment at all.

So, what you're telling me is that I am crazy for disagreeing with Laurence Tribe on this isue?

[Luis Gonzalez]

"Appears to me that the second amendment protects our right to keep and bear arms from being infringed upon by any government."

I just said the same thing, and you told me I was posting nonsense.

Was I a tad long-winded or something?

[Jim Robinson]

I don't know what point you were trying to make. Looked like gobbledygook to me.

[Joe Hadenuf]

You posted a huge string of nonsense

Nonsense as in double speak, double talk, and clap trap. "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is not complicated.

Only those that oppose it, try and turn it into some complicated, mysterious, mumbo jumbo, legal interpetation.

[tame]

Some folks need to understand that L Tribe seems to be on crack, and we don't need to his leftist radicalism as a measuring stick for our common sense constitutional conservatism.

[Luis Gonzalez]

Well, this WillRain guy asked me what I thought of the Second, and specifically how I interpreted "well regulated".

I remembered that Laurence Tribe based his pro gun control argument on those very same two words. And that the definition of "well regulated" is the basis for the ACLU's Policy #47 on gun control:

"The setting in which the Second Amendment was proposed and adopted demonstrates that the right to bear arms is a collective one, existing only in the collective population of each State, for the purpose of maintaining an effective State militia."

So here we have this guy in FR, asking me to interpret "well regulated", as I am arguing that the government does not have the right to prohibit citizens from keeping and bearing arms by requiring citizens to complete any sort of State required, conducted, and licensed training.

I thought that maybe I was talking to Tribe.

[Jim Robinson]

From Alan Keyes on the Issues:

On the source of our rights

We have forgotten the principle that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the existence and authority of God. . . .

You can't have it both ways. Either our rights come from God, as our Declaration of Independence says, or they come from human choice. If they come from human choice, then our whole way of life is meaningless, it has no foundation.

On the role of government

All human beings are created equal. They need no title or qualification beyond their own simple humanity in order to command respect for their intrinsic human dignity, their "unalienable rights."

The purpose of government is to secure these rights, and no government is just or legitimate if it systematically violates them.

http://www.keyes2004.com/issues2.php

[spunkets]

" Why did the Founders decide to qualify the people's right?"

First, it's the people's right. That's the same people refered to everywhere else in the Constitution and it's Bill of Rights. When the States are the subject, the word State(s) is used, as it is in the 10th Amend, or in the body of the Constitution itself. It's the people's right.

The clause preceding the directive, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed", is neither a preamble, nor is it a qualification. It's a statement reflecting on and stating that the directive itself is necessary. The implied necessity is Freedom. Regulated means to make functional, effective and unencumbered. It does not mean regulated as some folks would have it. They insist it means infringed. That would contradict the main directive, which is that the people's right should not be infringed. Tribe's claim and Bork's also, amounts to the claim that the Amend. could be rewritten to read: "A well infringed militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

The free State means the condition of the people, not the condition of any State. Else the directive would have been written as: the right of the States to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The founders were clear about standing armies, just as they were clear in their meaning of the second Amendment, that it was the people's unqualified right, not the States, and it was not to be infringed.

Here's the liberal version according to their claims: "A well infringed people, being necessary for the security of an almighty State, the right of the States to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.