With regard to his comment about knives, all one has to do is look at the U.K. where knives are now being outlawed.
This is what is known as a "Glasgow smile." I've been there, many have such scars.
Posted on 05/03/2010 8:52:31 AM PDT by Second Amendment First
After graduating from college, I served four years as an infantry officer in the Army's 25th Infantry Division. I fired everything from 9mm pistols to .50-caliber machine guns, routinely qualifying as "expert" with an M16A2 rifle.
It's not despite such experience, but precisely because of it, that I think the availability of guns in America is stunningly negligent public policy. And it may get worse.
One needn't be a constitutional law scholar to discern the Founding Fathers' intent in the Second Amendment. The original draft presented to the first session of the first Congress read: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." (The emphasis is mine.)
Clearly, the framers placed the right to bear arms within the context of organized military service. They wished to highlight the distinction between state militias and the federal army. They viewed state militias as a check against the misuse of the army to impose centralized tyranny.
Even the treacherous, 27-word version of the amendment with which we contend today retains and begins with the phrase, "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state ..."
Scientists talk about gene "expression" when referring to how the inherited instructions of our DNA are converted into working proteins in our bodies - an interpretive process. With interpretation can come error, and serious errors in gene expression can lead to diseases such as cancer.
America has a cancer originating in the misinterpretation of our government's DNA, the Constitution. In 2008, the Supreme Court handed down an erroneous interpretation of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, striking down a handgun ban in Washington and endorsing the misconception that individuals have a right to own firearms. Now, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the court could compound the error by striking down a Chicago gun ban, extending the principle beyond the District of Columbia.
The old gun lobby claim "guns don't kill people" is specious. No one rails against the manufacture of axes or baseball bats; there are no campaigns to ban Bowie knives.
With a bolt-action rifle and a telescopic sight, I could put a bullet through my neighbor from a hundred yards away as he crosses his living room. With a Glock 17 pistol stashed in my briefcase, I could enter a boardroom, coolly dispatch a dozen executives, and still have five rounds left to deal with the security guards.
To put it another way, Virginia Tech doesn't happen if Seung-Hui Cho is brandishing a sword. Columbine doesn't happen if Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are wielding Louisville Sluggers. Charles Whitman doesn't kill 14 people at the University of Texas at Austin if he takes up his sniping position armed with a longbow.
Take it from a former soldier: A gun's power is arbitrary and wildly disproportionate to its price, size, and ease of use. Before the advent of firearms, becoming dangerous meant years of training, if not membership in a warrior caste. Cho simply used a credit card to pay $571 for a Glock 19 and 50 bullets.
A Glock 19 weighs less than a quart of milk; it measures under 7 inches long. Its operation is simple: load, point, shoot 15 times, reload. In one span of nine minutes, Cho killed 30 people and wounded dozens more.
I once carried a rifle in defense of the Constitution. Now I wield a pen and must trust the adage about its superiority. But I admit to feeling outgunned by madmen like Cho and the Supreme Court justices who think more guns are the answer.
Patrick Walsh is a writer who lives in Princeton. He served as a rifle platoon leader, battalion adjutant, and company executive officer in the Fifth Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment.
ROTFLMAO
“Clearly, the framers placed the right to bear arms within the context of organized military service. They wished to highlight the distinction between state militias and the federal army. They viewed state militias as a check against the misuse of the army to impose centralized tyranny.”
What a jackass. There was no federal army when the Constitution was written. The 2nd Amendment is about preventing tyranny- because standing armies are a threat to liberty. Only fools allow the government to have a monopoly on lethal force, and our Founders were no fools. The real cancer is that academics like this continue to overshadow real scholars like this gentleman:
“The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.” —Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526
Probably. The rest of the lefties (especially Juan "Lettuce" McLame and his butt buddy Feingold) think so.
the author is an idiot and has no understanding of what our nation was founded on or what it means.
If random passer-bys had wielded their personal firearms, the perpetrators of these heinous crimes would be worm bait and many of those victims would be telling you how foolish you are.
During the time I was a prosecutor, I prosecuted several murder cases. The majority were killed by stabbing/slashing/knife wounds, not by firearms. In fact, in one of the most grisly of them, three young people were tied with duct tape and their throats slit...after one of the victims had been talked into surrendering his pistol.
Schofield barracks?...therein lies the problem....if it had been the Bedford Forrest Barracks maybe you mighta learned a thing or too sissy.
/s
Dear Mr. Walsh - Since you feel so strongly about this why don’t you propose an amendment to clarify the 2nd Amendment. Not that I think it’s necessary but you obviously do. You sound very proud that you carried a gun to defend the Constitution. Why don’t you respect the way the Constitution is supposed to be amended instead of just whining for more unconstitutional gun laws.?
After you get done with that you can explain to me what the founders thought about abortion and how that really is in the Constitution somewhere?
“America has a cancer originating in the misinterpretation of our government’s DNA, the Constitution. In 2008, the Supreme Court handed down an erroneous interpretation of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, striking down a handgun ban in Washington and endorsing the misconception that individuals have a right to own firearms”
What misconception? He went to Princeton and doesn’t know the constitution.
I think perhaps his birth was misconcepted.
IF GUNS ARE OUTLAWED, ONLY CRIMINALS WILL HAVE GUNS!!
I would not trust this man with a gun under any circumstances. He is incapable of logical thought and ruminates about how easy it is to kill innocent neighbors, whom he would prefer to disarm first.
And, if you're serious, there's a really neat place I can recommend to you and your family -- assuming you survive the home invasion.
Details below.
Concerned about the easy availability of guns in our society?
Are you as alarmed as the United Nations and some within our own government about the "gun nuts" and other freedom wackos allowed to run loose?
Wish the government would just repeal the Second Amendment and confiscate all the guns because you believe sensible people shouldn't suffer because of some idiotic notion about some antiquated “right?”
While we can't take the guns away from the people, we CAN take the people (or at least SOME of them) away from their guns.
Nazi Germany Weapons Law (1938) §1: "Jews are prohibited from acquiring, possessing, and carrying firearms and ammunition, as well as truncheons or stabbing weapons. Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority."
At CAMP GUNFREE, we have created an atmosphere of near-total tranquility where you and your family will experience the benefits of a GUN FREE environment.
The unique main gate at Camp GunFree.
The sign over the beautiful wrought iron gate declares: “NO FIREARMS ALLOWED!” Most arriving camp guests never see this view from their comfortable rail cars.
Each of our camps is a gated community designed to keep guns away from camp guests. Firmly enforced security measures ensure that these dangerous and destructive devices are kept outside. Each camp boasts 24 hour, 7 day a week sentries and state-of-the-art enclosure systems, guard dogs, trenches and surveillance equipment to absolutely GUARANTEE that no firearms enter the facility. Rigidly controlled access ensures that no guns will ever be smuggled in.
No cost has been spared to ensure that Camp GunFree remains gun free.
All camp members are given distinctive uniforms to distinguish them from any gun-toting barbarians who might attempt to evade our security measures. Each camp member is also assigned a distinctive ID number to ensure that only the right people are allowed within the camp.
Camp Director, Oberstfurher Koch, and his crack staff are here to see to your COMPLETE safety from dangerous firearms.
Spacious and comfortable sleeping accommodations are a hallmark of Camp GunFree. Room and board are provided to each member in exchange for rewarding tasks designed to provide a sense of accomplishment and to demonstrate that large numbers of people CAN exist – even if for a short time -- in a gun violence free community.
Camp members engaged in one of our many fun-filled organized play activities.
Current headlines prompt us to remind you that there has NEVER been a shooting by a student in any of the camp schools and we can GUARANTEE that there never will be!!
For more information, call 1-800-GUNFREE OR visit our new website at http://www.privategunsareabadthingandwe'llseethatyouare”safe”.batf.gov
(This idea from a pamphlet originally created by The Minnesota Center for Individual Liberty, PO Box 32170, Minneapolis, MN 55432-0170)
My Left-dar goes up whenever I hear “I served in the military...” or “I have always been a Republican....”
Hit on the head with a penis too many times, no doubt.
Perhaps he needs to look into actions taking place in the UK since they have banned guns and are now regulating the sale of knives.
Which is what I think of the Unicorn in Chief's Nuclear Free World.
Nice work by the socialist doctors, too. I’m jealous. I wonder when we can get a system like that here, too.
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Pat doesn’t seem to realize that back when the 2nd was written, there was no federal army. He also fails, in that he does not know what the word “regulated” means in this context. When the 2nd was written, “regulated” meant “equipped”. This is where almost all of these armchair constitutional scholars fall down: in not taking the basic vocabulary of the time into account, particularly with the word “regulated”, which today means “controlled” or “subject to rules/regulations”. If you use modern words to spell out the original meaning, the 2nd sounds more like: “Because a well-equipped militia is necessary to maintain freedom in the nation, the right of any person to own and carry firearms shall not be interfered with”.
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