Example of upcoming anti-gun diatribe prior to Heller vs. D.C.

[ara]

K3 and others

Good posts. A lot of knowledge of our constitution is presented here. Well done.

K3: If I may expand on your comment ("...too dense to understand the the entire purpose of the Bill of Rights is to protect the citizens from the government,") the Bill of Rights and the entire Constitution before it were designed to severely hamstring gummint within some pretty narrow bounds.

Those bounds began to be thrown off very quickly in the early, early days of our Republic.

The interesting thing to me about the wording of the Second is this: despite the order of phrasing in the Second Amendment it is clearly structured in such a way as to make the ending clause, that being "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," of primary and indispensable import in the entire amendment.

The clause referred to above has to exist in practical reality before the part about a well-regulated militia takes its first feeble breath. Without a unified people who already keep and bear arms there can be no pool on which to draw to form a militia.

Both "keeping" and "bearing" arms are covered under one singular right that cannot be separated without another amendment that supercedes the original. Note:", the right (singular) to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

There are actually certain Nimrods who argue that SCROTUS, in still more attempts to illegally revise the Constitution, has held that these are actually two rights to be toyed with independently of one another. If you have followed the generally contemptible rulings of SCROTUS this will come as no surprise and simply serves to again point out the Constitutional enemy that SCROTUS actually is.

Some people over in the Legal section like playing with words too much. It is to the never ending detriment of civilization that lawyers are permitted to play with words in public. Remember that.

Between the "Untied" Nations, SCROTUS and our renegade 110th Congress we have a full plate in protecting our God-given right to serve as our own "First Responders," since we individually are always the first on scene when crime befalls us. Always.

The Second guarantees that our pre-existing right to keep and bear arms is first and indisputably the right of every responsible citizen to be and to stay armed.

Anywhere.

Anytime.

Warmest regards,


ara

 

[RPCVYemen]

I had a little fun with someone who thought Thomas Jefferson would agree with the Editorial

Jefferson the write or Jefferson the President? Jefferson's notion of individual rights changed dramatically when he actually assumed executive power.

It is hard to believe that a man that could write what he wrote would have acted as he acted.

Mike

 

[Officers'Wife]

Hi Bulgron,

Which Condederacy? The one formed after we declared independance or the one formed in 1861 by the southern states? If the former he is correct as the orginal Articles of Confederation depended on the local militias exclusively yet wrong on the racist angle as first "President" of that Confederacy IIRC was a Jew that was a member of one of the first orgs to abolish slavery.

Selena

 

[ara]

RPCVYemen

True words.

Please read the post above.

While the new nation would neither think of nor tolerate another revolt, which would have been suicidal at that juncture (Britain (or most anyone with an army and navy) would have been back with bells on), actions like Jefferson's mirror the very reasons for writing the Second amendment in the first place.

What do you think?


ara

 

[Bullseye57]

I got into a debate online with an anti recently. He was spouting something that I've never heard before, and that I couldn't quite get my head around. Maybe you guys have heard this and can explain it?

Anyway, his contention was that the idea of the 2A as an individual right is a product of Confederate thinking, and in fact has its roots in the Confederate constitution.

I think he was seeking for a way to imply that an individual right interpretation is racist, by linking it to the Confederacy.

Is this a novel argument? Or has this one been kicking around for a while and I've just never heard it before.

This is not a reference to the Confederate States of America Constitution (1860) but The Articles of Confederation (1778) which was the precursor to the US Constitution. The States set up a weak central government due to their fear of a strong one like England had at the time. Ultimately the weaknesses of this document forced them to create the US Constitution (1788) which cured many of the problems of the first government and allowed for revisions called amendments. There are references to a militia in the Articles of Confederation and that all the states would come to the aid if one was attacked.

Here's a look at the Articles of Confederation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation

R,
Bullseye

 

[Hutch]

X = Y

There's a lamentable tendency for some folks to equate things they don't like. I've seen a bumper sticker that read "Poverty is violence", read editorials that equated gun ownership with Nazism, and have heard many, many ideas described as racism. I guess the (il)logical thinking is: "I don't like X, and I don't like Y, so X = Y". Kinda childlike in its simplicity, and if one of your terms is really laden with emotional baggage (Racism, Nazism, Sexism), then you can bypass the rest of any logic in the argument. I mean, who can argue for Nazism???

 

[bulgron]

Just being lazy - I'd rather not have to do the verification.

Well, if it's verification you're looking for, you'll probably have to wait for the outcome for Heller. If SCOTUS upholds the Parker decision, you can be pretty sure that there's more than a kernel of truth to what these guys are saying.

Or, you could just read Parker, compare it to what's said in this video, and realize there's a lot of overlapping information there (although the video says things that I never knew before).

The problem with waiting for historians and such to endorse a thing like this is that typically historians are liberal and we all know how they feel about RKBA. This documentary flies directly in the face of everything liberal academia believes where firearms are concerned.

 

[yesit'sloaded]

So if this ruling gets overturned do we need to start "oiling our gardens" in preparation for future gun control laws? I am still just beginning to grasp the significance of this case if it is ruled on.

 

[bulgron]

This is not a reference to the Confederate States of America Constitution (1860) but The Articles of Confederation (1778) which was the precursor to the US Constitution.

No, I went back and re-read the comment, and here's the relevant section. He's clearly speaking to the Confederacy of the civil war era. I'm afraid that what the guy was saying so flummoxed me that I just let it go. It was just out of left field.

Like I said, I'm still trying to get my head around what he was babbling on about, exactly.

Absolute individual gun rights of the sort construed from the popular post-Confederate misreading of the Second Amendment buy into require that unarmed individuals have lesser or no equal protection or due process rights.

Need I point out that former Confederates never accepted the 14th Amendment, and like a lot of present Republican-embraced doctrine, tacitly pretends the Confederate Constitution is in force. You may want to give the Confederate Constitution a good read, btw, in parallel to the federal one just so you can see what the tacit or not so tacit differences are that manifest themselves in things like the doctrine of RKBA. (The Confederate Constitution takes the more animal view of human nature, assuming a 'natural' right to do anything you are capable of doing and a hierarchy of material power and predation to restrict it. The federal one is wiser in its view.)

Is this the kind of thing we can expect as the Heller case goes forward? Just freaking weird.

 

[bulgron]

So if this ruling gets overturned do we need to start "oiling our gardens" in preparation for future gun control laws?

Not necessarily. The beauty of this entire case is that it can't possibly leave us in a worse position than we're currently in -- which is to say a court system that views the 2A as a collective right. We have nowhere to go but up from here.

At worse, if SCOTUS overturns Parker then it re-opens the door for more federal gun control laws along the lines of the Brady Bill and the assault weapon ban. But we were always in that position anyway pre-Parker, so the decision wouldn't harm us anymore than if there'd never been a Heller case in the first place.

Also, if you're fortunate enough to live in a state with RKBA built into it's constitution, then you have constitutional protections against state-level gun control laws, at least.

In places like California (where I live), we feel like our gun rights are sort of hanging by a thread because the statist liberals are in a full-court press to jam gun control down our throats and we have no state-level RKBA provision to fight back with. So Heller is far more important to us than it is to most of the rest of the nation.

 

[justashooter]

"well regulated" in the 1770's meant "trained in the art of military tactic", so a well regulated militia would be a militia that is familiar with drill and firearms operation.

in that sense, i am not such a well regulated militia member. i don't know **** about drill, but i do understand small unit tactics fairly well, and can shoot just about anything that goes bang.

 

[Bullseye57]

No, I went back and re-read the comment, and here's the relevant section. He's clearly speaking to the Confederacy of the civil war era. I'm afraid that what the guy was saying so flummoxed me that I just let it go. It was just out of left field.

Like I said, I'm still trying to get my head around what he was babbling on about, exactly.

If there is a link to this anti argument you are referring to, please post it so it can be read in its entirety. I fail to see the relevance of an illegal document, conceived by traitors to the nation, as either for or against any individual rights or the law of the land written nearly ninety years earlier. Making an argument based on such is pure foolishness and deserves no serious consideration.

The 14th and 15th Amendments were ratified by 3/4 ths of the states of the Union, which did not include those in rebellion. When the southern states refused to recognize these new amendments, Johnson formed them all into military districts, and made it a requirement that in order to rejoin the Union they had to rewrite their state constitutions to include these new amendments - effectively accepting them.

R,
Bullseye

 

[RPCVYemen]

If there is a link to this anti argument you are referring to, please post it so it can be read in its entirety. I fail to see the relevance of an illegal document, conceived by traitors to the nation, as either for or against any individual rights or the law of the land written nearly ninety years earlier. Making an argument based on such is pure foolishness and deserves no serious consideration.

Anyway, his contention was that the idea of the 2A as an individual right is a product of Confederate thinking, and in fact has its roots in the Confederate constitution.

If I understand what has been posted so far, the argument is likely the following:

1. Prior to the Confederacy, the 2nd Amendment referred to the collective right - the right of the "well regulated militia" to keep and bear arms.
   
2. The claim that the 2nd Amendment is an individual right came out of the Confederate Constitution.
   
3. Precisely because the Confederate Constitution was "an illegal document, conceived by traitors to the nation", we are not bound to accept the Confederate interpretation of the 2nd Amendment.
   
4. Therefore, we are free to reject the claim that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right.
   

Note that I am not agreeing with with the argument, just paraphrasing it. I have never heard it before.

If that is in fact a correct paraphrase of the argument, then your comments about traitors, etc., support the third point of that argument. Those comments do not address first, second, or forth points. It seems that a rebuttal must refute the first or second point of the argument.

Mike

 

[RPCVYemen]

The problem with waiting for historians and such to endorse a thing like this is that typically historians are liberal and we all know how they feel about RKBA. This documentary flies directly in the face of everything liberal academia believes where firearms are concerned.

I would have been happy to see endorsement by Gertrude Himmelfarb or Paul Johnson, who are generally considered conservative historians.

I was impressed with Stanley Elkins and Eric Mikitrick in "The Age of Federalism", but I don't know anything about their politics. It has been a long time since I read that book, but it seemed like a pretty even handed search for the truth when I read it. I read an Ayers book on the Civil War, and it seemed to be good history to me.

While the AHA has as many wackos as any other professional academic organization, there are some fine conservative historians out there.

Mike

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Jee, if the individual right interpretation of the 2A was promulgated
by the Confederate States of America, why did United States
Congresscritters equate the right to vote with the right to bear arms
when debating the 1870 Civil Rights Act????

Sounds like whoever fielded the argument that interpreting "right of the
people to keep and bear arms" as an individual right is Confederate
ideology was just making things up as they went along.

 

[ServiceSoon]

Jee, if the individual right interpretation of the 2A was promulgated
by the Confederate States of America, why did United States
Congresscritters equate the right to vote with the right to bear arms
when debating the 1870 Civil Rights Act????

Civil Rights Act of 1870 (The Enforcement Act), 16 Stat. 140 (1870).

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all citizens of the United States who are or shall be otherwise qualified by law to vote at any election... shall be entitled and allowed to vote at all such elections, without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude....

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall be the duty of every person and officer to give to all citizens of the United States the same and equal opportunity to perform [any] prerequisite, and to become qualified to vote without distinction of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and if any person or officer shall refuse or knowingly omit to give full effect to this section, he shall... be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and shall, on conviction thereof, be fined not less than five hundred dollars, or be imprisoned not less than one month and not more than one year, or both, at the discretion of the court.

SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That if two or more persons shall band or conspire together, or go in disguise upon the public highway, or upon the premises of another, with intent to violate any provision of this act, or to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise and enjoyment of any right or privilege granted or secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having exercised the same, such persons shall be held guilty of felony, and, on conviction thereof, shall be fined or imprisoned, or both, at the discretion of the court,-the fine not to exceed five thousand dollars, and the imprisonment not to exceed ten years,- and shall, moreover, be thereafter ineligible to, and disabled from holding, any office or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States.

SEC. 17. And be it further enacted, That any person who, under color of any law, statute, ordinance, regulation, or custom, shall subject, or cause to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State or Territory to the deprivation of any right secured or protected by the last preceding section [giving all persons the same rights as white citizens] of this act, or to different punishment, pains, or penalties on account of such person being an alien, or by reason of his color or race, than is prescribed for the punishment of citizens, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or imprisonment not exceeding one year, or both, in the discretion of the court.

Sounds like whoever fielded the argument that interpreting "right of the
people to keep and bear arms" as an individual right is Confederate
ideology was just making things up as they went along.

I see no such thing in the 1870 Civil Rights Act. Can you please elaborate your point?

 

[lacoochee]

The Bill of Rights is the first 8 amendments to the US Constitution, not the first 10.
Amendment 9 apparently means something, but nobody can figure out what, and Amendment 10 is unconcerned with individual rights.

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

People have more "natural" rights than those mentioned in the bill of rights, e.g. self defense, etc.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

me:
why did United States Congresscritters equate the right to vote
with the right to bear arms when debating the 1870 Civil Rights Act

Well, duh, the congressional debates are not in the text of
the 1870 Civil Rights Act, but, then, I did not say they were.
The congressional debates on the right to keep and bear arms
vis-a-vis the 1870 Civil Rights Act were mentioned in the
1873 Cruickshank SCotUS decision. When the Supreme Court
takes a close look at a law, they don't just read the words in
the published law, they go to the debates in Congress to
determine the intent of congress in passing the law.

 

[RPCVYemen]

Jee, if the individual right interpretation of the 2A was promulgated
by the Confederate States of America, why did United States
Congresscritters equate the right to vote with the right to bear arms
when debating the 1870 Civil Rights Act?

The idea being debated after the Civil War doesn't prove much. It is possible that the idea was proposed by the Confederate Constitution, and then accepted by the Congress in general after the end of the Civil War.

To shoot down the theory, I think it needs to be demonstrated that the concept of the RKBA as an individual right, as opposed to the right of a well regulated militia - before the Civil War (or at least before the Confederate Constitution was written).

I am not agreeing with the main argument, just specifying how to demolish it. I don't think that any evidence from after the Civil War can be used to demonstrate that an idea did not arise during the Civil War.

Do you have a cite for the debate you mentioned? It would be interesting to read that.

Mike

 

[Carl N. Brown]

IIRC, Levy's Encyclopedia of the American Constitution summarizes
some of it in either the articles on the Cruikshank decision or on
the Civil Rights act. It's been about twenty years since I worked on
it at the Press, but I may have the database archived. Publisher
was MacMillan I believe.

 

[ROMAK IV]

All these arguments by the anti's are merely an attempt to circimvent the Constitution. Take their reasoning to a logica conclusion and it falls apart.

First, consider the RKBA as a "collective right." Obviously, there needs to be a well regulated militia to defend the free state. Well regulated meant effective, not overburdened with regulations. How would a militia be effective if the most tactically useful weapons were banned? If then the RKBA is a state right and not an individual right, then it stands to reason that there couldn't be any federal gun laws, much less an entire federal bureaucracy to prevent the citizens from buying their own weapons. The manner in which most of the RKBA provisions are written in the respective state constitutions, the only reason, automatic weapons are regulated in those states is because of the federal law. In my state, there is nothing in the constitution that could be construed to allow the legislature to ban automatic weapons. On the other hand, as a collective right, it is ridiculous to argue that the 2nd Amendment was written to give the police and military the RKBA.

The other argument concerns The Militia. The militia is not the permanant US military. The militia is a citizen army, and according to current federal law, consists of ALL military age males and female currently in the National Guard. The National Guard is not the entire militia either, and I think as currently configured, is not really a militia anymore and is more correctly a federal reserve army. Anti's will insist that only the National Guard is the militia and then the RKBA only apllies when the NG person is on active duty. This is also ridiculous. I argued with one individual that reasoned by Congress arming and training the National Guard, it had "fullfilled" the 2nd Amendment. Of course he totally ignored fedral law actually stating what the militia was.

The other argument consists of rewording the actual wording of the 2nd Amendment, exalting the maintaining of the "militia" over the prohibition against "infringement" of the "right of the people to keep and bear arms." The 2nd Amendment is a limit on government, NOT a limit on the RKBA.

Then there is US v. Miller. The SCOTUS ruled on the case because Miller had used the 2nd Amendment as a defense. The law in question is the 1934 Gun Control Act, which was craftily written to control (Infringe) on certain types of weapons by levying a federal tax upon them, and of course a registration scheme as well. In ruling the SCOTUS allowed the tax on a "Sawed off shotgun" under the reasoning that a sawed off shotgun is not a part of normal infantry equipment. Conversely, a weapon, (like a select fire assault rifle) WOULD be a part of normal military equipment and thus could not even be taxed under the law. Instead, the Antis change the meaning to imply that a ban is allowed under the ruling, and that is a purposeful misquote.

Dave Koppel has written on the possible adverse ruling against the 2nd Amendment, and I rge you to go to his website and read some of his writings. For the SCOTUS to rule against the 2nd Amendment would de-legitimize the Court. I tend to agree. The Constitution belongs to the people, not the Courts. If this were to happen, I hope there is a massive amount of civil protest and unrest because of it. Too often we sit around and let this stiff happen. Those that oppose us will scream and shout and lie, and go along with the courts whenever they go along with their agenda.