Saf Calls Chicago Tribune Plea To Repeal 2a ‘unconscionable’

[Cavalier Knight]

NEWS RELEASE

BELLEVUE, WA – The Chicago Tribune’s call for repeal of the Second Amendment following the historic Heller Decision is an “unconscionable attack on the entire Bill of Rights and the freedoms it protects,” the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

In an editorial published on the day after the Supreme Court handed down its 5-4 ruling, the newspaper called the Second Amendment an “anachronism” that should be repealed. The newspaper supported its argument by falsely claiming that a 1939 case, U.S. v Miller, established the amendment as a “collective right” that applied only to service in some type of militia.

“The Chicago Tribune’s editors have demonstrated an appalling short-sightedness,” said SAF founder Alan Gottlieb. “If they are so willing to abandon one civil right for an entire class of American citizens, what’s next? Perhaps they would strip some citizens of their First Amendment rights to free speech or religion. Heaven help us should the Chicago Tribune editorial board one day decide that they don’t care for the editorial slant of their competitors at the Sun-Times, and call for a restriction on that newspaper’s freedom of the press.

“Once you make it acceptable to destroy one civil right,” Gottlieb observed, “it does not take a very big leap to embrace limitations on, or the abolition of, another civil right.

“Not once, in all the years that gun rights organizations have been vilified in the editorial columns of the Tribune and other newspapers did anyone from the firearms community suggest we should repeal the First Amendment,” he stated. “Unlike elitist newspaper editors, gun owners understand that the Bill of Rights is an all-or-nothing document, not a civil rights buffet from which we can pick and choose the rights we want to enjoy and those for which we have no stomach.

“We have always known the Second Amendment affirmed an individual civil right, and a truly objective reading of history by the Chicago Tribune would – if they had any notion of objectivity – lead them to the same conclusion,” Gottlieb concluded. “A generation of parents and grandparents of those now writing such nonsense in the Tribune risked, and all too frequently lost their lives to defend all of the freedoms enumerated in the Bill of Rights. The Tribune editors may as well just spit on their graves.”

 

[bruss01]

As decided in Cruikshank and quoted in the Heller Decision, the 2nd amendment does not confer a right (i.e. it is not a right "given" to you by the government) but rather it recognizes and protects a pre-existing right.

And you can't repeal a pre-existing right... you can only infringe it.

 

[SCKimberFan]

Every Chicagoan who subscribes to the Tribune should drop it immediately. Then every company advertising in the paper should cease all ads. I think they should start publishing in Moscow or Beijing -because that is where they belong!

 

[Standing Wolf]

The Chicago Tribune’s call for repeal of the Second Amendment following the historic Heller Decision is an “unconscionable attack on the entire Bill of Rights and the freedoms it protects,” the Second Amendment Foundation said today.

That's business as usual in Chicago.

 

[divemedic]

 

[.38 Special]

IMO it's a mistake to dignify the "Repeal the Second!!!" foolishness with any response at all. I mean, it just isn't going to happen, so why not just let the idea quietly gather flies?

 

[tube_ee]

Appeals to

skypeople aside, the Tribune is essentially correct here.

There is no provision in the Constitution that makes any amendment unalterable. Such a provision would logically have to be in the Articles, as they predate any amendments, and the only thing like this that can be found is the part about the Senate.

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms... scope of said right yet to be determined.

The Tribune (and Mayor Daley, and the VPC, and the Brady Center, and all of the usual suspects) think that's a bad idea.

OK, fine... there's a method laid out in Article V to change the document, if you don't like what it says. Feel free to use it. Spend lots of money and time and effort. You'll lose. But nothing says you can't try.

I think this should be encouraged, because it would bankrupt all of these idiots, and they'd never get anywhere. Of course, they've always known that, which is why they've never tried it, but have instead relied on a boneheaded interpretation of a boneheaded decision to say that the Constitution cannot prevent them from doing what they want to do.

But they're right in this... amending the Constitution is now the only option they've got.

Good luck with that one...

--Shannon

 

[Sebastian the Ibis]

Why don't Anti's do something useful and spend their time complaining about the 16th Amendment and get rid of our income taxes.

 

[jrpbullrider]

mrreynolds

Do you have a link to the news I looked around and could not find it?
thanks
John

 

[bumm]

Actually, I'd MUCH rather see the anti's saying that the 2nd Amendment has to be repealed than arguing that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are "living documents" to be interpreted however they happen to feel.
Marty

 

[Cavalier Knight]

Repeal the 2nd Amendment

mrreynolds

Do you have a link to the news I looked around and could not find it?
thanks
John

June 27, 2008

No, we don't suppose that's going to happen any time soon. But it should.

The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is evidence that, while the founding fathers were brilliant men, they could have used an editor.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

If the founders had limited themselves to the final 14 words, the amendment would have been an unambiguous declaration of the right to possess firearms. But they didn't, and it isn't. The amendment was intended to protect the authority of the states to organize militias. The inartful wording has left the amendment open to public debate for more than 200 years. But in its last major decision on gun rights, in 1939, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously found that that was the correct interpretation.

On Tuesday, five members of the court edited the 2nd Amendment. In essence, they said: Scratch the preamble, only 14 words count.

In doing so, they have curtailed the power of the legislatures and the city councils to protect their citizens.

The majority opinion in the 5-4 decision to overturn a Washington, D.C., ban on handgun possession goes to great lengths to parse the words of the 2nd Amendment. The opinion, written by Justice Antonin Scalia, spends 111/2 pages just on the meaning of the words "keep and bear arms."

But as Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in a compelling dissent, the five justices in the majority found no new evidence that the 2nd Amendment was intended to limit the power of government to regulate the use of firearms. They found no new evidence to overturn decades of court precedent.

They have claimed, Stevens wrote, "a far more active judicial role in making vitally important national policy decisions than was envisioned at any time in the 18th, 19th, or 20th Centuries."

•••

It's a relief that the majority didn't go further in its policymaking on gun control.

The majority opinion states that the D.C. handgun ban and a requirement for trigger locks violate the 2nd Amendment. By virtue of this decision, Chicago's 1982 ban on handguns is not likely to survive a court challenge. A lawsuit seeking to overturn the Chicago ordinance was filed on Thursday by the Illinois State Rifle Association.

The majority, though, did state that the right under the 2nd Amendment "is not unlimited." So what does that mean? The majority left room for state and local governments to restrict the carrying of concealed weapons in public, to prohibit weapons in "sensitive places such as schools and government buildings," and to regulate the sale of firearms. The majority allowed room for the prohibition of "dangerous and unusual weapons." It did not stipulate what weapons are not "dangerous."

Lower courts are going to be mighty busy figuring out all of this.

We can argue about the effectiveness of municipal handgun bans such as those in Washington and Chicago. They have, at best, had limited impact. People don't have to go far beyond the city borders to buy a weapon that's prohibited within the city.

But neither are these laws overly restrictive. Citizens have had the right to protect themselves in their homes with other weapons, such as shotguns.

Some view this court decision as an affirmation of individual rights. But the damage in this ruling is that it takes a significant public policy issue out of the hands of citizens. The people of Washington no longer have the authority to decide that, as a matter of public safety, they will prohibit handgun possession within their borders.

•••

Chicago and the nation saw a decline in gun violence over the last decade or so, but recent news has been ominous. The murder rate in Chicago has risen 13 percent this year. Guns are still the weapon of choice for mayhem in the U.S. About 68 percent of all murders in 2006 were committed with a firearm, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Repeal the 2nd Amendment? Yes, it's an anachronism.

We won't repeal the amendment, but at least we can have that debate.

Want to debate whether crime-staggered cities should prohibit the possession of handguns? The Supreme Court has just said, "forget about it."

ARTICLE

 

[damien]

I think it is the greatest thing ever. I hope the anti's spend 110% of their time working on repealing the 2A. I hope they work so hard they don't bother responding to all the new legislation and court cases we will be bringing.

 

[Robert Hairless]

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the 2nd Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms... scope of said right yet to be determined.

No, that is not what the Supreme Court ruled.

The ruling includes the Supreme Court's acknowledgment that the right to keep and bear arms pre-existed the Second Amendment and is not created by it.

You need to read the Court's decision. What the Chicago Tribune needs is remedial education of a kind that no longer is economically feasible.

 

[tube_ee]

Robert...

that's why I used the word "guarantees" instead of the word "grants".

I'm aware of the distinction, I assure you.

--Shannon

 

[Robert Hairless]

Point taken, Shannon. Objection withdrawn.

The Chicago Tribune annoys me now. It is stirring up trouble, and trouble makes people unsafe. The world has more than enough trouble already and far too much instability. No more of either can be tolerated.

It is high time for the Tribune to be denied the right to publish. I believe in Freedom of the Press but not excessively.

 

[TexasRifleman]

It is high time for the Tribune to be denied the right to publish. I believe in Freedom of the Press but not excessively.

Only newspapers in "common use" can be printed and there's no one reading that piece of crap anymore, so it can't be common.

BAN IT

 

[Tom488]

I believe in Freedom of the Press but not excessively

I think we can all get behind "reasonable" restrictions of the first amendment. I mean, NO right is absolute, and I don't see anything wrong with enacting common-sense limitations on the right to free speech, such as licensing those who wish to speak freely, or requiring registration of all typewriters, printers, printing presses, and web servers... ESPECIALLY in large urban cities like Chicago, where this kind of rampant abuse of 1A is so frequent. I mean - if it can save just one child from becoming brainwashed by such a publication, haven't we all won?

 

[tube_ee]

Brilliant...

As I often say, in my other guise as "Leftie Gunner" on DailyKos, my rule of thumb for the Constitutionality of a proposed restriction on gun rights is to substitute the word "book" for the word "gun". if the new construction passes muster, it's OK, if it doesn't, it isn't.

Funny how few "reasonable restrictions" pass that test, ain't it?

--Shannon

 

[Picard]

I vow to never buy another Chicago Tribune newspaper as long as I live. I have sent that story to hundreds of people in the area and hopefully they will do the same.

That is the most un-American and just plain disgusting article that I have ever read. I wouldn't even use it to wipe my butt with.