Columbine,
Virginia Tech, Aurora, Newtown.
From
the past century to this, the geometry of killing strangers in public places
has morphed from victimizing famous individuals to unknown crowds as the technology
for wanton murder has proliferated.
This
week, the sight of a president pleading for small changes in laws that make
slaughterhouses out of schools, churches and shopping centers is sickening
evidence of a Second Amendment insanity gripping America since one Supreme
Court Justice handed gun owners a license to kill five years ago.
The
Constitutional Amendment reads: “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.”
From
1939 until the Court’s 5-4 decision in June 2008, the prevailing legal view
held that the Amendment did not confer on individuals the right to own weapons
of mass murder.
The
2008 reversal was voiced by Justice Antonin Scalia, appointed by Ronald Reagan,
who ironically was himself the victim of a deranged shooter early in his
presidency, holding that it granted a right to “law-abiding, responsible
citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home.”
Yet
even that change was softened by Scalia’s warning: “Nothing in our opinion should
be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of
firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of
firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws
imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
Since
then, abetted by NRA blackmail of lawmakers, the perversion of the Second
Amendment has reached the point where even Barack Obama, in issuing his
executive orders and pleading with Congress for small changes in gun
restrictions, prefaces his plea by acknowledging Second Amendment “rights.”
At
what point does mass insanity start to change? How many more men, women and
children will have to lose their lives in split seconds before the madness of
those who govern our lives stops matching that of those who use weapons of war in
settings that once were safe and secure?
As the
President is attacked for overreaching with his modest attempts to reverse the
prevailing irrationality, where is the outrage of those who not only approve
his efforts but want him to go much further? Who will push him to save the lives of those who don't yet vote and never may unless the gun lovers lose?
Without guns, how else are we to protect ourselves against the overreach of the federal government?
ReplyDeleteA society that depends upon personal guns for security and does not trust a well equipped administration to do so will see many more suffer from bullets not meant to be fired on innocents.
ReplyDeletereply to anonymous---
ReplyDeleteYou could vote.
That would be the ballot box.
ReplyDeleteWelcome to Democracy.
Apparently (as the comment ny anonymous shows), the dots haven't been connected yet.
ReplyDeleteI am a hardcore war gamer, veteran, and an arm-chair historian. When I was young, I used to think about how cool it would be to defend my home from the evil Feds...Unfortunately those day dreams kept getting more and more complete, considering what the police (national guard, army, special forces) would do in response to my insurgency. "Unfortunate" because the imagining plays out with my demise.
ReplyDeleteThink, seriously, about how likely you are to succeed in defending your self, family, home, or way of life from the Feds. Not saying there is no Constitutional right to own arms, just that the claim that defense from the government is an important reason to bear arms seems to be played out.
Show me a gun that will take out a Predator before it puts a Hellfire missile through your bedroom window in the middle of the night. Then we can talk about "protect[ing] ourselves against the overreach of the federal government". If you think your AR-15 and 10,000 rounds of ammo is going to protect you from the federal government (you know, the ones that has all those "troops" you "support" with the little magnetic ribbon on the tailgate of your Avalanche), well then you are a sad, delusional little man.
ReplyDeleteShow me a gun that will take out a Predator before it puts a Hellfire missile through your bedroom window in the middle of the night. Then we can talk about "protect[ing] ourselves against the overreach of the federal government". If you think your AR-15 and 10,000 rounds of ammo is going to protect you from the federal government (you know, the ones that has all those "troops" you "support" with the little magnetic ribbon on the tailgate of your Avalanche), well then you are a sad, delusional little man.
ReplyDeleteGood luck protecting yourself against a fully armed AC130 Gunship or an Apache Helicopter with your gun. Put your hair out already. The government is not coming to get you.
ReplyDeleteAnon:Why were you not concerned about the overreach of the Gov. under Bush?
ReplyDeleteYou're right! How else to defend against drone attacks, landmines, Apache helicopter attacks, etc. Narco gas, sound cannons, microwave rays, and tanks can't affect me, as long as I have my AK-47, my AR-15, and all the handguns I can afford! I do need to get me some SAMs, tho...
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteThis is my favorite idiot arguement against any kind of common sense controls. If you would just take the tiniest amount time to really think about it you would understand how silly you sound. No matter how many guns you have or you and your firends may have, your governent has more. Not just the federal government, but you are outmanned and out gunned by your state and local governments. If your local/state/federal government wants you dead, You Are Dead.
Dear A: What are you going to do, shoot the entire government?
ReplyDeleteTry voting and/or community involvement. When we choose the gun over the vote, we have failed as a democratic republic.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous, try voting and/or community involvement. When we choose the gun over the vote, we have failed as a democratic republic.
ReplyDeletePrevious anonymous, Do you have scud missiles? Aircraft carriers? Fighter jets? Surface to air missiles? Satellite tracking systems?
ReplyDeleteIf not, then quite frankly, you cannot realistically use violence as a means of "protecting against overreach".
Basically, you are saying that your delusional fantasy about overthrowing the government, (which not only has the largest military in the world, but larger than next 25 nations combined), trumps the very real deaths of thousands upon thousands of Americans, and the families who grieve for them. After all, what are a few dozen slaughtered grade schoolers in Newtown compared to your macho fantasies of facing down Uncle Sam's tanks and missiles with your Bushmaster rifle?
The only thing you can do about government overreach is be engaged in the civic process.
Without tanks, shoulder mounted RPGs, DU armor piercing rounds, Apache Attack Helicopters, Laser Guided Missiles, Bunker Busters, and vast supplies of explosives, how else are we to protect ourselves against the overreach of the federal government?
ReplyDeleteThere, FIFY.
If resistance to government oppression is the reason we need weapons, then why accept ANY restrictions on what we can own?
I thought that we overcame government overreach by electing less overreaching officials, but then again I believe in democracy.
First, taking up arms against your own nation is called "treason." Second, you protect yourself the same way Americans have done it for more than 200 years -- in the courts and at the ballot box. Third, if you think the government has ever, even for a second, not done something because it fears armed citizens, you're delusional. Fourth, if you think for an instant that you stand a chance against the local police, state police, national guard, FBI and US military (the most efficient killing machine the planet has ever known), you're pathologically delusional. Fifth, the 2nd amend was written for the security of the state, not to allow treasons against it. Specifically, it allowed the slave states to continue to use armed militia to put down slave rebellions. The south feared that a standing federal army would disarm the slaver's militias and free the slaves. Your position fails on numerous counts.
ReplyDeleteIf the overreaching government wants you dead then you will die. Why is it that those who cling to guns in the mistaken belief that they will protect them from a tyrannical government also support the never to be reduced spending for the governments military?
ReplyDeleteFirst commenter, you really think you can defend yourself against an army, air force, marines, navy with soldiers, tanks, missiles, mitilary grade weapons snf tech?
ReplyDeleteThat argument is laughable, as is every other pro-gun claim.
Also, only in your imagination has anyone proposed banning guns. Simply has not happened.
Here ya go
First of all, I am new to this blog and really like your approach and your statement on the sidebar. This is important stuff. We do need the context that "geezers" can supply, because they (I am close to being one myself) have seen most of this shit -whatever it happens to be - before.
ReplyDeleteAs for the anonymous coward above, if that remark is serious and not sarcastic, there is really little to say. The idiocy of this argument that gun owners will need to protect themselves from the "overreach" of the Federal government - or would even be able to- is self-evident to almost any sentent being with more than two brain cells (I know, I know...) But, okay, one more time: you will not be able to counter Dictator Obama's helicopters, drones and massively superior firepower should he decide to deploy it. Secondly, advocating an armed attack on any military or policing force of the Federal Government is still considered treason and sedition, even when the President is black (which makes you think it's okay). So you're a treasonous fuck and an idiot. Gee, what party do you belong to?
You may want to actually go and read the Heller decision.
ReplyDeleteIt was 9-0 that an individual right to own firearms exists.
The 5-4 portion of the decision was whether the District of Columbia's gun laws violated that individual right.
Also, there were multitudes of other court decisions that mentioned an individual right to firearms between 1939 and 2008. Read any successful challenge to "May Issue" conceal firearms permit laws in any of the dozens of states that became "Shall Issue" states in the last 20 years to find the easy examples.
Lastly, the President is not asking for any changes to gun laws in his Executive Orders. Nearly everything on that list is already supposed to be happening, but because the Democrat Congress half-assed the new laws after the Virginia Tech shootings, they aren't.
Get your facts in order before you start to blame.
DC vs Heller also concluded that the right to keep and bear arms is "not limitless." That's where the "regulated" part of the Second Amendment applies. Read Scalia's notes. Cherry pick much?
ReplyDelete