The slavering ammosexuals have been making some headlines lately, with their "open carry" protests and mindless claims that "Obama's going to take our guns!" (Despite, you know, the lack of a single gun-control measure to emerge from this administration since he came into office.)
Here's the thing: the NRA-fellators get sweaty and start spewing spittle if you point out that the Holy Second Amendment has an opening clause that's just getting ignored.
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.A simple grammatical test will tell you that the first half of that sentence defines why the second half exists. You have the right to own guns because the country needs a well-regulated militia.
(If you want context, the Founding Fathers didn't believe in a standing army - they knew that the fledgling country couldn't afford one, and they also believed that having an army around was how tyrants stayed in power. That's why Article 1 of the Constitution limits the army to a 2-year lifespan.
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years(Weirdly, no such restriction on funding the Navy - our Founding Fathers loved their boats: rum, sodomy and the lash - you know how it is.)
The NRA used to understand this, but that day is gone. The modern NRA is a lobbying group supporting, not the people, but the weapons manufacturers. The only right they support now is the unrestricted sale of firearms, but it wasn't always thus.
The first president of the NRA, back in 1871, was former Gen. Ambrose Burnside (he of the famous facial hair), and he acted as a symbol of the "civilian militia" concept. One of the first actions of the NRA was convincing New York State to build them a firing range to promote marksmanship. Through the decades, the NRA helped various state and federal legislatures write gun control legislation.
In 1938, NRA President Karl T. Frederick (lawyer and Olympic gold-medalist for marksmanship) spoke in support of gun control laws before Congress. "I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I seldom carry one. ... I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses."
Now, in the Sixties, there was this thing they called "the Civil Rights movement." Blacks were tired of getting lynched, attacked, and occasionally beaten by the police. They started patrolling the streets on the "black side of town," carrying rifles, as a means of "policing the police." As Malcolm X put it:
I must say this concerning the great controversy over rifles and shotguns. The only thing that I've ever said is that in areas where the government has proven itself either unwilling or unable to defend the lives and the property of Negroes, it’s time for Negroes to defend themselves.Then, in 1967, in California, the NRA assisted California Assemblyman Don Mulford in writing the "Mulford Act," which would prohibit carrying of loaded firearms in public. While it was being debated, the Black Panthers staged a protest, where they walked into the California State House, openly carrying guns.
Article number two of the constitutional amendments provides you and me the right to own a rifle or a shotgun. It is constitutionally legal to own a shotgun or a rifle. This doesn't mean you’re going to get a rifle and form battalions and go out looking for white folks, although you’d be within your rights — I mean, you’d be justified; but that would be illegal and we don’t do anything illegal.
In fact, Reagan, having been reminded that black people were allowed to carry guns too, explained to reporters "There's no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons."
So, apparently, that's what we need. In order to get some sort of reasonable gun control passed, we have to organize and arm brown people. Let's have black people wearing berets, walking the streets with semi-automatic weapons. Let's have armed Muslims outside of mosques, and keeping their neighborhoods safe.
Hell, let's have armed Sikh patrols, too! The beards and turbans already freak some people out.
We'd have the Second Amendment repealed within a month.
Sikhs are supposed to be armed at all times. It gets them into trouble with concealed weapons laws all the time.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you've heard the standard definition of a false syllogism. "All dogs have hair" does not mean you are a dog, does it? Beware the fallacy of the undistributed middle term. The law says what the laws says and arguments based on "what they really meant to say" smell as much of anarchy as anything the tea party is selling. Same goes for selected quotes from the idiot Reagan. In an urban setting, it may have merit, but most of this country is not urban and that's a huge understatement.
The second Amendment does not use the word only and therefore you cannot honestly conclude except by tendentious inference that it meant to ban gun ownership for any other reason. Besides, it firmly states the right shall not be infringed and says it without qualification. It was not written by illiterates or by people who wanted to make sure that 18th century Americans did not own firearms. I do not support ignoring the constitution because things have changed for a large part of America. There is a way to change the amendment that does not involve simply ignoring it.
I'm not sure what you're advocating here other than non-specific new gun control measures and that's usually the reason little gets done. More, More restrictive and tougher are nice words but they don't mean a thing. Precisely what would you advocate that hasn't already been done? I don't like or belong to or support the NRA either, but what does that have to do with what we should do to keep firearms out of the wrong hands -- or do you think any hands are inappropriate?
Ranting about the NRA is as far as most demands for "newer, tougher, more restrictive" ever goes and I'm sorry, but free citizens get to have opinions and unite to make their opinions known. They can't shut you up can they? I'm rather weary of such non-constructive, guilt by association, ad hominem straw man arguments and they harm any possibility of rational discussion about gun laws. I'm weary of being insulted and made guilty by an association that doesn't exist whether some neighbor thinks I'm an outlaw for having a motorcycle or a communist for being a Jew or a bigot for being a white man. I'm tired of hearing that we need laws we already have or that the existing law is not so restrictive and confusing and even dangerous that we simply need to add more and more without reason until it's impossible to own anything that goes bang.
Are you familiar with current federal and state laws? What laws would you enact? Specifically.
Excellently reasoned comment Captain. There is damn little, if anything that need to be added.
ReplyDeleteSorry, I have no sympathy for those that feel a need to carry assault rifles into public places. Apparently, they
ReplyDeletelike scaring folks, but they just piss me off. IMO, the NRA has permitted the common sense about weapons we
have had for a century (most western towns banned guns and sure as hell you couldn't take them into church
service) to go by the wayside. Thankfully, most gun enthusiasts are serious hobby people; it is past time the
real sportsmen and collectors speak up, rather than encouraging the clods and bullies who whine about their 'gun rights'. Little kids with guns killed more in the US than terrorists last year. Whoopy. Scalia as much
as stated that the introductory phrase in the 2nd Amendment is meaningless. Is that strict constructionist or what? If the introductory phrase is shrugged off, the operative phrase makes no sense. The NRA has spent
the last couple of dozen years lobbying hard and effectively to overturn any and all local and state regulations
and laws. The director of one gun group was overjoyed at the Bundy Ranch affair...as if the goons there were
a 'well regulated milita'. If a citizen wishes to lug a big high powered weapon around, let him join the military!
I did. I got over it.
What do you man by high powered? What is an assault rifle? Most murders are committed with hand guns of no particular distinction and as much as I like them, it makes more sense to talk about them as dangerous than about some huge $10,000 thing you couldn't sneak past a blind man. But I have no sympathy either. I consider open carry -- when it's not part of a hunting party or the like -- a deliberate threat. It's meant to be one, in some cases and a threat to law and order and Democracy as well. Every man his own Fort Sumter.
DeleteBut I agree, most hobbyists -- from Penn Jillette to my sainted mother are reasonable people and unworthy of having to wear a scarlet NRA on their clothes..
But what makes you think I'm on the side of the open carry paranoids or the NRA? Even where open carry is legal, it's rare in the extreme, but for these idiots trying to make some anarchistic, revolutionary point I have nothing but contempt and I certainly haven't supported or had a shred of sympathy for the NRA since they praised the bombing of the Murrah building.
Yes, indeed it's time for sane people to stand up and I'm trying to do that, but it isn't easy today with emotions on all sides being what they are. I find it sad that because the NRA has lost credibility there's so little in the way of safety training, but I would consider requiring a license that includes a safety and law course the way some places do with hunting licenses. Does that stretch the 2nd amendment? I don't know, but I could live with it. I can live with some possible restrictions on magazine sizes and the like, but when one is drunk and ignorant and lets a toddler have access to guns or a disturbed teenager -- when a psychiatrist or mental hospital fails to report some patient under treatment, all the laws in the world aren't going to help.
Yes, the NRA is largely responsible for the paranoia -- and I do mean paranoia -- but this country is so divided on almost every issue I see it as part of a larger whole and I see paranoia on all sides.
Sadly people see the NRA like some kindly old uncle or worse some bulwark against encroaching forced confiscation. There are no more local gun laws in Florida and your doctor or your psychiatrist can go to jail for asking you if you own guns. That's the NRA's doing, but I think it remains that Americans love hunting and shooting and like being able to own guns that we have to consider there's more to it than the NRA.
If there were an organization of gun owners and users that was a rational, pragmatic group devoted to safety I would join it, but all we have in opposition to the NRA are political groups that seem like ill-informed extremists and purveyors of paranoia -- which I'm saying mostly because I like alliteration - but still I mean it.
Oh, and as to amendment two and the militia thing, not only do I stand by my false syllogism statement, I have to add that If the intent was ONLY to enable militias, I suggest the 9th amendment would none the less say that this would not deny or disparage the right to own them for other reasons, which a great many colonists in fact did.
DeleteI find it quite impossible to gloss over the "shall not be infringed" statement., Of course it does not preclude infringing on what types of "arms" shall be allowed but I have to argue that anything needed for a militia would be safe.
So it's antiquated -- so is the $20 dollar jury trial thing - but the constitution can be changed and it's better to change it than ignore it or play jesuitical word games with it.
Don't get me wrong, Cap. I don't object to guns on their own. I object to gun nuts. Say, for example, these guys: http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-DB555_target_G_20140603151325.jpg
ReplyDeleteI don't see where there's a problem with reasonable gun laws. Permits for concealed carry. The Second Amendment was written by people who used single-shot muskets, and had no idea about the .50 Browning machine gun (or the .50 sniper rifle that spawned from it). I think that some modifications can be made - the NRA does not.
Here's the thing - if the 2nd Amendment must be allowed to stand, with no modifications, then I should be allowed to own nuclear weapons. The law does not prohibit them, and it doesn't say "firearms" - it says "arms." Because nukes are already unavailable (as any reasonable person agrees that that they should be), then the Amendment has already been modified.
Let me counter your question with one of my own. Do you believe that there should be no limits of any kind on the ownership and sale of weapons?
Of course I don't think there should be no limits, but in fact there are limits which have been in place for generations and that's a good thing. The law restricts "destructive weapons" of all sorts like rocket launchers, cannons, grenades and of course automatic weapons. It seems these .50 caliber weapons are another shibboleth of late. Yes, they exist but they are very rare, very expensive and very useless.I have never seen one or known anyone who owns one or even seen one offered for sale. I am probably not strong enough to shoot one from a standing position and they usually require a bipod. While it's arguable whether they should be legal or not, they are not now not have they ever been a measurable source of danger to the public.Yes, it's theoretically posible to shoot down an airplane, that frequent point smells of hyperbole and of course you can shoot down an airplane with a 50-70 caliber Sharps rifle from the 19th century.
DeleteSo what I do object to is the strong focus on conjectural scenarios about what might happen but isn't happening and the argument I always get when suggesting that we identify real dangers and go after them -- that we look at what doesn't or hasn't worked and at what has worked.
Background checks work but the flaw is that they are not well carried out when health care people refuse to inform law enforcement and of course in Florida they are not allowed to ask the guy who says "I want to kill" whether he has a gun.
A while back I set out to read about gun laws and truth be told I no longer feel comfortable with the idea of carrying one because it's so easy to run afoul of the law even with the best of intentions. If a guy comes at me in a threatening manner, I can't tell him to stop because I have a gun, much less pull it on him without the possibility of felony charges. Fire into the ground to warn him off and face 20 years in federal prison. If I have to wait for someone to pull a gun on me, it's too late.
The gun laws are not intuitive or logical in some cases and that's the result, I think, of too much emotional reasoning. I've begun to sell the ones I've owned for 40 years and never used and I get almost as much fun with a BB gun - honestly.