Whitewashing the Second Amendment
Washington Dispatch: As the Supreme Court reviews a historic gun-rights case, lost is the Second Amendment's controversial history—when it wasn't a bulwark against tyranny but a way of enforcing it.
March 20, 2008
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Racial politics dominated the talk in Washington this week as Barack Obama called on Americans to stop ignoring the country's racist past and move forward. The message, apparently, didn't reach the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices were busy ignoring race during a hearing on the biggest case of the year. On Tuesday, at the same time Obama gave his big speech, the court heard oral arguments in D.C. v. Heller, a case challenging the District of Columbia's 30-year-old law banning handgun ownership. The case marks the first time the Supreme Court has reviewed the Second Amendment in 70 years, and its interpretation could have far-reaching implications for state gun laws. Heller is mostly about gun ownership, but it is also about race—not that you would know that based on the oral arguments.
First, by way of background: The key issue in Heller is whether the Constitution guarantees an individual, as opposed to a collective, right to bear arms within the context of a well-organized militia. The plaintiff, Dick Anthony Heller, is an armed security guard who, with the help of some rich libertarians, brought the lawsuit against the District, arguing that the city's handgun ban illegally prevented him from keeping his work weapon at home. Last year, in a 2-to-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed and ruled that the city's gun-control law was an unconstitutional infringement on an individual's right to bear arms. Fearing a flood of new firearms into the city as a result, the District appealed to the Supreme Court.
Dozens of interest groups, from the Pink Pistols to Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, have filed amicus briefs, offering their take on the Second Amendment. But during oral arguments, Justice Anthony Kennedy and his conservative brethren seemed to fully embrace the gun lobby's favorite romantic myth that the founders, inspired by the image of the musket in the hands of a minuteman, wrote the Second Amendment to give Americans the right to take up arms to fight government tyranny. But what the founders really had in mind, according to some constitutional-law scholars, was the musket in the hands of a slave owner. That is, these scholars believe the founders enshrined the right to bear arms in the Constitution in part to enforce tyranny, not fight it.
Last week at an American Constitution Society briefing on the Heller case, NAACP Legal Defense Fund president John Payton explained the ugly history behind the gun lobby's favorite amendment. "That the Second Amendment was the last bulwark against the tyranny of the federal government is false," he said. Instead, the "well-regulated militias" cited in the Constitution almost certainly referred to state militias that were used to suppress slave insurrections. Payton explained that the founders added the Second Amendment in part to reassure southern states, such as Virginia, that the federal government wouldn’t use its new power to disarm state militias as a backdoor way of abolishing slavery.
This is pretty well-documented history, thanks to the work of Roger Williams School of Law professor Carl T. Bogus. In a 1998 law-review article based on a close analysis of James Madison’s original writings, Bogus explained the South’s obsession with militias during the ratification fights over the Constitution. “The militia remained the principal means of protecting the social order and preserving white control over an enormous black population,” Bogus writes. “Anything that might weaken this system presented the gravest of threats.” He goes on to document how anti-Federalists Patrick Henry and George Mason used the fear of slave rebellions as a way of drumming up opposition to the Constitution and how Madison eventually deployed the promise of the Second Amendment to placate Virginians and win their support for ratification.
None of this figured into Tuesday's arguments at the Supreme Court. Instead, a majority of the justices, especially Kennedy, seemed to buy the story that the founders were inordinately concerned with the ability of early settlers to use guns to fend off wild animals and Indians, not rebellious slaves. (Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick counts pivotal swing-voter Kennedy making no fewer than four mentions of a mythical "remote settler," who Kennedy suggested would have needed a gun to "defend himself and his family against hostile Indian tribes and outlaws, wolves and bears, and grizzlies.")
Just as the court largely ignored the racist past of the Second Amendment, its focus on self-defense also glossed over the more obvious racial implications of the decision it was reviewing. The plaintiff, Heller, is a white man who lives in a 60 percent black city whose democratically elected leaders long ago decided that handguns were doing more harm than good to its citizenry. Indeed, while two of the original five plaintiffs in the Heller case are black women, not a whole lot of African Americans in the District appear to be out there clamoring to own more handguns for self-defense.
In an interview, Bogus says that polls consistently show that African Americans support gun control in much higher numbers than white people do, and probably for good reason: They're usually the ones looking at the wrong end of the barrel. As the NAACP points out in its brief on Heller, in D.C. in 2004, there were 137 gun-homicide victims. All but two of them were black. If the Supreme Court invalidates the city’s handgun ban, any ensuing uptick in gun violence is likely to have a disproportionate impact on African Americans, particularly young men.
Of course, it won’t only be young black men who suffer should the court decide that D.C. residents need more handguns. In fact, someone ought to remind Justice Kennedy about what happens when the wrong people get guns—namely the average, law-abiding D.C. residents who would supposedly benefit from the new gun ownership rights. With all his concern with grizzly bears, Kennedy has clearly forgotten about Carl Rowan Sr.
Back in 1988, the African American syndicated columnist shot an unarmed, 18-year-old white kid from Chevy Chase who'd gone for an unauthorized dip in Rowan's swimming pool. Rowan, who shot the kid in the wrist as he tried to flee, claimed he'd feared for his life and was only defending himself. Nonetheless, the columnist was prosecuted for illegally possessing a handgun. The trial ended with a hung jury and Rowan escaped punishment (though the teenagers were sentenced to community service), but the incident fueled a tremendous amount of racial tension in the city that might have been avoided if Rowan had just, say, called the cops.
Gun-wielding journalists who can’t shoot straight may not be the bulwark against tyranny libertarians had in mind. Yet they’re just one of the many scary scenarios the District faces should the court rely on language inspired by slavery and the libertarians’ whitewashed version of American history to restrict the ability of a majority black city to protect its citizens from gun violence.
(Photo of crime scene tape in front of the Supreme Court by flickr user takomabibelot used under a Creative Commons license.)
Stephanie Mencimer is a reporter in Mother Jones' Washington, D.C., bureau and the author of Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the Republican Party and Its Corporate Allies Are Taking Away Your Right to Sue (Free Press, 2006).
Motivations behind the contruction and implementation aside, the 2nd amendment clearly guarantees an individual the right to keep and bear arms. Presently, the most common reson for this is for self-defense.
For all your talk of 'white-washing' you seem to wash over the multiple motivations for the writing of the 2nd amendment. Were slave rebellions a cause for concern in the South? Certainly. But we had also just fought a very long, very hard war with a brutally opressive (effectively) foreign government and one of the major reasons we suceeded in expelling them was because of INDIVIDUALS bearing arms collectively defending the colonies.
The Framers were not short-sighted men. Perhaps their wording is considered awkward by today's standards, but keep in mind there has been 232 years of lingual evolution to get in the way. More importantly they emphatically, again and again in EVERY OTHER AMENDMENT very clearly specified an Individual's right to, say, free speech, not a collective. Doesn't make sense for all the other Amendments in the Bill of Rights to apply to individuals except for the 2nd, does it?
Finally, in regards to the 'flood' of guns you're concerned about coming into DC? Guess what? They're already there. As of 2004 D.C. had the 13th highest murder rate in the nation, and in the past has consistently held a similar position. All this despite a handgun ban.
Guess who the District of Columbia is penalizing with its gun ban? Law-abiding citizens, that's who.
ONLY CRIMINALS BREAK GUN LAWS.
It should seem obvious, but the overwhelming majority of gun crimes in D.C. and across the country are comitted with guns that were illegally purchased! Who'd have thunk it?
Get a grip on reality. Gun bans only make criminals more powerful and infringe upon Constitutional right every other state recognizes (yes, I know D.C. is not a state, but you get the point).
There are many black organizations that wrote legal briefs in support of the 2nd Amendment. I would like to see the poll where "many blacks" support gun control.
Use some common sense and critical thinking skill. I know that some liberals still have it.
As far as this, protecting the black majority, thing goes for D.C., it sounds to me more like the black residents need the goverment to keep them under control. If the black people make-up 60% of the population of the city, and they are concerned about the sharp increase in violence with more guns, it sounds like they are the problem. You need only look at the number of murder victims in the city, but THEN look at the murderers. Yes, by far, most of the murder victims are black, but SO ARE THOSE DOING THE MURDERING!!!! The problem in D.C. is not the weapons available, although I think ALL citizens should have the right to bear arms, it is societal! The black community needs to start standing up against their own. They need to stop blaming whites or hispanics or whatever the flavor of the month is for their problems. Most black problems are created by blacks, and everyone else in the country needs to STOP paying for them!!!
Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. 1981).
"...a government and its agencies are under no general duty to provide public services, such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..." -Warren v. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App. 1981)
Permitting "Cities with a high incidence of violence" or "urban overcrowding" to prohibit firearms is just modern code for the same racist claptrap. Everybody knows who lives in THESE cities. Blaming firearms for the results of the War on Drugs and economic conditions in the inner city distracts from their solution. Which is likely the point.
Unfortunately, some of it comes from black leaders, who seem to have a very poor opinion of those they "lead" and are either themselves armed, or have armed guards around.
Not to mention the "White man's burden" inplication that everyone should give up their second amendment rights just because a few minority males might misuse them. Talk about one more thing to drive a wedge between the racies.
Question to the author: How many civilians who possessed concealed carry licenses have been arrested for weapons charges?
Question to the author: You quoted the highly inflammatory Carl T. Bogus. How many slave uprisings occurred before the bill of rights was written compared to after?
Question to the author: Wasn’t the fourteenth amendment created, in part, to protect the rights of freed slaves from southern state that were systematically disarming them?
Question to the author: Wasn't our Bill of Rights basically a re-write of the English Bill of Rights of 1689 sans the ideas of royalty and division by religion. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 gave Englishmen the freedom to have arms for their defense.
I would be interested to hear your comments.
Look, you can take care of the widows, orphans and poor folks or you can try to take firearms away from people who are not inclined to misuse them anyway. But politically you cannot do both. Any polical faction that is too dumb to understand this is too damn dumb to run this country anyway.
At the time, the country had about 500K free males of miltary ages. So it is also clear whom Madison believed the militia to be.
Historically speaking, the better armed the population is, the safer the population is. Take, for example, Great Britain. Before the enactment of that foolish ban (by itself a good enough reason to depose a government, in my opinion), before they relied exclusively on a professional police force (who, it is important to note, are not responsible for protecing you, after all, they aren't your personal bodyguard, and they are above reproach, even if their negligence causes you to be even more greivously injured), their crime rates were low. After the Ban, only criminals had guns, and their gun related crime increased by about 40%. So now, in America, while about one in five homes is armed (and about 9% of burglaries happen while the house is occupied), in Great Britain, no homes are armed (and about 67% of burglaries happen while the house is occupied). And you are safer in America. If you don't like guns, fine, don't buy them. But don't kid yourself by thinking you can stop Criminals from having Guns, and don't try legislate away my right to keep and bear arms. A right which is recognized to predate the constitution and the United States of America.
In point of fact, since you mention Racism as it pertains to the 2nd Amendment, did you know the earliest laws against carrying concealed weapons were aimed at freed slaves? And later, they simply removed race from the letter of the law, but it was simply understood that those laws would not be enforced against white people?
Just curious.
But gun ownership is all a plot by whitey! Some people are just beyond all help...
I should note at the outset that Carl Rowan was a notoriously noisy black, ANTI-GUN journalist who had advocated that anyone except police caught with a gun should go to jail.
Beyond that, the most clearly documented purpose for the Second Amendment was to permit the citizens to defend their free state - against invaders and against tyrants. Having just fought a war with the world's greatest superpower, the absolute necessity of an armed populace and the extreme danger of a standing army (which might be turned on the People) was foremost in their thinking.
The rest of the article is racist swill.
The year was 1957. Monroe, North Carolina, was a rigidly segregated town where all levels of white society and government were dedicated to preserving the racial status quo. Blacks who dared to speak out were subject to brutal, sadistic violence.
It was common practice for convoys of Ku Klux Klan members to drive through black neighborhoods shooting in all directions. A black physician who owned a nice brick house on a main road was a frequent target of racist anger. In the summer of 1957, a Klan motorcade sent to attack the house was met by a disciplined volley of rifle fire from a group of black veterans and NRA members led by civil rights activist Robert F. Williams.
Using military-surplus rifles from behind sandbag fortifications, the small band of freedom fighters drove off the larger force of Klansmen with no casualties reported on either side.
Williams, a former Marine who volunteered to lead the Monroe chapter of the NAACP and founded a 60-member, NRA-chartered rifle club, described the battle in his 1962 book, "Negroes With Guns," which was reprinted in 1998 by Wayne State University Press.
According to Williams, the Monroe group owed its survival in the face of vicious violence to the fact that they were armed. In several cases, police officials who normally ignored or encouraged Klan violence took steps to prevent whites from attacking armed blacks. In other cases, fanatical racists suddenly turned into cowards when they realized their intended victims were armed.
Oddly, it appears that the organized armed blacks of Monroe never shot any of their tormentors. The simple existence of guns in the hands of men who were willing to use them prevented greater violence.
It is important to note that the guns were not used offensively. They were part of an overall strategy that relied primarily on peaceful protest like picketing or entering whites-only establishments. Williams demonstrated that the dignified and responsible use of firearms for self-defense was an important method to achieve justice for those denied fair treatment by all institutions of government.
The civil rights movement was deeply divided between those who espoused a pacifist, non-violent approach and those who believed that human beings had a right and a duty to use force in self-defense. Williams was the most influential leader of the self-defense wing of the movement.
His effort to provide guns and training to African-American civil rights supporters was alarming to white politicians. Most state gun control laws, not just in the South, were blatantly designed to keep guns out of the hands of blacks and other minorities. Those with racist beliefs were not pleased when blacks claimed the right to keep and bear arms that is guaranteed to all Americans.
The connection with the NRA might surprise some people who portray the organization as a haven for racist rednecks. Former NRA Executive Director Tanya Metaksa spoke with Williams before his death. She recalls, "He was very proud of being an NRA member and that the NRA sanctioned his club without question."
The civil rights organizations of today bear little resemblance to the deadly serious armed activists of Monroe. African-American leaders generally support the liberal white line that guns are evil and have no place in modern society. On the other hand, small numbers of responsible black gun owners continue to honor their heritage by practicing their marksmanship and joining gun rights organizations. The tradition of the black gun club still lives on in the Tenth Cavalry Gun club, led by Ken Blanchard in Prince Georges County, Maryland.
While researching this column, I contacted Don Kates, a civil rights attorney who went to North Carolina in 1963 to participate in the movement. I asked if he ever carried a gun during those days and he responded with a list of a half-dozen that were always within reach. Kates also suggested that I read a letter written by an old friend of his from those days, John R. Salter, Jr., who is now Professor Emeritus at the University of North Dakota. Here are two brief quotes:
"In the early 1960's, I taught at Tougaloo College, a black school in Jackson, Mississippi. I was a member of the statewide board of the NAACP and was Chairman of the Jackson Movement. No one knows what kind of massive racist retaliation would have been directed at grass-roots black people had the black community not had a healthy measure of firearms within it."
"During most of the 1960's I did civil rights work in various parts of the South and almost always had with me a .38 special Smith and Wesson 2-inch-barrel revolver - what you would now erroneously call a "Saturday Night Special."
In 1962 the Monroe freedom fighters were overwhelmed by a huge mob that converged on the town. The Justice Department and the state police ignored calls for help. The rabid racists were aided by law enforcement who branded Williams a communist and a dangerous schizophrenic.
Rob Williams eluded an FBI manhunt and fled to Cuba, which he erroneously believed to be totally free of racism. Within five years he realized that Cuba was not as he had imagined and moved on to China. There he was treated as a celebrity and returned to the United States in 1969 with the quiet blessing of Richard Nixon.
Williams worked as a China scholar at the University of Michigan and reportedly advised Henry Kissinger
Why am I not surprised that this originates from Than Franthisco
It's all a moot point anyway, of course. Inalienable rights, such as my right to defend myself, do not come from the Constitution. The Constitution is simply one tool which purports to establish an entity that will help protect my rights. But ultimate responsibility for defense of my inalienable rights lies with me, period.
Luckily a lot of other people feel that way, and if the gun grabbers start coming to try and take our firearms, we will employ those firearms for the exact purpose for which they were intended.
You missed one of the most stunning racial aspects of the entire gun-control debate, the same aspect those black Americans who support gun control miss. Most of the Gun Control laws in effect today can trace their origins back to Jim Crow laws. These laws were enacted originally to stop free black Americans from owning guns. So today, black Americans are basically supporting the same laws the KKK supported years ago. Shame Shame.
While the majority of gun owners in America are white, it is more of a cultural and urban/suburban difference as opposed to one based on race. Law-abiding black Americans need to become very pro-gun and realize the rights we are fighting for are theirs as well as ours. They have every right to protect themselves and their families from the evil in this world, and more need in the inner city.
Carl Rowan was charged under the very law HELLER seeks to overturn, a law which has increased the crime rate in DC dramtically. If you support Rowan, you should support Heller.
No government deprives its citizens of rights without asserting that its actions are "reasonable" and "necessary" for high-sounding reasons such as "public safety." A right that can be regulated is no right at all, only a temporary privilege dependent upon the good will of the very government officials that such right is designed to constrain.
Now that we no longer have slavery, defense of liberty is the only remaining motivation for the right to keep and bear arms. The ability of citizens to kill criminals allows them to defend their right to privacy in the home, their right to control their own bodies, right to travel freel, and the freedom from unwarranted searches and seizures -- from infringement at the hands of burglars, muggers, carjackers, rapists and gay-bashers.
It is true that many of the early Americans did not believe that black people had the intelligence and emotional maturity to handle the responsibilities of citizenship. For example, in the Dred Scot case a Supreme Court justices writing for the majority warned that they dared not recognize the citizenship of free blacks lest they have the right to travel wherever they pleased and be armed wherever they went. It is distressing to me to hear contemporary black gun control advocates essentially admit that the early racists were right.
And the original author behind this silly hypothesis has the name to back it up - Bogus.
And it is just one more example of how the supposed "liberals" are really closet fascists - what better way to force their desire for a socialist utopia on the rest of us than to disarm us. The "gun-free" utopia of DC is the end result - where honest citizens live in fear of the criminal and the gov't. Statists like Ms. Mencimer have no use for the law-abiding.
But talk about revisionist history. It was the US gov't in Cruishank that tried to protect blacks rights to assemble and own firearms in the South after the civil war. The SC ruled against that setting the stage for Jim Crow laws. Both she and Bogus ignore that.
Both she and Bogus hate the idea of an individual right to arms - therefor they will both lie to try to destroy it.
We are citizens, with inalienable rights, not subjects to be ruled. This right, as enumerated, is not granted by any local, state or federal authority. It is a recognized right, endowed by our creator, upon every freeborn citizen in this country. The right to keep and bear arms isn’t so that the citizens can hunt or target shoot. It is recognized so that they may protect this country, their state, their community, their families and themselves against those that may wish to do them harm, be it a foreign enemy, their own federal, state or local government…or some brutal thug.
The only rights you really have are those you can defend. There is ample history predating the US and 2A about the human right of effective self-defense, and that no other right is secure without it. You can cherry pick one side of it, as above, but you are missing the operative point that disarming the law-abiding does not reduce crime in any way, whereas two decades of experience with "shall issue" concealed carry laws proves to reduce crime of all stripes. Too bad you are blinded ideology and hate those who disagree with you. No wonder you want to disarm them.
Maybe the 2nd amendment does have a racist past - like it or not, the law was racist back then, and the militias were upholding it. That doesn't make the concept of upholding law wrong. Armed citizens are in a position to uphold the law than disarmed citizens are.
A more interesting case for the court would be one brought on behalf of a person murdered in their own home. One that holds the DC government to account, since if they chose to ban self defense, then they must take absolute responsibility to protect those they have made defenseless.
Gun control was initially implemented and supported by racists to disarm blacks so they would continue to be victims of KKK and others.
It looks like there are still racists out there supporting gun control against law abiding citizens. They never seem to be interested in enhancing penalties for criminal use of guns, but prefer to make it easier for them to prey on their disarmed victims.
"Gun-wielding journalists who can’t shoot straight may not be the bulwark against tyranny libertarians had in mind. Yet they’re just one of the many scary scenarios.."
For every one story you can find of someone using guns in a stupid way, I bet you could find at least two stories of how someone could've protected themselves with one, but wasn't able to thanks to the gun ban. Your attitude seems to be that citizens can't be trusted to use their rights responsibly, so they shouldn't have them at all. With this mindset, you're a prime candidate to be dictator of a communist society. Hope you have fun with that, but it's not going to happen in the U.S., you should realize, so stop trying (and failing) to sway opinion this way to reach that goal.
But it made a good point.
Part of the 'dicta' of Dred Scott mentioned that if Blacks were truly Equal, they could keep and bear arms.
The NYC Sullivan Act (1912) disarmed my Italian Catholic ancestors.
Just because the guy on the corner claims to have some "really good sh*t" does not mean you should toss it in your bong. Perhaps you might remember that after you come down.
1. It says citizens have the right to “keep AND bear” arms. The “and” connector is officially interpreted by the U.S. Supra to mean BOTH events simultaneously, as in “cruel AND unusual punishment”. For any punishment to be deemed banned, it must be BOTH cruel and unusual. “Cruel” punishment (alone) is perfectly legal and so is “unusual” punishment. So the U.S. Supreme Court would have to create a double (opposite) standard (entirely probable) to rule both concepts disparately. If they use the same standard, namely, “and” means the same thing in both usages, that would mean that the only constitutionally protected possession of guns would be to those who “bear” them or, simply put, wear them, a.k.a. police.
2. “Within a well organized militia”. This is even a stronger and clearer provision then item (1) above. And, according to the above reasoning, both mean the same thing, namely, “police” or, (at a minimum) “auxiliary police”.
We think our Supreme judges are so wise and well educated but in reality, they are merely lawyers--who started raising money for politicians at an early age. In the case of former Chief Judge William Rehnquist, his claim to fame was that as a lower court judge, he ruled that tabloid newspapers were liable for slandering Hollywood celebrities, while Ronald Reagan (former S.A.G. president) was Governor of California.
Most of the constitution was written in simple language for simple people to understand. These Supreme Justices are more like Roman Senators then Jurist scholars. Their mistakes have caused immeasurable suffering in our society—far beyond the average person’s comprehension.
not one case of getting rid of guns has caused gun related crimes to decline and stay there.
yet there are countless examples of how guns detur crime by giving the vicitims a means of defending themselfs.
i can't believe i just read an artical calling 2nd amendment supporters racists.
this article and anyone associated with it need to take a flying leap into the business end of a running wood chipper.
"comon Sence rights of Man"
The beauty of plain-language statutes is that ancellary references are not necessary. In spite of shrilling arugments to the contrary, the only material language is that which was duly radified.
Except that the Supreme Court ruled that the amendment protects the militias AND the individual. It would help if you actually read the full ruling.
It never ceases to amaze me how willing people are to toss away Constitutional amendments.
The homocide rate has everything to do with everything else BUT gun ownership. There are countries with gun bans that have much higher homocide rates, but why look at data and facts and just call for a ban on amendments. Who needs the bill of rights anyway?
These days I would not even want to go for a hike in the woods unarmed, take note of Blood Mountain. There are bad people out there in the country and the cities, a fellow named Charlie Manson comes to mind. Hmmm, call the police? Maybe the persons lying in unmarked graves around Charlie's stomping ground should have had cell phones. The point is, if murderers, rapists, etc. are caught at all it is only after they produce a victim. The odds are of course that nearly everyone will live their entire lives with no problems. But the anti-gun folks would possibly have a different perspective if a tradegy of this sort struck them or their loved ones.
It is astounding to me that these unconstitutional laws will be knocked down at a time when slaughter on college campuse seems to be in such vogue with our troubled youth today. Perhaps someone in the classroom should have called the police. Or maybe classrooms should be required to have more than one exit. Or perhaps students should be taught, since these events are becoming commonplace, that in many situations the shortest path out of the line of fire is directly at the shooter. All of these college massacres could have been limited to a few casualites, if there had been better training for students. Or pehaps schools will understand someday, that they must endure the EXPENSE of providing security in classrooms, be it armed guards or locks and electronics. Or perhaps someone can make all the world's firearms disappear. Then they would only have to deal with things like broadswords and bombs. Perhaps someone can eliminate fertilizer and oil, perhaps someone can eliminate detergent and gasoline. Perhaps screening at an early age will prevent these misfits from entering society...perhaps..
I feel these restrictions and precautions would drastically limit both gun violence and gun accidents, while not infringing upon law-abiding citizens right to bear arms under our Second Amendment Right. Personally, I feel a LOT safer knowing a have a shotgun in my house, because, as many have pointed out, we are responsible for our own safety...so, you better knock:)
Criminals are largely the result of poor upbringing. I don't meant non-affluent, i mean the parents aren't doing the greatest job.
Unfortunately, in many black communities, you have the "baby's daddy" scenario, whereby a single mother irks by, raising her child on her own, surrounded by other mothers raising their children alone. Now you have hordes of unsupervised children running the streets and eventually getting into drugs and crime. I have seen this plenty in Albany, NY. Seven to Ten of them, all too young to be out wandering the streets. How long until some mischeif strikes? How long until that escalates? How long until someone gets the bad idea to make it lucrative?
The victims of those crimes are going to be the people closest at hand - those people in those communities.
I truly don't recommend clamping down on any of our freedoms, because there are people making mistakes with their child rearing.
I think instead, we should put more money into education, after school programs, perhaps find some sort of way to subsidize good, quality day care so these children can be in a warm and positive environment. "Staying off the streets" is a term you hear over and over when talking about afterschool programs - and there is a really good reason for that.
Certainly there will always be those bad apples, who had all the opportunities and still grew into a homicidal maniac. For those bad seeds, I want to be able to keep my gun ready and loaded. Perhaps if everyone else followed suit, that bad seed might be able to indulge in a more victimless crime - or get taken out of the gene pool altogether with a .45 caliber slug.
Go to www.dictionary.com and read the real definition of the labels that get tossed around. Start with the three I see misused used the most. Conservative, Liberal and Fascist you will be surprised. I suggest you read the entire page for all three. I found it very interesting and enlightening.
Posted by: Resist Tyranny: “… The nice thing is that when the hammer falls, all of these liberals will give us a target rich environment.”
A tyrant uses violence and intimidation to get what they want instead of using fact, analysis, compromise and consensus.
For this person it is a nice thing to consider mass murder. Wow! This comment demonstrates that they should not be allowed to own a gun because of their declared willingness to commit mass murder.
It is people like this that give responsible gun owners like my self a bad reputation.
As a member of the US Military it was my honor to protect and defend all of our constitutional rights. Not just the rights of individuals I happen to agree with. As a US civilian I will continue to protect all of our constitutional rights.
By the way I’m an American Democrat and I’m damn proud of it!
The reactionaries do not know what they are doing or for what they are setting USA up. If the right to possess almost any type of weapon happens as federal, state, and local gun laws are struck down, one after the other, the Left will start to understand the need also to arm as the Right already has done.
We may expect chaos.
This is an utterly ridiculous piece of race-bating, politically correct leftist bilge, and I feel like I lost IQ points for having read it. I shall now vomit.
I could go on, but you get the idea.
D.C is full of black people, at least we can jail the ones that have guns now.
If the Supreme Court upholds the ruling, they will let the blacks have guns.
Blacks have proven themselves incapable of responsible gun ownership.
Gun laws were meant to keep guns out of the hands of blacks.
Look at NYC, Donald Trump has a carry permit but no blacks do.
Thank you for helping to insure that blacks do not get to have guns like us white people do.
I'll tell you how soon: as soon as the Second Amendment will be declared "obsolete" and American people will be disarmed.
An North Carolina 1840 statute provided:
That if any free negro, mulatto, or free person of color, shall wear or carry about his or her person, or keep in his or her house, any shot gun, musket, rifle, pistol, sword, dagger or bowie-knife, unless he or she shall have obtained a licence therefor from the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions of his or her county, within one year preceding the wearing, keeping or carrying therefor, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be indicted therefore"
Just a quick update the reason the U.S. came to being is because groups of people who personally were armed decided they would no longer stand by while being oppressed by their government. These people banded together along with others of like mind and formed our country. They created a militia that was not associated in anyway to the ruling government. The constant overlooking of this and the clear intentions of the bill of rights is constantly ignored by anti-gun people. The bill of rights was to put to paper to call out our natural rights to ensure that the government did not move to tyranny and if it did so that the free people enforce this.
See http://tinyurl.com/2nt4sh/?p=1012
Being pro-gun is fundamentally an egalitarian, feminist, democratic, and progressive value.
The distinction is enormous. If local governments have no such right, people can walk crowded streets and drive while heavily armed. The issue is more striking in DC, the Capital. If firearms were be allowed on the streets, people with firearms could gather near the Capital or the White House. In the event of public demonstrations, hundreds of thousands of people with handguns could gather, so long as they stood just off federal property.
Moreover, the framers had in mind the ownership of muzzle-loading weapons that took several seconds to load and fire, and could only fire one round at a time. They were also thinking of a largely rural country. They had no way of foreseeing the development of guns that would deliver six or more rounds in a few seconds. They had no conception of metropolitan areas with millions of people crowded closely together.
For any right, there are restrictions. We have a right to move freely about, but only so long as we’re not on someone else’s property. The right of DC to restrict gun ownership is a similarly logical and reasonable limitation.
We need to go back to the original intent of gun control, originally gun laws only prohibited slaves, redskins and free blacks from owning guns.
The Jews are behind modern gun control.
This is all great news for true white people, we are all armed. Soon the Jews, blacks and the brown races will perish.
The fearless leader Adolph forbid "the subjected people" from owning guns.
I am so glad modern socialist follow us national German worker party members.
MJ deserves a hearty Sieg Heil for their work for the master race.
True socialist will never allow the blacks to own guns, they themselves admit that they can not be trusted with a gun.
Yet you and Bogus throw out the race card in an apparent attempt to assert a non sequitur... that we should thereby ignore the 2nd. Sorry, the law does not work that way. Even assuming arguendo that Bogus is 100% correct, the proper response would be to amend the Constitution to eliminate the 2nd, not to denigrate it and ignore its provisions..
Famed constitutional lawyer and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz is a former ACLU national board member who admits he "hates" guns and wants the Second Amendment repealed. Yet, says Dershowitz: "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger in the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."
So should the courts have the power to ignore the constitution if it is popular to do so? Seems to me that such a standard would eliminate attempts at racial integration and the protection of fundamental civil rights.
"It says citizens have the right to “keep AND bear” arms. The “and” connector is officially interpreted by the U.S. Supra to mean BOTH events simultaneously, as in “cruel AND unusual punishment”. "
Yet we also have a provision prohibiting "unreasonable searches and seizures". Based upon your logic, the 4th does not protect one from unreasonable searches which are not accompanied by an unreasonable seizure. That is clearly not the case.
The original wording of the 2nd, together with the debates in congress concerning same, clearly indicate that we are dealing with two seperate and distinct rights, to wit: the right to keep arms and the right to bear arms. That is inescpable and irrefutable.
What a pile of racist crap! Have you ever heard of the Second Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1866. Read it, you might get a clue.
Mark
For those who would like to verify for themselves exactly how knowledgeable Prof. Bogus is on the Second Amendment's history, here is a great opportunity. Carl T. Bogus is the counsel for the fifteen professional history/legal academics who filed an amicus brief supporting Washington DC's handgun ban in the Heller case. You can read Bogus' amicus brief and then compare it to my History News Network article pointing out numerous obvious historical errors and oversights within it.
The HNN article URL is: http://hnn.us/articles/47238.html
After you read the brief and HNN article, ask yourself why it takes a Park Ranger from Michigan to correct historical information from a total of 16 academics.
James Madison : Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.
Thomas Jefferson: "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
Thomas Jefferson: "On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invent against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." ( June 12, 1823)
"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments, the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from the acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents."
Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1788-10-17)
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
"A people armed and free forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression."
"Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of (the States) being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."
Samuel Adams of Massachusetts: "The said Constitution [shall] be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms." (U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788)
Patrick Henry : The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun. (3 Elliot, Debates at 386.)
Thomas Jefferson: "The Constitution of most of our states and of the United States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and DUTY to be at all times armed." (my emphasis)
John Adams: "Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense." (A defense of the Constitution of the US)
" Sec. 14. And be it furhter enacted, That in every State or district where the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion . . . the acquisition, enjoyment, and disposition of estate, real and personal, including the constitutional right to bear arms, shall be secured to and enjoyed by all the citizens of such State or district without respect to race or color, or previous condition of slavery."
Do you actually believe that the Second Amendment is meant to protect the government's ability to keep organized gunmen? If so, what is it doing in a document called the "Bill of Rights"?
2nd, this whole waste of time and effort is merely bureaucratic masturbation to sway political power. Instead of holding a circle jerk costing the tax payers millions on a decision that will truly have no impact on the common good citizen of DC, why don’t we spend the money on raising the education level?
The second amendment represents a liberalization of the founding documents on the subject, towards individual ownership. I know this because I have read the Articles of Confederation. The web is full of law libraries, I got the Articles of Confederation from a link at the Emory University online law library. Any law library should be able to turn up a copy or link to a copy
And by whitewashing, you might mean the long history of gun control aimed at stripping black people of their weapons.
It simply says "the people".
slavery? Didn't TJefferson clearly
mention "that all men are created
equal" But if we must throw the S-
word arround, isn't having to cough-
up income tax in order to cover
interest payments due to foreign
powers a form of slavery?
Gun-control laws have the same effect as "no guns allowed signs". Virginia Tech and the Omaha Mall shooting showed conclusively that the only thing gun-restrictions create are criminal protection zones.
Just more blog drones that infest the Internet these days by taking advantage of an opportunity to spout their bias.
If you're going to report on the second amendement then at the very least do a minimum of research to understand it, then apply some critical thinking on how your bias falls weaves into it.
This lady is a poor excuse of a writer no matter what your opinion is on the particular subject.
What's next, an illegal immigrant reporting on illegal immigration to US or have you already covered it?
Pathetic