I hate to overuse this, but it works to set up this post...I recently tweeted this about the 2nd Amendment.
If you've noticed, Republicans are always protecting their supposed constitutional right to buy or not buy things, like big gulps, pigtail light bulbs, bump stocks, contraceptives, wedding cakes...etc.
All's well, Paul Ryan Defends doing nothing, and Buying Assault Weapons: It would be easy to called Ryan a soulless ghoul...okay, I'm going to reign it in a little. But really, how can anyone act like he does, so cold, calculating, unemotional...so untethered to real world suffering? Maybe he's proving that someone can act out and become that greedy fictional character in an Ayn Rand novel? Note to Ryan: There are now an additional 17 people who's rights have been denied, forever:
Ryan: "We shouldn't be banning guns from law abiding citizens....so what we want to do is protect peoples rights while making sure people who should not get guns do not get guns."
How has that worked so far?
The Real Second Amendment Argument Ryan avoids...: I was fascinated by MSNBC's legal chief Ari Melber's piece on the Second Amendment that clearly exposes the vacuousness and mindlessness of just spewing out that old line, "we're protecting our Second Amendment right to bear arms." Melber has never been one to step out on a limb with a controversial opinion, so this means something. A must see:
While raving gun hobbyists push their "rights" on everyone else, their old argument that guns would make America safer has proven to be false. Even more frightening, the freedom to carry a gun is now canceling out the freedom to not carry a gun, like the push to end "gun free zones" and allow guns in schools, colleges, parks, streets, sidewalks...etc..
Again, the only way we can be a safe society is to be an armed society. But as Slate's Dahlia Lithwick wrote recently:
Freedom in America also means that we are free to wake up every morning hoping that it’s not our kid who gets shot with a weapon of war, and free to wake up hoping it’s not our kid who shoots someone, and free to wake up praying it’s not our kid, or our spouse, or our neighbor who shoots herself. In this freest country on earth, we also happen to be in a perpetual hostage situation, in which one false move—or merely the choice to go to class, or to dance with friends—means you may wind up dead. What does all this have to do with freedom?
But the gun crowd's rejection of this argument, in the face of mass shootings and random executions in neighborhoods all across America, is driving our once civil society off a cliff.
If you remember Saturday Night Live's competitor, Friday's, then you might remember this great bit featuring Larry David (Seinfeld & Curb Your Enthusiasm) and Michael Richards (Seinfeld), playing the founding fathers trying to write the Constitution and Bill of Rights. David's take on the 2nd Amendment is especially ironic:
Slate's Lithwick continues...
The Second Amendment says this: “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.” For most of U.S.
history, that was understood to mean that the freedom guaranteed by the Second
Amendment was precisely what it said: the right of the people of each state to
maintain a well-regulated militia. So clearly and unequivocally held was this worldview that no
less a liberal squish than Richard Nixon Supreme Court appointee Warren Burger said after his retirement in 1991 that the Second
Amendment “has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud—I repeat
the word ‘fraud’—on the American public by special interest groups that I have
ever seen in my lifetime.” Perhaps most famously in a 1939 case called U.S. v.
Miller. That ruling said that since the possession or use of a “shotgun having
a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length” had no reasonable relationship
to the “preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia,” the court
simply could not find that the Second Amendment guaranteed “the right to keep
and bear such an instrument.” Period, full stop. And that was the viewpoint
adopted by the courts for years.
Forgetting over 2 century's of history, in 2008, and after decades of special interest money and propaganda, Justice Scalia and Thomas took the leap...:
The larger fabrication is the idea that the Second
Amendment—unlike other provisions of
the Constitution—cannot be subject to any
reasonable restriction Constitutional rights are subject to every sort of
condition and limitation, and as Scalia himself noted in Heller, “the
right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited.” He even went on
to list some reasonable limits. It is a sick joke of our democracy that
after every mass shooting we must tell our children that the Framers gave us
this precious gift of liberty, more valuable than their lives, and that we are
stuck with it. This is the opposite of freedom. It is slavery by choice.
No definition or redefinition of what constitutes an assault weapon can erase the fact that an AR-15 is an assault weapon, period:
father, Eugene Stoner, designed the AR-15 and subsequent M-16 as a military weapon to give our soldiers an advantage over the AK-47," the Stoner family told NBC News late Wednesday. "He died long before any mass shootings occurred. But, we do think he would have been horrified and sickened as anyone, if not more by these events." The ex-Marine and "avid sportsman, hunter and skeet shooter" never used his invention for sport ... he never even owned one. And though he made millions from the design ... it was all from military sales. His family said Stoner was "focused on making the most efficient and superior rifle possible for the military. What has happened, good or bad, since his patents have expired is a result of our free market system," Stoner's family said. 'Who now is benefiting from the manufacturing and sales of AR-15s, and for what uses?'" In all, an AR-15 style rifle has been used in at least 10 recent mass shootings.
“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.”
Huffington Post: Constitutional theory is the debate platform that
conservatives have been playing on for decades while progressives get
frustrated and lose ground. The remarkable irony is that the wording and intent within
the Second Amendment is actually on progressive’s side. In fact, the Second
Amendment is a progressive’s dream: the third word in the amendment is “regulated” for
heaven’s sake. No matter the interpretation of every other word and phrase
after the first three words, the entire context of the amendment is that it
will be a regulated right. Through this lens, the Second Amendment is
barely even comparable to the First Amendment in terms of what rights it
enables. There is simply no language in the First Amendment that regulates the
right to free speech... and yet we still regulate speech despite the unassailable strength of
the the First Amendment constitutional language. The upshot? The Constitution itself provides the guidance —
and mandate — to not just regulate militia (i.e., groups of people) and arms,
but to regulate them well. Seeing as the right to bear arms has been implemented pretty effectively in America, perhaps now
it’s time to start implementing regulation well too, as the Constitution also
mandates.
Gun defenders often point to general homicide rates, which don't give the actual total number of guns deaths. Interesting note: Republican opposition to health care kills more Americans than guns. Nice party huh? So here's what they want to deny, at the risk of putting everyone else in the line of fire:
For years Republicans bashed Democrats for challenging their agenda in the courts, calling them lawsuit crazy. With tort reform, they were going to change our litigious society.
Amazing what a whole lotta power will do....
JS: The governor said he has asked fellow Republican and state
Attorney General Brad Schimel to look into Obama's attempt to bypass Congress
and use his executive authority to try to require more criminal background
checks on gun sales.
"President Obama is again disregarding the
constitutional principles of separation of powers and exceeding his authority
as chief executive."
Funny how a black president is consistently challenged for
things other white presidents did with even more vigor. One pundit suggested a Republican president should repeal all past executive orders if they're so unconstitutional. All of them!!!! See the chart ----->
It’s hard to understand how a simple expansion of background
checks is going to “create” “uncertainty” about owning a gun. Why would a
law-abiding citizen “fear prosecution.”
Walker: "The Obama administration issued guidance creating
uncertainty and fear of prosecution for law-abiding citizens who wish to
exercise their right to sell firearms lawfully. Forthcoming federal rules could
also deprive millions of Americans of their Second Amendment rights without any
indication of imminent danger. I have asked the attorney general to review this
proposed rule language as soon as it is made available and, if issued as
reported, to take any and all legal measures available to challenge this
illegal act."
Walker's laughably obedient lapdog Attorney General Brad Schimel continues to embarrass his elected office, with this grotesquely outlandish accusation and criticism of Obama:
Schimel: "It appears that President Obama once again intends to act unilaterally to
restrict the 2nd Amendment and subvert the legislative process by issuing yet another
executive order."
A lack of respect with racial overtones have a lot to do with it, along with an unhealthy passion for guns.
But what's got Walker so enraged besides race and a few executive orders? Check out this 2nd Amendment right for corporations and those who've created "gun trusts," and not everyday Americans. Yes, in this case corporations aren't people, and they can buy (and use) machine guns and automatic weapons without background checks or anything. Walker wants that back too:
My conservative friend in Milwaukee loves tell me after every one of these mass shootings that "Democrats immediately try to exploit the situation by trying to take away our guns."
I asked him; after a car accident, would you choose to talk about football, a good place to eat or the car accident?
Why is it so hard to understand: background checks and other reasonable gun laws don't take peoples guns away. The other day I was listening to Free Talk Live, a laughably naive and clueless libertarian style radio show, where they concluded everyone one should be able to get a gun no matter what their record, because the Second Amendment, as seen by our activist conservative Justices, clearly says that.
Now that these ivory tower justices have armed paranoid Americans with their radical interpretation, they can just sit back and watch the social carnage unfold. And it is!
One major voice in the conservative movement to shoot everyone considered a soft target, Erick Erickson set the tone for the discussion:
“This is what I think of the New York Times editorial today,” Erickson posted on Instagram, with a photo of bulletholes through the editorial on gun laws. “The United States suffered it worst terrorist attacks since September 11 and the New York Times’ response it that all law-abiding citizens need their guns taken away,” Erickson added. “Screw them.”
Anyone want to rent Idiocracy? Check this out from Alternet:
The attacks—from a former GOP congressman taunting the U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch to arrest him after threatening American Muslims on air, to RedState.com encouraging people to shoot the Saturday edition of The New York Times for its editorial calling for a ban on all militarized weapons and to post that image online—are the tip of this latest rage-filled response. Ex-New York Gov. George Pataki, a going-nowhere GOP 2016 candidate, also calledfor “war on radical Islam” and taunted Lynch. Fox News is berating moderate Muslims to “fix this,” while other right-wingers mock their spokesmen.
Does anybody else see the flaw in the gun nut logic; that if you oppose background checks, you can't check a database for felons or the mentally ill. And don't all people start out "law abiding."
No one should be surprised that once the Supreme
Court read into, and broadly interpreted the 2nd Amendment, the gun
crowd would want to come up with a few interpretations of their own. And so it
goes with the slippery slope of gun deregulation…
The residents of Coos County, Oregon, passed a ballot
initiative Tuesday night that requires their sheriff to block the enforcement
of state and federal gun laws that he thinks seem unconstitutional.
And the name of this freedom and liberty loving crazy right-wing law?
The 2nd Amendment Preservation Ordinance passed with 61 percent
of the vote. The measure directs the sheriff to decide whether certain
state and federal gun laws violate the Second Amendment. If he thinks they do,
the county is then banned from using any resources to enforce those laws. Any
county employee who violates the ordinance will be fined $2,000.
And they really don't see the problem in something like this. Even the County Sheriff thought it was nuts, but phrased it
nicely:
Coos County Sheriff Craig Zanni told
The Oregonian last month that he is a strong supporter of gun rights,
but had concerns about his role in deciding what is and isn't constitutional. "I'm
not sure the courts would agree with that concept. I would just bet there would
be some legal challenges to it." Charlie Hinkle, a constitutional law expert in Portland,
Oregon, said Zanni would be violating his oath of office by enacting a county
ordinance that is contrary to state or federal law. "Of course local
officials can’t decide what laws are constitutional. That’s why Kim Davis went
to jail. Even the president can't decide what’s constitutional -- that’s why a
federal court enjoined his executive orders regarding immigration."
And doesn't this also negate their other argument that we should enforce the “laws already on the books,” laws conservatives say won't stop anyone anyway:
Similar measures have been adopted in Eastern Oregon's Wheeler and
Wallowa counties, and they've amounted to little more than
symbolism. Supporters want to use the ordinances to bar local enforcement
of Oregon's background check law, which passed in May and expands checks
to almost all gun sales in the state. The initiatives are also part of a
broader push by pro-gun enthusiasts to make federal gun control
"nearly impossible to enforce."
Sadly it took an Australian to "Hulk Smash" EVERY ridiculous argument about guns and the 2nd Amendment. Down Under's gun ban is working out quite well.
Australian comedian Jim Jefferies was the victim of a home invasion once. He was tied up and beaten, and his girlfriend was threatened with rape. So you might think he'd sympathize with the idea that Americans want guns to protect their families. Quite the opposite — he does an excellent job of summing up why so many foreigners are baffled by America's gun culture:
On Science Blogs a commenter named Dingo Jack wrote the following wonderful comment.
Those poor Founding Fathers, they'd never have thought that even well-educated Americans wouldn't have a clue what a Nominative Absolute* is and how to use it.
Dingo
-----
* The Nominative absolute is similar in structure and use to the Latin Ablative Absolute and the Greek Genitive Absolute (the subordinate clause being in the Nominative, Ablative and Genitive cases, respectively).
I'll translate for you: "[When a] ... well regulated Militia... [is] ... necessary... [for] ... the security of a free State, [then] the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed [but if the first clause is false, then the second clause is inactive.]
(The main clause is in bold, the subordinate clause in italics)
