It's time to finally dispel any and all of the contorted interpretations of the 2nd Amendment, despite the radical activism of the Supreme Court, that twisted the "Heller" decision into a pretzel, justifying the right of everyone to have a gun.
First, Supreme Court Justice Warren Burger and Justice William Breyer on one of the "greatest pieces of fraud" pushed by the NRA and far right groups:
I recently came across these thoughtful commentaries that make Justice Scalia's decision sound right-wing crazy.
The Much Misunderstood Second Amendment | William Harwood | TED: Wikipedia describes Harwood this way: "William R. Harwood is a scientist and author, contributor to Skeptical Inquirer, Free Inquiry, and contributing editor to the American Rationalist. He is the author of over 50 books including Mythology’s Last Gods (Prometheus, 1992), God, Jesus and the Bible: The Origin and Evolution of Religion, Dictionary of Contemporary Mythology; The Disinformation Cycle."
Here's Matthew Cooke, Facebook's "Ted" lecturer. As described by IMDb: "Actor / Filmmaker / Activist Matthew Cooke's social justice and advocacy commentaries have been viewed over 100 million times on FaceBook."
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:
We were born with the God given right to buy and carry a gun?
Dana Loesch: "These are rights that were inherent to us, being American citizens, born on this soil, these are rights that we immediately come out of the womb with."
The Second Amendment: "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."
PBS/Frontline: While conventional wisdom suggests that an individual’s right to bear arms is enshrined in the Second Amendment of the Constitution, it is, in fact, a relatively recent interpretation, according to New Yorker writer and legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin.
FRONTLINE spoke with Toobin, author of The Oath, about what he describes as “the conservative re-casting of the Second Amendment” and whether potential new gun control laws could conflict with it.
Describe early understandings of the Second Amendment. Was there uncertainty or ambiguity about what it meant?
The overwhelming consensus was that the Second Amendment gave state militias a right to obtain and bear arms, but it did it not give individuals any rights. … The words of the Second Amendment are ungrammatical and difficult to understand in the best of circumstances. But if you look at the history and context of the amendment, including other references to state militias in the Constitution, it suggests that the amendment only applied to state militias.
Now what makes this subject so difficult in the modern world is that state militias don’t exist anymore, so we have no familiarity with what a state militia is. But it was simply taken as a given in constitutional law that the Second Amendment did not give individuals a right to bear arms.
When and how did that understanding begin to change to reflect an individual’s right?
It really started to change with the rise of the modern conservative movement in the ’70s and ’80s. You had Ronald Reagan, Edwin Meese, who was his attorney general, Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in the Senate, really making a very sustained argument that the courts had misunderstood the Second Amendment for hundreds of years, and the NRA was an indispensable partner in this moment. And it became the conservative conventional wisdom that the Second Amendment gave an individual the right to bear arms.
You had Orrin Hatch, when he was chairman of the judiciary subcommittee, putting forth a major report [PDF] that said all the courts were wrong about the Second Amendment. The country appears to have gotten more sympathetic to the argument that guns make people safer, not more dangerous.
The idea that the Second Amendment gives individuals a right to bear arms was advocated so forcefully, so broadly and so persuasively that Democrats gave up on fighting the issue.
In your book The Oath, you explore how even then-Sen. Barack Obama took on this individual rights understanding and walked back some of his earlier views on gun control. What does that convey?
I think Obama personally illustrates how much the individual rights view has evolved into the conventional wisdom even for Democrats. Now, I think Obama and at least some Republicans would differ about the extent of what the Second Amendment represents, but I think Obama’s embrace of the individual rights theory illustrates how pervasive that theory has become.
… The climax of this reinvention of the Second Amendment came with the [District of Columbia v.] Hellercase in 2008 with the Supreme Court when it reversed decades of precedent and [gave] individuals a right to bear arms. What the court left unclear was how extensive that right was. What Heller says is that you have a right to a handgun in your home. It does not say anything about assault weapons. It does not say anything about concealed weapons.
This is political as much as legal. This is about justices who come out of the conservative movement advocating positions that they’ve advocated for a long time. And what the Second Amendment means is not determined by the Second Amendment, it’s determined by who wins presidential elections and gets to appoint their like-minded justices.
Where do I start on gun rights, or should I say, weapons rights? The Second Amendment doesn't mention guns specifically, so what we're talking about is anything a citizens wants to use to protect themselves. Oddly, conservatives say there should be no limits on the Second Amendment, but then are fine with limits on tanks, bombs and chemical...etc?
A recently released NRA ad that's just starting to get attention now, especially after Charlottesville, Trump's dog whistle endorsement of the white nationalist movement and his pardon of racist and former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, is unapologetically calling liberals "elites," the enemy "threatening our very survival," and promising psycho guns nuts will be "coming for you."
Fox News: The NRA has put out a series of videos that announce a "shot across the bow," and say the gun-rights group is "coming for you" and that "elites ... threaten our very survival," terms that suggest opponents are enemy combatants.
Here's a look at the 2 incendiary ads featuring Dana Loesch, a supposed "former liberal."
The first ad targets the NY Times, and promises to "fact check" the papers criticisms by first destroying the whole idea of actual fact checking, and then reinforcing the right wing myth someone is trying to stop them from fact checking:
"We've had it with your narratives, your propaganda, your fake news. We've had it with your constant protection of your Democrat overlords, your refusal to acknowledge any truth that upsets the fragile construct that you believe is real life. And we've had it with your tone-deaf assertion that you are in any way truth or fact-based journalism. Consider this the shot across your proverbial bow. ... In short? We're coming for you."
A Call for an Armed Insurrection: This is not a joke:
Kathleen Hall Jamieson, the director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Associated Press the tone and language is "overwrought rhetoric" that, viewed by the wrong person, could lead to violence. The kicker on one of the videos — "We're coming for you" — is straight out of the movies, she said, and "that phrase means that violence is imminent and we will perpetrate it."
Armed Revolution Coming: My conservative friend in Milwaukee (since the 1960's), who is now a drooling Trump supporter, recently texted the message below after I reminded him of how the white nationalists are running scared and canceling events after encountering the small but growing ANTIFA (anti-fascist) movement. And this wasn't the only time he's said this...:
"If you want to defend your fascist ANTIFA racist pals, go ahead. You want to be on that side of a civil war, be my guest. Just remember, we got the guns, the ammo, and there will be no rules for rules of engagement. Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization just as ANTIFA...we will win."
He really did say that. And I can't discount that there are many others who feel the same way.
A recent Charlottesville video surfaced showing a Nazi sympathizer firing a gun into a crowd of protesters... a "shot across your proverbial bow?" Oh, and this guy is another one of those "responsible" gun owners, until he's not:
NY Times: A white nationalist protester in a bulletproof vest turned, pointed a pistol toward the crowd and fired a single shot at the ground, in the direction of a black man wielding an improvised torch. To make his escape, a video recording shows, the armed protester strolled past a line of about a dozen state police troopers who were safely positioned about 10 feet away behind two metal barricades. None of them budged. “We all heard it and ran — I know damn well they heard it,” said Rosia Parker, a community activist in Charlottesville. “They never moved.” Police had a suspect in the shooting in custody on Saturday morning ... But residents are still demanding to know why officers did not act in real time as heavily armed people fought and a car sped toward a crowd, killing a woman.
In 2013, a bandana-sporting, Baltimore-area man named Richard Preston served as a Klu Klux Klan imperial wizard, arguing that the KKK was not racist but simply wanted to "stop Barack Obama," as he said at a county meeting that year. He wore a white hood in the appearance. "We're going to do this all over America nonstop," he said at the meeting. "We're not going to stop." The Preston arrested on Saturday now faces a charge of discharging a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school, according to CNN, a felony that could lead to 10 years in prison.
Peaceful Armed Nationalist Movement? And while Trump supporters spread vile stories of violent ANTIFA protesters breaking windows and burning cars, they never seem to mention stuff like this:
Investigators are also close to making arrests in the case of DeAndre Harris, 20, a local teacher’s aide and African-American who was beaten with a metal pipe and slabs of wood in a parking garage just a few yards from Police Headquarters, the city manager, Maurice Jones said.
Here's Loesch throwing out a few "concerned" looks bragging about how she'll "fisk" (slang, meaning to refute or criticize a journalistic article or blog point by point) the NY Times, perpetuating the surreal myth someone is out there trying to stop them, even the NRA, from fact checking the media. Who comes up with this stuff?
Jacking up Gun Sales under a GOP Authority:
Critics of the NRA contend the organization is relying on
the "fake news" mantra started by Trump to whip up its followers
after a dip in gun sales that has taken place since Trump succeeded President
Barack Obama. Mike Nelson, a Democratic congressional candidate in Arkansas and self-described hunter and gun-rights supporter, to label them as "hate speech." Nelson, whose website lists the NRA among more than two dozen organization he's supported, said he can no longer back the NRA. In a Facebook post, Nelson wrote:
"If the NRA does not stop their hate campaign, I will call them out on sedition. Sedition is the willful undermining of the legal authority, the Incitement of Violence."
Robert Spitzer, chairman of the political science department at State University of New York at Cortland, who has examined the firearms industry and Second Amendment issues extensively and a member of the NRA as well as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said "They've held up the U.N. as ready to swoop in and take everybody's guns." Plenzler, who has since dropped his NRA membership, said he was disturbed by the videos.
"Lately, it seems like they've gone well out of the bounds of any sort of sane responsible behavior. If you want to advocate for the Second Amendment, which I unapologetically believe in, that's fine. But I think at the point where you are going to demonize half the American population in a recruitment effort to get more members, I've got a big problem with that."
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.
To get a gun, prospective purchasers will experience a slight inconvenience to exercise their right:
Democratic Representative Stacey Newman has had enough
of this nonsense, and has
filed a bill, H.B. 1397, that would make it as difficult to get a gun as it
is to have an abortion in the Show Me State:
A licensed firearm dealer shall orally inform the purchaser
of a firearm the following, and reduce it to writing: The name and license number of the licensed firearm dealer; The immediate and long-term medical risks associated with
firearms, along with medical descriptions and photographs of fatal firearm
injuries, as collected by emergency pediatric medical professionals, law
enforcement, and prosecutors’ offices; Alternatives to purchasing a firearm, which shall include
materials about peaceful and nonviolent conflict resolution. Prior to any firearm purchase in this state, a prospective
firearm purchaser shall, at least seventy-two hours prior to the initial
request to purchase a firearm from a licensed firearm dealer located at least
one hundred twenty miles from such purchaser’s legal residence, confer and
discuss with a licensed physician the indicators and contraindicators and risk
factors, including any physical, psychological, or situational factors, that
may arise with the proposed firearm purchase. Such physician shall then evaluate the prospective firearm
purchaser for such indicators and contraindicators and risk factors and
determine if such firearm purchase would increase such purchaser’s risk of
experiencing an adverse physical, emotional, or other health reaction. Gun buyers would also have to watch a 30-minute video “on
fatal firearm injuries” and verify in writing that he or she viewed the entire
video “in the presence of a licensed firearm dealer.” Verify in writing by a licensed physician that the purchaser
has toured an emergency trauma center in the nearest qualified urban hospital
on a weekend between the hours of 10:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. when gun violence
victims are present. Within seventy-two hours of a firearm purchase, the
prospective firearm purchaser shall meet with at least two families who have
been victims of violence involving a firearm and two local faith leaders who
have officiated, within the past year, a funeral of a victim of violence
involving a firearm who was under the age of eighteen.
The title pretty much sums up what my conservative friend in Milwaukee said when he called me to say, I told you so about gun free zones. Yes, every unarmed citizen in the country is called a soft targets, and those in gun free zones are only asking for trouble. Ever get the idea that the NRA's ultimate objective is to coerce everyone into carrying a gun?
Two thirds of Americans are "soft targets," you know, walking gun free zones. They're too afraid to defend themselves like brave good freedom loving American would do.
Oh, and the terrorist attackers in San Bernardino were responsible legal gun owners...until they weren't. They're arguing now that the extensive background checks in California didn't stop anybody, so why have backgrounds checks at all.
Here's the scary reality gun crazy psychopathic conservative gun fondlers are finding difficult to accept; Americans are wising up and getting rid of guns. What else could explain a bill right here in our state to remove the age limit to carry a gun hunting?
Household gun ownership in America is on a steady, long-term
decline. The NORC data shows that American household gun ownership hit its peak
in 1977, when more than half of American households (53.7 percent) reported
having any guns. By 2014, only 32.4 percent of American households had a gun in
the home -- less than a third. The percentage of Americans who reported personally owning a
gun dropped more than 26 percent from 1985 to 2014. In 1985, 30.5 percent most gun owners tend to be white
men who live outside cities. Drawing from data from 2010 to 2014, NORC found
that 39 percent of white respondents said they lived in a household with a gun.
During the same period, 18.1 percent of black respondents and 15.2 percent of
Hispanic respondents said there was a gun in their household.
Check out The Nations recent article about the conservative activist Supreme Court decision that brought down the nation:
Paul Ryan had an unusual reaction that had nothing to do with the San Bernardino mass shooting, to somehow finally deal with mental illness? What in gods name is he talking about?
How activist are the conservative Justices on the Supreme Court? Read the following and decide for yourself who makes a better case over the Second Amendment. Daily Kos:
The Washington Post has published an opinion piece from
Justice John Paul Stevens in which he analyzes the history of the second
amendment, and recent Supreme Court decisions to support his contention that
the interpretation of the Second Amendment advanced by the NRA (and recently
accepted by the courts) is contrary to the intent of the framers.
According to Stevens:
"For more than 200 years following the adoption of that
amendment, federal judges uniformly understood that the right protected by that
text was limited in two ways: First, it applied only to keeping and bearing
arms for military purposes, and second, while it limited the power of the
federal government, it did not impose any limit whatsoever on the power of
states or local governments to regulate the ownership or use of firearms. Thus,
in United States v. Miller, decided in 1939, the court unanimously held that
Congress could prohibit the possession of a sawed-off shotgun because that sort
of weapon had no reasonable relation to the preservation or efficiency of a
“well regulated Militia. When I joined the court in 1975, that holding was generally
understood as limiting the scope of the Second Amendment to uses of arms that
were related to military activities. During the years when Warren Burger was
chief justice, from 1969 to 1986, no judge or justice expressed any doubt about
the limited coverage of the amendment."
The article continues:
District of Columbia v. Heller (which found that individuals
had an individual right to bear arms and keep a handgun to be used for
self-defense) and McDonald v. Chicago (which found that Chicago could not prohibit
citizens from owning handguns) were contrary to the historical intent and
interpretation of the second amendment.
Five years after his retirement, during a 1991 appearance on “The
MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour,” Warren Burger himself remarked 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.” Stevens' solution ... proposed change to the second amendment would read as follows:“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.” The entire opinion piece is well worth the read.
What, we can't walk around like militia soldiers around kids and in other public places? What do they think this is, a civilized country?
Gun nuts never cared much for common sense regulations, a point even Justice Scalia said was fair.
The United States Supreme Court has decided not to hear
challenges to recent rulings that upheld firearms restrictions, dealing a blow
to gun rights advocates hoping the justices would declare them
unconstitutional. Monday’s decision swept aside two challenges backed by the
National Rifle Association, one of which argued against limiting gun sales to
those under 21 years of age, while another attempted to secure the right to
carry firearms in public. Ever since the Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the
Constitution guaranteed an individual’s right to bear arms, gun rights
advocates have challenged laws that limit that ability in public. The Supreme
Court clarified that its original ruling applied to all states in 2010, but
since then it has refused to wade into the battle regarding public spaces.
I loved this lunatic comment at today’s gun rally of
misplaced priorities at the Alamo.
NBC News: Hundreds of gun-rights advocates, many toting rifles and
shotguns, gathered early Saturday at the Alamo in San Antonio … with remarks
from organizers: “We aren't here to start a war today,” one said, according to
the San
Antonio News-Express. “We are here to show that an armed society is a
polite society."
Yea, and waving load rifles around is polite. Who feels safe
around a stranger(s) carrying or waving loaded guns for god’s sake? Society has
moved toward madness because we didn't say no to the juvenile ranting’s of irresponsible
“adults.”
Of course guns don’t add to the threat of violence:
Open Carry Texas President C.J. Chivers told the crowd "(The
San Antonio Police Department) is no longer going to be messing with us," Victoria
Montgomery, public relations manager with Open Carry Texas said.
Yes, she’s one of those juvenile adults, who isn’t afraid to
flaunt it by advocating….
She is in favor of openly carrying a weapon in schools,
restaurants and churches.
Whatever happened to the Constitution’s guarantee to “insure
domestic tranquility?”
While rebellious grownups reliving their days of playing
soldier try to convince themselves guns are make us safer, that
all-important family unit Republicans are trying so hard to protect, are having a more
natural reaction; panic!!!
The new gun culture violates the constitutional guarantee of
“domestic tranquility.”
FreakOutNation: A man who claims to be on a Second Amendment mission to
educate others about gun rights, caused panic in Vancouver, Washington, at a
family fun center while carrying a semi-automatic rifle. A business went
on lockdown, parents grabbed their children and ran inside, and still he
refused to leave while ‘educating’ others by carrying his rifle on private
property.
Gun addicts, drunk on the idea that they can now control any
situation, don’t get it: Other people see them as strangers with loaded guns. In fact, it's the same kind of stranger gun loons say they are trying to protect
themselves from.
This line struck me most from rifle toting Mark Worley:
“If the public is afraid, that’s not my fault. I don't control their point of view”
Amazing. Our natural defensive mechanism is now simply a "point of view?" Tell that to Rep. Paul Ryan, who dismisses the Constitution entirely, by defaulting to our God given freedoms and liberty's. That includes our own natural defensive reaction to what we see as dangerous, right?
A historical perspective: Gun activism is a recent oddity. Before this
movement was spurred on by a conservative activist Supreme Court decision on
the Second Amendment, people naturally felt unsafe around guns and assault
rifles brandished by strangers in public areas. It wasn't normal.
Worley of course is teaching society a lesson. Don't trust your instincts, it's that simple. What a lesson:
Mark Worley said, “I was breaking no law and I was
arrested for trespassing on a public sidewalk. Whether or not you agree with
open carry of a firearm or not, it’s not illegal.”
But police disagree. Police said he crossed the line when he
decided to openly carry his gun on private property, KATU reports. Police said he first went to a restaurant
with a rifle slung over his shoulder which prompted an employee to promptly
call 911. When the police arrived Worley had walked to a fireworks stand in Big
Al’s parking lot, according to KATU. When employees became concerned over
Worley’s intentions, they closed the stand and the business went on lockdown.
Parents panicked and grabbed their children, running into the
restaurant while police officers swarmed around Worley, who then refused to
leave.
While the Second Amendment is the most important guarantee, according
to all conservative pocket Constitutionalist's, right wingers can still come up
with reasons to take the right away.
In this amazing example of hypocrisy, authoritarianism, and another reason to
never believe conservative ramblings about the Constitution, one gun store
owner decided not to sell a firearm to a guy based purely on politics.
Kinda blows the whole rabid “right to bear arms” bullshit, doesn't it?
TPM: Mark Kelly's purchase of an AR-15 high-powered rifle has
been canceled by the owner of a Tucson, Ariz. gun store, because the
former astronaut and husband of former Rep. Gabriele Giffords (D-AZ) planned to
turn the gun in to police, the Arizona Daily Star reported
Monday.
Douglas MacKinlay, who owns the store, Diamondback Police
Supply, explained
the decision in a Facebook post Monday:
“While I support and respect Mark Kelly’s 2nd Amendment
rights to purchase, possess, and use firearms in a safe and responsible manner,
his recent statements to the media made it clear that his intent in purchasing
the Sig Sauer M400 5.56mm rifle from us was for reasons other then for his
personal use. In light of this fact, I determined that it was in my company’s
best interest to terminate this transaction prior to his returning to my store
to complete the Federal From 4473 and NICS background check required of Mr.
Kelly before he could take possession this firearm. A full refund was sent to
Mr. Kelly, via express mail, on Thursday of last week."
Kelly purchased
the rifle earlier this month, along with a pistol, to show how simple
the background check process is.
Lawrence O'Donnell even covered the story, because it means that much:
Raw Story: The AR-15 assault rifle is the “musket of today” according to NRA President David
Keene. That was the gun used in the Newtown massacre.
Keene: “You hear some of the gun controllers saying, ‘Well, the Second
Amendment only applied to muskets, it didn’t apply to AR-15s or semi-automatic
pistols or semi-automatic shotguns, for that matter.’ That was handled by the
Supreme Court in the Heller decision.
But according to Justice Scalia:
Like most rights, the Second
Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry
any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose:
For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the
Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not 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. Miller’s holding that
the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds
support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous
and unusual weapons.
Here's a section I pulled out of the decision:
We also recognize another important limitation on the right
to keep and carry arms. Miller said, as we have explained, that the sorts
of weapons protected were those "in common use at the time." 307
U.S., at 179, 59 S.Ct. 816. We think that limitation is fairly supported by
the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of "dangerous and
unusual weapons."
While a new public opinion poll shows the public blithely excepts the NRA's lunacy as the norm, will Americans wake from their complacency with the irrational rantings of Erich Pratt, who pretty much sees armed security and snipers on rooftops as the surest way to make society safe again.
Remember when concealed carry was the only way to make America safe, because would be criminals would be scared off from not knowing who had a gun? Guess that was a major failure.
"In his later years. I think we have to take that into account," said Erich Pratt, head of Gun Owners of America, referring to Ronald Reagan’s support for the 1994 assault-weapons ban on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports. Ex-Presidents Reagan, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter sent a letter in 1994 to all House members urging them to support the assault-weapons ban.
A new poll out from Public Policy Polling shows the N.R.A has seen a 10-point drop in popularity since Wayne LaPierre’s Dec. 21 press conference responding to the tragic Newtown, Ct., school shooting.
The organization now has a negative favorability rating, with 45% of voters viewing it negatively and only 42% viewing it positively. That’s down from a 48% positive and 41% negative image before the press conference.
Public servants are no longer seemingly off limits as gun
targets, you know, the guys we turn to when we’re in trouble? The separation we
once held for these individuals has melted away, now that we have the power of
the almighty gun. Unhappy with government…well, that’s why we have the Second
Amendment isn't it? Wrong, check out the following explanation:
So now we have this, an unprovoked attack on our firefighters...
AP: An ex-con set a car and a house ablaze in his
lakeside neighborhood to lure firefighters, then opened fire on them, killing
two, engaging in a shootout with police and committing suicide while several
homes burned. Police say he lay in wait outdoors for the firefighters' arrival,
then opened fire probably with a rifle and from atop an earthen berm The
gunman, William Spengler, had served more than 17 years in prison for beating
his 92-year-old grandmother to death with a hammer in 1980 at the house next to
where Monday's attack happened, Spengler, 62, was paroled in 1998 and had
led a quiet life since. Convicted felons are not allowed to possess weapons.
Police say seven homes were destroyed. William Spengler, 62, left behind a chilling typewritten
note“I still have to get ready to see how much of the neighborhood I can burn
down and do what I like doing best – killing people” … used a semi-automatic
rifle, one of three weapons recovered from the shooting scene, to kill the
firefighters … the semi-automatic as a .223 Bushmaster rifle, the same weapon
used in the school massacre in Newtown, Conn.
Monroe County Sheriff Patrick O'Flynn said. "It's sad
to see that that this is becoming more commonplace in communities across the
nation."
Or this attack on our local piece keepers, the police...
jsonline: A 30-year-old Wauwatosa police officer was shot and killed
by multiple gunshots on duty early Monday, police Lt. Gerald Witkowski said …
it is a homicide investigation and that there are no suspects.
Jennifer Lynn Sebena joined the department in January 2011
after completing the Milwaukee Area Technical College police academy and began
as a solo patrol officer in July of this year. She completed probation with the
department in November. The stunning chain of events began in the early morning
hours. Police said that between 3 and 5 a.m. Wauwatosa dispatchers attempted to
raise Sebena on her late shift patrol.
Jonathan Zimmerman is a professor of history and education
at New York University. Yes, the Second Amendment to the
Constitution guarantees the “right to bear arms.” But if that means individual
citizens – as opposed to state militias – can carry firearms anywhere they
want, someone forgot to tell our 19th-century forebears. As law professor Adam
Winkler has found, 10 states passed laws in the 1800s barring the possession of
concealed weapons.
One of them was Texas, the
lodestar of the gun-rights movement today. But as the Lone Star governor said
in 1893, “the mission of the concealed weapon is murder. To check it is the
duty of every self-respecting, law abiding man.”
Founded in 1871 as a hunting organization, the National Rifle Association supported waiting periods
for handgun buyers and a wide array of other state restrictions. It also backed
the first major federal gun regulation, the 1934 National
Firearms Act, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in a unanimous decision
five years later.
As US
Solicitor General Robert Jackson told the Court, the Second Amendment
did not protect the right of individuals to possess guns for “private
purposes.” Instead, it was “restricted to the keeping and bearing of arms by
the people collectively for their common defense and security,” wrote Jackson,
who would join the Court himself in 1941.
Only in the 1970s would the NRA and conservatives start to
argue that the Second Amendment guaranteed individual gun possession.
Piggybacking cleverly on the minority and women’s rights revolutions, the NRA claimed
that gun owners, too, were endowed with “rights” that were protected by the
Constitution. The group also created a giant lobbying and publicity apparatus
to spread this new doctrine. Reflecting on the NRA's politicking, Chief
Justice Warren Burger said 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.”
Today, millions of Americans take it for granted that the
Constitution protects individual gun rights. So do their legislatures and courts,
which have discovered a meaning in the Second Amendment that earlier
generations never imagined.
But one cannot say that our foreparents intended to give
everyone the right to own a gun and carry it wherever they wished. That’s a
fraud, to borrow Justice Burger’s phrase. I repeat the word: fraud. Saying it
over and over again won’t make it true.
Pocket constitutional conservatives seem to know the right moment when people exceed the limits of our founding document. Do they channel James Madison or Thomas Jefferson...perhaps reincarnation. Republicans even know when "liberal" judges are wrong about laws that couldn't be unconstitutional.
Take radio talker Lars Larson, when he thought Bob Costas went to far questioning our second amendment rights. Is all this needless bloodshed caused by guns the price of freedom? But saying something is wrong, in our free country, will not be tolerated:
Or this threat from rugged individualist Ted Nugent to freeloaders and takers who still think they should be able to vote:
Ted Nugent Wants GOP to Suspend Voting Rights for Welfare
Recipients: In his Washington Times column, Nugent wrote:
“Let’s also stop the insanity by suspending the right to
vote of any American who is on welfare. Once they get off welfare and are
self-sustaining, they get their right to vote restored. No American on welfare
should have the right to vote for tax increases on those Americans who are
working and paying taxes to support them. That’s insane.” “The three sacred entitlement cows in the room that no
politician wants to poke are Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. A blinding
statement of the obvious is that we are never going to get our financial house
in order until these sacred entitlement cows are not only poked, but
slaughtered.
I have two Rachel Maddow clips dealing with the gun issue now being debated. The first deals with the myth that more guns reduces crime or gun deaths. Higher gun ownership states correlate to higher gun deaths for instance. I know, a "duh" moment, but a fact that gun advocates insist on denying.
The second clip deals with the assault weapons ban, a law Obama and Bush both supported. Maddow presents here a list of gun control policies advocated by Bush, but never protested by conservatives. More importantly, there is the bizarre interpretation that bearing arms was meant by the founding fathers to allow citizens to overthrow the U.S. government, and not just for protection or hunting. Radical? Of course.
