Give Us Back Our Bullets
When the Supreme Court struck down Washington, D.C.’s city-wide gun ban as unconstitutional in the D.C. v. Heller decision of June 2008, it seemed axiomatic that similar gun bans around the country would crumble under the weight of unconstitutionality as well. However, more than a year after the Heller decision, the D.C. city council is making it as difficult as possible to get a gun permit in the nation’s capital, Chicago’s Mayor Daley is fighting to keep his city’s total handgun ban in place, and other mayors, like Seattle’s Greg Nickels, threaten to institute gun bans every time a newsworthy crime is committed.
It’s high time to examine the tactics of these gun-banning politicians, as well as others throughout the land, and demand, once and for all, that they give us back our bullets.
While the Heller decision upheld the Founding Fathers’ view that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to keep and bear arms, it also overturned the D.C. gun ban on grounds that such a ban denied the right of self-defense in the home. Nevertheless, D.C.’s city council has made the requirements for getting a handgun permit so arduous and expensive that only 515 residents have gotten one since the ban was reversed last year. In other words, a de facto gun ban continues.
For example, when Washington Post writer Christian Davenport recently applied for his permit, “it took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class, and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.”
We must understand that this outrageous financial cost, the time commitment, and the repeated (and troublesome) trips to the police department are all simply part of the city council’s way of discouraging would-be permit holders from pursuing a permit in the first place. City council chairman Vincent C. Gray (D) made this clear when he angrily reacted to the overturned ban by “[vowing] that the city was still ‘going to have the strictest handgun laws the Constitution allows.’”
In Chicago, Daley dug in his heals in response to the Heller decision as well, refusing to budge on that city’s handgun ban. Although the National Rifle Association (NRA) filed a suit in federal court to have the ban overturned, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Chicago ban by claiming the Supreme Court did not specifically “incorporate” the Heller decision — did not explicitly say the Heller verdict applies to bans other than the D.C. gun ban. (For the record, Alan Gura, the attorney who successfully argued Heller, contends that no explicit incorporation is necessary because “the 14th Amendment has been interpreted for over a century” as incorporating rights like the Second Amendment.)
Nevertheless, Daley celebrated the decision of the Seventh Circuit with the usual leftist blather about how safe the streets in Chicago will remain with the ban in place. He actually intimated that Chicago policemen would be safer in light of the continued ban. But common sense tells us policemen can’t be safer in a city where the only people carrying guns are criminals.
By the way, did I mention that Chicago was one of the deadliest cities in America last year?
Daley’s opposition to the Second Amendment equates to pure indifference to the safety of the citizens who foolishly keep him in office and the policemen who patrol Chicago’s streets. Yet as a true ideologue, he puts his politics above his constituents.
We all know the kind of pejoratives Mayor Daley or the D.C. city council would throw at conservatives if we denied the incorporation of the Supreme Court’s famous Roe v. Wade verdict, if we picked and chose where it would or would not be applicable based on the political makeup of city councils or mayoral figures. But they’ve no shame in doing just that with Supreme Court verdicts that don’t square with their leftist agendas.
The ease with which they do this is evident in the gun-banning outbursts of Seattle’s Mayor Nickels, who views street-gang crime as a justifiable reason to take away the gun rights of law-abiding citizens. As recently as September 2009, Nickels has attempted to unilaterally deny Seattle citizens the right to keep and bear arms in city parks, community centers, and city buildings. Such bans not only go against the spirit of the Heller decision, but they also go against the laws of Washington state, where local authorities (like Nickels) are not allowed “to adopt firearms regulations, unless specifically authorized by [state] law.”
And of course New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg continues to view the Heller decision with derision. To prove it he’s formed a coalition called Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG). While MAIG is presented as a group of mayors from around the country who have united to get illegal guns off the street, it’s actual goals are to prevent “reciprocity of state right-to-carry permits, … [to encourage] regulating gun shows out of existence, and … to lobby Congress to oppose important pro-gun reforms and support new federal gun control restrictions.”
Did I forget to mention that Bloomberg’s New York City was also one of the deadliest cities in America last year?
It’s high time for these shameless politicians to put their agendas on the back burner and put the rights of the American people first for a change. Whether this means revoking the various bans and limitless application hurdles that keep law-abiding citizens from acquiring the firearms they need or breaking up anti-gun front groups like MAIG, the path to individual gun ownership needs to be cleared again.
We’re tired of being victims with no means to defend ourselves. It’s time to give us back our bullets.
Time for Congress to take away DC authority regarding guns.
DC government registration requirements are designed to be so difficult that it depresses the residents desire to register their weapons. I expect most residents have decided to to what they did for the last 30 years. Do not register any guns.
Congress also needs to create leglislation so that residents of DC can go outside DC to buy handguns since there are no gun shops in DC.
As long as stupid people keep electing these liberal losers, they will continue to get what they deserve.. . the only shame is that those who oppose these gun grabbers must suffer along with the willing sheeple. . .Stock up on arms and ammo while and if you can, for once again the common man will have to come to the defense of the country, protecting even the stupids who love the policies and ideals of the mighty”o”, when his plans come to fruition.
“For example, when Washington Post writer Christian Davenport recently applied for his permit, “it took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class, and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.””
This sounds about right.
And now you will spend hundreds of $’s in ammo you don’t need. That’s what paranoia does to you, unless you really live next to your gang neighbors and drug dealers.
Good thing we have places like HandsOffAmerica.net to organize so we don’t wake up after it is too late and they already have our guns.
Sign up at http://www.handsoffAmerica.net to be one of the first to join our movement.
One wonders why any elected official would want a fellow citizen to be helpless in the face of criminal aggression. Could it be contempt? Elitism? Or does the gun-grabbing pol just think you’re not smart enough to defend yourself? Perhaps they’re just on the side of the criminal instead of the law-abiding public.
I’m stumped. I can’t understand why the mayor of any big city would want their citizens to give in to crime and give the criminals an advantage over them.
YES!!! Excellent piece AWR. One of your best. We need this message to get out to the policitians clearly before they push for further controls. We want our liberty back.
This is a fine piece Hawkins. And very timely. The regional politicians outlined in this article have no shame whatsoever. They clearly trade the safety of their constituents for their ideology (as Hawkins makes clear). It’s time we demand our freedom, unfettered, once again.
What bothers me the most about this is that these politicians – Daley, Bloomberg, etc. – take us for fools. They don’t think we can put two and two together as Hawkins has done here. They don’t think we see that they are sacrificing our very lives for the sake of who knows what.
Why would Daley ever assume that we would believe policemen are safer in a city where only the criminals are armed? We know it simply can’t be so and he’s knows it too: regardless of what he says to the contrary.
Great piece, and the point about Roe vs. Wade couldn’t have been stronger. The Left would go absolutely bonkers if we handled Roe vs. Wade the way they’ve handled Heller.
Once again we learn that we are to accept their dictates without question, regardless of the cost, but they are free to slice and dice our liberties as pleases them. Shame on them for doing so and shame on us for continuing to vote them into office.
Time was, it was a recognized principle of the law that a government is forbidden to accomplish administratively what it is forbidden to do legislatively. Time was, the onerous permitting requirements of the District of Columbia, so plainly intended to prevent residents from acquiring permits, would have caused the Councillors to be hauled before a federal court to face charges of malicious malfeasance.
Time was.
don’t worry the SEIU, Acorn and the new black panthers will protect you.
HELP
I support responsible gun ownership. But I also support a law abiding responsible society. America is armed to the teeth and they are killing at a rate that would make a beirut al -quada operative blush. So we need to have the a national well enforced..mandatory training, waiting period (I prefer two weeks) and criminal background checks before people can get their guns. Guns must also be outlawed once someone is convicted of a crime, and outlawed to everyone below the age of 18 unless they are in an approved fire arms training area. I know that some people are not happy about those kinds of rules, but if you want to play in the adult sandbox, they make sense. Too many innocents, including those hero’s in our beloved police force are falling victim to this insanity. To do nothing, is the worst thing of all.
Well, Backwards, the answer to your question is really very simple – and it’s a twofer. Why would an elected official want a citizen helpless in the face of criminal aggression? 1) The elected officials and the criminals are on the same team in many locales. 2) Guns in the hands of citizens make it very difficult for the state to force them to do things they don’t want to do.
Don’t worry, the Mayor in my town that is with these coalition is going to be voted out and he will have no chance to get the Congressional seat of Mica in Florida. So, please another Republican better run or this seat goes to a Marxist!
Mr. Hawkins’
“It’s high time to examine the tactics of these gun-banning politicians, as well as others throughout the land, and demand, once and for all, that they give us back our bullets.”
The most corrupt and power-hungry politicians are the most ardent of gun-banners.
What a surprise that they are terrified of the idea that the constituents that they have abused would have the power to take them out.
Only a tyrant who is deserving of tyrannicide fears his armed constituency.
“…more than a year after the Heller decision, the D.C. city council is making it as difficult as possible to get a gun permit in the nation’s capital, Chicago’s Mayor Daley is fighting to keep his city’s total handgun ban in place, and other mayors, like Seattle’s Greg Nickels, threaten to institute gun bans every time a newsworthy crime is committed.”
Thank heavens for these clear minded politicians!
11. Poor Citizen:
mandatory training-already do for CCW (I have one)
waiting period-some states already do
criminal background checks-already required
outlawed once someone is convicted of a crime-law of the land (felony conviction)
below the age of 18-can purchase long guns (rifles, shotguns) must be 21 to purchase a pistol
Right on!!! This should be fowarded to every gun rights organization in the country. Shame on Daley and the rest of them for these open attacks on the Second Amendment.
“Why would an elected official want a citizen helpless in the face of criminal aggression?”
Because the right to bear arms has less to do with protecting yourselves from criminals… or hunting. It’s about protecting yourself from the Government as a last resort. The reason the founders wanted to make sure the populace had the right to bear arms has been distorted over the years.
The fact that Chicago and New York were both so deadly last year should be reason enough for Daley and Bloomberg to reverse course. The fact that they don’t makes it look like they have no concern over their citizen’s safety. They are out of touch with reality.
I sent an email to The Copenhagen Post asking them if they knew the murder rate in Chicago.
Check out this info dated January 2009:
http://www.psnchicago.org/PDFs/2009-PSN-Research-Brief_v2.pdf
When Barack The Speaker fails, We The People win.
Excellent column, but the real important point of the discussion is that the subversives have decided LONG AGO that the criminals can and must be used as part of the revolutionary process: the fact that the left protects the cop killers (mumia et al.) is only one little example of that general strategy. Disarming the People is a needed step to get to the new regime in which THE GOVERNMENT will tell you everything you can and cannot do: in this process crime is useful because it creates FEAR in the populace.
If the Patriots succeed in forging a Nation of fighters, the whole process of the New World Order is doomed.
So, unluckily, we have to do with a big problem and the forces behind the gun ban(s) are immensely powerful.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
PS It is important to note that the trolls’ comments reveal exactly the same strategy I am talking about: they always imply that the criminals must be allowed to terrorize the People.
“Did I forget to mention that Bloomberg’s New York City was also one of the deadliest cities in America last year?”
No, but you certainly lied about it.
Or did you just “forget” to consider the difference between the number of murders and the murder rate per 100,000 population in declaring NYC to be so dangerous?
No, I expect that as a “true ideologue”, you put politics above reality.
The real problem here is the Supreme Court. Rather than resolve this issue for now and forever, they just “kick the can down the road.” There is absolutely no reason for this continuing ignoring of the law by the cities like D.C, NYC, Chicago, etc. If the Court had actually provided a complete answer to the whole issue in “Heller,” there would be the basis for putting the local gov’t officials on notice that their continued delaying tactics with respect to the Second Amendment would already be at an end. Sadly, their are really as big, if not a bigger disgrace that the Congress and the White House on this, as well as many other Constitutional issues.
#12 Poor Citizen
I am a highly trained, NRA certified Concealed weapons/personal defense instructor. It would be well if you researched the firearms statutes of your state, and the Federal firearms statutes-nothing in this country is more highly regulated than the manrfacture, sale, possession of firearms. There are over a thousand state and federal laws applicable to all areas of the firearms issue. Aditional laws would be redundant at best.
77/88
S.M.
If citizens can protect themselves, they won’t need government as much. This cannot be allowed.
#16 biblio44
Thank heaven there aren’t more mush-headed morons like you around. However, your drivel can be somewhat entertaining in a sophomoric kind of way.
77/88
S.M.
Why can’t the people simply be trusted to be free? That’s the biggest problem I see with all these leftists: they don’t trust the people to handle their own business. Daley and crew need to realize we don’t need them to watch out for us – a law-abiding American citizen with a firearm is more than capable of protecting his or her own family (and liberty).
“For example, when Washington Post writer Christian Davenport recently applied for his permit, “it took $833.69, a total of 15 hours 50 minutes, four trips to the Metropolitan Police Department, two background checks, a set of fingerprints, a five-hour class, and a 20-question multiple-choice exam.””
Let’s imagine the procedures were thus for registering to vote, and we can see how we would be regaled with how racist said policy is. Our liberal friends claim that a requirement to show a free ID, to prove eligibility to vote, is an intolerable burden on the rights minorities and the poor.
How is this not a naked attempt to discourage poor people from exercising their 2nd Amendment rights?
Colonel S. no. 25 and 27.
Thanks for the reminder, I wasn’t clear. All state laws should be declared “void” and all gun laws federalised.
There…..no more confusion and no more over regulation.
@12. Poor Citizen:
As a twenty-year member of the “poor Police” (working in a direct suburb of the abcess known as Detroit) I can tell you that I have never been endangered by a citizen who was lawfully using a firearm.
I HAVE been endangered by criminals illegally using guns and have seen many people threatened, injured and killed by those same criminals using guns. Criminals do not trouble themselves with niceities like registering firearms or taking classes. Laws will not stop them in their actions.
If you want to truly understand what kind of people commit crimes using guns take a look at the FBI website; try http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm#cius this will lead you to the crime stats. I think it will be a real eye-opener for you. Be sure to check the Violent Crimes stats, buried if the Bureauspeak there is some truly significant data.
It looks like we have a culture gap here. There are people who are afraid of guns, and those who like guns because it keeps them from being afraid. To me, dangerous people are more scary than guns. Guns are equalizers. They make the weakest out-of-shape person equal to the toughest, muscle-bound thug. BTW, South Carolina is one of the safest places to live, if you avoid adultery and insulting drunks in public–oh, and you may never know who’s drunk until it’s too late–best not to insult anyone. Once my wife heard a woman make a number of rude remarks to the clerk in a store. She said to her, “I hope you enjoy your visit to South Carolina, I could tell you’re not from around here.” An armed society is a polite society.
More non-criminal people armed and trained and permitted, LESS crime.
It is THAT simple.
So find a Chicago resident complainant and have Daley arrested under Federal civil rights charges. Seriously, what would the Federal government do if the mayor of Chicago decided he wasn’t going to abide by, say, the 13th Amendment? Why should violating citizens’ 2nd Amendment rights be any different?
Concerning these disputes about “deadliest cities” and so forth: These are tangential considerations, and are ultimately irrelevant. The meat of the matter is the right to life, which implies the right to acquire and carry the means of self-defense.
If even one person dies at some thug’s hands because the law denied him the means of self-defense, then the law is as responsible for his death as the thug. The men who passed and support the law are complicit in his murder. Those who consider his death a necessary price to pay for the law are morally no better than Mao or Stalin.
Someone once said that gun-control advocates see a woman gang-raped and strangled with her own pantyhose as somehow preferable to the same woman armed and safe. The gun-controllers can’t grasp the logic. Perhaps having their candidates lose a few more elections will open their minds, though it’s a longshot at best.
30. Poor Citizen:
I would suggest it is none of the Federal Government’s business at all.
Remember the Bill of Rights is a list of things the Feds are PROHIBITED from doing, the 2nd Amendment was put in place to stop governments of all types from limiting your access to firearms.
In fact the background papers written by the founding fathers would suggest that the “Right to keep and bear…” was explicitly included to allow the people to protect themselves FROM the Government (no mention of hunting or defense against criminals, just defense against government gone astray).
In fact, a straight and honest reading of the text of the 2nd amendment would suggest that there can be no regulation at all.
“An armed society is a polite society.”
Nonsense.
If you are only polite because you think anyone you are gratuitously obnoxious to will shoot you because of it, then you are polite solely and exclusively out of fear.
Likewise if you are obnoxious only because you believe nobody will stand up to you because they have no gun, then you are obnoxious solely and exclusively because you think others are afraid of you.
Either way, you have someone who is acting because they believe in power through fear.
Conversely a truly polite person will always be polite, whether he knows the person he is talking to might decide to randomly shoot him over some perceived offense, or because he expects nobody will assault him because he is armed. He is polite because he is polite, just as the jerk is a jerk because he is a jerk.
What you mean is that your armed society is a society of obnoxious bullies, restraining themselves solely out of fear of their neighbors.
Poor Citizen #20 comment: You are mistaken. Federalizing gun laws would conflict with State’s Rights. We already have a federal law, e.g., the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
30. Poor Citizen:
Well why don’t we just abolish the states and cities and let Washington do everything, God knows they are trying to anyway.
No, its long past time to stop the Federal government and return power where it belongs, the people and the states.
A real mind bender for the anti-gun crowd is Dr James Lott’s book “More Guns, Less Crime”. Lott is a statistician who undertook an exhaustive research into crime stats and the availability of guns in the hands of citizens. He found an inverse ratio between the availability of conceakled carry permits and criminal activity. His determination was that crooks are risk-averse and will aviod committing assaultive crimes in areas where they feel the citizens will fight back.
The Second should be interpreted just as the First is.. with all “emanations and penumbras” included.
Just as freedom of speech is abridged by not being allowed to yell “fire” in a crowded building(unless there is a fire), so too shooting a gun into a crowd should be illegal(unless the crowd is attacking you). And that should be all the gun laws there are.
The federal law should only see to it that your Second amendment rights are upheld like they do “Separation of Church and State”.
What’s the difference between Davenport’s experience in getting a permit and the early-20th Century “Jim Crow” poll taxes, literacy comprehension tests, residency, and record-keeping requirements of the South? Sound pretty similar to me.
“All state laws should be declared “void” and all gun laws federalised.”
Except for age restrictuions, intersate sales restrictions and a few odss and ends like banning machine guns, Federal law places few restrictions on firearm ownership or use. The States are the ones who do the real restricting – as this article shows. Eliminating State laws sounds good to me.
Great article. It reminds me of how fortunate I am to live in Texas, where someone like Daley could never get away with the anti-gun policies he enjoys in Chicago.
Those trips to the station, fees and tests sound like Bull Connor trying to deny another right. But of course that was a preferred right, so it was bad then but OK now.
Dear Anonymous – Why does responsibility have to be equated with paranoia? This is a tired and useless tactic. Our Founders were clear in that we not only have the right to self-preservation but also the duty. It’s a responsibility (not paranoia) that Daley hinders.
“All state laws should be declared “void” and all gun laws federalised.”
How would that be constitutional? How could even the liberals on the Supreme Court reason that it is?
I think it is sad and funny that any law that resulted in hundreds of extra dollars in fees, days of waiting, applications, permits, classes and general bureaucracy for an adult woman to have an abortion during her first trimester would be CLEARLY UNCONSTITUTIONAL – even though the word “abortion” is enumerated NOWHERE in the Constitution – yet the D.C. laws are still defended by liberal gun fearing weasels.
Insane.
A straight and honest reading of the text of the Constitution would suggest that most of what the Federal Government does is illegal.
“Conversely a truly polite person will always be polite, whether he knows the person he is talking to might decide to randomly shoot him over some perceived offense, or because he expects nobody will assault him because he is armed.”
All truly polite societies are polite out of fear. It may be fear of different things, but it is always out of fear. In Japan, where there are no guns, not to be polite is a major social faux pas and brings shame on the unpolite person.
Like most liberals, you really don’t have any understanding at all of human behavior beyond “pass a law and make them do what I want”.
“– even though the word “abortion” is enumerated NOWHERE in the Constitution –”
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
It is a bad choice to base your complaints about a right being disparaged by construing the Constitution to deny or disparage others.
The right to privacy in medical care (you know, like having private insurance rather than a government plan), does not have to be enumerated in the Constitution for it to exist.
I have read some good things about accountability.The Democratic party has a platform that means takover at several levels.The only way to change this is complete
removal by voting.America needs to wakeup.The left is obviously like their arrangant leader an
Pagan.Without Christian renewal in schools and everywhere else we are doomed.
“It is a bad choice to base your complaints about a right being disparaged by construing the Constitution to deny or disparage others.”
The right to bear arms, which you are attacking here, is explicitly laid out in the Second Amendment. There is no “right to an abortion” mentioned in the Constitution. And you have the audacity to say what you do? Talk about bad choices.
The rights mentioned in the Ninth Amendment are held by the people, who may add them to the Constitution if the wish. Not by the courts.
The Ninth Amendment does not permit the courts to make up whatever they feel like and then claim that they are just “interpeting” the Ninth.
Unlike you, the courts understand this, which is why not even the liberals on the court have ever used your argment.
Poor Citizen you are a statist whore. Scum like you will only get my firepower from my cooling corpse – and the tragic thing is, you will get others killed when they try to take said firepower from me. Their blood is on your hands, and only your smug sense of misplaced moral superiority allows you to sleep at night.
The cops that come for my guns should make you walk to my door first, that way at least ONE deserving person will die on that day. Everyone else that goes surely won’t.
The right to privacy does not protect Conspiracy to Commit Murder. The victim’s right to life trumps your right to privacy.
no. 31, cop in suburb of Detroit?
I wuz born there, grew up in stclairshores/roseville.I have alot of friends that are cops there (mostly retired or in trouble..ha ha). I know Im on the left side of the issue, but a.nothing i propose would take guns away from those that use them responsibly and b. by enforcing those rules and few others and making them nationally enforce it would reduce over regulation (saving money) and save more (not all) lives. My other problem is the NRA, talk about big, the NRA spends millions, millions on the status quo and only supports progress on the issue “kickin and screamin”. “there takin our guns…there takin our guns” what a load of hogwash false propoganda….and why do you believe that b.s.?
@50 Steve:
Japanese politesse came about because anyone of the warrior class could immediately kill anyone who showed them an insult, if they were of a lower class, or of a lower rank within the warrior class. Indeed, they were mandated by those very social mores to do so. This led to many equally-ranked lower-status warriors engaging in pointless duels over arcane points of politness and honor, keeping them too exhausted to challenge higher authorities within the warrior class (and the cynic in me asks, “mission accomplished?” Even today it’s not pretty in Japan when someone of sufficiently high status screws the pooch because nobody ever told him that the plan was erroneous to begin with. That’s surprising given the frequency with which it happens in politics and business).
Incidentally, a similar standard of polite manners arose in Britain in the Victorian and pre-Victorian eras, though it was more egalitarian in its application. That code of the “honor duel” came to the American Colonies, though it largely died out following the Revolutionary War (especially following the infamous Hamilton-Burr duel). That veneer of “civilization” over the “might defines right” mentality is always thin, and lapses with regularity. The reason why is below…
@37 Sam:
Yes – fear produces results where kind words fail. Life is full of bad actors, and one should always have, not just a Plan B, but also Plans C and D, at the very least. Your point? Respect is not simply given without its becoming worthless. In order to have any value, respect must be earned. Where good deeds and good manners will prevail, that’s going to be the first resort. Where violence is the only thing that works, it becomes the last resort – but in those cases it must be used unless you’d rather knuckle under to those very bullies you decry. Otherwise it’s Richie Cunningham trying to imitate The Fonz, and never pulling it off because of his lack of credibility when it comes to using force for self-defense.
So many errors Steve!
I attacked no part of the 2nd Amendment there. I simply pointed out that it is a poor choice to attack one Amendment in an attempt to prop up another. You will rarely, if ever, get anywhere in advancing one right by denouncing untold others.
The 9th Amendment is quite clear, listing certain rights does not mean others do not exist. It says nothing about them having to be added to the Constitution to exist, they are already there by virtue of the 9th Amendment itself. That is worse than a fallacy, that is slavery, as it very much sets the basis for asserting that we have absolutely no rights except those which are explicitly enumerated by the government.
You will rarely, if ever, get any freedom by surrendering the basis of it so completely.
Nor did I suggest a separate and independent right to a specific procedure. I referred simply to medical privacy, a right that has been recognized as existing, even without a specific amendment creating it in distinction from any other right to privacy.
You will rarely, if ever, have any privacy if you so casually disdain it in such a critical area.
Disparage the 9th Amendment, as you very clearly do, solely for yourself. I happen to cherish all of my non-enumerated rights under the 9th Amendment, no matter how little you think of them.
Unlike you, the First Congress of the United States and the legislatures of the several states thought enough of the 9th Amendment to include it, and none ever used your argument.
We must never, ever give up our guns. And while we have some degree of momentum from the Tea Parties and Healthcare Reform protests, we need to push for gun laws to be rolled back. Why be satisfied with anything less than liberty?
@57 Still another Rick:
My point is, do not conflate fear with civility, or with respect.
Likewise do not be so fast to dismiss politeness because of a lack of earned respect. (Not to mention being able to afford a gun falling far short of qualifing as an act appropriate to “earning” respect.) One can be polite without liking, or even respecting another person, and in a truly polite society that is what one does.
Indeed, violence does solve many things. That does not change it to being the basis for civility, merely to the basis for a lack of violence.
It is completely reasonable to cite a proper need to self defense as the sole and exclusive reason to be armed without having to add other things to it, and particularly without having to make up stories about needing a gun to make people polite.
If essential rights have to rely on pretense for their justification, they lose their credibility as essential rights.
conceal and carry for all law abiding U.S. citizens
“So many errors Steve!”
“I attacked no part of the 2nd Amendment there. I simply pointed out that it is a poor choice to attack one Amendment in an attempt to prop up another.”
Nobody here is “attacking” the Ninth Amendment, an Amendment which you cleary do not understand at all.
“The 9th Amendment is quite clear, listing certain rights does not mean others do not exist. It says nothing about them having to be added to the Constitution to exist, they are already there by virtue of the 9th Amendment itself”
So there is a Ninth Amendment right to “free” health-care? If not, why not?
The Ninth Amendment says only that other rights are “retained by the people”. This is the so-called “enumerated powers” doctrine that the Feds can only do what the Constitution explicitly permits them to do. It does not establish a national “right” to abortion.
“You will rarely, if ever, get any freedom by surrendering the basis of it so completely.”
You are the one surrendering freedom, by arguing that the courts should have the power to decide what our constitutional rights are. I don’t think you understand freedom at all. The basis of fredom has nothing to do with courts (aka the state) handing down edicts.
“Unlike you, the First Congress of the United States and the legislatures of the several states thought enough of the 9th Amendment to include it, and none ever used your argument.”
They used precisely my argument. If you had been around to make your judicial supremacy arguments they’d have laughed in your face.
“If essential rights have to rely on pretense for their justification, they lose their credibility as essential rights.”
Says the guy trying to shoehorn all his pet issues into the Ninth Amendment.
You have obviously never read the Federalist Papers Steve.
You might want to give it a try before you make such claims about what the Founding Fathers intended or not.
You are, very completely, wrong.
It is no wonder with people like you trying to make the arguments that our rights are so threatened.
“You have obviously never read the Federalist Papers Steve.”
I have a well-thumbed copy on the book shelf right next to me as I type this. Strangely, there is nothing in my copy about the judges ability to tell us what our rights are and are not.
10. Francis W. Porretto: Admin/Law
Congress _is_ the Law in the D of C,
no Court ruling needed;
They have direct control granted by the Constitution.
They also abdicated long ago;
Moved their families out of the District,
set up a Safe Zone for themselves when
they have to be in town, and let the mob
have the rest.
12. Poor Citizen:
America killing at a terrorist rate
What part ? Outside of the Ghettos, the US is
as safe as England used to be, before they
imported terrorists, and made it a crime
to defend oneself.
37. Sam: If you are only polite out of fear
It is not about you, or _our_ society;
It is about a society which had just recovered
from a 2nd Great Depression, complete with
“Civil Disorders”, and decided to prevent a recurrence by emphasizing an individual right,
and duty, to punish lack of civility, aka politeness, aka the ability to treat
others with respect. One of Heinlein’s Alternate
Universes which is uncomfortably close to ours.
44. Rogers: Fortunate to live in Texas
Roger that
Compare Heinlein to H. Beam Piper,
“A Planet for Texans”, where a citizen who injured
or killed a “Practicing Politician” was required
to prove in court that the PP’s actions merited
the response:
Somebody finally shot Aus Maverick; Old Aus
proposed a tax on income; What did he expect ?
49. MarkD: Unconstitutional Federal Government
Just as soon as the State became powerful enough
to tax the states into submission; If the Feds
lose that power, the states will not give it back.
57. Still Another Rick: @50 Steve: Samurai Politeness
They mostly killed one another, in duels,
as you say; The “Right to Cut Down and Leave”
was a special grant to trusted Samurai, like
the “High Justice” in the West.
60. Sam: @57 Still another Rick:
fear, civility, respect, and violence
In a truly polite society, populated by angels.
Men are not angels; They require government=force=violence.
This has been true ever since the first men
made a clearing in the forest, built a city,
with a wall around it to keep the animals out,
and made up rules to live in a civilized
way, enforced by the fascii: The Rods and the Ax.
P.S. Give us back our bullets
Is this a reference to the scene
in the latest Indiana Jones movie,
where Indy says to the Prussian
Bad Guy “I want your bullets.”,
and gets a lewd look and laugh
in return ?
““the 14th Amendment has been interpreted for over a century” as incorporating rights like the Second Amendment.”
This is not true. A century takes us back to the Jim Crow era. The doctrine of incorporation was invented by Hugo Black in the late 1940s, and most used by the Warren court in the 1950s. The doctrine has not been applied to all of the first ten Amendments. the indictment clause of 6 and the civil jury trial of 7 are not covered. Judge Easterbrook’s opinion in the is correct in that it states that there is no precedent for incorporating the 2nd.
“Nevertheless, Daley celebrated the decision of the Seventh Circuit with the usual leftist blather about how safe the streets in Chicago will remain with the ban in place. He actually intimated that Chicago policemen would be safer in light of the continued ban. But common sense tells us policemen can’t be safer in a city where the only people carrying guns are criminals.By the way, did I mention that Chicago was one of the deadliest cities in America last year? Daley’s opposition to the Second Amendment equates to pure indifference to the safety of the citizens who foolishly keep him in office and the policemen who patrol Chicago’s streets. Yet as a true ideologue, he puts his politics above his constituents.”
Daley is the typical do-as-I-say, not-as-I-do machine politician. No one within the Chicago city limits may own a firearm for protection, but the Mayor-for-life has a 24/7/365 secuity detailed armed to the teeth. An elderly woman in a dangerous neighborhood, afraid for her safety, may not own a gun without risking prosecution, even though the thugs who invade her home, mug her, or threaten her most assuredly do. Daley and company swear that the CPD can protect her, but the reality is that the police cannot alwasy respond in time to distress calls. Hope the lady in question has a big dog and an eletronic alarm system, because she cannot own anything else legally.
67. M. Report: ‘P.S. Give us back our bullets. Is this a reference to the scene in the latest Indiana Jones movie, where Indy says to the Prussian Bad Guy “I want your bullets.”, and gets a lewd look and laugh
in return ?’
Of course it is, M. Hollywood-hating right wing gun nuts can’t stop using Hollywood quotes, allusions, references, etc.
“Poor Citizen wrote: I support responsible gun ownership. But I also support a law abiding responsible society. America is armed to the teeth and they are killing at a rate that would make a beirut al -quada operative blush. So we need to have the a national well enforced..mandatory training, waiting period (I prefer two weeks) and criminal background checks before people can get their guns. Guns must also be outlawed once someone is convicted of a crime, and outlawed to everyone below the age of 18 unless they are in an approved fire arms training area. I know that some people are not happy about those kinds of rules, but if you want to play in the adult sandbox, they make sense. Too many innocents, including those hero’s in our beloved police force are falling victim to this insanity. To do nothing, is the worst thing of all.”
PC, gun violence is not a problem of poor regulation of firearms, but of poor values and poor character. All of the rules in the world will not eliminate or even significantly reduce gun violence, because there an estimated 200+ million guns in circulation in this country; Pandora’s box has been opened and there is no closing it. The Prohibition taught us that a legal product that people want to buy, when otlawed or severely regulated, will be forced underground into the black market. Drug gangs have been caught with automatic weapons; they didn’t get them down at the local gun dealer, they got them illegally. Such people do not care about the law, and will not follow it.
The answer lies not in enacting more laws, which are external controls, but in creating people of strong character, self-discpline and good values, who will be less likely to grab a gun to settle a dispute.
Strict gun-control laws have been tried and have failed; study data clearly show that in areas where responsible private ownership is permitted, crimes rates drop, including those comissioned with a fairearm.
The real reason certain politicians of a totalitarian bent, despise guns so much is that the 2nd amendment assures the rest of the Bill of Rights. An unarmed people have no recourse against the leviathan of all-powerful government. Every dictator of the last 100 years – from Stalin to Hitler to Mao – has prohibited private firearms ownership, recognizing that as long as their citizens were armed, they could not exercise complete control over them. Politicians also want a monopoly on the use of force, ultimate power over life and death, otherwise known as the ability to play God.
Take a hike with your stealth tyranny, #12. Our freedom will not be governed by the vagaries of what you deem responsible gun ownership.
Sam, #37, you misunderstand the meaning of the saying “An armed society is a polite society.” You apparently believe that an armed society is centered on power through fear, and composed of “obnoxious bullies.” Yes, there are bullies and obnoxious people in America, including some who are armed. So what? When did it become unlawful to be obnoxious? Threaten someone – especially with a firearm – and you have quite possibly committed a felony. However, being obnoxious is not a crime, nor is a little fear – I prefer the term “respect” – a bad thing in relations between people. Do you realize we are living in a jungle, and that the line between civilization and chaos, between restraint and anarchy, is very thin? In the old west, the Colt revolver was called the “great equalizer,” because it could be loaded and fired by anyone.
The same is true today: the physically weak, the elderly, all of those who once were preyed upon by criminals with impunity, were elevated into parity with their attackers by the firearm. Consider the following thought experiment: If you knew your 80-year old mother ws about to be assaulted and then gang-raped in her home by home invaders, or even murdered, which would you rather she have – (a) a loaded firearm and the training to use it, or (b) nothing but her wits? I know how I’d choose. There is no guarantee she will survive if she is armed, but there it is near-certainty she will not if she is unarmed.
“Polite,” then, does not mean in the sense of Miss Manners, but of having a healthy respect for one another, backed up by force if necessary.
#65 Steve
“I have a well-thumbed copy on the book shelf right next to me as I type this. Strangely, there is nothing in my copy about the judges ability to tell us what our rights are and are not.”
If your copy does not contain #78, with its very clear endorsement of judicial review, I suggest you find an authetic copy immediately. It will also help disabuse you of the notion that the 2nd Amendment is intended to endorse violent change in the government, as opposed to the prescribed peaceful change via election and amendment.
#66 M. Report
Again, civility exists or does not exist irrelevant of external conditions.
Either you have a basic respect for the rights and feelings of your neighbor and fellow citizens or you do not. If you are only capable of controlling your baser instincts out of fear then the flaw is within you, not within your neighbor.
I am also quite familiar with both Heinlein and Piper.
Before you jump to cite Lone Star Planet, remember Little Fuzzy – you can find a precedent for anything within colonial law. Disarming the populace perhaps?
If you insist on getting Hobbesian with the “nasty, brutish, and short” bit, then why not go the whole way?
Remember, Heinlein sneered at democracy and republics just as much as he sneered at dictatorship. And we know what he said about people who will not defend the state they live in (even while disdaining conscription, which has been part of the traditions of the people of this country since before its establishment).
#37 Sam
“If you are only polite because you think anyone you are gratuitously obnoxious to will shoot you because of it, then you are polite solely and exclusively out of fear.”
Seems like a lot of psychological projection going on here, since you had to create so many strawman arguments (well, really just more declarative statements than arguments) to try and make your point.
I suspect that most compliance with law and regulation is based primarily on fear of getting caught and punished. So our entire “civilization” functions because of state power through fear.
The point is rather that in an unarmed society, the bullies and loudmouths think they can act that way without consequences. Too many supposed adults never really grew out of their schoolyard intimidation tactics. When any other adult has the potential to resist that bullying, or defend themselves when the bully gets angry at being confronted, it creates incentives for better self-control by those inclined to be bullying. That makes for a more civil society.
Is it any less valuable because they control their behavior out of fear? I think not. I don’t think there is any way a society will operate on pure altruism. Our society currently runs on fear, but it is more fear by citizens of their government, fear by citizens of criminals, fear by citizens of society’s bullys. I’d prefer a society where those associations are flipped around.
So in the long run, your concern about motivation is truly pointless.
Sam @23 – Robert @20 is probably right in absolute numbers, and you are right in the preferred homicides per 100,000. What you omit to mention is that the low homicide rate in New York City comes at the cost of almost being an armed camp, with nearly 500 uniformerd police per 100,000.
Sam @37 – People are generally not polite because their still a fair amount of savage in us all. English homicide records that go back into the middle ages, before there were guns and physical brawn counted for a lot more, indicates homicide rates that were very high by modern standards. Moreover, in the United Kingdom, which essentially banned guns around 1996, there has been a stupendous increase in the violent crime rate(albeit a smaller increase in the homicide rate). You simply cannot get around the fact that when you take away guns from the law abiding, you leave guns in the hands of non-law abiding and you put the law abiding at great risk. That is, unless you are willing to live in the armed camp that is New York City.
Sam @51 How about the Tenth Amendment? “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” Furthermore, the US Constitution mentions nothing about abortion and there is there nothing in the enumerated rights Congress in Section 8 of Article II giving the Congress the right to legislate on the manner or in Section 3 of Article III giving the Supreme Court the right to adjudicate on the matter. Abortion would seem to be a state right that the US Supreme Court has unconstitutionally legislated away.
Anton @40 Spot on.
Francis @ 35 I agree with sentiment, but saying “If even one person dies …” is not the right way to look at things. It is a really cost/benefit analysis. Do the costs of gun control outweigh the benefits? Looking around a cities where gun ownership and concealed carry by law-abiding citizens is difficult, you will find astounding homicide rates (think Detroit, Baltimore and Washington DC). The exception of course in New York City, but at the cost of being an armed camp. In general, I would say concealed carry and extensive private ownership of guns far and away outweigh the costs of gun control.
isnt Marion ********* Barry one of the authors of antigun legislation in DC?
It doesn’t matter which mayors started this mess, it needs to end. There’s no excuse for denying the people the means they need to protect themselves, their families, and their property.
Corrections: In my comments to Sam @37: Where I said, ‘their still is’ it should have been ‘there still is’
In my comments to Francis @35, I said: ‘I would say concealed carry’ I should have said: ‘I would say the benefits of concealed carry’
Excellent article. It’s interesting that the gun ban in Chicago did not prevent a group of thugs from picking up pieces of rail road ties and beating a young man to death. The senseless and continuing focus on gun control to control violence has to stop and the libiots need to leave my second amendment rights alone.
PRM:
I saw that video and instantly wished it were a video game where the goal is to shoot all the people with sticks and none of the innocents. Those people are animals and that scene was straight out of Rwanda. God bless that poor child who got caught in it and paid with his life. For all you gun haters- what’s gonna keep you from that mob? Your politeness? Jackasses all of you. The thin blue line is non-existant for those poor folks… stick wielding maniacs- coming to a nice safe suburb near you, stay tuned!!
Only a politician with a background in the law would have trouble understanding the phrase” shall not be infringed”. It is time to ignore the unconstitutional usurpation of our rights by the lunitic fringe leftists. I live in a right to carry county, and don’t normally carry a gun. I don’t have to, because the criminals know everyone in the county might be armed. It’s safer for them to go to Seattle and rob the liberals.