Second Amendment Rights not Assured Despite Court Victories
In any attempt to create the socialist/Marxist administrative state, what kind of “fundamental change” would be necessary? The goal, of course, must be to greatly increase the power of the centralized state and simultaneously to greatly decrease the power — the rights — of the individual. Individuals capable of compelling the state to recognize their rights, to hinder or subvert the designs of the state in any way, cannot be tolerated. In any such attempt, paramount must be the reduction and eventual elimination of the Second Amendment. Near-ultimate or ultimate state power cannot be attained and held if the people can resist with force of arms. But how can this be accomplished in the face of Supreme Court decisions affirming and incorporating the Second Amendment as a fundamental right?
In the aftermath of the Heller decision, which established the Second Amendment as a fundamental individual right, and the McDonald decision, which incorporated that right, applying it to the states, some have felt that the debate over guns in American life is essentially over. Anti-gun groups such as the Brady Campaign have had no real successes in years, and with Heller and McDonald decided, they seem likely to be relegated to being a nuisance around the margins of a debate that no longer holds the limelight. Unfortunately, such thinking ignores the realities of the administrative state and of the imperial judiciary.
Despite the aforementioned decisions, state and local legislators and bureaucrats in cities such as Chicago and Washington, D.C., continue to ignore the clear intent of the Supreme Court decisions and impose regulations, such as licensing requirements, excessive fees, and zoning regulations, so restrictive as to effectively prevent the sale and possession of firearms for all but the politically connected and the very hardy and determined few.
Note that virtually all of these enclaves of anti-gun sentiment — such as New York and Chicago — are Democrat-controlled, some might say Democrat-ruled — and have been for decades. That crime rates in such areas are commonly far higher than in cities that respect the Second Amendment rights of their citizens is a well-established fact, but a fact which has no determinative effect on the bureaucratic mind.
Few of these politicians or bureaucrats will think or say “the Constitution doesn’t allow that,” or “the Supreme Court’s decisions have limited my power and actions.” They will simply do what they want, secure in the knowledge that it will take many years and many millions for their edicts to be overturned, and even then, they will suffer nothing for imposing them. They are quite likely to merely start over with the most minute of adjustments to policies they knew to be unconstitutional from the start.
As is its usual practice, the Supreme Court kept the parameters of each case quite narrow, deciding only the major question raised rather than delineating details. It is here that the administrative state has substantial room to make mischief and rules. For the moment, Heller and McDonald have affirmed essentially only that individual citizens not prohibited by law, such as through felony convictions or having been judged mentally impaired, have a right to keep and bear arms for any lawful purpose, including self-defense. However, that right is explicitly operative only within the home, leaving an enormous range of mischief making for anti-gun activists and power-hungry politicians and bureaucrats.
It is not absolutely clear, for example, if the right extends to the limits of one’s property. Theoretically, a gun-bearing citizen stepping onto his front porch might be liable for arrest in any jurisdiction that cares to enact such a restrictive law. The poor citizen might eventually have such a conviction overturned, but that’s thousands of dollars and many years (even many years in prison) later, surely a proposition beyond the means and determination of most people, even those willing to fight for principle.
The logical man would reason that a right as important as the right to keep and bear arms for self defense — and this portion of the right has been clearly delineated — must encompass not only the interior of the home, but at the very least the entirety of a homeowner’s property and their person. The defense of self and the defense of property are two entirely different matters. What good is a fundamental right that begins and ends at one’s front door or property line? A right to free speech, for example, limited to haranguing one’s family within the walls of one’s own home isn’t a right at all.
If one of the underlying purposes of the right is self-defense — and the Supreme Court has made this much clear — must it not necessarily apply to wherever the ”self” is at any given moment? If it does not, can it be said to actually be a right rather than a whimsically granted and rescinded privilege bestowed by government?
Regardless of the language of the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms is treated as a permission granted by the State. Worse, it’s a permission you have to buy — and in many states, buy repeatedly, at exorbitant rates. To illuminate that distinction, imagine if your Fourth Amendment rights were treated the same way as your “gun rights.”
Actually, given the recent Indiana court decision that a property owner has no right to resist a warrantless intrusion by the police, that might not be the best comparison. But it might get people thinking about the difference between a right and a permission.
You just hit the nail on the broken judicial system head. In Indiana the local Supremes threw out the 4th amendment and now police can invade your home, car and person with warrantless searches. But you have recourse through the low cost legal system? Have you ever seen a court pass a multi-million dollar decision against individual police, the police force and the city, county or state that controls them? I see why the founding fathers were so adamant in what came 1st, 2nd, 3rd 4th and 5th. Sad the lawyers and solicitor generals appointed to upholding have their own not so secret agenda.
I have long held the belief that the destruction of the Second Amendment would be the downfall of the entire Constitution. It would be a withered, old, funny document written by men long ago and no longer holds any meaning or reality for anyone living in this ‘modern world’.
The almost daily attacks on this amendment makes it the most important part of the entire Constitution. If that were not the case, the effort to thwart its meaning and establishment would not be in forefront of so many of these politicians such as Boxer’s S.176 which is a thinly disguised bill to take away the 44 states laws that have concealed carry.
In other aspects concealed carry is not in reality a freedom. It, in fact,is more government control for your individual right to bear arms.
As Thomas Jefferson stated that walking with his firearm was , indeed comforting to him.
“Such laws make for obviously absurd realities. Imagine if the Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures was so narrowly construed. The moment one stepped out of their home or off their property, might they not be subject to strip searches at the whim of the state? Might not every vehicle in which they were traveling be subject to unrestricted search and seizure?”
The decision by the Indiana State Supreme Court this week makes an even narrower distinction on the Fourth Amendment, stating that it is illegal to “resist” a police search of your premises (home, not property or car) in any way. Even one without a warrant.
As someone who has done searches with a warrant, I can somewhat understand the reasoning; drug dealers are unlikely to comply with a search even with one, and their “resistance” tends to involve shooting people. (Never mind prohibitions on firearms.) But the Indiana decision holds that any form of “resistance” is verboten.
Meaning that if an officer (uniformed or otherwise) comes to your door, shows you a badge, and demands to be allowed to search your house, you are likely to be arrested if you;
1. Ask him to show you a search warrant;
2. Ask him why he wants to search (probable cause);
3. Ask him to wait while you call the precinct to find out if he is who he claims to be;
4. Ask him to let you call your lawyer.
The greatest beneficiaries of this (until it is stomped on by the United States Supreme Court) will be, I suspect, home invasion-type armed robbers. Here in Ohio, masquerading as police officers is one of their favorite tricks, especially in the large metro areas like Columbus or Cleveland. Under an Indiana-style law, the 911 call that might save you is considered “resistance”.
What this has to do with the present discussion is that we are seeing an increasing hostility to the entire Bill of Rights, not just the Second Amendment, at all levels of government. I consider it a sign of an increasing insularity and outright arrogance on the part of elected officials and those charged with interpreting the law at the judicial level (some elected, some appointed). It is also endemic in both Federal law-enforcement agencies (Justice Department, Treasury Department), as well as local and state agencies which, frankly, have been wholly-owned subsidiaries of a single political “machine” for a few decades too long.
It has been said that all forms of government ultimately trend toward the aristocratic and authoritarian. IMHO, that is precisely what we are seeing here.
As a baseball team manager once said, it’s probably time to “throw the bums out”.
While we still can.
clear ether
eon
Well, I live in Indiana and I can tell you that this ruling will not hold. It’s unconstitutional and opens the door to all kinds of abuse. Mitch Daniels’ appointee wrote the opinion for the three judges who held it. (You can be sure I will be working against Daniels now.) In making the ruling, the court wrote that it did so in order to prevent violence. All they did was make sure there would be more violence. Crackheads and dealers in Gary and Indianapolis will start shooting on sight when they see a cop coming up their sidewalk. I won’t blame them. Any cop who tries to force himself into my house will be as dead as any crook who tries the same thing.
Watch the video of LSU students responding to a Leftist who only wanted to burn The Flag http://hotair.com/archives/2011/05/13/video-lsu-crowd-throws-water-balloons-at-would-be-flag-burner/, and then ask yourself what the popular reaction would be in the South, the Plains, and the Mountain West to any serious attempt to abrogate the Second Amendment. The LSU students’ reaction is a warning to Leftists that they could easily provoke an event not unlike that which swept away the Communist PKI in Indonesia in 1965. Are they that stupid?
One could only hope that the leftist loons will someday lie on the ash heap of history.
Or bombed with H20 every time they speak their nonsense.
This is a fight that will never be over. I feel that it will have to be fought day after day for the rest of time.
The reason is not misunderstanding. The 2nd Amendment is not misunderstood. It is the victim of liars who will make any claim that works to their advantage at the moment to get to their goal, disarming YOU.
That is the goal of all gun control. Disarming YOU. There is no THEM to disarm. It is always YOU.
When Obama wants “reasonable gun control” he is saying he wants to disarm YOU.
When the ATF says they want to control illegal arms sales they really want to disarm YOU.
That is the truth.
The only way to ensure that YOU are not disarmed is to fight ALL gun control, no matter how “reasonable” it sounds. If that means there are bad people with guns it will also means that there will be more good people with guns.
The bad people WILL ALWAYS GET GUNS. That is another truth.
In many ways, I am sickened that this debate has been centered around GUNS. Guns are not the only methods of defense against criminals and tyrants.
What we are really dealing with is the right to bear arms. That means not just the right to self defense. It is the right to develop police and militias to defend ourselves. That infamous parenthetical statement DOES have a meaning here: The right to self defense is a right that applies from the individual to the family, the community, and the state.
The debate was NEVER simply about guns. It is about people needing to defend themselves. Guns are simply the most visible and obvious tools used for that purpose. However, such rules can apply to ensuring that explosives are freely available. They can also apply to those shop keepers who electrified a window to prevent burglars from breaking in (Read about the case of Larry Harris attempting to break in to a bar owned by Jessie Ingram in 1997).
The problem here is that courts have been nibbling away at these rights for many decades. The Harris case above was settled for $75,000 paid by Ingram to the Harris survivors. Thus, it appears that you can defend yourself and your property, but only if you pay for it.
GRRRRRRR!
And though it is bad form to reply to one’s comment, I need to add something I discovered post script:
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_ec169697-a19e-525f-a532-81b3df229697.html
In Indiana, you may not defend yourself against a clearly illegal police entry in to your home.
Why is it that we citizens need to keep reminding judges of what the constitution says? Most are lawyers themselves. Shouldn’t they know this stuff already?
Here’s a recent example of what we’re up against. LAPD has been enjoined to operate its CCW program under certain rules – only they’re not following the process the court ordered them to use. The NRA and CRPA are back in court to try to remedy that situation.
“Under Penal Code § 12050, et seq., the LAPD has an obligation to process applications for CCWs, and to issue CCWs if the applicant has “good cause.” For many years, the City and the LAPD had a policy of not making applications available, never finding good cause to exist, and effectively prohibiting the issuance of any CCWs.
Two lawsuits filed in the 1990′s were supposed to change that. But despite a binding settlement in those suits that resulted in LAPD being ordered by a court to implement new policies, the LAPD has abandoned these court ordered policies for handling citizens’ applications for CCWs, and has fallen back on its old habits.”
“To rectify this situation, two new legal actions are being pursued. The first new court action is a motion to enforce the court’s old order in the 1994 case, Assenza v. City of Los Angeles. Some of the original plaintiffs from that case seek to force the LAPD to reinstate its agreed-to policy of providing applications and copies of its written policy at all LAPD station houses. In support of its motion, NRA grassroots activist citizens who were recruited to investigate the LAPD’s practices have submitted declarations about their recent attempts to get CCW applications. They were frustrated by uncooperative officers at individual stationhouses, all of whom had a complete lack of understanding of the LAPD’s application process, and who in almost all instances could not provide a CCW application to the requesting citizen, much less a copy of the LAPD’s written policy. Perhaps most egregiously, LAPD officers bluntly told citizens that unless they were celebrities, they shouldn’t even bother filling out the CCW application because they would be denied a CCW as a matter of LAPD policy.
The second action is a new lawsuit, Davis v. City of Los Angeles. The nine plaintiffs in this new action, some of whom have had CCW applications pending and unresolved with the LAPD for years, have submitted sworn declarations attesting to a litany of missteps and abuses by LAPD in its handling of their CCW applications. These abuses include not only the failures to provide applications and copies of the written policies at stationhouses, but refusals to timely consider their applications, failures to respond to inquiries regarding the status of applications, failures to acknowledge the availability of the Citizens Advisory Review Panel as a method of appealing denial, and the failure to give any weight to recommendations by the Citizens Advisory Review Panel.”
http://www.calguns.net/calgunforum/showthread.php?t=432556
Imagine if same-sex “marriage” was treated this way- e.g., same-sex “marriage” was legally recognized, but those who wish to “marry” someone of the same sex must show good cause. And conveniently, applications are not available and good cause is never found.
Would any leftist defend that?
SOLUTION – EVERY GUN OWNER CARRY. CAN THEY ARREST AND JAIL US ALL ? ONLY IF THEY PURSUE HITLERS TACTICS. LETS FIND OUT IF THERE ARE MORE OF US THAN THERE ARE OF THEM. BEFORE THE MINORITY TAKE OVER . STAND TALL.
with Holder deciding that to pursuing “His people” would be demeaning, the only ones in jail will be Caucasian males. It is time to to send a message to DC, NO More!
Better solution- Wayne Lapierre and his top five stage a peaceful protest by expressing their 2A rights (CCW, OC, etc.)in each of the cities and counties that are trampling on our rights. Let them lead by example. That’s what we send them all the money for , isn’t it?
I live in Tennessee and here you can have a permit to “carry” either openly (not suggested by me nor my instructor) or concealed. Seems the legislature could not come up with a good definition for a concealed weapon so you have the option, but you have to have a permit from the Department of Safety.
The permit requires you to have 4 hours and a test in the class room and then four hours on the firing range, which I passed both, however due to two old legal issues which have now been resolved I must go back through the course $60 and then go to the Department of Safety and pay an additional $115 and then go to a place to be fingerprinted and wait for the answer from said department.
When I was in the Navy and stationed in Florida at the time it was an Open Carry state with no permit required! The laws there have changed since the 1970s when I was there, but requiring a school and fingerprints and so on just to be able to carry a weapon outside your home seems like an infringement of my right to self defense!
I am hoping with a new legislature that is pro gun as well as a governor which is also that the permit required will be done away with and make it easier for honest citizens to carry in any manner they see fit for their purposes!
Thanks Admin good web site
SO MANY people have, what seems to be, an incapability to understand the phrase:
“Shall not be infringed”.
How much simpler can it be made?
Liberal education system and tyrant wannabes, no doubt.
“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.”
George Washington
When did Washington say or write that?
Answered my own question with a quick Google.
http://www.guncite.com/gc2ndbog.html
Read it all the way to the end and you can learn quite a few bogus Founder gun quotes. The one attributed to Adams basically turns his meaning into the opposite of what he was saying.
You can find any quote from almost anbody here.
http://www.brainyquote.com/link/index.html
Why are liberals so scared of conservatives owning guns? Do they really fear us that badly?
Even here in so called anti-gun NYS, NYC specifically, juries repeatedly dismiss weapons possession charge against guys who could never get permits. I know. I have done the trials. I work for the court system.
In one case I did, a man with a minor record, had a job, and came and went to work from a poor neighborhood. He was not a drug dealer. However, an actual drug dealer was sure he was, and repeatedly threatened to kill him. He went out, got an illegal gun. And when the dealer opened fire on him, actually hitting him, he returned fire, and killed the violent dealer. After jury trial, the jury did not believe the DA’s case, and dismissed ALL the charges. Now, mind you, the judge instructed the jury that the could not dismiss a weapons charge in a self defense case. But they did anyway.
The point is, even in NYC, everyone except the Bloombergers and those pinheads at the NY Times and NPR believe in self defense. The solution to the anti-gun movement, clearly, is to quit preaching to the choir. The possession of concealed handguns needs to be sold as a pro-woman issue. It also needs to be sold as a pro gay issue. Like it or not, numbers are numbers, and so long as gun possession is associated only with WASP males it will never achieve a clear and unequivocal victory. It must be constantly stressed, that Eleanor Roosevelt carried a .38. So did Harry Truman. In addition, the NRA and GOA need to have a stronger Hispanic outreach.
Let’s face facts, the country is getting more urban, more Hispanic and more sexually liberal. Yet everyone wants to be free of violent crime. So why the suicidal preoccupation with grouping gun ownership with evangelical Christianity, trophy hunting, country music and chewing tobacco?
Guess what, I was raised by liberal, Manhattan Jews. Democrats. Seinfeld types. And I have a full carry permit, a C&R license, and I carry pretty much all the time. The ranges I belong to and use are full of people who would be pretty much chased out of a TEA Party convention. Union members, professionals, Muslims, Hindus, etc. So the point is, the pro gun movement has to be a very big tent. I cannot count the amount of Democrats, vegetarians and other so called liberals I have taken to the range, and who ask to go back, and who have actually changed their views on guns.
They no longer think gun owners are nuts and most of the ones I have worked on now only believe that there need to be better background checks and not that particular types of guns need to be banned. So I can pat myself on the back, and I do.
Nice job, Rick. (honored salute)
The anti-gunners are the ones making this preoccupation.
here in PA we can Open carry ( sorry to Mr DeMarcus) open carry is a little better because when the bad guys see your gun the find a different target OC is a great deterrent. And yes I OC almost all the time.
One of the dangers that an armed security guard has is that someone may shoot him in the back just to get his weapon. In my opinion open carry in your vehicle is good, open carry outside your vehicle… not so much.
Open carry might deter someone who is considering becoming a criminal but, you have to take into consideration those that made that decision a long time ago. In northern virginia there are a few spots that are dangerous but, where you see people exercizing their right to open carry aren’t all that dangerous. If it were legal to open carry in the high crime areas in DC you would most likely get shot in the back or attacked in a way that would not give you the opportunity to use that weapon. They would see it as a challenge. If the weapon was concealed and someone chose to do you harm they would most likely do so not expecting you to be able to produce that weapon. Hence the advantage of concealed carry.
Mao tse-Tung once stated that a guerrilla should live in the peasant population “like a fish in the ocean”, relying on the fact that the enemy could not tell him from a peasant to make it impossible to find him and eliminate him. The same holds true for citizens who carry concealed. The enemy (the criminals) can’t tell in advance if their intended victim is armed or not.
In this way, concealed carry protects even those who don’t carry. The criminal can never be sure that the 98-pound housewife he is intending to rape might not pull a .38 snub on him. Or that the 65-year-old retiree he decides to beat and rob might not come up with a compact .45.
Strategically speaking, ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs aka “boomers”) are a better deterrent to pre-emptive nuclear strikes than silo-based ICBMs or even manned bombers because, with three-quarters of the Earth’s surface being covered by ocean, they have a lot of places to hide and an enemy can never be sure where they are. If they have any sense of self-preservation (unlike, say, Islamists), they won’t risk the first strike, knowing that the “boomers” will get them in the end. They have kept the peace very effectively for half a century, even more so than the rest of the “nuclear triad”, precisely because of their invisibility.
Law-abiding citizens with concealed-carry licenses are the “guerrillas”, and the “boomers”, of the war on violent crime. As Holmes would say, the parallel is exact.
(And of course, he “carried concealed” himself, as did Watson.)
cheers
eon
Well, I am glad I don’t live in Indiana. We are getting too many Socialist in the bureaucratic operations of Government. Too many rules that violate the United States Constitution. I, for one, spent nearly half of my life defending this Country in the U.S. Army and I WILL continue to defend the Constitution of The United States with my last breath. They can make rules, laws, and proclamations but if 5,000 or 50,000 or even 500,000 of Americans stand and refuse to follow such BS, what is the State going to do. How many police are willing to fire on a crowd of fellow citizens for not obeying a law or rule that they know is unconstitutional. Do I believe in disobeying the law, no, but had the Black Community not have violated the law they would still be sitting at the back of the bus. There comes a time when we, as citizens, must defend the freedoms and the rights that our forefathers gave their lives for. I pledge my life and fortune to the defense of the Constitution from any enemy foreign or domestic. I tool an oath in 1967 and that oath is as important to me today as it was then. We shall never surrender to the Socialist, Marxist, or Communist. We are freemen and the only way we will not be is if we give up our Freedom, and I never will.
Do not worry about advocates opposing guns. Just go to your local ATF Dealer and buy any machine gun you want they will throw in a few grenades in the sale. Just orde4r in Spanish!
I am an old man. I already don’t have much left to lose. If they come to take my imagined firearms, I’m sure they can if they can find any. But, I just don’t know how stealing other people’s property is a job worth having if it also means potentially getting dead for the doing.
Jim, I got your 6 and we might as well go out as freeman than as- kissers and wimps!
All the statistical data shows that society is safer when citizens are armed.
Here are some facts as stated by a post on “The Truth About Guns” Blog:
“A Comparison of Violent and Firearm Crime Rates in the Canadian Prairie Provinces and Four U.S. Border States, 1961-2003, Parliamentary Research Branch of the Library of Parliament, March 7, 2005.
Google it, you will pull it up. It is your own Canadian government study proving what again, oh your wrong.
“Comparing average crime rates for 2003 in the three prairie provinces and in the four bordering states as presented in the report for those crimes that are similarly defined and measured in both countries, we found that, in total, both violent and property crime rates were two thirds higher in the Canadian prairie provinces than in the four border states. Average crime rates were higher in the Canadian Prairies for all crimes with comparable definitions and statistics in the U.S.A.: Homicide – 1.1x higher; Aggravated assault, assault with a weapon and attempted murder – 1.5 x higher; Robbery – 2.1x higher; Breaking and Entering – 2.3x higher; and Motor Vehicle Theft – 3.2x higher.”
Of course there are other countries that have recently tried strict gun control/bans, what effect did that have on their violence?
1997 Australia, Canada, England
Australia 1997 629 VCR per 100k 2007 1,024 VCR per 100k, a 32 person reduction in murders by firearms, exactly replaced by murders with knives. Funny how that trend was mirrored in England (ref AIC.GOV)
Canada 1997 980 VCR per 100k people 2009 1,324 VCR per 100k people, murder rose from 560 to 610 (Ref Statcan)
Canada $2 billion dollar plus registry, that hasn’t solved one crime, such a common trend.
England 1997 820 VCR per 100k people 2009 1,667 VCR per 100k people, murders have reduced to 1997 levels after a 25% increase.
So much for less gun equals less violence, a trend found in every single gun ban country, prove otherwise. Oh, use government data to try if you want, the above references ARE their government databases.
We see from US Census, and an average of NSSF & PEW surveys, that in 2009 40% of households have a firearm. That is an increase since 1997 of 9 million households to 80 million law abiding gun owners as recognized by the BATF.
We see that since 1997 per FBI UCR, that violent crime has gone from 611 VCR (Violent Crime Reported) per 100k people to 429 VCR per 100k people in 2009.
That is a 30% reduction in violent crime. Did we forget to mention that the same data shows a 20% reduction in murders?
All while at the same time we see 12-15 more states implementing concealed carry to 48 states total, and 34 plus states implementing concealed carry in eateries that serve alcohol. Then 3 states and 71 universities implementing concealed carry.”
When I was growing up in Chicago the City effectively made a deal with gangs like the Blackstone Rangers. Keep your activities on your turf and we will pretty much leave you alone. So the CPD left the gangs alone and the crime and insecurity that followed turned the Southside into an economic wasteland, destroyed the chance to an educations and left a demoralized population entirely dependent on Democratic Party functionaries.
The Democrats and their assorted Socialist allies have embarked on a deliberate strategy to disarm, immobilize and impoverish the America. Their model for society is the jungle that exists on the Southsid of Chicago.
Thank God in Heaven that I live in New Mexico. We can open carry, the car is part of the home so no dismantling is required. Our neighbors, Arizona and Texas have strangely different rules. Arizona adopted Constitutional Carry, which means that you can concealed carry as well as open carry without permit. Now Texas, as strange as it seems does not in ANY case allow open carry and if you carry in your car, the gun MUST be hidden out of sight. If you can see it, you need a concealed carry permit. I must say that whenever we go on vacation, we are felons in most places. I just wonder WHY places like Arizona, Alaska and (of all places)Vermont do not require a permit to conceal carry. It seems to me that all of us in the fly-over zone should coordinate our gun laws, as we fly-over citizens seem to have common sense governments. The West and East Coasts (both are left coasts) are hopelessly into a fear of guns. So it does seem that the flyover states should make our gun laws similar or at LEAST respect the laws of the state you are from.
It has been said that there should be a revolt every so many years to show that those elected their oppressive ideas and actions will not be tolerated. THOMAS JEFFERSON.
Here, in Vermont, we have some of the LOWEST crime rates in the nation. Why? Because, almost everyone (including the ladies) are well-versed in the proper carry and use of firearms. Here, we do not need a law informing us that we are allowed to carry. Vermonters, going back generations, have always felt it a duty to teach their children the proper carry and the proper use of firearms (generally, when the children are teenagers). Some children hunt and some do not. It’s not about hunting. It’s about personal protection … and most can easily hit where they aim.
Low crime rates are a given to those whom are well-versed in the proper carry and use of firearms.
We in California continue to fight against the socialist/Marxist/Brady agenda to eliminate all firearms by legislating our God given inalienable right to defend ourselves and our families. We will continue to be involved and never give. We are Sovereign citizens and those we elect and those we hire to police our neighborhoods are but mere servants.
What has happened to the country our Founding Fathers established, a new country free from government intrusion in every aspect of our lives? A land forged with their determination, hard work, and blood. Would they even recognize it? Chances are, they wouldn’t! .
We have been busy trying to make a living and shuttling our 2.06 children to school, baseball, football, soccer and dance, most of the population doesn’t realize what happened. Now we have a Federal Government with a budget over $3 trillion, a National Deficit over $14 trillion and representatives that will not represent the people from whom they get their job. .
Our pioneering legislators drafted plans for this country…plans that would control the aggressions of mad men and tyrants. Yet the very type of governing body from which our forefathers were trying to protect us has taken a strong hold. With the help of the “checks and balances” put in place to stave off despotic rulers, our country is edging more and more toward the very government our ancestors fled their homes to escape. .
We’ve already lost so much…Is it too late to turn back? How do we go about returning freedom to the population? What do we do? After all, those who do not learn from their history are destined to repeat it. Are we really ready to go backwards?
“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.” George Washington
Everyone on here has made a great deal of sense so far. Both on the meaning of the Second Amendment as per the Constitution, and its far greater meaning with regard to how it impacts everyday Americans in their continued struggles with both the judiciary and large swaths of the American people who think and vote Left. That said; let me turn now to the comments by Rick.
I happen to be in full agreement with what Rick is saying. Groups like GOA and the NRA continue to appeal to those folks who are already sold on the concept and practice of the Second Amendment and its practical application throughout mainstream America. Where these organizations fall far short, is in having their voices heard in and amongst the gays, Hispanics, and most notably, Black America. There are large and influential groups in this country that I fear have no idea of what is taking place with respect to their Second Amendment rights, or the negative impacts these restrictions have on them (usually brought to bear by the same political parties they unwaveringly support), their families, or their cultural brethren.
I go to a fair number of gun shows, including the annual NRA Conventions and the like. There I see all manner of badly dressed, disheveled, and unkempt individuals walking to and fro. Very few are well dressed or even make the effort to appear so. There are attendants in full camo regalia, folks who look like they just came off a buffalo hunt (dust and all), and more than a few who look like they just got out of bed and couldn’t bother with the shower or combing their hair. And then we wonder why the media portrays us the way they do. LOOK AT US!
I see the same thing every time we, as a group, show up before the Minnesota legislature. Fat, balding, old white men, most of whom are in their late 60′s or beyond, and with nary an individual that looks even remotely professional in either his demeanor or in the way he carries himself. As well, there are very few women in attendance. Fewer still are the gays, Hispanics, or blacks.
No one in any industry does themselves more damage to their cause or occasion than we gun owners and Second Amendment enthusiasts do to ourselves. We have become our own worst enemy. Further, we embolden those that would take every occasion to mock us or make us look a more even tempered KKK splinter group. We need to have EVERYONE in on this fight, and the longer we delay the inevitable demographic and cultural changes this country will be going through for the next 50 years or so, the more difficulty we will have in getting our “pro-rights” message out to the masses.
As it stands now, we are too “country” – and too “good ‘ol boy” – and not enough in touch with the overwhelming majority of people who call “standard urbanized areas,” home. This has to change as we are quickly running out of barrel-chested older white men in pants held up by suspenders…
We are now, more than ever, in dire danger of becoming like the couple who bought their home in the early 70′s who are surprised and amazed when they go to sell it, that most people looking to buy it don’t like aqua coloured appliances, 1960′s furniture and shag carpeting throughout the house. As it stands now, we desperately need a “re-do.”
So, us gun owners should wear ties, use Grecian Formula, get better suntans, and listen to hip hop? Just teach the young folk right from wrong and don’t give up when they claim pot smoking is a good thing. Or, did I miss something else in this post?