Yesterday, Governor Cuomo outlined a seven-point plan, pushing for the “toughest” assault weapons ban in the country. What’s more is that there are already indications that the state legislature is close to a deal on passing his “sweeping” gun control reform.
The measures include banning high-capacity magazines, harsher penalties for gun crimes and ordering mental health professionals to report gun owners whom they feel are a threat to themselves or others as well as standardizing state background checks for firearms, closing “gun show loopholes” and taking additional steps to keep firearms away from people with mental illness.
“We respect hunters and sportsmen. This is not taking away peoples’ guns," said the Governor. However, this is not the reason for or the wording of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment reads, “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.”
Notice how “hunters and sportsmen” are not mentioned anywhere in the Second Amendment, but instead, “a well regulated militia.” A militia is not the military, it is not the National Guard, nor is not the police or any government agency we know today. A militia is derived from the people, private citizens to protect their homes, their state and their country from threats foreign and domestic. The threat faced most specifically is a tyrannical gov6ernment.
Furthermore, the Second Amendment, unlike other amendments in the Bill of Rights, specifically mentions “the people”. Other Amendments speak to the principle of Dual Federalism, which separates and delegates the powers of the federal government and the states. The Second Amendment means that the right of the people to arm themselves against the government shall not even be encroached upon by any governmental body. This is still not to say that criminals or incompetents have the right to own machine guns, but if someone is an upstanding and law-abiding citizen, the government has no right to place any limits on how they choose to defend themselves.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.” The quote, along with the Declaration of Independence, the first law passed by the United States of America, give the duty to the people of the country to overthrow any form of tyranny that may come over the country.
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