Otis McDonald in front of the Supreme Court
(AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari)
"Thirteen days ago, the Supreme Court undermined Chicago’s ban on handguns by applying the Second Amendment to the states, ruling that people have a right to protect their homes with a gun," The New York Times editorial declares.
"Undermined."
Interesting characterization. It's not that Chicago's unconstitutional ban undermined a fundamental Bill of Rights provision in the minds of the anti-personal defense elite.
"Bullets are flying on city streets, but the vital work of limiting gun use has become a cat-and-mouse game," the sages at The Grey Lady continue.
People are pursuing the ability to lawfully exercise their rights as a reaction to an administration that seeks to render them meaningless. To intentionally conflate this with those who victimize and abuse is flat out dishonest and subversive.
"We strongly disagreed with the reasoning that led the court to find an individual right to bear arms in the Second Amendment," they continue to argue.
Continue?
The Times is still clinging to the revisionist sophistry the anti-gunners have been pushing right up until the Heller case took it away from them. That they didn't have a shred of historical evidence to back up such an outrageous misrepresentation has been long known and demonstrated by some of us. Try giving that spin to the phrase "the people" as it appears in the First and Fourth Amendments, and watch them (rightfully) howl.
"That right can be limited, the court explicitly said, with reasonable restrictions," we're assured, to convince us that this includes all kinds of prior restraint workarounds to a "shall not be infringed" proscription that could not be more clear.
"Reasonable restrictions"?
As defined by an ideology that condemns anything short of a total ban? We're dealing with people who won't even cede the right of individuals to lawfully keep a gun in the home for protection without resorting to deception and hysteria.
Here's what they really want. Here's what Heller and McDonald have put a frustrating legal roadblock in front of:
"I'm convinced that we have to have federal legislation to build on. We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is necessarily-given political realities-going to be a very modest. of course, it's true that politicians will then go home and say, 'This is a great law. The problem is solved. . . .' So then we'll have to start working again to strengthen that law, and then again to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again. . . . Our ultimate goal-total control of handguns in the United States-is going to take time. My estimate is seven to ten years. The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal." [emphasis on "all" in the original] Pete Shields, "A Reporter At Large: Handguns", July 26, 1976, 57-58, in the New Yorker magazine. At the time, Mr Shields was the Executive Director of NCCH, which changed its name to Handgun Control, Inc. in 1978. [Which later changed its name to the Brady Campaign--DC]
"One step at a time." Remember that the next time some smarmy zealot ridicules the "slippery slope" argument as unfounded conspiracy theory.
Over the weekend I posted a column about an issue of Guns Magazine from 50 years ago, something that shows how much--and how little--has changed since it was published.
Here's one thing that has remained the same:
"These anti-gun laws...seem often to be the work of desperate people willing to take any measure...
"Desperate people willing to take any measure..."
That seems about right.
The question that remains?
Why are they desperate?
UPDATE: Chicago Gun Rights Examiner Don Gwinn has an insight I believe you'll want to read.
UPDATE: Seattle Gun Rights Examiner Dave Workman weighs in.
Comments
You cant control the population with tyranny if they are armed and can say no. The rifle is the strongest 'NO' that can be had, they dont want you to say no to their agendas. Look how disarmed countries treat their citizens....like slaves. They routinely abuse protesters because they cant and wont defend themselves and fight back, then you take them to [their] courts, and you get slapped in the face for asserting your other rights.
There needs to be treason trials for attacking our rights...all of them. Penalties that have teeth, or it will continue.
If someone does not like our rights, they are free to move to a myriad of countries that mirror what they envision.
No consequences to their actions means it will continue. Or-
When you protest, go armed, that way, they will think twice before attacking peaceful protest. They wouldnt have protests if their actions and plans didnt include leaving out the voice of the people.
"The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns being produced and sold in this country. The second problem is to get handguns registered. And the final problem is to make the possession of all handguns and all handgun ammunition-except for the military, policemen, licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun collectors-totally illegal."
this is exactly why there is no such thing as a "reasonable gun law". we have the momentum, and we can't give up a single inch. we must press forward.
good question.
now, where's that big list of gun control advocates that have been convicted on various white collar crimes, inside knowledge of which would expose them to the risk of being blackmailed by the federales into their anti-gun positions...
For decades we as a society have said that we would deal with the problem of eroding rights when we have time. Well, folks the time has run out. Newspapers from the New York Times to the Washington Post to the Sacramento Bee in Sacramento California are writing rabid anti-gun articles in my personal opinion because they are desperate to put down the ground swell of revolt against heavy handed over bearing anti gun politicians who have led this country into ruin. There is a frantic effort by the minority to continue the restriction of your rights because if you exercise your rights you are going to ask for accountability. if you do that and are armed and able to resist government force then you retain control and not the government. The worst law ever passed was the Patriot Act and the government thought that because they snuck that one past us we would fall for the rest that came along. It is time we took back our country. Send the politicans to jail for the crimes against our rights.
Awesome piece!
There was a flurry of meetings in Chicago's city hall after the McDonald announcement all of which the subject matter was about new firearms regulations for those wishing to register with the city and remain law abiding. But not 1 peep of any legislation punishing of penalizing the criminal activity that's been occurring the last 28 years in the city regarding gang and drug dealing activity thats the cause of 90% of the city's shootings in the first place. And the city's aldermen remain mute to the mayor on the subject matter as well. Same old Chicago game plan.
They can't take all our money, property and individual liberties if we remain "armed and dangerous"! It's just that simple.
I wrote about the same editorial today from a different angle--what they call a "ludicrous hypothetical situation" is very real for one of the plaintiffs in the Benson case against Chicago.
Today the Superintendent of Chicago Police is expected to announce his list of "unsafe firearms" and the specifics of the training requirements (the "Responsible Gun Ownership Ordinance" requires five hours of training, including one hour at the range, but doesn't say what a "state-certified instructor" might be--and doesn't allow firing ranges to operate in the city!)
How about this:
I decide there are reasonable restrictions applicable to YOUR natural rights, since no right is absolute, you know...
For example, you have a right to draw breath. We would all agree on that. Wouldn't we? But in these days of global warming and all, we must recognize our responsibilities and apply reasonable restrictions where they are due.
So, I have decided that your right to breathe is subject to "reasonable restrictions". I'll just place this nice little choke collar on you. (Isn't it pretty with the fuzzy pink lining?) And I'll decide how much of a "restriction" is "reasonable". How will I decide? I'll just trust my FEELINGS!
When only cops have guns, it's called a "police state".
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government"
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334
Do you not think that our forefathers were well meaning that the United States of America shall remain free and strong FOREVER? If you do not then get the HELL out of MY Country!
WHY?
Because, at the core of these efforts, of which gun legislation is only one, there are nothing but Marxists, Socialists, and Communists.
These people know what they are doing, and know as well that they have no chance of succeeding, without controlling information and public opinion, education and the weapons of persons, who disagree with what they are doing because they know that at some point, the talking will stop.
The last point will be reinforced by the use of force and fear, upon the general population and upon patriots, whom they will describe as criminals. They always do this because it helps them quell opposition, and dispose of trouble makers that can't be talked out of it.
In their society, truth can only be whispered about, among people who know each other. This is what they seek amongst us and our current society. It is why they monitor what we say here, and let us know obliquely, that they are watching.
Enacting gun control laws to combat violent crime is every bit as effective as starving thin people to combat obesity.
And has anyone else noticed that even the most outspoken anti gun proponents tend to exempt themselves from the restrictions they would impose on the rest of us? Daley and his armed bodyguards for example, or the little known fact that as a perk of their office every Chicago alderman is granted permission to carry a concealed weapon.
Excellent article, which I'd missed before.
Scathing while being researched and cross-referenced and rather carefully worked out.
In the referenced piece at keepandbeararms.com, David wrote:
So accepted was the tenet of universal militia status, that many sought to incorporate proscriptions as had some state constitutions against compulsory militia service for those "religiously scrupulous of bearing arms."
That's a big thing I haven't heard discussed enough. Madison wrote it that way in his first iteration of the Bill of Rights. It was immediately and henceforth taken to mean people who had religious restrictions on having weapons or fighting in wars, as "conscientious objectors".
I've never understood this misunderstanding of the original. If it were said that someone were "religiously scrupulous " of washing their hands or driving or child rearing, it wouldn't be taken as meaning their religion forbids it!
I've even heard the phrase "religiously faithful" having nothing to do with religion as practiced by church-goers or "spiritual" minded people.
Recently, a Vermont legislator tried to get a law that people who didn't own weapons had to pay extra for state protection, under that states' "conscientiouslly scrupulous of bearing arms" constitution. Not a bad idea, but still not the meaning of the language.
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