Letters to the Editor
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Save us, Big Boy
"We own guns because the government does too. In other words, history has shown that disarming a population is consistently a first step toward their oppression."
I've been to Sweden. Oppress me, baby! Ditto lots of other nice places. I personally think most NRAers love their guns for other reasons, and am only surprised at the ineffectiveness of all those Cialis ads during the evening news.
What I'm worried about is the 200,000 bloodied mercenaries for companies like Blackwater who at some point will be a-coming home so that when our corporate rulers need a well-regulated militia to finish their takeover of the country they won't have to pay the training costs themselves.
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Can you read and understand what is written in front of you ?
In the second paragraph: "firearms could be regulated by the federal government in the same fashion as any other potentially dangerous devices, from coal-mine elevators to single-engine planes."
Shapiro is not advocating banning guns. He is advocating repealing the second amendment so that the debate about gun control can be removed from the Constitutional realm. Right now as soon as someone talks about gun control, the answer is 'constitutional right' ... just like in most of the letters posted here
Why oh why do you accept that you cannot buy alcohol on Sunday (here in GA), but have an absolute right to buy a gun at the WalMart next door ?
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A well regulated militia.
I don't think the advocation of repealing the Second Amendment is a very wise use of article space. Boring navel-gazing. A well regulated militia is something that is achievable.
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Repealing the 2nd Amendment is a pipe dream
Guns ain't goin' anywhere, they bring in too much money into the economy; jobs, sales, hunting equipment, hunting licenses, etc. Not to mention that hunting thins herds and reduces over population of species.
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Slippery Slopes: Abortion and Guns
Gun control advocates claim that they don't want to take away all the guns, just a few that look like this or hold that many bullets in a magazine. They mock 2nd amendment types who suggest that almost any kind of gun control is simply the thin edge of the wedge and that the eventual result will be the total banning of guns.
Similarly, pro-choice advocates claim that it's absolutely essential that there be no rollback whatsoever off any abortion rights, even late term abortion which everyone acknlowedges is a fairly uncommon proceedure. So why fight to keep it if it is not very common and it's clearly disturbing to so many fellow citizens? Because they argue it's simply the thin edge of the wedge and the eventual result will be the total banning of abortions.
Both of these trains of thought are logical if they were held (or opposed) by the same people. However, except for the libertarians, they usually aren't. So, in the name of consistency, I would like to say that it is equally unacceptable to limit a woman's right to choose as it is to take away her gun.
Who's with me?
(chirp, chirp, uneasy silence....)
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So that's why we went to Iraq!
Not to mention that hunting thins herds and reduces over population of species.
Stupid me! it wasn't blood for oil, it was just blood. Current population -- 6 billion. Population when the 2nd amendment was written -- less than 1 billion. Just wait till it goes to 9, there are already 1 billion without enough water. Then the herd will really need to be thinned.
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So which is your druthers?
You 2A types who imagine you will fight off THE MAN are in essence fighting an imaginary war of the early 19th Century. Not even the middle, not even the Civil War. And you would be unable to fight any of the large wars of the 20th Century. Or Korea or Vietnam, or Indonesia or Bangladesh or the Chinese revolution, Israel, Argentina, Peru, Bosnia, Chile, Uruguay, Spain, Ethiopia which were all mechanized wars fought with tanks, helicopters, antitank missiles and such
Maybe Timor, Biafra, Kenya, Somalia, Namibia, Angola, Rwanda, Congo, C.A.R., Uganda, Rwanda, Sierre Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Sri Lanka which are or were lower intensity wars rarely progressing past light mobile artillery. Mostly small arms. Of course all of those wars went on for decades, were inconclusive and cost mutiple 10's of millions of lives. And they all involved atrocties and wholesale murder, real mass grave type murder.
So again, I'm not exactly sure which war against which government you and your 9 handguns, and illegally modified AR-15 are going to fight?
I don't know about you but there are 4 dozen Apache helicopters stationed 10 miles from me. And down the road is Camp Lejeune, Ft. Bragg, Pope AFB, Seymor Johnson AFB, Point Harvey and Cherry Point NAS. I'm pretty sure that if those dudes want to kick my ass and my 2000 hunter friends they pretty much can.
Sorry but you guys have been watching Red Dawn too many times. You are not a Wolverine.
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Incorporation & the 14th amendment (Due Process and Equal protection clauses)
The amendment guarantees the right to bear arms under military command and discipline, as several Supreme Court rulings have stated
Please educate us and cite those cases.
It would seem if that was the case, then thye matter would be settled. But it is not the case because the Supreme Court hasn't and won't take a 2A case.
To quote wikipedia because that is easily at hand: "All supreme court jurisprudence on the 2nd amendment predates Due Process incorporation doctrine except US v Miller 307 U.S. 174 (US 1939), which was a challenge to a federal law. Incorporation of 2nd amendment was rejected in Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886) and United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)"
In other words, the Supreme Court has expressly refused to rule on the right one way or the other, thereby leaving it to the states. Hence, NY and VT have different gun laws. (Or more accurately, NY has state gun laws, VT has none except for federal ones.)
In US v Miller, (again quoting wikipedia) "After reciting the original provisions of the Constitution dealing with the militia, the Supreme Court observed that "[w]ith obvious purpose to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of such forces the declaration and guarantee of the Second Amendment were made. It must be interpreted with that end in view." The significance of the militia, the Court continued, was that it consisted of "civilians primarily, soldiers on occasion." It was upon this force that the States could rely for defense and securing of the laws, on a force that "comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense", who, "when called for service . . . were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time." "