Posts Tagged ‘gun rights’

Maryland Has A Queer Disregard For The Constitution

Feb 22, 2012 Commentary, Political

The People’s Republic of Maryland lacks true leadership. It is headed by a Democrat governor who thinks that he has the authority to rule in opposition to the will of the people (much like Obama does at the national level) and he has a supporting cast of Democrats in the Capitol who are more than willing to be his sock puppets.

The Governor, Martin O’Malley (the Teflon Leprechaun), is looking to strengthen his bona fides so he can run on the national stage. He wants to be president someday. I would say he wants to be president when he grows up but he will never grow up. He has spent most of his final term in office pushing a liberal agenda that will play well on the national stage. He has mismanaged our money, raised taxes and is working on raising taxes yet again.

One of his signature acts is to get gay marriage passed in the state. He is looking to do this so he will appeal to the larger audience of liberals in the country and he is doing it much the same way Barack Obama was able to pass Obamacare. He bribed (or engaged in arm twisting) people including at least one Republican to vote for the bill. It has been speculated that Delegate Wade Kach was offered a six figure state job for his vote. No matter what, he and Delegate Robert Costa need to be replaced in the next election.

The issue of gay marriage is a state issue and though I oppose it, the state has a right to work on passing it (or not passing it). However, the issue belongs in the hands of the people and not the legislature. The definition of marriage needs to be part of the Maryland Constitution so it needs to be part of the referendum process. The PEOPLE, not political hacks, should get to decide the issue.

What infuriates me about this issue is that the politicians in Maryland worked like zealots to get this issue to the floor for a vote but work just as hard to deny Maryland Citizens their right to keep and bear arms. Maryland’s law does not allow people to easily get a permit to carry a handgun. The state’s laws are written specifically to violate the Second Amendment by infringing on the right to keep and bear arms. Fewer than 1000 permits have been issued from the tens of thousands of applications (and it is costly). Maryland requires people to show a reason they should be allowed to carry because in this People’s Republik the Second Amendment is not reason enough.

Every year Republicans introduce legislation to change this in an attempt to get Maryland closer to a “shall issue” state. Unfortunately, Democrats block this by not allowing it to ever see the light of day.

Delegate Joseph Vallario (who has been in office since 1975) refuses to let the bills make it to the floor. He is allowing his personal views to keep him from doing his duty as a legislator. He is supposed to do the business of the people and he is doing just the opposite.

Vallario has opposed gay marriage and refused to allow that bill to the floor though this year it has changed. Why? Because he is a sock puppet of the governor! Bills the governor likes eventually make it to the floor. It is no coincidence that O’Malley, who is protected by half a dozen armed police officers, is opposed to private citizens carrying handguns.

Maryland politicians have trouble understanding the Constitution. The Second Amendment is violated and while the US Constitution mandates a Republican form of government in all states, that applies in name only with regard to Maryland. We are governed by dictators.

The Declaration of Independence says that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

They no longer have my consent.

I look forward to a ballot box revolution though, in truth, that would require an informed and educated electorate.

We sorely lack one of those…

Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Big Dog

Gunline

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Liberals Are Pro Choice

Feb 13, 2012 Political

Except when they are not…

Liberals will fight tooth and nail to support abortion on demand. It, according to their twisted view, is a Constitutionally protected “right.” that must be protected at all costs. It is such a sacrament of the left that it is a major line of questioning when a conservative is nominated to the Supreme Court.

We have heard the arguments. It is a woman’s right to choose. It is her body and it is her decision and no one has a right to interfere with her right to choose. Liberals believe this right exists above the right of the unborn child to live. Yes, liberals even believe this right is more important than the murder of an unborn child who cries in agony as it is aborted.

It is all about the right to choose and liberals believe strongly in that.

Except when they don’t.

Liberals do not believe that people have a right to eat or drink what they want. The FDA went after an Amish farmer who was selling raw milk (unpasteurized) to people. The FDA spent two years investigating the Amish farmer and even set up fake buys in order to catch him. The government is concerned because raw milk can cause disease. This is true but it is also true that it is the right of the people to choose whether or not they want to take that risk. Abortion is allowed even though it almost always results in murder but people cannot choose to drink raw milk that might result in illness.

The FDA and the judge who ruled invoked interstate commerce to enforce the ruling but make no mistake about it, that was just the means to enforce the true issue and that was to deny people the right to drink whatever kind of milk they wanted. The Amish are free to sell the milk to people in Pennsylvania and the FDA can’t stop that but it can use interstate commerce to force people to stop doing something the government thinks is unsafe.

It boils down to the fact that government, particularly liberals (the FDA is inherently liberal), does not like people being free to do things that government finds wrong. Abortion, no problem because liberals bow to the gods of pro choice organizations but freedom to eat or drink what you want, not so much. One only needs to look at Nanny Bloomberg in New York to see that. No salt, no trans fats, no anything that Bloomberg thinks is unhealthy.

And that is not all. Liberals do not believe in our right to choose to keep and bear arms. Of these issues, the right to keep and bear arms is the only one in the US Constitution and liberals ignore it completely. Barack Obama is hell bent on removing our right and stripping the Second Amendment from the Constitution. He and his liberal pals do not believe that the right to keep and bear arms is an individual one even though our Founders explicitly stated that it was and the SCOTUS has ruled that it is (except some Justices on the court. The LIBERAL ones, of course). You have no free choice when it comes to owning and carrying a firearm.

Why is it that liberals think there is no choice in what we can eat or drink and think there is no choice in owing an carrying a firearm but the right to choose an abortion is undeniable?

It is because liberals only believe in things that destroy freedom and destroy life. They are more than happy to sanction murder as an absolute right but are loathe to allow rights that involve freedom.

Liberalism is the ideology of destruction. You might say it is the culture of destruction.

Look for it to get worse as more freedoms are violated and more life destroying “rights” are created out of thin air.

Cave canem!
Never surrender, never submit.
Big Dog

Gunline

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Supreme Court Rules on Second Amendment Tomorrow

Jun 25, 2008 General

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will rule, for the first time in its history (on this particular issue), on whether the Second Amendment means an individual’s rights or the collective right of a militia. Anyone with brains knows that this is an individual right. The Bill of Rights discusses those things that the federal government may not take away from the people. The Bill of Rights does not grant rights, it says what rights (that have already existed) may not be infringed upon. The Second Amendment uses the words “…the right of the people…” The phrase “the people” is used throughout the Constitution to mean all citizens and not the militia so why would the Second Amendment use of “the people” refer to a militia. Sure, the word militia is mentioned but not as a precondition for gun ownership. I read a comment at a site and I copied it. I cannot remember where I saw it but it is a good description:

All reasonable people fully understand that the Second Amendment clearly guarantees the right of the people to keep and bear arms, and declares that there shall be no infringement. It also states that a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state. As the militia were understood at the time to be all able-bodied men, this amendment therefor[sic] presumes that if all men may be armed, the militia will be armed should it need to defend the commonwealth. Yet, though the armament of the militia proceeds from the armament of the populace, and it is a necessary precondition that if the militia is to be armed, the men must be armed, it is neither necessary nor a condition that the men be members of a militia in order to keep and bear arms.

I always believed that if we want to know what the Amendments mean we should read the words of those who wrote them. They clearly described what they meant when they wrote the words. Go to Walter Williams’ site for a list of quotes from the founders. This should clear up any misconceptions.

The Supreme Court is reported to have decided this in 1939 in the Miller case and that is what lower courts have used to justify upholding gun bans. However, Miller is not settled law because the SCOTUS remanded it back to the lower court and the issue was not about an individual right. Miller claimed he had a right to carry the weapon under the Second Amendment. The Court ruled that the sawed off shotgun did not fit the definition of a military type weapon that would be used by a militia. Since it did not (in the court’s opinion even though sawed off shotguns had been used in the military) Miller’s argument was not valid and the case was remanded. Notice what people ignore. If the gun had been ruled a weapon used by the militia, Miller would have had a right to carry it even though he was not in the militia.

The Court actually did have a ruling that demonstrated guns were an individual right and not a collective militia one. It was in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. When the justices ruled against Scott they wrote:

The Court also presented an argument describing the feared results of granting Mr. Scott’s petition [for freedom]:

“It would give to persons of the negro race, …the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, …the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went.” Wikipedia [emphasis mine]

The Justices stated that if he were a free man he would be allowed to keep and carry arms wherever he wanted which means that all Free Men were allowed to keep and carry arms.
“No Free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
Thomas Jefferson, Proposal Virginia Constitution, 1 T. Jefferson Papers, 334,[C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950]

The ruling tomorrow should put an end to this foolish debate about having to belong to the militia to own weapons (but our militia is defined as all men 17-45 and all women in the National Guard so a lot of people should be carrying weapons). I am fairly confident that the Justices will rule that keeping and bearing arms is an individual right but if they don’t there will be a lot of instant criminals in this country.

They can come for my guns, they will get the ammo…

“The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.”
Adolph Hitler, Hitler’s Secret Conversations 403 (Norman Cameron and R.H. Stevens trans., 1961) [from Williams' site]

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WaPo is Wrong on Right to Bear Arms

Mar 18, 2008 General

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the DC gun ban and they will be asked to decide whether the Second Amendment is an individual right or a collective right that only applies to the militia. Any sand person can read the Second Amendment and tell it is an individual right. Yes it is worded peculiarly but it states that the right of THE PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The founders knew that a militia might need to be drawn from the population and that if that were ever required they would be able to draw from citizens who had the right to keep and bear arms. The words THE PEOPLE are used throughout the document and in every other instance they are deemed to mean each individual. Why, in the case of the Second Amendment, do these words have a different meaning?

The Washington Post laments about the upcoming court case and they are obviously in favor of a ruling indicating a collective right and therefore allowing government to make any rule it wants regarding gun ownership. The Post also indicates that if the right is determined to be an individual one then the court should give latitude so that laws may be enacted restricting those rights by regulation. The Post uses invalid arguments to make its case. They indicate that an individual right would allow people to own machine guns. People have not been allowed to own machine guns without costly permits since the early part of the last century. The Post also plainly states that the Second Amendment deserves more stringent treatment than the others (particularly the First) because words harm but bullets are lethal. All items in the Bill of Rights should be treated equally. We may not pick and choose which ones we agree with based on personal likes and dislikes. I suppose the Post would be happy if the courts decided that the press was too free and hurt too many people so they needed to be regulated.

The Washington Post takes it case further by trying to mislead its readers. The Post mocks critics of DC’s gun ban who claim that the city has high rates of gun violence despite the Draconian rules and asks how many more acts of gun violence would exist if we did not have the gun ban. That is easy to figure out but the WaPo is not interested in pursuing the answer because it will negate what they believe. All they have to do is look at the murders rates for the period before the gun ban and during the 25 years the ban has been in effect. It is easy to look at raw numbers (DC has been above pre ban raw numbers for all years but one) however, the true picture is seen when they use a per capita rate. Murders in DC have been at high levels even though population has declined which means there are more murders per 100,000 people during the ban than before it.

It is also important to note that in every state where there are shall issue rules, gun murders have declined. In every place (including overseas) where gun bans have been instituted the gun crime rate has risen and risen drastically. It is not hard to understand that criminals do not obey the law so they will not obey gun laws. That is why crime flourishes in places where there are gun bans. Criminals know that law abiding citizens will not be carrying guns so they look to “gun free” zones for easy victims. They are much more hesitant to attempt criminal activity in places where people carry guns because they know they will be met with force. The WaPo ignores these easily found facts and instead plays on emotions of its readers.

The Supreme Court needs to look past all this rhetoric and finally rule that gun ownership is an individual right and that states must institute shall issue rules. If the Supreme Court rules otherwise then there will be millions of new criminals in this country, the criminals who refuse to submit to government and surrender their weapons.

I say that if they rule gun ownership is a collective right applicable only to the militia then all members of the citizenry who are the militia should take up arms. You see, our country has already defined the militia in 10 USC 311:

(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are—
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.

I don’t know why there is an age limit but since the Second is an individual right, as stated in the writings of our founders, it is of little consequence. However, the gun grabbers like those at the WaPo had better be careful what they wish for. If every person who is part of the militia as defined by the federal government started demanding to carry weapons there would be nothing the grabbers could do because the court will have decided that they have that right. I wonder how the folks at the WaPo would feel knowing that their desires put guns in the hands of 17 year olds?

I am predicting that this will be ruled an individual right and that the gun grabbers will go nuts. The liberals will hate it because they want us disarmed because a disarmed people are an enslaved people.

Sources:
John Lott via Fox
Militia Laws
Gun Owners.org

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