SORRY, HILLARY INDIVIDUALS DO HAVE THE RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS

I believe that the 2nd amendment assures my right to “keep and bear arms.”  The Left, including SCOTUS “justice” Steven Breyer, protected by armed security says the 2nd amendment does not guarantee the right for every citizen to keep a gun in “his nightstand.”  I think it does. My drive for self-preservation and improving the chances for safety of my family means I will keep a gun in my nightstand. Donald Trump carries a gun (by his own admission) and has armed security yet in 18 months has done nothing to assure my right. I will assume that right without his agreement.

If that most citizens carrying arms poses a greater danger than currently exists with only criminals carrying guns, such is life in a country with our 2nd amendment.  The ONLY constitutional answer is the repeal of the 2nd amendment. That will not fly, except in the Leftist states and to amend the constitution requires 38 states, irrespective of population.  I live in New York, a state that would slobber at the opportunity to repeal the 2nd amendment, not so sure the folks in Wyoming, a state that, in this process, has equal standing, will be excited about it.

I read on the Web, a brilliant article written by Charles Cooke in “The National Review.” This is the first time the phrase “a well regulated militia…” has been explained so that I understand it...and in favor of my carrying a pistol. The leftists maintain that phrase eliminates assurance that individuals have the right to bear arms.  The article, including numerous quotations from others, makes it clear that the leftist interpretation is not correct.  In this article, Mr. Cooke makes the case through history that the right to bear arms really is an individual right and is not intertwined with belonging to a militia.  

Through 1975, Mr. Cooke writes, the American Bar Association proclaimed  “...it is doubtful that the Founding Fathers had any intent in mind with regard to the meaning of this Amendment”.  In other words the Founding Fathers included it almost as an afterthought (Blogger’s interpretation).  Twenty-five years since then the courts and popular opinion have slowly, with fits and starts, “restored” the “...mundanely, obvious: ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms’ means ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms.’” (per Mr. Cooke)

Further:

“Commenting in 2007 on Parker v. District of Columbia — in which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that the Second Amendment protects an individual right — the New York Times’ Adam Liptak explained that we had reached a turning point in the dispute. “Only a few decades ago,” wrote Liptak, “this “decision would have been unimaginable.” Indeed, he confirmed, “there used to be an almost complete scholarly and judicial consensus that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right of the states to maintain militias. That consensus no longer exists.” And yet, as Liptak went on plainly to record, “that was not because the bogeymen had successfully peddled a lie before a parade of activist judges, but because the consensus of the mid 20th century had finally been exposed as a mistake.”

In 1978 and again in 1988, professor Laurence Tribe of Harvard, in his “American Constitutional Law” text believed that the 2nd amendment intended to prevent such federal interferences with the state militia as would permit the establishment of a standing national army and the destruction of local autonomy.  But by the 2000 edition of the same book the 2nd amendment “...achieves its central purpose, by assuring that the federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification...That assurance in turn is provided through recognizing a right...on the part of individuals to possess and use firearms in defense of themselves and their homes.”  (Blogger’s italics)

And so notes the author (Cooke):  “What a difference a decade can make.”

To me the argument clearest and most important to the individual’s right to keep and bear arms lies here:

“Given the way the Second Amendment is written, it is perhaps unsurprising that the confusion came to pass. Indeed, in 1880, the great scholar Thomas Cooley all but anticipated it in what was likely the most widely read legal textbook of the era. ‘It may be supposed from the phraseology of this provision that the right to keep and bear arms was only guaranteed to the militia,’ Cooley noted in his General Principles of Constitutional Law. ‘But this,’ he explained, ‘would be an interpretation not warranted by the intent.”’

“The meaning of the provision undoubtedly is, that the people, from whom the militia must be taken, shall have the right to keep and bear arms, and they need no permission or regulation of law for the purpose.” (Italics are the blogger’s)

Simply and personally:  there need be no certainty that I will ever be called up for a militia but that I might preserves my right to bear arms.

The anti-gun lobby according to Cooke (and even mildly astute observers) has interpreted the work of pro-gun interests as fanatical and insists those lobbies have re-written gun law.  Not so. Pro-gun legislation has been minimal over the last decade. It is the judicial branch that has added strength to the individual right to keep and bear arms (Note: Please confirm Kavanaugh).

Further in the article Mr. Cooke notes historical documents that claim the 2nd amendment exists to “preserve liberty” and not to “defend the country” or to “prevent domestic insurrection.”   My liberty includes my right to try to defend myself my family and my home from threat of physical assault or invasion. It also includes my right to shoot the perpetrator of an attempted car-jacking at the gas station or someone who wants to assault me because I have a Trump sticker on my car (Chicago video).

A defining “back door” comment is found in the “Dred Scott versus Sanford” case decided by the Supreme Court in 1857 in which:

“... Justice Roger B. Taney simply assumed that citizens were able to carry firearms and then used that dreadful prospect as a reason why blacks must never be afforded citizenship. Should Dred Scott prevail, Taney wrote, blacks would be entitled to “...keep and carry arms wherever they went.”  (blogger’s italics).

Notice it does not say “in their own home,” or “when carrying money to the bank.”  If the jurists believed that freed blacks could carry arms wherever they went, we can assume that it was already understood that whites could, no? Taney said as much.

The 14th amendment nullified the limitations of the Dred Scott case on black’s as beneficiaries of constitutional protections.  Section 1, 14th Amendment nullified the discrimination against freed slaves.

The more frequent use of guns against individuals or groups by criminals has fueled the left attempts to disarm the citizenry.  Most of these people do not want the government to disarm citizens so that our democracy may turn into a dictatorship (but make no mistake, some do).  These people simply have a disdain for the potential harm guns create (and are supposed to) and believe the “greater good” is sufficient reason to disarm the public.  I disagree. Though I have never heard this thought expressed by another I believe that police were expected to aggressively pursue criminals and protect the innocents.  A criminal had to understand it was unlikely he would get away with a crime...even a property crime. In exchange for that unspoken assurance citizens did not need guns.  And a less dense population (decades ago) tended to be less violent. Now, police are understaffed in part because the unions with weak-willed administrators have allowed law enforcement to price itself into diminished numbers. Political correctness has rendered (per surveys) white police officers more reluctant to shoot a black man than a white one.  My decision whether to use deadly force will not be based on race. Once upon a time, in a sleazy area in Washington State in which I lived (Spokane Valley, WA) - and legally owned a gun - I awoke to an early morning burglary in progress. I called the police and they arrived - THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER. They were so slow I thought maybe they were on the scene, hidden, watching for some violation.  I had no right to stop that burglary and stayed in my house but that reminded me how important it was for me to be able to protect myself.

The next few years should produce some fascinating SCOTUS rulings that will set gun law (and other issues) for decades to come - sorry Ginsburg - and I look forward to not being seen as a criminal because I wish to own a gun. I remember after a shooting in Kansas City (MO) potential tourists from Australia were warned by an Australian government official to not visit the United States because of the proliferation of guns and gun violence. Be warned, Aussies, you are very welcome here but we won’t change our constitution in order to soothe your fears..

&*&*&*&*&

Quoted Source:

“The Truth about the Second Amendment”

Charles Cooke, “The National Review

August 9, 2018