Part 2 of Continuation
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Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States." Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 53 (1788)
That is but a glimpse of how the founders thought, but to be more specific the the most authoritative cite I can quote would come from
the man who wrote the Second Amendment. I cited James Madison in my previous posting. He is the father of the Second Amendment. Rather than to find multiple quotes by him, I'd like to point out that as President, Madison nominated Joseph Story to the United States Supreme Court. We all know the battle right now of who gets nominated to the United States Supreme Court. This carries a lot of authority when you want to know what the Second Amendment means:
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The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.” – Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 1833
The Second Amendment protects a preexisting Right to keep and bear Arms and the best reason (in favor of the people) is to deter tyranny in government. The fact that we've never been invaded is a testament to the worth of that objective. Some today feel threatened by an armed populace that can protect us from tyranny in government. They listen to many talking heads on the radio and television, painting a picture of a society gone mad and there are "
too many guns." What absolute garbage! While there are more firearms in America, less than 1 percent will ever be used in a crime. We simply have backward thinking on the subject and I am now committed to do a thread on reducing mass shootings in the strategy forum of this board. Stay tuned for that.
There are those who make the pretentious argument that the Second Amendment is old and, consequently, outdated. So, we should institute gun control? The Ten Commandments are old as well. Do we reject them simply because they are old? The Constitution has been called a "
social contract." Regardless of the age of that contract, in order to change it or the meaning thereof, it must be done by way of an amendment. George Washington addressed this very issue in his Farewell Address in 1795:
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But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed."
The media uses this strategy to convince people that the majority want gun control. Some are temporarily deluded because the proposed solutions put before them and the phraseology of the polling questions hides many ugly truths. If the Second Amendment is not
absolute, neither is any other guarantee in the Bill of Rights. If you don't have a First Amendment Right, would you be offended if the government told you that you couldn't watch a certain movie, access certain Internet sites, or join the church of your choice? How would you feel about the government knocking down your doors at 2 am, dragging you out of bed, beating the Hell out of you, throwing you on your stomach, and handcuffing you without them having probable cause, a warrant, and your due process was to come later? That's not Orwellian pontificating. That IS the direction we're going in this country.
The challenge before is to reduce firearm violence
without gun control. The left doesn't want
any solution that isn't predicated in gun
control. Every time I've presented proposals, they say "
that's fine if it's attached to a gun control proposal." For them the issue is about eliminating guns; it's about
control. They don't care about what could be done right now that would begin saving lives. They just want
control. The right is so suspicious that they dismiss any effort to save lives, defaulting back to the statistics. As bad as it seems, firearms are relatively safe for most intents and purposes. They have somewhat of a point. If the media focused on how many lives are lost each day due to the over-prescribing of
legal drugs; if they harped on every instance of young kids overdosing on the drugs that were legally prescribed, there would be much more outrage than there is against firearms. That's because "
Provisional data from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics indicate that there were an estimated 100,306 drug overdose deaths in the United States during 12-month period ending in April 2021, an increase of 28.5% from the 78,056 deaths during the same period the year before".
www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/nchs_press_releases/2021/20211117.htmWhat is not revealed in those statistics is the number of young people dying due to
legal drugs. No, some fixate on firearms and the criminally insane (who shouldn't even be on the streets) that run amok and kill innocent civilians. We could dramatically reduce mass shootings - which would reduce all firearm violence overall - and that would impact Drug Nation USA. More importantly, that would mean saving lives without infringing on the Constitution. I won't give up my Rights and I won't allow the Constitution to be altered without a complete discussion of this subject. If your opinion differs, you are welcome to post it.
