|
Edited on Mon Apr-20-09 09:38 PM by gorfle
From the author of the ordinance, Mary King:
"King declared she had
“been trying to get rid of gun shows on Country property” for
“about three years,” but she had “gotten the run around from
spineless people hiding behind the constitution, and been
attacked by aggressive gun toting mobs on right wing talk
radio.”"
They note that the right to keep and bear arms predates the Constitution.
"The Second Amendment protects a right that predates
the Constitution; therefore, the Constitution did not
grant it. See, e.g., Heller, 128 S. Ct. at 2797 (“(I)t has always
been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the
First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right.”).
It necessarily follows that the Privileges or Immunities Clause
did not protect the right to keep and bear arms because it was
not a right of citizens of the United States. See Cruikshank,
92 U.S. at 553; cf. Presser, 116 U.S. at 266-67 (holding that
the “right to associate with others as a military company” is
not a privilege of citizens of the United States)."
Here is a key quoting of Heller which indicates precisely what I have said all along concerning the reasons why our founders intended an armed citizenry:
"This necessary “right of the people” existed before the Second
Amendment as “one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen.”
Id. at 2797-98. Heller identified several reasons why
the militia was considered “necessary to the security of a free
state.” First, “it is useful in repelling invasions and suppressing
insurrections. Second, it renders large standing armies
unnecessary . . . . Third, when the able-bodied men of a nation
are trained in arms and organized, they are better able to resist
tyranny.”"
"Thus the right contains both a
political component—it is a means to protect the public from
tyranny—and a personal component—it is a means to protect
the individual from threats to life or limb."
Another excellent quote:
"For readers of Blackstone, therefore, the right to
bear arms closely followed from the absolute rights to personal
security, personal liberty, and personal property.12 It was
a right crucial to safeguarding all other rights."
On the racist roots of gun control:
"“n the aftermath of the Civil War,
there was an outpouring of discussion of the Second Amendment
in Congress and in public discourse, as people debated
whether and how to secure constitutional rights for newly
freed slaves.” 128 S. Ct. at 2809-10; see also Amar, supra, at
192 (noting that “slavery led to state repudiation of virtually
every one of the . . . freedoms ”). One
major concern in these debates was the disarming of newly
freed blacks in Southern states by statute as well as by vigilantism.
See Heller, 128 S. Ct. at 2810. Many former slave
states passed laws to that effect. See, e.g., Act of Nov. 29,
1865, 1865 Miss. Laws 165 (“o freedman, free Negro or
mulatto . . . shall keep or carry fire-arms of any kind, or any
ammunition, dirk or bowie knife . . . .”). Brigadier General
Charles H. Howard, in a letter provided to Congress, reported
to the head of the Freedmen’s Bureau that the “militia organizations
in the opposite county of South Carolina (Edgefield)
were engaged in disarming the negroes. . . . Now, at Augusta,
. . . I have authentic information that these abuses continue. In
southwestern Georgia, I learned that the militia had done the
same, sometimes pretending to act under orders from United
States authorities.” Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction,
H.R. Rep. No. 39-30, pt. 3, at 46 (1st Sess. 1866)."
Another excellent quote concerning the "why" of the second amendment:
"We also note that the target of the right to keep and bear
arms shifted in the period leading up to the Civil War. While
the generation of 1789 envisioned the right as a component of
local resistance to centralized tyranny, whether British or federal,
the generation of 1868 envisioned the right as safeguard
to protect individuals from oppressive or indifferent local
governments. See Amar, supra, at 257-66. But though the
source of the threat may have migrated, the antidote remained
the same: the individual right to keep and bear arms, a
recourse for “when the sanctions of society and laws are
found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.” 1
Blackstone, supra, at *144."
Getting to the meat of why the County's case was rejected:
"The County does little to refute this powerful evidence that
the right to bear arms is deeply rooted in the history and tradition
of the Republic, a right Americans considered fundamental
at the Founding and thereafter. The County instead argues
that the states, in the exercise of their police power, are the
instrumentalities of the right of self-defense at the heart of the
Second Amendment. This argument merely rephrases the collective
rights argument the Supreme Court rejected in Heller.
Indeed, one need only consider other constitutional rights to
see the poverty of this contention. State police power also
covers, for instance, some of the conduct the First Amendment
protects, but that does not deny individuals the right to
assert First Amendment rights against the states."
and:
"Once the County actually addresses modern incorporation
doctrine, it relies on general assertions that run afoul of
Heller. For example, the County declares that “the English
common law tradition does not recognize an individual’s right
to possess a firearm as a fundamental right.” Heller plainly
contradicts that statement because it says that “(b)y the time
of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental
for English subjects.”"
And for the grand finale:
"12] We therefore conclude that the right to keep and bear
arms is “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”
Colonial revolutionaries, the Founders, and a host of commentators
and lawmakers living during the first one hundred
years of the Republic all insisted on the fundamental nature
of the right. It has long been regarded as the “true palladium
of liberty.” Colonists relied on it to assert and to win their
independence, and the victorious Union sought to prevent a
recalcitrant South from abridging it less than a century later.
The crucial role this deeply rooted right has played in our
birth and history compels us to recognize that it is indeed fundamental,
that it is necessary to the Anglo-American conception
of ordered liberty that we have inherited.17 We are
therefore persuaded that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment incorporates the Second Amendment and
applies it against the states and local governments.18"
Also interesting to read from a modern judge:
"GOULD, Circuit Judge, concurring:
I concur in Judge O’Scannlain’s opinion but write to elaborate
my view of the policies underlying the selective incorporation
decision. First, as Judge O’Scannlain has aptly
explained, the rights secured by the Second Amendment are
“deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition,” and
“necessary to the Anglo-American regime of ordered liberty.”
The salient policies underlying the protection of the right to
bear arms are of inestimable importance. The right to bear
arms is a bulwark against external invasion. We should not be
overconfident that oceans on our east and west coasts alone
can preserve security. We recently saw in the case of the terrorist
attack on Mumbai that terrorists may enter a country
covertly by ocean routes, landing in small craft and then
assembling to wreak havoc. That we have a lawfully armed
populace adds a measure of security for all of us and makes
it less likely that a band of terrorists could make headway in
an attack on any community before more professional forces
arrived.1 Second, the right to bear arms is a protection against
the possibility that even our own government could degenerate
into tyranny, and though this may seem unlikely, this possibility
should be guarded against with individual diligence."
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
"
