Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Once again, someone has decided that 'the people' doesn't mean us peasants;

it means the state:
...But the plain truth is, once and for all, the 2nd amendment has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with an individual's right to own a gun. And never did. There is no Constitutional right to own a gun.And there never was.
...
The 2nd amendment is about giving the states an absolute right to have their own armed militias which today has been transformed into the National Guard.It also guarantees that the states have the right to have the same weapons as a federal army, a right in existence today and has always been, since the National Guard of every state does have most of the same weapons that the Federal army has.
...
For those who don't know there are two types of rights enumerated in the Constitution, states rights and individual rights. As any Constitutional scholar will tell you, when the Framers were referring to a state's right they used the term "the people:". When they were referring to an individual right, they used the word " person".The 5th amendment is a good example. It begins with the words, "No person shall..." and lays out guarantees, among them, double jeopardy and that no person in a criminal case shall be compelled to be a witness against himself
.
So, again, we're supposed to believe that in the Bill of Rights the framers, in the middle of a document speaking specifically of the rights of free people, decided to throw in "Oh, and the states can have a militia with arms." Yeah. Right.

And we're supposed to believe that the National Guard, a federally-controlled branch of the regular military, is that militia. Uh huh.

And that every time the framers used 'the people' they only meant the states. Let's see, so the 1st(the right of the people) doesn't mean any personal freedom of speech, only freedom for the State; So that 4th(the right of the people) part about being secure in your home doesn't mean YOU, it means the STATE; I guess he'll let the 6th actually be about individuals since it says 'the accused'; the 7th doesn't mention 'person' or 'accused', so I'm guessing that one's actually for the State as well; the 8th doesn't use either term, so... ; the 9th(retained by the people) so that's State only, as well as the 10th(or to the people).

So, according to this guy, looks like most of the original ten Amendments, written by a people extremely concerned with protecting the freedom of the individual from government intrusion, were actually written only to protect the STATES from the feds, and do nothing for individuals.

Bullshit.

From a clapped-out bull.

Kevin has challenged this clown to debate the matter; we'll see if he does.

2 comments:

wolfwalker said...

And we're supposed to believe that the National Guard, a federally-controlled branch of the regular military...

Uh ... no, it isn't. Units of the National Guard are under the command of the governor of the state where they are based. It is the governor who calls out the National Guard, not the president. The president has the power to call National Guard units up for duty as part of the regular armed forces, but when they are not so mobilized, they answer to the state governor.

Which is not to say that the "militia" interpretation of the 2nd has any merit. It has none. For two reasons. First, because all the founders who wrote on the subject wrote that the 2nd protected an individual right. Second, because many colonial and later state laws of the Revolutionary era clearly said that all able-bodied men were members of the militia, and were required to arm and equip themselves out of their own resources. In a couple of places it was actually illegal to not own a rifle or musket and ammunition for it.

Firehand said...

I can't remember the case it was part of, but the Supremes ruled years back that, instead of being the 'militia', that because the Guard could be called up for foreign deployment, etc., that it counted as a federally-controlled arm of the regulars. That's probably a lousy way of wording it, but I believe it covers what they said. Which is why I wrote that.

I agree. the knots that guy tied himself up in to say what he did... I think Garrett once said "This thing couldn't get any more complicated without three wizards to screw it around."