--- begin forwarded text Delivered-To: clips@philodox.com Date: Sun, 11 Dec 2005 15:35:55 -0500 To: Philodox Clips List <clips@philodox.com> From: "R. A. Hettinga" <rah@shipwright.com> Subject: [Clips] Fans of a disarmed peasantry Reply-To: rah@philodox.com Sender: clips-bounces@philodox.com <http://reviewjournal.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=reviewjournal.com+--+Opinion+-+VIN+SUPRYNOWICZ%3A%0A++++++++++++++++Fans+of+a+disarmed+peasantry%0A++++++++&expire=&urlID=16541919&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reviewjournal.com%2Flvrj_home%2F2005%2FDec-11-Sun-2005%2Fopinion%2F4681150.html&partnerID=569> Dec. 11, 2005 Las Vegas Review-Journal VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Fans of a disarmed peasantry My column of last week, dealing with uniformed cops shooting undercover cops, and the bizarre proposal that to solve this problem undercover cops must stop carrying guns so their uniformed brethren can continue to feel free to shoot any black man in "civvies" who's seen to have a gun, drew a scattering of the usual recycled nonsense from the eager boot lickers of the state. We've seen the lawyerly double-talk before: The Second and 14th Amendments don't really guarantee any pre-existing, God-given individual right to keep and bear arms; they were only intended (in 1789) to guarantee the right of the states to have their National Guards (established in 1917), blah blah blah. Advertisement No room here to recite my thorough evisceration of this nonsense from pages 321-349 of "The Ballad of Carl Drega." Space also prohibits me from reprinting here all the relevant chapters of professor Akhil Reed Amar's 1998 book "The Bill of Rights," demonstrating that this long-discredited nonsense will no longer fly even at the reliably leftist Yale Law School. Instead, herewith the necessarily abbreviated, "Cliff Notes" version: Richard Henry Lee of Virginia, primary author of the Second Amendment as well as the rest of the Bill of Rights, rose in 1788 to advise us that, "A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves. ... To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." In his aforementioned book "The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction," professor Amar notes, "Several modern scholars have read the (Second) amendment as protecting only arms bearing in organized 'state militias,' like SWAT teams and National Guard units. ... "This reading doesn't quite work. The states'-rights reading puts great weight on the word militia, but the word appears only in the amendment's subordinate clause. The ultimate right to keep and bear arms belongs to 'the people,' not the states. ... "In 1789, when used without any qualifying adjective, 'the militia' referred to all citizens capable of bearing arms," professor Amar continues. "The seeming tension between the dependent and main clauses of the Second Amendment thus evaporates on closer inspection -- the 'militia' is identical to 'the people' in the core sense described above. Indeed, the version of the amendment initially passed by the House, only to be stylistically shortened in the Senate, explicitly defined the militia as 'composed of the body of the People." Let us now turn to the Oct. 16, 2001, decision of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in New Orleans, in the case United States v. Emerson. "We have found no historical evidence that the Second Amendment was intended to convey militia power to the states ... or applies only to members of a select militia while on active duty," the appeals court ruled. "All of the evidence indicates that the Second Amendment, like other parts of the Bill of Rights, applies to and protects individual Americans. "We find that the history of the Second Amendment reinforces the plain meaning of the text, namely that it protects individual Americans in their right to keep and bear arms whether or not they are members of a select militia or performing military service or training." In the Emerson decision, the 5th Circuit specifically rejected any reading of the Second Amendment's preamble -- "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state" -- as meaning anything other than a simple directive that the entire body of the people, capable of bearing arms, must continue to be allowed to bear arms of current military usefulness, "such as the pistol involved here," without requiring any additional government permission, paperwork, license, or authorization. The court even cited as its authority no less a personage in the history of the Constitution than James Madison, who wrote in Federalist No. 46 that the proposed power of the Congress "to raise and support armies" posed no threat to liberty, since any such army, if misused, "would be opposed (by) a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands," and then noting? "the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation," in contrast to "the several kingdoms of Europe," where "the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." And I don't think he meant BB guns. These boot lickers of the oppressor, stained yellow from rolling over on their backs and peeing themselves in terror that this might again become a nation of proud, armed, independent and freedom-loving men, had better get themselves some new lies. The one that starts, "You forgot the introductory clause about the militia, nyah nyah nyah," is starting to wear a little thin. Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal and author of "The Ballad of Carl Drega" and the new novel "The Black Arrow." His Web sites are www.TheLibertarian.us or www.LibertyBookShop.us. -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' _______________________________________________ Clips mailing list Clips@philodox.com http://www.philodox.com/mailman/listinfo/clips --- end forwarded text -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah@ibuc.com> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'