“…From my Cold Dead Hands…”
Before we begin, keep in mind that there are two realities;
- One, that exists under our rule of law following the United States Constitution;
- Two, our current government’s Post-Constitution governance disregarding the rule of law and our Constitution.
While we may be experiencing a Post Constitutional period in our country, it is important to understand the difference between what should be and what may be when it comes to this government’s usurpation of power and disregard for the rule of law.
Following the tragedy at Newtown, Connecticut where 20 babies and 7 adults were senselessly slaughtered by a troubled young man, the administration and its media have tried to whip up a feeding frenzy to support their anti-gun agenda. This is yet another example of this administration not wanting to waste a tragedy to further their left-wing agenda. The left’s goal is ultimately to eliminate private gun ownership. Their ultimately take over of this country depends on it. They are patient and will accomplish this one clip, one bullet or one gun type at a time. With this tragedy, the administration will try to make major headway in meeting their ultimate goal of zero private ownership. You will see proposals for eliminating high-capacity clips for semi-automatic weapons, their age-old favorite, eliminating “assault” rifles, and possibly some handguns or restrictions on their use or resale, but their big push will be to establish a national registry of gun owners and their individual gun registrations. Once you know where the guns are, it is easy to go pick them up!
Rule of Law:
American citizens need to understand what their rights are under the Constitution and Supreme Court cases that frame out those rights in modern-day. Remember, for these rights to be protected, your government would have to have respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Today, this is not the case.
Second Amendment:
Everyone should now know that the second amendment to the US Constitution firmly established the right citizens to own and bear arms. The actual text of the 2nd Amendment reads: “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The key to understanding the second amendment is the position of commas in the sentence and the separation of two basic rights. The two distinct statements that describe the rights that are protected; One, A well-regulated Militia; Two, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. The two rights were intentionally segregated by the authors and this separation has been recognized by the Supreme Court in subsequent rulings. Many on the left try to make the case that the right to bear arms is only if citizens are banded together in a regulated militia. Clearly the 2nd amendment states the Right of the People to keep and bear Arms. The militia is a group organized by and for the individual STATES and the People are individuals, not a formal or loose group of individual Citizens. The reader also needs to put the 2nd amendment in the context of the times and the intent of the authors. It was ratified in 1791 not too long after the American Revolution. The authors where painfully aware that they would still be British citizens if they had not been able to purchase and keep their own arms that they subsequently used to gain their freedom from the British rule. The authors also distrusted governments and wanted to insure that the People could always protect themselves against a government who disregarded the rule of law and the Constitution. To underscore this distrust of government, just consider a quote from Thomas Jefferson when he wrote to William Smith in 1797 regarding our successful revolt against the British, “God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion.”
Subsequent Supreme Court Cases Upholding the 2nd Amendment:
The most definitive Supreme Court decision was in 2010, District of Columbia v. Heller. In this decision , the court absolutely segregated the well-regulated militia right from the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Justice Scalia succinctly wrote for the majority, “Nowhere else in the Constitution does a “right” attributed to “the people” refer to anything other than an individual right. What is more, in all six other provisions of the Constitution that mention “the people,” the term unambiguously refers to all members of the political community, not an unspecified subset. This contrasts markedly with the phrase “the militia” in the prefatory clause”.
In 2010, two years after the landmark Heller decision, the court heard McDonald v. Chicago. The key to this case was whether the 2nd Amendment rights of individuals to keep and bear arms superseded State’s laws regarding gun ownership and regulation. The court held that the Second Amendment was incorporated under the Fourteenth Amendment thus protecting those rights from infringement by local governments. The City of Chicago had banned the sale of handguns and this ban was overturned in this ruling. The key to this decision was to assert that no jurisdiction, Federal, State or local governments could infringe on the rights of individuals to bear arms and that “classes” of guns could not be banned, handguns in this case.
Executive Orders Restricting the 2nd Amendment:
Executive Orders were first used by President George Washington in 1789. Executive Orders are seen to be within the Constitution limits on the President’s powers within Article II, Section 1, Clause 1 that states in part “…take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”. EOs are to be used solely to “EXECUTE” duly authorized legislation passed by Congress. The President cannot create new law, modify existing law, or certainly not modify any part of the US Constitution with an EO. To do so would be a violation of the separation of powers within the Constitution and could be considered an impeachable offense. Under the Constitution, the President could not place restrictions on the size of magazine clips, order national registration of firearms, or ban classes of weapons such as “assault rifles” using EOs. (Ironically, Obama’s own Obamacare has an amendment put in by Harry Reid that would prohibit physicians or other healthcare providers from having to register guns for the federal government as part of the physicians duties ot Herr Obama.) Congress could gingerly, within the scope of DC v Heller and McDonald v Chicago, pass some gun regulation if passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President.
Will He or Will He Not Breach the US Constitution, Again?
Good money is on that Obama will act illegally and place unlawful bans on aspects of private gun ownership in the name of saving the children. He will crowd a bunch of kids around him at the WH and act like he really cares about those same kids whose parents he is ready to shackle figuratively or literally. This is the ultimate dream of the left and the only think that could have been better if a Christian, Tea Party, Republican in good health and with a sane mind had killed all of the children at Newtown.
There is a lot of chatter in the blogs and on the radio about impeaching Obama should he take these steps to stomp on the 2nd Amendment. Hold your horses. Remember, it takes both houses of Congress to impeach the President. The House has to approve Articles of Impeachment while the Senate has to “convict” the President on those articles. Assuming you are foolish enough to think that John Boehner and the RINO’s would have the guts to vote on Articles of Impeachment, but you would really have to be naive to believe that Harry Reid would even read the Articles much less schedule the trial in the Senate. This, like Obama ignoring a Federal Court order to stop his moratorium on drilling in the gulf, his recess appointments, his failure to pass budgets for 4 years, and so on, will go unpunished and heralded by his lap-dogs in the media as heroic. The sad truth is that there really is not an opposition party to oppose Obama. The Republican party is not all that sure he should not ban weapons! Without a solid conservative party alternative, welcome to the new Post Constitutional America!
It is truly ironic that the left who is supposedly crying rivers over the slaughter of 20 of our children while at the same time they continue to murder over a million babies before they are born every single year in the name of a “Women’s Rights”. I guess it is OK to kill babies before they are born. Hypocrits!
RD Pierini
Hat Tips:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/wh-obama-committed-second-amendment
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/flashback-charlton-heston-my-cold-dead-hands
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-to-unveil-sweeping-gun-proposals-wednesday-including-assault-weapons-ban/2013/01/15/09452c34-5f31-11e2-9940-6fc488f3fecd_story.html?wpisrc=al_comboNP_p
