From The Comments Of Earlier

"Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (a strange, obsessive focus of hate on the American right) "

We hate them because they hate us. There's nothing strange about it.

The Constitution was written in plain, simple English. There is no nuance or hidden meanings.

The Second 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."

That's damn plain in 1789 English. Only confusing today because comma use has changed considerably.

If the authors of the 2nd had intended it to mean just the militia to have arms, then they would not have said "people". Another thing to consider here is the people writing the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were people who had just succeeded in an armed rebellion and recognized that the common ownership and familiarity with arms was what allowed them to attain that victory. That's not speculation, they were also a verbose group who wrote about their thoughts almost endlessly.

This amendment is there because possession of arms is not A freedom, it is THE freedom. Taking away the arms means that we are completely reliant on whatever freedom is granted us by the people who still have their arms. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is at the forefront when it comes to taking the arms from the people. If arms = freedom then someone who cares about liberty is going to be a little peeved at people attempting to take said arms away.

And ATF is not as hated as Sarah Brady, Howard Metzenbaum, Barbara Boxer, Diane Feinstein, Charles Schumer or Joe Biden; the authors of the Brady Act and '94 "Assault" Weapons Ban, signed by William Jefferson Clinton.

We remember in 1986 that Ronald Reagan signed the Gunowner's Protection Act that made it a little harder for ATF to track a specific gun from factory to owner, but it he also removed machineguns from "common use" by banning manufacture of new guns for private ownership.

We remember that Lyndon Baynes Johnson expanded the NFA in 1968 to make sure the government had the ability to track every firearm made and that all sales of new guns must be made through a dealer licensed by the Federal Government. To transfer a firearm legally from an owner in one state to a person in another state, one must go through such a licensed dealer. Like the ability to tax, the power to license can be used to destroy.

The people who hate also have no love for the left's hero, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In 1934 under his watch we got the National Firearms Act. That made the preeminent weapon that a militia should have, the machinegun, tightly regulated and (at the time) prohibitively taxed.

We notice that Heller did not address the infringements of our rights I mention above. Heller specifically stated "firearms in common use", notice how they eliminated machineguns from common use?

We worry about Barack Hussein Obama. He has only voted in a pro-gun manner ONCE since becoming a US Senator, for SA4615 in 2006. He's said, repeatedly that he's for gun bans, renewal of the AWB and restricting gun sales to one a month. Oh, notice his running mate is also on our minds from 1994? Real confidence builder there.

Comments:

23rd-Oct-2008 01:16 am (local)



ravenclaw_eric

It'd be a hoot if we had a Presidential candidate who was campaigning on a platform of repealing everything banning or regulating guns, from Miller vs. US on...but who was also a Muslim. A lot of people's minds would explode.

23rd-Oct-2008 10:31 am (local)



mcthag

Candidate X: "I propose radically chopping government back to it's constitutionally authorized size and making sure each and every law is in accordance with that highest law of the land, praise be unto Allah!"

23rd-Oct-2008 04:41 pm (local) - linguistic change



fuzzy_geff

There is a non-punctuation issue that confuses moderns: most people, in my experience, don't even suspect that "well-regulated" means "properly functioning". They are far more likely to imagine it has something to do with government control.

In case any of our readers are suffering from such confusion, I will quote from The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary (1971 edition):

Well-re.gulated, ppl. a
1709 Shaftesb. Moralists ii. iv. 108 If a liberal Education has form'd in us .. well-regulated Appetites, and worthy Inclinations. 1714 R. Fiodes Pract. Disc. ii. 250 The practice of all well regulated courts of justice in the world. 1812 J. Joyce Sci. Dial., Astron. xii II. 126 The equation of time .. is the adjustment of the difference of time, as shown by a well-regulated clock and a true sun-dial. 1848 Thackeray Van. Fair lviii. A remissness for which I am sure every well-regulated person will blame the Major. 1862 Mrs. H. Wood Mrs. Hallib i. v. 27 It appeared, to her well-regulated mind, like a clandestine proceeding. 1894 Pop. Sci. Monthly June 165 The newspaper, a never wanting adjunct to every well-regulated American embryo city.

I may have mangled some typography, but I am confident that I rendered the content of the citations correctly. And no, I didn't delete the definition; they really didn't include one.