Repeal The Second Amendment

The United States Constitution is in many ways an amazing document. It has allowed our country to become the envy of the world, but it was not and is not perfect. There have been amendments to correct some flaws and it is now time to fix a remaining flaw.

The Second Amendment needs to be repealed. Just take it out of the Constitution.

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.

Repealing the second amendment doesn't mean all guns become illegal and will be confiscated. What it means is that the laws about guns must be legislated from the perspective of how we as a country want them to impact our society and not from the perspective of a constitutional right where we argue about what the founders actually meant. Gun ownership and use should not be some inalienable right. It should not be a foundational part of our country and enshrined in the Constitution. It's inclusion in the Constitution is one of the reasons we have such a terrible gun violence problem.

Most us drive cars and depend on cars to support our daily lives. But we also know that operating a car is not a right. We have to be licensed and provide insurance among other restrictions. There are rules for different types of vehicles and when and how they can be operated. Those rules are determined by legislation to fit our changing needs. For example, self-driving cars will require many new laws and regulations.

This is the way gun laws should be handled. Laws to define how guns can be used for self-defense, hunting, target shooting can be legislated just like laws that govern drivers, driving, cars, trucks, ATVs, motorcycles, etc., and without needing to quote the founding fathers or the Federalist Papers.

I believe the Second Amendment was written to provide the country with a service; citizen soldiers in militias to defend us from foreign threats which we no longer face. We now have well trained people in the military services, National Guard and Reserves that provide for our defense.

For the constitutional originalists/textualists, I don't see anything in the Second Amendment that provides guidance about personal self-defense or suggest that the amendment was meant to provide ready weapons for citizens to overthrow a misguided government. I also don't understand how the initial dependent clause can be ignored, although that is convenient since militias were male only institutions so the Second Amendment wouldn't apply to women.

And how well has the Second Amendment worked? Are we better off having it? How is our record on gun violence and the number of citizens killed by guns compared to the rest of the industrial world? We've been told for years that all we need is more good people with guns. Yet while gun purchases continue to sky rocket, gun violence increases and still more and more people are killed by guns. Clearly more and more guns are not making us safer or decreasing gun violence.

In my city we have an interstate highway where people are wary to drive for fear of being shot for an awkward lane change or just by a stray bullet. Kids are being killed in their homes from stray shots coming from outside their houses. Do we really want to live this way? And the situation keeps getting worse.

What does it say about us that guns are now the leading cause of childhood deaths? We should be ashamed. More importantly, we must do something about that.

Let's repeal the Second Amendment and start creating laws that allow reasonable ownership and use of guns.

 

If NRA Supports You, I Do Not

We should all be proud of the students who are marching to stop gun violence today.  They are very impressive.

As voters, we should all take a pledge to not vote for any candidate, Republican or Democrat or third party, that takes support from the NRA.  If that means we have to write-in the name of a candidate not beholding to the NRA and who is willing to support legislation to prevent gun violence, that is what we will do.

Discuss Gun Saftey Issues Now

In the aftermath of the mass killing of students in Parkland, Florida, the usual cast of characters again claimed that the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting is not the time to discuss policy changes in response to the shooting.  They claim we don't know all the details of the incident at Parkland so we could be suggesting policy changes that won't address the issue or maybe we could make the problem worse.  This is obviously not true, but people like the Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan, continue to repeat that lie.

Let's give Paul Ryan and others the benefit of the doubt.  Let's us assume they really believe what they are saying and are not just paying off debts to the NRA and some of their base voters.

To these people I would ask, what policy changes would you suggest based on the facts we now know from the shootings at the concert at Las Vegas or at the Pulse night club in Orlando or at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia or at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut or at a small church in Sutherland Springs, Texas or at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado or at ...

We Need To Address Gun Violence Now

"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."

Contrary to strict constructionists, there is more than one way to interpret the Second Amendment.  It is and has been obvious that the interpretation of the Second Amendment by the NRA and its Conservative supporters is not good for this country. 

It is logically inconsistent to ignore the language in the Second Amendment that clarifies it is granting a right to people who are part of a militia and yet legalize the ownership of firearms designed only for war and killing large numbers of people.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment does not give citizens unlimited access to arms.  If the Second Amendment is not tied to militia defending the country, there is no need for private ownership of arms only meant for war.

I am tired of hearing politicians express sympathy for the victims of gun violence and then do nothing to try to prevent future tragedies.

I am tired of hearing politicians tell us that now is not the time to talk about changing gun laws.  That is bull shit.  Politicians count on time dulling our outrage and they won't have to take a stand and work on solutions.

We heard that same crap after innocent first graders and educators were murdered at Sandy Hook.  It has been almost five years since the massacre at Sandy Hook.  Is now the right time to talk about common sense gun law changes as a result of the innocent lives lost at Sandy Hook?

You Can Have My Flintlock...

“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.”

To my reading, the Second Amendment clearly states that the right of people to bear arms is linked to service in a Militia. Since “well regulated Militia”, as they existed in 1789 when the Second Amendment was written, no longer exist, the un-infringed right to bear arms no longer exists. Militias are archaic and references to them in the Constitution should be removed. The US Constitution is a magnificent document, but references to slavery had to be removed. The Second Amendment applied to an historical situation that no longer exists and it should be repealed.

But what I believe is unimportant, the Supreme Court is in the process of determining how the Second Amendment applies to a Washington, DC, ban on handguns. The high level arguments generally revolve around whether the amendment grants a collective right related to service in a Militia or an individual right.

The questions posed by the Justices in open court seem to indicate they believe the Second Amendment grants an individual right. I hope their decision does not upset the status quo which has allowed reasonable legislative restrictions on firearms. I don’t believe there are currently many laws that seriously infringe gun ownership for hunting, sport or self-defense.

If the strict constructionist justices on the Court rule that the Second Amendment grants an individual right, they will unleash a domestic arms race. “Infringe” is a strong verb, the kind strict constructionist judges like and all judges will find hard to circumvent. If residents of DC are “infringed” by a restriction that they cannot own handguns, although they can own long guns, certainly laws that allow ownership of semi-automatic weapons, but do not allow ownership of fully automatic weapons, “infringe” gun owners rights. How many other current laws will be challenged as infringing? If I can own a fully automatic assault rifle, why not a heavy machine gun?

If the Court rules the Second Amendment grants an individual right, will they try to allow for restrictions to the right? How will they do that? There are restrictions on the right to free speech, but given the clause that links arms to Militias, any weapon appropriate for a Militia would seem to be appropriate for an individual. Given the link to Militias, is a law against ownership of an RPG an infringement?

I guess a strict constructionist judge could rule that an individual has an un-infringed right to any firearm available to a citizen of 1789.*


* Maybe Charlton Heston had it perfectly right when in 2000 as president of the NRA he held a flintlock rifle over his head and said you could only take it from his “cold dead hands”.

When Is Treason Warranted?

In previous posts I've complained about Governor Huckabee's weird belief that the Second Amendment not only guarantees a citizen's right to keep weapons to use against the government if it doesn't do what it is supposed to do, he acts like it is a citizen's DUTY to keep weapons to use against the government.

I would like Governor Huckabee to give us some reasonable scenarios where the use of violent armed actions against the government might be justified, but he doesn't seem to be reading my blog. Does Governor Huckabee understand that the definition of treason includes "the offense of attempting by overt acts to overthrow the government of the state to which the offender owes allegiance..." (Merriam-Webster)?


I've tried to ask Second Amendment supporters to give me some examples of government actions that might justify an armed revolt. Ignoring those people who think I am an uneducated idiot, the responses are usually incidents from two hundred years ago or they cite Randy Weaver's stand-off at Ruby Ridge. I think some of them would include Waco, but I doubt that many would claim Oklahoma City. In short, they have no good historical examples and they have not suggested any likely future scenarios where violence against the government would be warranted.

It is interesting that Oklahoma City is not seen as a good example of justifiable violence against the government. I believe that it was government actions at Waco that motivated Timothy McVeigh to bomb the Federal Building. Don't people who believe that they need guns for self-defense against the government realize they are using the same basic reasoning that Timothy McVeigh used to justify his violence?

Actually, I see a situation looming that many people might use to justify violent action against the government. That is the up-coming review of the Second Amendment by the Supreme Court.

I predict there will be violence if the Court should rule that the Second Amendment is a collective right (the right to bear arms is only as it relates to Militia) rather than an individual right. I also predict you will never see a constitutional amendment to repeal the Second Amendment. The threats of violence would be so intense politicians would decide to leave it to the courts to slowly rein in our obsession with guns and violence.

Huckabee - Prepare For Armed Revolt

My previous post hit some of the low points of Governor Huckabee's speech to the NRA, but the more I thought about it, I decided it was important to focus on one part of his speech that clearly shows he is not qualified to be President of the United States.

He said "The Second Amendment is about preserving freedom." and then he said of the Second Amendment:

“It is the last goal line. The last bastion of defense against even our own government should it go completely awry and turn into tyranny. And I know that sounds a little radical in this day and time, and some people don't understand it, but if they really would think through it they would realize that an unarmed citizenry is a citizenry that has no capacity against even its own government should its government forget what it is supposed to do.”

Yes, Governor, that does sound a little radical.

What he is saying is that citizens should arm themselves just in case they need to take up arms against their own government! He wants to be President of the United States, the head of the Executive Branch which is charged with enforcing our laws, and he is telling people they should be prepared to take up arms, violently break the law, if the government does things they don't agree with.

At what point should we take up arms against the government? First Governor Huckabee suggests it is when our government goes "completely awry and turn[s] into tyranny." Later he expands on this benchmark and suggests armed revolt when the "government forget[s] what it is supposed to do."

Does he understand the Constitution? Does he understand the concept of checks and balances? Does he not believe that, as a country, we can continue to follow the constitution and protect the rights of its citizens? Does he have no faith that people elected to office will honor their oaths to the Constitution? Doesn't he have confidence that citizens will use their votes to correct problems before we reach the need to start shooting at each other?

Does he understand that what he is proposing would be civil war and the end of the United States?

He is not advocating sedition, but he is saying you should prepare for it. He believes our government is clearly capable of going "awry" or forgetting "what it is supposed to do". Crimes so heinous that armed revolt would be justified.

By the way, he makes the point in another part of the speech that you can't count on getting a weapon when you need it, which means you should get a weapon before you need it. I think this explains why he is not in favor of a ban on assault weapons. You are not going to take on the government with shotguns and deer rifles.

It sounds like Governor Huckabee thinks it is quite possible that the United States government will "go completely awry and turn into tyranny" which means he is not ready for prime time. I find his logic frightening. It makes me wonder if his interpretation of "Militia" in the Second Amendment is closer to the militia currently terrorizing Iraq - lawless citizen armies that fight a government they don't believe responds to their desires.

Repeal The Second Amendment

The recent ruling that Washington DC restrictions on handgun ownership are unconstitutional was interesting. It clearly shows that the term "strict constructionist activist judge" is not an oxymoron.

While the United States Constitution is a superb document, it was not without its flaws. This interpretation clearly shows it is time to repeal the Second Amendment. Most the of ruling revolves around historical interpretations that no longer have much meaning.

Much of the majorities argument centered on whether or not the Second Amendment is an individual right. They conclude it is an individual right and offer as one proof Robertson vs Baldwin which includes the much quoted phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms (article 2) is not infringed by laws prohibiting the carrying of concealed weapons;." The majority ignores their own admission that it is legal to restrict gun ownership by insisting that a person has a constitutional right to keep arms in their homes for self protection and as preparation for service in a militia (an arcane and unclear entity).

Citing legal precedence, they do agree that there are legal restrictions as to what kinds of weapons a person can own. A sawed off shotgun can be legislated as illegal, because the term "arms" refers "only to those weapons which are ordinarily used for military or public defense purposes and does not relate to those weapons which are commonly used by criminals;" (Miller).

Although not stated, the clear interpretation is that any weapon that is commonly used by the military or for public defense is legal in a home. That may have made sense when most soldiers carried muskets. The judges have basically said it is legal for people to have in their homes fully automatic assault rifles, machine guns, rocket propelled grenade launchers, etc. in case they are called upon to join a militia. The case before them did not require them to decide whether or not restrictions on these weapons outside the home would be legal.

The language of the Second Amendment is unclear and out of date. It needs to be repealed.

Read the courts ruling here.