- Jan 3, 2006
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The Right to Guns vs Gun Control: An important article from the SLC newspaper:
"Memo to gun-rights crowd: Read the Second Amendment
Don Vance
Article Last Updated: 04/14/2007 01:37:03 PM MDT
I am tired of celebrities (pick one), a national correspondent on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" (March 18), Tom Wharton (Salt Lake Tribune, March 22), and legions of private citizens trampling on the Constitution of my country in defense of their "right" to own a gun.
The problem is . . . they're wrong. It's a myth, folklore. The Second Amendment allows states to have their own armies (militias), U.S. military forces notwithstanding. It confers no rights to an individual. Please consider the following arguments:
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. No law may be passed which overturns, supersedes or otherwise contradicts the Constitution, except by the manner as described within the Constitution.
States have passed laws forbidding some people from owning a gun. How can this be possible if the Constitution, the "supreme law of the land," guarantees you the right to own one?
The Second Amendment is exactly one sentence long. In its entirety it says, "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."
In those days "the people" was taken, in proper context, to mean a polity. It doesn't say, and it doesn't mean, a person.
I am unaware of a single decision ever handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court that even addresses the Second amendment. Why? Is it possible that it is not a constitutional question? That your right may be derived from some place other than the Second Amendment?
Why would Utah deem it necessary to specifically endorse it in its Constitution, if it was already guaranteed by the supreme law of the land?
It would help if you knew something about the Ninth and 10th Amendments. I encourage you to read them, but they basically say that you can do whatever you are not prohibited from doing.
Yes. You have the right to own a gun. But you didn't get it from the Second Amendment. That's hogwash. You got it because nobody has said you can't. You have the right to own a bathtub, but that's only because no one has said you can't. You have the right to own property, because no law has been passed saying you can't.
Your desire to own a gun does not make you a militia, regulated or otherwise. Neither does belonging to a gun club, or even (dare I say it?), being a member of the National Rifle Association. Only being a member of the National Guard (i.e., the state militia) allows you that status. And that's the only thing the Second Amendment speaks to. Go on, read it yourself. It's only one sentence.
Quit feeding me nonsense wrapped in the American flag. It annoys me, and it puts your ignorance on public display. Quit believing what you've heard someone else say, and read the document.
There are plenty of copies of the Constitution available in any public library."
"Memo to gun-rights crowd: Read the Second Amendment
Don Vance
Article Last Updated: 04/14/2007 01:37:03 PM MDT
I am tired of celebrities (pick one), a national correspondent on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" (March 18), Tom Wharton (Salt Lake Tribune, March 22), and legions of private citizens trampling on the Constitution of my country in defense of their "right" to own a gun.
The problem is . . . they're wrong. It's a myth, folklore. The Second Amendment allows states to have their own armies (militias), U.S. military forces notwithstanding. It confers no rights to an individual. Please consider the following arguments:
The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. No law may be passed which overturns, supersedes or otherwise contradicts the Constitution, except by the manner as described within the Constitution.
States have passed laws forbidding some people from owning a gun. How can this be possible if the Constitution, the "supreme law of the land," guarantees you the right to own one?
The Second Amendment is exactly one sentence long. In its entirety it says, "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."
In those days "the people" was taken, in proper context, to mean a polity. It doesn't say, and it doesn't mean, a person.
I am unaware of a single decision ever handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court that even addresses the Second amendment. Why? Is it possible that it is not a constitutional question? That your right may be derived from some place other than the Second Amendment?
Why would Utah deem it necessary to specifically endorse it in its Constitution, if it was already guaranteed by the supreme law of the land?
It would help if you knew something about the Ninth and 10th Amendments. I encourage you to read them, but they basically say that you can do whatever you are not prohibited from doing.
Yes. You have the right to own a gun. But you didn't get it from the Second Amendment. That's hogwash. You got it because nobody has said you can't. You have the right to own a bathtub, but that's only because no one has said you can't. You have the right to own property, because no law has been passed saying you can't.
Your desire to own a gun does not make you a militia, regulated or otherwise. Neither does belonging to a gun club, or even (dare I say it?), being a member of the National Rifle Association. Only being a member of the National Guard (i.e., the state militia) allows you that status. And that's the only thing the Second Amendment speaks to. Go on, read it yourself. It's only one sentence.
Quit feeding me nonsense wrapped in the American flag. It annoys me, and it puts your ignorance on public display. Quit believing what you've heard someone else say, and read the document.
There are plenty of copies of the Constitution available in any public library."
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