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Thursday, January 3, 2013

THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS

I promised not to write on this subject until the holidays had passed, in order to be at least one person who kept his yap shut and let the poor families of the children murdered in the Newton, Connecticut schoolhouse massacre deal with what can only be the worst Christmas anyone has - outside of actual wartime - ever experienced.  Since everybody else was playing this event for all they could get out of it, my silence does not count for a whole lot; but at least one commentator on one obscure web log let them have their peace. My prayers are with these families.
 
On the other hand, as I pointed out in my initial reaction to this dreadful event, those whose fantasy is - for whatever motive - getting rid of firearms were crying on the outside, but smiling on the inside as they planned on how best to use this awful massacre of innocents to their own ends. I can imagine the Brady Bunch doing jigs and rubbing theiir hands together in glee as they crafted press releases and gave their lobbying corps their marching orders.
 
The bunch of loony ladies known as "Code Pink" have gotten involved, too.  On a scale rating obnoxiousness of 1 to 100, with cream cheese on the low side and the Westboro Baptist Church on the other end; Code Pink is about a 75.3.   In one instance, a "Code Pink" gal stood up in front of NRA President Wayne LaPierre and started shouting that the NRA were "murderers". I really regret  not renewing my NRA membership, as I'd have sued that idiot woman and Code Pink for every dime they had, since I've never killed a soul. 
 
Code Pink also had a picket line outside "The Nation's Gun Show" at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Virginia last weekend. They were annoying the living hell out of every show attendee they could, and I would just like to know; if they are so damned scared of people carrying firearms; just why it is then that they felt so sure they could openly irritate the hell out of a couple thousand armed gun enthusiasts without getting shot to death? After all, we folks who carry loaded firearms kill people, don't we?  (Of course we don't - except in the case of defending ourselves or others from death, or greivous bodily harm (such as, oh, rape).) Those Code Pink ladies were in the safest place in Virginia right then, and they knew it. 
 
Speaking of gun shows, have you ever heard of a mass shooting at a gun show? If you believe the lies spewed by the Bradys and the Pinks and their ilk, you'd expect that a gun show - where there are literally miles of tables piled with all manner of firearms, ammunition, swords, knives, daggers, etc. - to be the ideal place to stage a mass murder. They even have Class III weapons - fully automatic M-16s, AK47s, Browning Automatic Rifles, even a few old examples of the world's first true assault rifle, the Sturmgewehr StG44 - on display and for sale. Sneak a few loaded up magazines and a pair of wire snips to sever the security cables, snatch an M16 from one of the displays, and start spraying rounds. It would be ridiculously easy. So why hasn't anyone tried it?
 
The answer is as ridiculously obvious as the act would be easy. No one has tried this because if they did, they would be dead as the bovine that provided my corned-beef-and-cabbage New Year's Day dinner before three rounds of full-auto fire had exited the muzzle of the weapon. 

People bring their kids to these gun shows, too. I bet that just horrifies you anti-gun folks, doesn't it? Well, yes they sometimes get hurt. One boy was ripping and tearing up and down the aisles and hit his puddin' head on a table corner, and his father - who had been admonishing him to settle down - came over to him and...

I bet you antis thought I was about to say that the dad pulled out his belt and gave the tyke a bare-ass whippin' while the rest of the assembled hillbillies hooted approval.  Sorry to disappoint you all, but Daddy came over, comforted his son, and gently told him that now he knew why Daddy was telling him not to run in the aisles. Then Daddy and his wife (Girlfreind, maybe?) excused themselves to drive their son to the emergency room to get him checked out.

That child was never in any danger of being harmed by gunfire, even though he walked (and ran and horseplayed) among tables chock-full of weapons. I would also note that anyone who tried to harm him might well have met the fate of my above-mentioned hypothetical gun-show shooter.

That's the kind of people we Armed Citizens are.

In the wake of the Newtown massacre, however, the anti-gun statists hurried to get their message out while the hurt was deep and emotions were high.  There was nothing for them but the agenda, and they used every trick in Mr. Alinsky's book to push it. When Virginia Governer McDonnell suggested armed guards in schools, the Democrat Representative for Fairfax County, Gerry Oconnell, said that he was "offended" that McDonnell had "insulted" the Newtown teachers by the (where did this come from?) suggestion that they had been derelict by not being prepared for the shooter by being armed.  That's not even close to anything McDonnell said or implied, but it advances the narrative; so even if it's not true it's still a fact (such is the reasoning of the anti-gun Left).

The media blitz about this tragedy - having the same anti-gun agenda - is actively pushing the same old load of baloney about guns and the effectiveness of gun bans. Perhaps the biggest load of crapola came from noted Leftist movie maker Michael Moore, who said that he found it odd that all the places where people could own guns legally were places where there was no crime; yet our "inner cities" where the crime rates are highest are where you will find no legal gun owners. Moore's conclusion is that people who live where guns are legal are "racist" (?!!!??!!!).  Michael Moore has a Wack-A-Mole game where his brain should be (Yet there are people who take this fat fool seriously, and this really worries me.)

The Washington Post   has a column called "5 myths about" whose subject two weeks ago was "gun control".  In it, the columnist said that he was tired of hearing the "canard" that the Second Amendment was put in to ensure that the people would be armed and able to stave off a tyrannical government. 

It is not a canard.

The Amendment reads thus:
"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 Second Amendment is not about hunting.

Neither is it about the right of a State to have a National Guard unit or two.  "Well regulated" does not mean "Drowning in regulations written by people who don't know a spontoon from a halberd". It means "adequately trained to the use of Arms".  And the Militia is NOT the "National Guard".  It is, according to James Madison, "The whole body of the People". 

"...(B)eing neccesary to the security of a free State". Note the phrase "free State".  A tyranny is not a "free State"; ergo the Second Amendment is about providing something for a would-be tyrant to worry about.

The last clause of the Amendment states how this shall be accomplished:

"(T)he right of the people, to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

It is the right of the people. That means that it is the right of each and every free man and woman, whether they be formal members of a State, Federal, or local military or paramilitary organization or not. Every time a right is said to belong to "the people" it means individual people. Otherwise the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated...." could be interpreted to mean the houses and papers, etc. of the State government and not you in your little castle.

"(S)hall not be infringed".  Out of deference to religion in the First Amendment, churches are not taxed. Firearms and ammunition are. Why someone doesn't point this out as infringement baffles me. All this hooey being shouted about "banning" certain types of firearms is nothing more than the advocacy of violating the Second Amendment, too.

Because "(T)o keep and bear Arms" means to keep and bear, not just a flintlock musket (you can just can that old arguement) but to keep and bear ANYTHING UP TO AND INCLUDING THE STANDARD ARMAMENT OF A COMMON LIGHT INFANTRYMAN. This today means everything up to and INCLUDING a fully automatic select fire (true) assault rifle.

All but one of the recent mass shootings took place in "gun-free" zones. Much has been made of the fact that the Columbine shooters were dealing with an environment where there were armed security guards, but being few and in uniform they were easily avoided; there routines having been observed and analyzed by the killers.

In all but one of the "gun free zone" massacres, the killer(s) - including the Columbine murderers - killed themselves when met with armed resistance and the inevitability of capture. The lone exception is the Aurora, Colorado killer who tried to slip the police net by pretending to be a cop. The police, however, are not stupid; and he was taken alive.

In the event where lawfully armed citizens were present - the attempted murder of Representative Gabby Giffords in Arizona - the killer was tackled and brought to justice alive, though not a shot was fired by the good guys.  The good armed citizens of Arizona thus have a track record similar to that of the United States Secret Service, who fired not a shot but captured John Hinckley alive after his attempt on the life of President Ronald Reagan.

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. If "the right of the people, to keep and bear Arms" had not already been so egregiously infringed by people with motives ranging from misguided to devious and despotic, a score and more of kids in Connecticut might just be telling their pals today what Santa gave them for Christmas. It is just infuriating.
 

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