During the case of District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008, the Supreme Court stated that the right to self-defense pre-existed government, which had already been confirmed by U.S. v. Cruikshank in 1875 and never overturned. The court went further in Heller, and it articulated the right of the individual to use firearms, that are at the same level of sophistication as firearms one’s potential adversary might have, whether that person is a criminal bad guy, psychopath or a soldier of a tyrannical government. And this must negate any attempt to ban semi-automatic rifles, even those deemed “assault weapons”.
No clause in the U.S. Constitution can be interpreted to give Congress, the President, any of the States’ legislatures or the District of Columbia a power to disarm the people or to control guns to the point that many now aspire. This flagitious attempt to abrogate Our Second Amendment Right… God given… is occurring in plain sight through incremental actions and under a general pretense in blind pursuit of inordinate power. This is what men such as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John Locke had in mind when they gave the American people the Second Amendment in order to prevent such abuse of power, preserve the rest of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, restrain the federal government and keep America and Americans Free… And in his ‘Commentaries on the Constitution’, Joseph Story, one of the first U.S. Chief Justice, considered the right to keep and bear arms as “the palladium of liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers…”, which deters tyranny and enables the people to overthrow their government should it prove necessary!
In the ‘Federal Gazette’ June 18, 1789, Tench Coxe wrote: “As civil rulers…may attempt to tyrannize…and…might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article (2nd Amend) in their right to keep and bear arms.” No writer of that era disputed or contradicted Coxe’s analysis that the Second Amendment protected the people’s right to keep and bear their private arms.
“Swords and every other terrible implement of the soldier are the birth-right of an American… The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people,” wrote Alexander Hamilton in Federalist Paper #29. Hamilton, like many Americans today, did not view the right to keep and bear arms as limited to only active militia members or the National Guard.
Former Tennessee National Guard commander Richard A. Hamblen was closer to the Founding Fathers’ intent than the Supreme Court ruling in the United States v Miller-1939, which provided most of the rationale for all gun control laws since then. As Hamblen answered charges of possessing nine unregistered machine guns in 2009 (6th Circuit Court of Appeals), he stated, “There are no qualifiers on the Second Amendment. There are qualifiers on the Fourth (also the Fifth), so if the Founders had intended to restrict the right to keep and bear arms, they knew how to do it.” Under the Second Amendment each and every single one of us are well within our rights if we wish to carry Mr. Ronnie Barrett’s world renown .50 caliber automatic rifle down Broad St in Murfreesboro, TN.
Debra Maggart failed to retain her seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives after blocking a bill allowing people to keep guns locked in their cars in parking lots; and, while fairly recent Supreme Court rulings, District of Columbia v Heller-2008 and McDonald v Chicago-2010, upheld the Second Amendment as an individual right rather than only a collective militia right, they have failed to address the Framers’ Original Intent to allow all Americans to carry their arms in an unrestricted environment. Regardless of this truth, most states require a “fee” (registration or background) in order to obtain a “license” (concealed carry license) before keeping and bearing a firearm; a federal and/or state “tax” (firearms/ammunition sales “tax”) is always levied at the time of a firearm transaction: A state cannot impose a license, tax or fee on a Constitutionally protected right, Murdock v Pennsylvania-1942, and requiring licensing or registration of any Constitutional right is itself unConstitutional, Follett v Town of McCormick SC-1944. Any citizen’s license to openly carry any handgun or rifle in public is the U.S. Constitution!
As the debate on gun control continues, it will be interesting to hear the Left-Progressive Democrats’ response, as they attempt to reconcile their desire to take our guns with the Darling of the Left and Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s 2010 statement that the individual’s right to bear arms has “binding precedent” in the Supreme Court and “is settled law”.
And, as late as December 22, 1012 even Obama mouthed the words of political expediency, “Look, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms,” but that is not what his record shows, nor is it how the Left has misinterpreted this amendment for a long time.
As an American citizen, I repudiate the Progressive Democrats’ view on the Second Amendment and any attempt to ban semiautomatic weapons that have perfectly legitimate uses, under the guise of promoting our safety. One does not become something other than American in order to solve American problems, especially once one understands the uniqueness of our free institutions and the freedoms found in America… unknown in any other land. And this is all the more reason to resist any erosion of our individual rights. When our Founding Fathers forged a land “conceived in Liberty”, they did so by “watering the Tree of Liberty with the blood of Tyrants” with musket and rifle. They reacted to attempts to dissolve their free institutions and to keep them from establishing a free nation as a nation of armed men. And… when they sought to record forever a guarantee of their rights, they devoted one full amendment out of ten to nothing but the protection of their right to keep and bear arms against government interference. All Americans should give proper recognition and respect for this right most valued by Free Men!
by Justin O. Smith
