Category: Guns

The folks at the NRA send us a link to their latest campaign Stand and Fight and this is the first of their videos in that campaign.

If the video doesn’t work, it’s also at the link. I’m on my Kindle for the rest of night. Lazy person that I am.

No honest debate of any issue can be conducted without both parties agreeing to some basic definitions of terms. And that is precisely what is wrong in the currently heated debate on the matter of gun control. Those who wish to limit the gun ownership rights of Americans read and interpret the constitutional guarantee of the right to bear arms in a very limited way. Let’s look at what the constitution actually 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.

Look at that provision in the terms of the times in which it was written. The authors of the constitution were men who had just declared their freedom from an abusive sovereign power and then won that freedom through force of arms. What did the authors of the 2d amendment mean by the term militia? From an excellent discussion of the issue written in the 1990’s:

Many civil libertarians, uncomfortable with the private possession of firearms, have found the militia prefatory clause of the second amendment a convenient exculpatory clause. The Supreme Court has not dealt directly with the constitutional militia, as opposed to the National Guard, but there is nothing to indicate that the militia, under second amendment analysis, is anything other than the “whole people.” [40]

The whole people indeed! And what did our founding fathers mean by the term keep and bear arms? In their time, it almost certainly had to carry with it significance not readily apparent to much of our current population. In our War of Independence from Great Britain, many if not most of the arms used against the European forces were provided from local sources, even cannon and mortar, those coming from local militia. The arms borne by individual soldiers were, for the most part, self-provided, at least in the early stages of the war.

So when the founding fathers included language in our constitution guaranteeing the right of the people to keep and bear arms, do you not suppose that they most likely meant that guarantee to mean the ability to fight back on terms and weaponry of the times when such conflict occurred? Did they not mean that the people reserved that right in the possibility that future events would necessitate the use of such arms as ongoing weapons development provided to once again overthrow tyranny?

They granted us, the people, the right to keep and bear arms. Those who wish to constrain that right frequently use the very lame argument that the 2d Amendment allows us this freedom to maintain arms for hunting purposes only. That is the anti-gun lobby’s most frequent argument when attempting to deny American citizens the right to possess semi-automatic handguns and semi-automatic rifles. The failure of their argument is that the constitutional grant of power to the people says nothing whatsoever about hunting. Further, the very term “bear arms” carries with it a definition that has nothing to do with hunting. Here’s what we find at Dictionary.com. Do you see there any reference to hunting?

The reason for that is clear: The founding fathers, in the preparation of the principles which would ensure the continuance of the democratic experiment they had put into operation, weren’t concerned with the then everyday practice of provisional hunting, they were determined to preserve their political accomplishments and protect them from future threats of tyranny. They gave us, in the form of the 2d Amendment, the right to defend all those other freedoms they had bestowed on us through that remarkable document spelling out our human rights. They knew, better than most, that the right to keep and bear arms was the bedrock freedom of the rest of those freedoms so clearly set out in that Bill of Rights. Without the implied protection of force of arms, those other rights are just so much wishful thinking, mere ink upon paper.

Those who would disarm us to meet their feel-good need to eliminate murderous atrocities from society say we have no need of weapons capable of firing thirty rounds. Think for a moment what the founding fathers might think about that should they somehow learn that the people are now facing a standing federal army with weapons of far greater lethality than a simple semi-automatic rifle with a thirty round magazine. Don’t you suppose that the founding fathers were familiar with the concept of parity of arms? Considering what they had just been through in fighting for their independence, don’t you suppose they understood that concept very clearly and that their experiences in opposing the standing army of Great Britain may have very well been the primary reason for the 2d Amendment and its placement in the Bill of Rights as the only right secondary to that of the freedom of speech? Is it too farfetched to believe that those who founded this nation and put in place our guiding documents would not want to see the citizenry, that is, we the people, to at least be so well-armed as to prevent the rise of a tyrannical central government that would negate the rights they, the founding fathers, bestowed upon us? Where I believe those brilliant, inspired founders may have erred though, is in making the 2d Amendment second, rather than first, where their intent would have been crystal clear and unmistakable to posterity. And may I suggest that the primary placement of free speech was likely due to the prevalence of lawyers among them, men more accustomed to fighting with words than arms?

Whatever, by their placement of the right to bear arms as the 2d article in the Bill of Rights, we can reasonably assume that they were making a clear statement of their strong belief that the democratic republic with which they endowed us can only be preserved through a well-armed militia, a citizenry, a general public, well-armed to sufficient extent as to overthrow a tyrannical, central government.

Old Trooper send us a link to CBS News in which they report that Little Chuckie Schumer has asked that gun retailers stop selling guns while the the Senate debates gun control;

The New York Democrat says consumer demand for guns has gone up in the weeks since the December mass shooting in Newtown, Conn.

Schumer says Congress is debating the issue, and if measures get passed that limit these type of weapons, it won’t help if more of them have recently been sold.

Sorry, if we’re not being helpful, Chuck, m’boy, but that’s kind of the point. Besides, gun retailers can’t sell what they don’t have – as far as I can tell, shelves are bare at most places in the country. I know that the magazines I back ordered last month are not expected until April. So there ya go, you get your wish, but only because gun manufacturers can’t keep up with demand. Neither can magazine makers and ammo producers. I figured now would be the time to buy the bolt action rifle I’ve been wanting since they aren’t being considered for the ban. Everyone was sold out of those, those. Funny how that supply and demand thing works, isn’t it?

When in the course of human events
We must sever ourselves from the other,
Because of our mounting, essential dissents
We must seek out some way or another;
To return to the state which Nature entitles
Our freedom from federal oppression,
We must seek to restore our natural vitals
Even should that require mass aggression.

We hold these truths to be self-evident,
That all men are created equal;
With inalienable rights eternally meant
To endow the least of the people.
To seize these rights is our natural due,
To hold them our natural task;
To preserve them depends solely on who
Will offer his life when it’s asked.

Government’s created solely by men,
And exists by consent of those ruled.
Its durance depending solely on when
Those governed are no longer fooled.
It is then our right, our duty no less,
To throw off the yoke of oppression;
Bloodless we hope, but blood need it be,
Determined by federal aggression.

We declared these rights in centuries past,
Our hope they would last through the ages.
The present would leave Founding Fathers aghast
With the current result of their wages.
The answer is simple, we must stand up tall
When we face national disintegration;
Stand up for your country and answer the call,
Lock and load for your nation’s salvation.

Hold every hard weapon close to your chest,
Let it feed from your patriot’s heart;
Your right to bear it let no one contest
A right granted from our very start:
To preserve and protect all life you hold dear
To save this nation you cherish;
To forego all qualms and all natural fear,
Fighting free until you shall perish.

Crass, heartless liberals, heeding Rahm Emmanuel’s admonition to let no crisis go to waste, have seized upon the Sandy Hook killings to ram through as much gun-restricting legislation as they can. Doing their very best to channel public emotions into pressuring legislators across the country, and in Washington, to quickly, emotionally and unthinkingly enact restrictive measures against gun ownership and possession, they are shameless in their exploitation of the deaths of those children and their teachers.

No doubt, should their efforts prove successful, they will someday erect a monument on the front lawn of that tragic school, celebrating the death of the 2d Amendment and proclaiming the murdered children as liberal martyrs to the cause.

But not so fast there all you gloating liberal gun haters; for there is growing evidence that your shameless exploitation of those children’s deaths has provoked a rapidly expanding counter-outrage among that far larger cohort of Americans who own guns, wisely for protection of what they hold dear. It is a concept that only blooms in the minds of parents as they become responsible for lives other than their own.

How many young American couples have come to realize, upon the birth of their first child, that they now bear the responsibility to protect something more precious to them than life itself? And do you suppose that as a family grows to include more children that sense of needing to protect those little ones doesn’t grow as well?

There is ample evidence to show that the original intent of our Founding Fathers, in guaranteeing our right to bear arms, was for the purpose of the people being able to oppose the tyranny of a standing federal army. In our present circumstances, can we believe those stalwart men would take issue with the reality that the crucial right they gave us to bear arms now serves to protect us from criminal tyranny in our homes?

Although the Castle Doctrine was not yet a promulgated legal standard in their time, there should be little doubt that those brave men who stood against the British Army with weapons they had stored in their homes, would approve whole-heartedly of our keeping and bearing arms to protect all which we hold dear.

In the spirit of fighting fire with fire, a concept which the Founding Fathers likely grasped in its entirety, do you suppose they would now deny us the ability to be at least as well armed as those who would criminally abuse us? When a home invader can knock down your door and point an illegally obtained, fully automatic machine pistol at your face, do you really believe your Founding Fathers wouldn’t want you to have, at the minimum, a 17 round semi-automatic handgun to abort that planned home invasion in the entryway? Something you really need to think about, America, is just where that dubiously interpreted 2d Amendment draws the hard, black line of reality:

Do you doubt that it’s at the front door of the sanctuary you have created for your children?

Crossposted at American Thinker

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Liberal Civvy sends us a link to an article about a $17,000 sighting system that takes all of the guess work out of long range shooting. The video from NBC illustrates the process of shooting the computer-launched bullet.

You pick your target by dropping a pin on it using the camcorder-like zoom lens. When you want to shoot that target, you line up crosshairs inside the scope with the pin you dropped. The weirdest thing is, when you squeeze the trigger, it doesn’t fire. You have to squeeze the trigger and line up the crosshairs with your mark. When you do, the gun goes boom, and the target takes a bullet.

Yeah, I can appreciate the technology, but this makes you the gun bearer for a computer. It’s probably valuable for a military application when every shot counts, but for civilians it’s just an expensive toy and the sport of it all is gone.