If We Save Only One Child’s Life

If We Save Only One Child’s Life

 

Senator Dianne Feinstein, President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the rest of the legions of gun-grabbers all have a love affair with the phrase, “If we save only one child’s life our efforts will be worth the time and trouble we spend fighting those Neanderthal gun-nuts.” There is the false claim that nobody needs these so-called “assault weapons” to hunt deer. There are two problems with this argument. First, no soldier in their right mind would take one of these so-called “assault weapons” into a combat situation when real assault weapons capable of sustained fire or burst mode are available thus the weapons in question are nothing like real assault weapons. Second, the Second Amendment is not about hunting or target shooting or any other recreational pursuit requiring firearms and these spiteful politicians know this full well but persist in lying hoping that we the people are ignorant enough to take their words for everything. Fortunately, many people have begun to wake to the real meaning behind the designs of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Most are also relearning the justifications and revolutionary concepts behind the Declaration of Independence. Some have even traced the ideas and ideals back through the political philosophers whose ideas were the inspirations behind much of the forming of the United States and have even traced the concept that man is a noble creature capable of self-rule all the way back to the Magna Carta. There are those who have also traced the concepts of individual liberty and that government is formed to serve the people and that those who rule, even kings and other nobility, are forbid to take treasure of any sort, not gold, silver, gems, horses, cattle or other excesses greater than any normal subject possesses which is contained in the Bible in Deuteronomy and other books. These people also have become aware that the Second Amendment was written to allow the people to restrict government whenever it became unwieldy and broke the original promises made to the people and instead began to be an oppressive burden. To this end the Second Amendment was written to allow the common people to own the same weaponry as was utilized by any who were in the service of the government including the military or any form of law enforcement. This little truth puts the lie to the myth of legal gun control in the United States.

 

Unfortunately, far too many citizens in the great lands of the United States have settled into a comfort where they prefer to allow the government to usurp many of the responsibilities which the Founding Fathers took great care in assuring that such power would remain with the people to the extent that the United States Constitution forbade the government these powers. But as the people came to live in great concentrations in large cities, even megalopolises, they no longer provided for themselves in the same manner as the founding generation. No longer do most Americans ever meet the farmers and herders who raise their food. They often do not even know the people who live on their block, let alone most of those who reside in their community and definitely not the entire city. They have become cogs in a large machine. With this change the people no longer know the people who represent them in the government, not even the city government who are supposed to be the closest government to the people and the one that most affects their lives. Reading the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights and one realizes exactly what President Obama meant when he described the Constitution as a document of negative rights. He did not mean it denied the people of rights but that it forbid the government from growing or performing beyond strict limitations. The most striking evidence of this concept is contained in the Bill of Rights with the Tenth Amendment being the most glaring evidence of limiting the Federal Government. It reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” You probably could not find a better or more forceful way to state that the Federal Government is prohibited from exercising powers or jurisdictions beyond some strict limitations. The exceptions to the limitations are spelled out within the constitution and anything not listed there as a power permitted to the Federal Government or strictly forbidden for the States to perform, then the Federal Government may not exercise such powers. When reading the Bill of Rights you see that there are distinct rights listed which are granted to the people and the Federal Government is forbidden to curtail or limit these freedoms. Adding to the Tenth Amendment is the Ninth Amendment which reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This plainly grants that the rights of the people are limitless and beyond the power of the Federal Government to constrain, limit, or otherwise deny the innumerable rights which are granted to the people by the right of personhood. Such a powerful statement is one that was intended to warn politicians and public servants that they only held power at the permission of the peoples and the peoples did not have to turn to government for their freedom as it was theirs independent of the government and guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

Some claim that the most powerful of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment which contains five freedoms placed beyond the reach of government. The First Amendment reads “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” These rights allow the individual great amounts of personal power over their life and to express their beliefs and opinions free of government influences or limitations; express grievance with the government and expect the government to respond and correct or repair damages or other infringements; report news and political opinions without restrictions or censorship by the government; and lastly to assemble in pursuit of goals or activities free of government limitations. The rest of the Bill of Rights has more restrictions limiting the government from injecting itself or its limitations and restrictions over the individual or group of individuals. The problem which people had always faced in restraining government came about as the government always had held all the power over the people and the people were unarmed. The government having all of the arms could even act beyond limitations which were supposedly established on them by founding documents or other legal writings. This was the entire concept behind the Second Amendment, to arm the people as well and as powerfully as was the government thus making the people the equal and not the subjects. The phrase that has found favor with many supporters of the Second Amendment is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson which reads, “ When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” Now tell Senator Dianne Feinstein and President Barack Obama to leave our guns alone and simply inquire as to what part of “shall not be infringed” they do not understand.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What if There was Press Control?

What if the Congress were debating the perceived biases of the press in the United States evidenced in the last elections, coverage of the Middle East, and a general disdain for firearms? Witnesses were called who advertised their position not as anti-First Amendment but rather just desire to make the press more responsible in meeting their proscribed purpose of factual, nonbiased, straightforward reporting of the stone cold truth without any unnecessary editorializing with an allowable exception for editorials. They only want to allow the public to have warning when the reports they were receiving were opinions slanting the news to fit a preconceived orientation of the presenter and requiring that all presentations of actual news that contained opinion without expressly identifying as such would have to provide another presenter from the opposing view. Exceptions would only be made for presentations and reporting that expressly indicated their bias or orientation so that the viewer would be forewarned and could make an intelligent determination if they wished to partake of news expressing such a view. They simply wanted the press to be responsible and honest with the public they were supposed to be serving and not deceiving.

I have a feeling that such a position would be ridiculed in the press in every possible format being derided as unnecessary and full of denials of the existence of any bias or slant in the news reporting, they simply were tailoring their language in the newscasts and reporting to fit their audience. Anybody claiming any biases or slant to the news was simply being overly critical and was likely the kind of people who would try and have an overt influence in political matters which the news reporting would make difficult. There would be screams that the people need their reporting to inform them what events and items meant and that the press had to remain untethered and unrestricted in order to fully inform the people and assist them to form ideas necessary for the good of the nation. People needed the service provided by the value added reporting if they were going to continue to keep an active interest in the events that affected their lives. If restrictions were placed on the press such that they could not supply fleshed out stories and were restricted to simple facts without any embellishment they would not be able to provide an interesting presentation and thus the people would not be properly informed. The mantra against any restraints on the press called for a full capacity press and was dead against a limited capacity press restrained to just boring numbers and dry facts that would rob the news of any flesh and personality.

Meanwhile, the people pushing for a facts and numbers reporting had the catchy slogans, “All the facts all the time,” and “The facts and just the facts.” Their answer when challenged that they desired to short the rights granted by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights by pointing out they fully believe in the freedoms of the First Amendment and would not think of making the press illegal but claim they simply wish to make sane modifications and place some proper restraints. They simply want the straight facts without the extra content and such content is not necessary and superfluous and not guaranteed by the First Amendment. Certainly people would be just as well informed without opinions and slanted definitions as if the people do not understand some concept or words, they could always look such things up. People are not helpless and would be better off if the extra capacity news were pared back to simply facts.

All right, this would be ridiculous but so is restricting the size of clips for weapons or banning certain weapons because they look scary. Would it be much different if one of these maniacs had two fifteen round clips and instead had to use three ten round clips? Here is a question which the average gun control adherent would not be able to answer, which weapon has a faster muzzle speed, speed of bullet when leaving the barrel, a thirty caliber hunting rifle or the AK assault weapon of the same caliber? Since the average hunting rifle has a longer barrel, the hunting rifle has a higher muzzle velocity and thus a greater range and better accuracy which means it has lethal potential over a greater distance? Who would have thought that? The last question is what was the intents and reasoning by the Founding Fathers when they wrote the Second Amendment? Research this yourself as if you do not already know you would likely not believe my answer. The reason has something to do with the concept that where the government fears the people, then you have freedom, but where the people fear the government, you have tyranny. Think about that while you seek the reasoning behind the Second Amendment and after you realize their intent you might think that you should be allowed to own a heavy battle tank and park it legally in your driveway. You would never look at a traffic backup the same.

Beyond the Cusp

If the Anti-Firearms Adherents Universally Applied Their Standards

There are some central arguments used by those proffering gun bans as the solution to prevent such horrific murder sprees like the latest such grievous attack at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. We wondered what our world would look like if their central arguments were to be applied universally across the entire spectrum of modern life. Some of these arguments will immediately be observed to be absolutely unthinkable and insane. The truth is that the arguments as applied to gun ownership is just as absurd as any of the other examples we will list in this article, it is just that firearms have been vilified so severely that they are viewed with fear of their ability to harm rather than respect for their ability to protect.

We often hear the argument that the Founding Fathers wrote the Second Amendment at a time when the most advanced firearms were muskets and thusly their intention was simply to allow people to own single-shot weapons. The Founding Fathers did not intend for citizens to own assault weapons, machine guns or any paramilitary weaponry. First thing is that the Founding Fathers included cannons under the Second Amendment which changes the attitude and view they took drastically. Cannons are of a class of weaponry referred to as crew served weapons which means that a group of troops with definitive and separate functions being shared by each member of the team in order to load, aim, and effectively fire the weapon. This would imply that the Second Amendment would allow a much wider range of weapons than are currently legal. Some of the additional weapons that would be made available under this broad interpretation intended by the Founding Fathers are mounted heavy machine guns, anti-tank rocket launchers, mortars, and even artillery. But what would it look like if one were to restrict other rights to be restricted by what the founding Fathers had available in their day and its accompanying society?

Let us look at Freedom of the Press. To the Founding Father the press was the printing press or the hand written bulletin. According to the Founders the people had the right to printed newspapers and the posting of bulletins at the town hall community board. These rights that we now place under the First Amendment’s Freedom of the Press are greatly removed from the original written word and have been included as understood as being in agreement with the intent and how the Founding Fathers would define Freedom of the Press if they were to make such an amendment today. But if we apply the musket rule, then Freedom of the Press only protects the printed or written word and does not apply to any of the electronic media. Freedom of the Press could not have included film, radio, television, the internet or any other electronic form of media as such was beyond the scope of the press in the time of the Founding Fathers. I realize that this argument appears to be ludicrous but much of the reason that it seems so ridiculous is because we have been told that the Founding Fathers would necessarily have included all forms of the press, defining press as media, that exist today as it was the spirit of the terms Freedom of the Press and not the literal letters of the law. So, Freedom of the Press includes radio and television even though such items were unthinkable when the First Amendment was written, but the only weapons that are protected under the Second Amendment are those which are minimally more sophisticated or modern than the weapons available to the public at the time of the Founding Fathers.

Also in the First Amendment there is the right to Freedom of Assembly. Freedom of Assembly was defined at the time of the Founding Fathers as citizen groups which could meet in person and should they live in disparate areas, then they could meet in their individual areas and then send a representative to a central meeting much as the separate states had committees that met to discuss the Constitution as it was written and ratified and sent representatives to a central meeting which included all the representatives of the separate states. So, the Founding Fathers obviously meant that citizens had the right to assemble and associate in person in groups at a physical location. They did not mean, imply, or even hint at such things as on-line virtual meetings, SKYPE, community calls or any of the plethora of electronic meeting offerings. There must be a limit to this freedom such that it only applies to face-to-face meeting in person and not via electronic mediums. The further proof of this is reinforced by the fact that the Congress, both the House of Representatives and the Senate, hold their meetings face-to-face in Washington DC despite the availability of electronic options which would allow for these representatives of the people to remain in their home areas and meet electronically with a dedicated twenty-four hour a day link of the separate offices allowing for continuously available means for contact. The Founding Fathers were only referencing people holding physical assemblies in a building or place with a definite location to be dedicated for such meetings.

Then there are the guarantees in the Third Amendment against quartering soldiers in one’s house without the consent of the owner. It is probably obvious that they meant abode of any kind or character but then again in the days of the Founding Fathers a home was a simple house with even the most lavish of homes not exceeding three floors and possibly a cellar. The Founding Fathers could not have foreseen huge apartment buildings standing forty, fifty, or more stories tall having the capability of housing an entire brigade of troops providing them with a central location. There were no condominiums in their day and rental housing was almost nonexistent. Where exactly this protection would cease to apply might be up for debate but it must be seen that the Founding Fathers could not have meant this to apply to all living quarters in existence in a modern city. Perhaps the government, in the guise of saving money, should take up the modern interpretation of the Third Amendment and see if there might be some manner of residential buildings in which they could station troops. This would have to save the government money as they would no longer have to spend on upkeep of bases and base housing.

We could take other guarantees from the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and turn their intent and meanings on their heads by the imposition of absurdities which are merely refusing to apply these freedoms liberally to include technological inventions that have transformed our societies since 1800. Our freedom to move is not limited to horse drawn conveyance but to include vehicles, even large tractor-trailer rigs. But when we come to the right to keep and bear arms we are told that the Founding Fathers could not have seen the advances in weaponry that have taken place since they wrote and the Bill of Rights was affirmed on December 15, 1791. How can we believe that the Founding Fathers could have anticipated that weapons would suddenly explode in their manner of lethality, fire rate, types of projectiles, method of propelling the projectiles, the rapidity of rate of fire, or any of the numerous other improvements made in firearms since early 1792? There existed no previous vast improvement in weaponry previous to the last two-hundred years or even since the dawn of time. The human race had not progressed to the point of the muskets used by soldiers and the populace around 1800, those types of weapons had been available since the dawn of civilization, right? What? These weapons were a relatively new invention and had replaced the crossbow which replaced the long bow and the sling which replaced or complimented the sword which replaced the club which was preferred over a large rock. But the Founding Fathers were of such limited intelligence that they were full in their knowledge that weapons had advanced to their pinnacle of inventiveness. How could they have seen that weapons would become even more lethal with time as such had never happened before in their knowledge. Really, they were that limited in their vision of what the future might hold. Why do I find such hypocrisy to be an insult to the Founding Fathers and to my intelligence? That would be like claiming that our current lawmakers could not imagine that there will be laser and directed energy wave weapons in our future.

Beyond the Cusp