New anti-Gun Theory Debutes on Media TV

[TM7]

Fox news media outlet has and will be giving airtime and credit to author Saul Cornell [The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control]. This new book separates 'individual' rights from  'collective' rights. In the end, guess what...? you yield to gun control to Big Brother.  The book is available from amazon.com. It does not surprise me that Fox has finally shown their colors on this topic. From amazon.com....:::
.
Book Description
Americans are deeply divided over the Second Amendment. Some passionately assert that the Amendment protects an individual's right to own guns. Others, that it does no more than protect the right of states to maintain militias. Now, in the first and only comprehensive history of this bitter
controversy, Saul Cornell proves conclusively that both sides are wrong.
Cornell, a leading constitutional historian, shows that the Founders understood the right to bear arms as neither an individual nor a collective right, but as a civic right--an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves so that they could participate in a well regulated militia. He
shows how the modern "collective right" view of the Second Amendment, the one federal courts have accepted for over a hundred years, owes more to the Anti-Federalists than the Founders. Likewise, the modern "individual right" view emerged only in the nineteenth century. The modern debate, Cornell
reveals, has its roots in the nineteenth century, during America's first and now largely forgotten gun violence crisis, when the earliest gun control laws were passed and the first cases on the right to bear arms came before the courts. Equally important, he describes how the gun control battle took
on a new urgency during Reconstruction, when Republicans and Democrats clashed over the meaning of the right to bear arms and its connection to the Fourteenth Amendment. When the Democrats defeated the Republicans, it elevated the "collective rights" theory to preeminence and set the terms for
constitutional debate over this issue for the next century.
A Well-Regulated Militia not only restores the lost meaning of the original Second Amendment, but it provides a clear historical road map that charts how we have arrived at our current impasse over guns. For anyone interested in understanding the great American gun debate, this is a must
read.

...........................TM7

[unspellable]

<< ...an obligation citizens owed to the state to arm themselves ...>>

I always said it was more than just a right.

[DWTim]

- begin rant -

The "individual right" is quite clearly alluded to in the phrase "the people". What other phrase should they have used to make it unambiguous, "...that guy over there"? I'm just fed up with these arguments, regardless of which side is splitting hairs. Grammar is not an acceptable means to destroy a civil right. It's quite clear what the Second Amendment means, and it is placed conspicuously among all the other civil rights.

The Constitution does not grant the federal government the power to regulate personal small arms, regulate small arms used in hunting, regulate commerce amongst private individuals or businesses involving those small arms, where they may bear arms, nor does it have the power to compel a citizen to "commit suicide" by denying him the right to defend himself. In fact, it's very clear from reading the Constitution what little was mentioned about individuals was in the context of limits on the government, qualifications for office, or irrevokable rights that transcend a government. The blatantly obvious constitutional imperative for the government, in nearly every area of the peoples' lives, is "KEEP OUT".


Whenever the origins of the Second Amendment are "discussed", the opinions of the Founding Fathers are conveniently abridged or excluded. We have to look no further than George Mason, the driving force behind the Bill of Rights:

Why should the right exist?

An instance within the memory of some of this house will show us how our militia may be destroyed. Forty years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliment was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that is was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia.

Who should it apply to?

The people have a right to keep and bear arms.

As to the "collective right" argument, what exactly is a "militia"?

I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.

The so-called "collective right" is a specious argument, anyway. Who makes up the collection? The people! Who are the people? Individuals! The argument is lame, not to mention incredibly stupid. How could a right be extended to the "collective" but not to the members of it? Nowhere among the multitude of regulations in the Constitution is there anything pertaining to this "collective". Kind of odd, considering every other facet regarding collections of people, i.e. government, is mentioned in detail. No, there's only the Second Amendment, its membership being "the people", and with the strong phrase "shall not be infringed" attached at the end.

George Mason was an astute observer, and his warning was prophetic, much like his predictions of a war between the northern and southern states. The disarmament of the populace is indeed not being done "openly", but by barring possession on property (of which the government owns entirely too much), by barring commerce, by age limitations, by time restrictions, by brainwashing your children, by attempting to do it from the bottom up, starting with municipalities and then to the states' governments. And the populace is "sinking gradually" from disuse, since the people are made to endure unreasonable and increasingly complicated tests of fitness, or are outright barred from bearing arms in defensive of their lives, property and liberty. How the people are supposed to be fit, when they are disallowed from practice, I have no idea.

- end rant -

[nabob]

I think what should count the most is how WE think of the Second Amendment. In the end, it is our interpretation, by today's society, that will form the basis for understanding. This question always seems to break down into divinations about what the "founders" intended, as if that were some homogeneous group that thought in lockstep with each other. I don't think they did, so pulling quotes out by this person or that person really only shows what the person doing the quoting thinks, not what "the founders" thought. No one I know is going to be willing to set aside their own opinion in favor of, say, George Mason's views on the subject, so bringing up various quotes isn't going to get much traction. Those sorts of observations, in my opinion, serve only to rally the troops around a standard. They do very little along the line of persuading someone to think one way or the other since they are mainly used to speak to people who already have a particular viewpoint. Does anyone actually think Sarah Brady much cares about George Mason's views unless they happen to coincide with her own? And if some "founding father" somewhere thought in terms of a state militia instead of individuals being armed, will that somehow persuade people who believe in an invidual interpretation of this right to say "OK, guess I was wrong all along"?

I doubt it.

[DWTim]

We have to start an argument somewhere, so the "how and why" of the Second Amendment is as good a place as any. Since the majority of the philosophical arguments are based on "what it meant", or whether it is obsolete, I think that first quote by Mason handily illustrates that what we are talking about today is exactly what they were talking about then, and the same dangers to our liberty exist within, just as they did in the past. The second philosophical argument employed by the disarmers is simply "the machine makes the man".

I can sense your frustration, but perhaps it is because your opponents in the debate don't understand or respect the history enough to be on equal footing with you. You can't argue the history or the philosophy with someone who is familiar with neither. I think this is how the authoritarian-socialist movement is winning. We sit here and make arguments based on sound reasoning and history, the other side just parrots some asinine catch phrase. "Awk! Stop gun violence now! Polly want a cracker! Awk!"

[victorcharlie]

Locally, there has been a big  problem with the 911 system.......someone calls, they might answer, or they might not.  Now, the average altercation lasts a matter of seconds.   Some one wins, and another looses.  Bad guys don't fight fair but lurk and stike when we least expect it and when a likely subject appears.  Old people, weak people, women, are among the most vunerable.  So, isn't there an inalienable right to defend one's self from those who would do them harm?

  Jeb Bush said in a recent article in reference to crime statstics being the lowest sense 1971 that he attributed this to the fact the the Fla legislature empowered the people to arm themselves and use deadly force when necessary.  I tend to think Jeb hit the X ring with this statement.

Clearly, we are responsible for our own security, like it or not.

I, like DWTim think the founding fathers statements are indeed very relevent to todays arguments.  We arn't the first generation to struggle with this problem, and we won't be the last (hopefully).  Why shouldn't we be wise enough to draw from the wisdom of those who came before us?  History has a nasty habit of repeating its self.

What ever happened to liberty?

[Mikey]

The amount of time it takes for your local police to respond to your call for distress should be the basis for your determination of gun ownership being an indivudal right or a state's right.  People have rights, state's do not.  States are empowered to create laws for the benefit of the people.  When a law fails to benefit the people it is of no use.  Just think of how many things can go wrong in the 5 minutes it takes for the local pd to respond to your call.  That should be the basis for your determination.  If you think you can hide and survive, then hide. 

Jeb Bush has it right.  Gun ownership reduces crime.  Many other governors feel the same and have passed 'castle defense' laws.  Just because there is a new book by a new (credible?) author doesn't make it so.  The last author of that ilk has been soundly discredited by his own fraternity of scholars.

This is a plain and simple common sense issue - who survives, you, your family, your loved ones - or the criminal who is smashing through your doors trying to get at you.  Think about that and decide for yourself.  Mikey.

[unspellable]

In one sense it's true that what the founding fathers thought is irrelevant.  What the 2A means in today's society will depend on what todays society thinks it means.  I strongly suspect 85% of today's laws are unconstitutional  but we have them any way.  The only way the 2A will mean anything is if society decides it will.  This observation implies that much of what we need to do in educationg the voters lies in explaining why the 2A shoul apply today rather than in what the founding fathers thought.  Not that I mean to imply that the history is not important, it is, if we don't learn from it we repeat it.

[FWiedner]

Ah, the newest phase of someone who succeeded in dazzling the elites with his brilliance going on to baffle the peasants with his b*llsh*t.

How many times does the lie about the colectivist militia have to be told before those damned little people believe it?


"I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is Mass Psychology... Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda... Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated." —Bertrand Russell

 

[Land_Owner]

For too long too few have fought to keep the yoke of oppression off of the back of the American populace in defense of the 2nd Amendment.  That yoke has been off for just 250 years (only 12 generations) and feeble minds have forgotten more about how difficult life was under that boot than they knew.  Loud wailing and gnashing of teeth will be heard if it is "determined" that the guns should be laid down, turned in, and destroyed. 

On that day, a new regime of oppression will take over this land - a "new" land - one of forgotten Freedom.  Strong minds know better.  Strong minded individuals will be the last to surrender and the first to be removed from the landscape as a threat to the new oppression.

Weaken your opponent.  When he is weak (in numbers, in opposition, in public sentiment) and you are strong (in the same categories) then attack.  That strategy is always at work and is the foundation of the Anti-gun movement. 

What makes America great are the freedoms of its INDIVIDUALS; the FREEDOM to Keep and Bear Arms in lawful pursuits; and the instant ability to defend oneself, others, and this Country should that need arise.  Fortunately in 12 generations that need has not been called, but it will be as certainly as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. 

Once a freedom is earned, it should NEVER be relinquished EVER.