Repeal the 2nd Amendment

Wisconsin Gazette opinion

What country fetishizes, lionizes, valorizes, idolizes, and sacralizes guns as much as does our United States? OK, possibly Mozambique — the only country with an AK47 on its flag, but really, it's long past time to end this obsessive "My Precious" attachment of Americans to instruments of death.


The only logical path, given the clearly decided role of the Second Amendment, is to repeal it. American people are tired of mass shootings and police shootings and family feud shootings and sibling shootings and accidental toddler shootings and teen suicide by gun (highly popular).We are exhausted by the proliferation of death, of threats, of bloodshed, and by the NRA/gun industry moral garbage spewing forth every time someone challenges the ubiquity of guns. 

Repeal the Stupid Second Amendment. Surround it, grab it, bring it in the back room, pull down the shades, and end it. OK, petition for it, get it on the ballot, and get it done by enough of the US populace, by enough people in enough states, to get it consigned to the dustbin of history.

Knife Rights

(Ammoland.com)- Since its inception, Knife Rights has had as a foundational position that knives are arms protected by the Second Amendment. Our logo includes the declaration, “Essential Tool – Essential Rights.”

However, actual court rulings on this issue are always appreciated. Recently, the Connecticut Supreme Court has affirmed that knives are arms protected by the Second Amendment in a case with potential wider implications.

In its decision overturning a prior conviction, the Court held that “the second amendment protects the defendant’s right to possess the dirk knife … in his home and, second, that the statute’s complete ban on transporting those items between residences unduly burdens that right.” The Court further said, “[t]hus, the safe transportation of weapons protected by the second amendment is an essential corollary of the right to possess them in the home for self-defense when such transportation is necessary to effectuate that right.”

The case revolved around the transportation of the defendant’s weapons collection including knives between a former residence in Connecticut to his new residence in Massachusetts. The defendant was originally convicted for having a weapon in a motor vehicle, a violation of Connecticut’s harsh anti-weapons laws.

Grand Funk Railroad Credited with The Best 2A Song Ever

M Live

Add a new type of recognition to the resume of Grand Funk Railroad, the Flint rock band that sold millions of albums in the 1970s and once sold out Shea Stadium faster than The Beatles. 

In a column from "Prepper & Shooter Magazine," Editor-In-Chief Vincent DeNiro calls Grand Funk's 1976 song, “Don’t Let Them Take Your Gun,” the "most pro-Second Amendment song ever." 

"Be sure to listen to the song ... and if you cherish the Second Amendment, you just can’t help but get goose bumps!" the column says. "It’s a real shame that with over 90 million gun owners out there, and with the millions of songs produced, that there is only this 'modern day' song to get us fired up about one of our rights. There may be a few more songs out there, but this one has to be the best."

 

Second Amendment Scorecard

There Is No 2nd Amendment Right to Own a Gun and There Never Was

The Examiner

The 2nd amendment is about giving the states an absolute right to have their own armed militias which today has been transformed into the National Guard.It also guarantees that the states have the right to have the same weapons as a federal army, a right in existence today and has always been, since the National Guard of every state does have most of the same weapons that the Federal army has. National Guard units have tanks, they have fighter jets. They have bombers.And it's why National Guard units have been fighting in Iraq since 2002. The 2nd amendment guarantees the right of the states to have them. It is also what allowed the states of the Confederacy to have the weapons to fight a Civil War.

  

If you think the amendment gives an individual the right to have those weapons try putting a tank in your backyard.And keep in mind the entire amendment wasn't written so that it could be diced and sliced with words ignored to suit someone's purpose. The amendment means what it says.

The next line refers to " the right of the people...".

For those who don't know there are two types of rights enumerated in the Constitution, states rights and individual rights. As any Constitutional scholar will tell you, when the Framers were referring to a state's right they used the term "the people:". When they were referring to an individual right, they used the word " person".The 5th amendment is a good example. It begins with the words, "No person shall..." and lays out guarantees, among them, double jeopardy and that no person in a criminal case shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.

Once you understand who the Framers are referring to when they say "the people", which is a collective for the individual states, and not referring to an individual right,  it's time to deal with the most misused and misunderstood part of the 2nd amendment -  the words "to keep and bear arms".  

The rest of the article is of interest too, but I like that part about the difference between people and person.

What's your opinion?

Jon Stewart on the Fox News Elimination of Constitutional Amendments - All Except the 2nd

Jon Stewart on the Fox News Elimination of Constitutional Amendments - All Except the 2nd

Jon Stewart on the Fox News Elimination of Constitutional Amendments - All Except the 2nd

Piers Morgan: "The Second Amendment was clumsily written, it’s time for a debate to rephrase it"

Paul

Morgan spoke to an audience at the National Press Club and discussed his new book, “Shooting Straight: Guns, Gays, God and George Clooney.” The CNN host has gained notoriety for calling for more gun control, especially since the shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn., and Morgan didn’t disappoint, addressing what he says is the evolution Second Amendment and the Constitution.

“That to me shows you how clumsily worded, and I say that with great respect for the Founding Fathers, that Second Amendment was,” he said. “The comma in the middle is perhaps the most dangerous comma ever written because it can be interpreted in different ways.”

Justice Ruth Ginsburg Speaks about the Second Amendment

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg talks with The Takeaway host John Hockenberry. (Photo by Jillian Weinberger.)

PRI

Ginsburg has also been a strong proponent of gun control throughout her time on the bench.

In the wake of the fierce, nationwide debate over gun rights and gun control, Justice Ginsburg also explained the historical basis for her view on the Second Amendment.

"The Second Amendment has a preamble about the need for a militia ... Historically, the new government had no money to pay for an army, so they relied on the state militias," she said. "The states required men to have certain weapons and they specified in the law what weapons these people had to keep in their home so that when they were called to do service as militiamen, they would have them. That was the entire purpose of the Second Amendment."

Ginsburg said the disappearance of that purpose eliminates the function of the Second Amednment.

"It's function is to enable the young nation to have people who will fight for it to have weapons that those soldiers will own," she said. "I view the Second Amendment as rooted in the time totally allied to the need to support a militia. So ... the Second Amendment is outdated in the sense that its function has become obsolete."

As for the Heller case, decided by the court in 2008, Ginsburg says the court erred in its decision.

"If the court had properly interpreted the Second Amendment, the Court would have said that amendment was very important when the nation was new," she said. "It gave a qualified right to keep and bear arms, but it was for one purpose only — and that was the purpose of having militiamen who were able to fight to preserve the nation."

Second Amendment Coin ~ 2013 Series ~ 1 oz .999 SILVER

Buy it now on eBay

David Barton: Second Amendment Guarantees Right To Own Tanks And Fighter Jets

Addicting Info

During his Thursday show, Barton claimed that the Second Amendment doesn’t just give Americans the right to buy and use guns. No, Barton says it also gives any American the unfettered right to get their hands on advanced military weapons of war such as tanks, F-16 fighter jets, rocket launchers and anything else in the arsenal of the United States military:

The belief of the Second Amendment was you as a citizen have a right to defend yourself whether it be against a thug, an aggressor, a crook, or against your government.

Now this is where a lot of liberals go through the roof; are you saying that you think individual citizens have a right to own a machine gun?

Yeah. And an Abrams Tank, and a bazooka, and a F-16 because you’ve got a right to defend yourself with the same size of weapons that might be brought against you … You have a right to fight back with whatever you can get your hands on to defend your life, your property, your possession, your family, your whatever.”

Well, there goes another one of the pro-gun arguments that has been offered around here. Or, perhaps this means our commenters are not as fanatical as I thought.

Why Not Repeal the 2nd Amendment Now?

AL dot com

On all gun safety issues the "second amendment" people refuse to give an inch while the gun safety people try to get minor concessions. Wrong question. The question that should be asked is: Should we repeal the Second Amendment? Not a single candidate or current office holder is asking this question, so I will.

The Second Amendment was added to the Constitution in 1791, 222 years ago. At that time, the arms people had the right to bear were either a flintlock musket or a flintlock pistol that took forever to re-load. Today an "arm" can be a 100 shot semi-automatic rifle that can reload in seconds with kits available to convert it into a machine gun.

Why not repeal this outmoded amendment now? We can replace it with an amendment that makes sense in the twenty-first century. We don't have to ban guns, just set sane regulations, without the confused wording of the Second Amendment. Repealing an amendment isn't easy but we repealed the eighteenth amendment.

What makes perfect sense to me is this: The 2nd Amendment was enacted when the "people had the right to bear either a flintlock musket or a flintlock pistol that took forever to re-load. Today an "arm" can be a 100 shot semi-automatic rifle"

I challenge any pro-gun advocate to argue against that logic without referring to the 1st Amendment.

Protection from Tyranny? The Second Amendment as a Means to Protect the State, Not Overthrow It

OpEdNews

In the wake of mass shootings like those that occurred at  Newtown, Aurora, and now the D.C. Naval Yard, the pro-gun lobby reminds us that the 2nd Amendment was created as a safeguard so that ordinary citizens can protect themselves from a tyrannical government.  This rationale, however, is based on myth and ignores the basic facts surrounding the creation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Although many of the founders waxed poetic about gun ownership, the fact remains that this Constitution of ours was created with incidents of armed insurrection as bookends.   It was an angry group of farmers with guns threatening the government of Massachusetts in 1786 that spurned the writing of the Constitution and a similar incident in 1791 reaffirmed the new government's power in suppressing a mob of angry people with guns.  In both cases, the angry groups in question were asserting their rights in trying to overthrow or force a change with what they saw as a tyrannical government.  Therefore, the 2nd Amendment was not created to protect peoples' rights to overthrow the government, but instead was created to protect the government from those fearful elements of society at the time:  farmers with guns in the West, Indians with guns on the frontier and slaves with guns in the south.  A "well-regulated" militia was more for protecting the government from "rabble" than it was in giving citizens the right to protect themselves from tyranny.

Senate Website Gets 2nd Amendment Wrong, Critics Say

Shown, at right, is a screen shot of the Senate web entry on the 2nd Amendment. The controversial passage is highlighted.REUTERS/SENATE.GOV

Fox

Does the Second Amendment guarantee an individual right to own guns?

The Supreme Court has ruled that it does. But you might be confused if you visit theofficial Senate web page on the Constitution, which says only: "Whether this provision protects the individual's right to own firearms or whether it deals only with the collective right of the people to arm and maintain a militia has long been debated."

That particular wording was posted on the Senate website in 2009, based on archived web pages at The Internet Archive. However, that's one year after the Supreme Court ruled: "The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense." 

Given the court ruling, critics say the Senate site's administrators are just wrong.

The Second Amendment Sign Thief

Somer town officials tell FoxNews.com that the sign was removed because it was on public property and therefore a code violation. Gibson maintains that the sign was on his property and is currently obtaining a new land survey to be certain.(COURTESY OF JOE GIBSON)

Fox

A New York man, frustrated when his pro-Second Amendment sign kept disappearing, was surprised when the hidden camera he set up revealed the culprit to be a local cop.

Jon Gibson, of rural Lake Lincolndale, about 50 miles north of New York City, told FoxNews.com he set up a hunting field camera near the sign, which reads "Protect the Second Amendment," and features the silhouette of an assault rifle, after two mysteriously vanished. A third sign disappeared before the camera finally captured the sign stealer -- a police officer from the nearby Somers Police Department.

Somers Town Supervisor Mary Beth Murphy told FoxNews.com that the signs were indeed on public property -- within 15 feet of the road -- and were removed to comply with town ordinances.

“The town does not allow signs in the right of way,” Murphy said. “The police chief had received numerous complaints from neighbors and it was determined that the sign was posted in the right of way.”

What I'm enjoying about this story is the way it conflicts with the pro-gun pitch. Rank and file cops are on their side, they keep telling us. Most of the good citizens too, but this case seems to tell a very different story.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Gun FAILS: Second Amendment Rights Gone Wrong In Honor Of 'Gun Appreciation Day'

Tennessee Rep. Joe Carr - Double-talking Flim-Flam Artist

For one thing, no one is talking about "removing the Second Amendment." But, even if they were, there's no reason to say its removal would jeopardize the others. This is an oft-repeated lie on the part of gun-rights fanatics.

Besides all that, he's got that insufferable arrogant way of referring to the Founding Fathers and instructing us about their intentions.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

What Rights Does the 2nd Amendment Cover?

In the words of Bill Maher, the 2A is bullshit. It is meaningless in today's world, in spite of the mistaken and nonsensical rulings of the Supreme Court in Heller and McDonald. Those were the result of political bastardization of an antiquated right which had long since lost all meaning.

What's your opinion?  Please leave a comment.

Guns Have Changed - Shouldn't Our Gun Laws