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The News: It did not take long after the latest “senseless high school killing” for the harpies on the False Issue Left to raise their quills and voices to demand more effective gun control. Leading the charge for Perpetual Safety were: John Rosenthal of the Christian Science Monitor (”Had Enough Gun Violence? 20 Feb 2006) and New York Times (“Packing Heat in the Parks” Editorial 20 Feb 2006)
The Note: The United States doesn’t need more gun control but less. In case anyone hasn’t figured it out yet, the Second Amendment was designed to insure political empowerment (the one and only true kind). Simply put, it enshrines the right to revolt. This was understood quite clearly at the time. In fact, it almost went without saying.
The Bill of Rights of 1688, had guaranteed the right of all Protestants to “have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law.” The right was enumerated in order to guard against catholic subversion which, from the protestant perspective, was a true and real threat.
Before that suffice to say the barons at Runnymede (1215) sure as hell were not leaning on their quills when they forced King John to cease and desist from undermining the independence of the English Church and courts,
Understanding the purposes of the Second Amendment leads to the ineluctable conclusion that rather than limiting the types and circumstances under which arms can be borne, the Amendment needs to be expanded so as to cover as broad a range of armaments as is reasonable for the purpose intended.
The plain fact of the matters is that hunting rifles and .45’s really won’t do much against the array of armaments in possession of the Government. Waco was a demonstration of the kind of armaments which are adequate to intimidate and oppress ordinary citizens. Since then, the Government has elaborated even more sophisticated “crowd control” armaments including: Mass-tasers, Sonic Beams and Slippery Jelly.
The tasers are laser beams that create excruciating “burning sensations” in the “subject” . Like waterboarding which only “simulates” drowning, these beams only “simulate” burning. Only a few old folks who were going to die anyway would croak.
The sonic beams are the auditory equivalent. They fill the air with such stunning hyper sound that you literally cannot think, but simply fall to ground in paralyzed stupefaction.
Lastly, in case you could possibly get up...there is Slippery Jelly which makes it impossible to do so. So... in mind-numbed stupor and excruciating burning agony, you will meekly allow yourself to be cuffed and carted off by some State Thug encased in Kevlar.
Hollywood fantasy? Nope. Your Total Safety Society brought to you by the Mothers of Perpetual Safety -- senawhores, congressoids and their pimps in the press whose vision of US-America is a “secure” camp -- from sea to shining sea.
The Second Amendment at the very least, protects the right of every citizen to possess and bear his own Slippery Jelly dispenser.
There will doubtless be those who will make the usual argumentum ad horibilis. ... trucking out a parade of horribles, all of which, when stripped of code words, boil down to: Eeeek! You mean let the Darkies have MORE weapons?
In fact, your average, road-raging suburban Blimp-in-a-Ram-Charger is probably more of a real and present danger to most people than your ghetto rapping crack dealer, who after all is really just in the “business-decisions” business.
But either way, the other cardinal fact to remember, just in case anyone forgot, is that the Bill of Rights and Our Form of Government presuppose a certain level of social sophistication and circumstance. Madison said as much in Federalist Ten. The bottom line is simple: the Constitution is a magnificent legal edifice but it is not free standing. In the last analysis, law stands or falls depending on the social subsoil. Simply put, the Constitution is meaningless among apes.
The right the bear arms presupposed a certain level of burgertum: a, broadly speaking, literate, more or less “liberally educated”, society of middle class farmers and homeowners and merchants none of whom were too different or distant from one another culturally or economically. You didn’t fear your neighbor owning a weapon because he was not likely to use it against you any more than he would come at you with his scythe, or axe, or any other number of ordinary deadly household utensils in use at the time.
If we trash the Second Amendment because we fear our neighbors and fear our own fellow-citizens having weapons, then we have simply confessed the utter failure of US-American society. And, if US society is dysfunctional, then the Constitution is irrelevant anyways.
©WCG, 2008
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