We Support the Second Amendment ...
... unfortunately, Senator Obama does not. And as a man who supposedly knows the Constitution, that is rather embarrassing, but no more embarrassing than his attempted spin to support it when his words do not seem to support that position. Bob Owens explains this to people,/li> and we do so hope that Senator Obama's supporters pay close attention:
Buried deep in his official campaign website’s “Issues” page, under “Additional Issues,” is a vague nod to sportsmen, noting that Obama has never been one, and a link to the candidate’s position paper, “Barack Obama: Supporting the Rights and Traditions of Sportsmen.” A sharp observer would note that the document is named “Obama_FactSheet_Western_Sportsmen.pdf,” which makes one wonder if the campaign recognizes the rights of hunters in the southeastern and northeastern United States as well, and non-hunting gun owners nationwide.
This is far from a petty observation; the candidate himself cited his spouse, traveling though rural eastern Iowa, saying, “You know, I can see why if I was living out here, I’d want a gun.”
Out here? What about everywhere else?
It is rather ironic that Obama chose to use a firearms metaphor at a fundraiser this weekend when speaking about countering Republican attacks. “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama is reported to have said.
Ironic - because the fact of the matter is that the Obama campaign recognizes no constitutional right to own firearms for personal or community defense. His website claims a position of:
Respect the Second Amendment: Millions of hunters own and use guns each year. Millions more participate in a variety of shooting sports such as sporting clays, skeet, target, and trap shooting that may not necessarily involve hunting. As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting. He also believes that the right is subject to reasonable and commonsense regulation.
Obama’s campaign explicitly only recognizes the right to own firearms for “the purposes of hunting and target shooting,” and insists on “commonsense regulation.” What is commonsense regulation according to Barack Obama? It depends on which Barack Obama you believe is telling the truth.
In 1998 Obama stated a desire to “ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.” Many people confuse semi-automatic firearms, which use the energy created when a gun is fired to eject the spent cartridge and load a fresh round, with automatic weapons, more commonly known as machine guns.
Semi-automatic firearms are the most common firearms sold in America today.
Barack Obama’s desire to ban “all forms” of semi-autos would include a ban on most common rimfire target pistols, including those used in Olympic competition.
Barack Obama’s desire to ban “all forms” of semi-autos would ban the Ruger 10/22, Marlin Model 60, and many other rimfire .22 rifles, which form the backbone of American shooting sports, from hunting to target shooting.
Go and read it all. Mr. Owens has included photos of the sorts of firearms that Senator Obama would, by using "reasonable and commonsense regulation," ban for use in the United States. The Second Amendment is explicit in its guarantee that citizens of the United States may own and utilize firearms. The only exception is that if someone is convicted of a felony. They will never own a firearm again under our laws.
Readers will remember that back on April 1st, Thomas and I penned a lengthy column regarding the DC gun ban and we explained why the ban had to be struck down by the Supreme Court. In addition to our thinking in that piece, I will add that most firearms owners in America have no intention of ever using the weapon to commit a crime. They have them for self-defense -- as Thomas and I have ours for that express purpose. They have them for hunting, or sport shooting, or even because they are a firearms enthusiast, and enjoy collecting antique weapons.
If Senator Obama is elected, and he gets his way, we feel he will enact the most far-reaching, invasive firearms laws the nation has ever seen. As Mr. Owens points out in his piece for Pajamas Media, Senator Obama does indeed favor a reinstatement of the 1994 assault weapons ban, which did very little to curb the use or possession of such weapons. If we recall, the ban itself dealt with cosmetic features of firearms, and not the firearms directly. It did nothing to curb the steady stream of gun violence in the nation.
Banning guns is not the solution. Every nation that has banned firearms has seen a rise in the violent crime rates, especially crimes involving firearms which proves that bans do not work. When firearms are banned, the only people with firearms, aside from the government, are criminals. It is utterly foolish to believe that if a gun ban is enacted, people will voluntarily turn in their firearms. Citizens of other countries have not lived the existence with the right to bear arms as America has.
If Senator Obama were to ban firearms, even in a limited sense, those firearms will not be turned in. People in America do not give up their individual liberty easily, and most firearms owners (an estimated 65 million in the United States) know why they have this right to begin with. It was not so they could hunt. It was not for sports. It was to protect themselves, and the nation, should the government sink into tyranny. Indeed, James Madison wrote of such a scenario in Federalist #46:
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.
The Framers knew exactly why they gave the citizenry of the nation the right to keep and bear arms. It was not for hunting or for sport. It was so that every able-bodied person in the United States could protect themselves not only from internal threats, such as their fellow man, but also to protect themselves from the possibility of having their rights usurped by a tyrannical government. I expect more from a man who claims to be a Con Law professor. He should know better. If this idea escapes him, we suggest a return to school for some remedial tutoring.
Marcie
Buried deep in his official campaign website’s “Issues” page, under “Additional Issues,” is a vague nod to sportsmen, noting that Obama has never been one, and a link to the candidate’s position paper, “Barack Obama: Supporting the Rights and Traditions of Sportsmen.” A sharp observer would note that the document is named “Obama_FactSheet_Western_Sportsmen.pdf,” which makes one wonder if the campaign recognizes the rights of hunters in the southeastern and northeastern United States as well, and non-hunting gun owners nationwide.
This is far from a petty observation; the candidate himself cited his spouse, traveling though rural eastern Iowa, saying, “You know, I can see why if I was living out here, I’d want a gun.”
Out here? What about everywhere else?
It is rather ironic that Obama chose to use a firearms metaphor at a fundraiser this weekend when speaking about countering Republican attacks. “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun,” Obama is reported to have said.
Ironic - because the fact of the matter is that the Obama campaign recognizes no constitutional right to own firearms for personal or community defense. His website claims a position of:
Respect the Second Amendment: Millions of hunters own and use guns each year. Millions more participate in a variety of shooting sports such as sporting clays, skeet, target, and trap shooting that may not necessarily involve hunting. As a former constitutional law professor, Barack Obama believes the Second Amendment creates an individual right, and he greatly respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms. He will protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting. He also believes that the right is subject to reasonable and commonsense regulation.
Obama’s campaign explicitly only recognizes the right to own firearms for “the purposes of hunting and target shooting,” and insists on “commonsense regulation.” What is commonsense regulation according to Barack Obama? It depends on which Barack Obama you believe is telling the truth.
In 1998 Obama stated a desire to “ban the sale or transfer of all forms of semi-automatic weapons.” Many people confuse semi-automatic firearms, which use the energy created when a gun is fired to eject the spent cartridge and load a fresh round, with automatic weapons, more commonly known as machine guns.
Semi-automatic firearms are the most common firearms sold in America today.
Barack Obama’s desire to ban “all forms” of semi-autos would include a ban on most common rimfire target pistols, including those used in Olympic competition.
Barack Obama’s desire to ban “all forms” of semi-autos would ban the Ruger 10/22, Marlin Model 60, and many other rimfire .22 rifles, which form the backbone of American shooting sports, from hunting to target shooting.
Go and read it all. Mr. Owens has included photos of the sorts of firearms that Senator Obama would, by using "reasonable and commonsense regulation," ban for use in the United States. The Second Amendment is explicit in its guarantee that citizens of the United States may own and utilize firearms. The only exception is that if someone is convicted of a felony. They will never own a firearm again under our laws.
Readers will remember that back on April 1st, Thomas and I penned a lengthy column regarding the DC gun ban and we explained why the ban had to be struck down by the Supreme Court. In addition to our thinking in that piece, I will add that most firearms owners in America have no intention of ever using the weapon to commit a crime. They have them for self-defense -- as Thomas and I have ours for that express purpose. They have them for hunting, or sport shooting, or even because they are a firearms enthusiast, and enjoy collecting antique weapons.
If Senator Obama is elected, and he gets his way, we feel he will enact the most far-reaching, invasive firearms laws the nation has ever seen. As Mr. Owens points out in his piece for Pajamas Media, Senator Obama does indeed favor a reinstatement of the 1994 assault weapons ban, which did very little to curb the use or possession of such weapons. If we recall, the ban itself dealt with cosmetic features of firearms, and not the firearms directly. It did nothing to curb the steady stream of gun violence in the nation.
Banning guns is not the solution. Every nation that has banned firearms has seen a rise in the violent crime rates, especially crimes involving firearms which proves that bans do not work. When firearms are banned, the only people with firearms, aside from the government, are criminals. It is utterly foolish to believe that if a gun ban is enacted, people will voluntarily turn in their firearms. Citizens of other countries have not lived the existence with the right to bear arms as America has.
If Senator Obama were to ban firearms, even in a limited sense, those firearms will not be turned in. People in America do not give up their individual liberty easily, and most firearms owners (an estimated 65 million in the United States) know why they have this right to begin with. It was not so they could hunt. It was not for sports. It was to protect themselves, and the nation, should the government sink into tyranny. Indeed, James Madison wrote of such a scenario in Federalist #46:
The only refuge left for those who prophesy the downfall of the State governments is the visionary supposition that the federal government may previously accumulate a military force for the projects of ambition. The reasonings contained in these papers must have been employed to little purpose indeed, if it could be necessary now to disprove the reality of this danger. That the people and the States should, for a sufficient period of time, elect an uninterupted succession of men ready to betray both; that the traitors should, throughout this period, uniformly and systematically pursue some fixed plan for the extension of the military establishment; that the governments and the people of the States should silently and patiently behold the gathering storm, and continue to supply the materials, until it should be prepared to burst on their own heads, must appear to every one more like the incoherent dreams of a delirious jealousy, or the misjudged exaggerations of a counterfeit zeal, than like the sober apprehensions of genuine patriotism. Extravagant as the supposition is, let it however be made. Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. And it is not certain, that with this aid alone they would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to possess the additional advantages of local governments chosen by themselves, who could collect the national will and direct the national force, and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these governments, and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny in Europe would be speedily overturned in spite of the legions which surround it. Let us not insult the free and gallant citizens of America with the suspicion, that they would be less able to defend the rights of which they would be in actual possession, than the debased subjects of arbitrary power would be to rescue theirs from the hands of their oppressors. Let us rather no longer insult them with the supposition that they can ever reduce themselves to the necessity of making the experiment, by a blind and tame submission to the long train of insidious measures which must precede and produce it.
The Framers knew exactly why they gave the citizenry of the nation the right to keep and bear arms. It was not for hunting or for sport. It was so that every able-bodied person in the United States could protect themselves not only from internal threats, such as their fellow man, but also to protect themselves from the possibility of having their rights usurped by a tyrannical government. I expect more from a man who claims to be a Con Law professor. He should know better. If this idea escapes him, we suggest a return to school for some remedial tutoring.
Marcie
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 3:35 PM
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