Washington D.C. vs. the Constitution of the United States and the 2nd Amendment

Well all of you gun owners out there, gear up for the next all out assault against your rights, now that the Democrats have taken over the asylum. This comes from Yahoo News:

Scope of 2nd Amendment's questioned

By MATT APUZZO
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - In a case that could shape firearms laws nationwide, attorneys for the District of Columbia argued Thursday that the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms applies only to militias, not individuals.

The city defended as constitutional its long-standing ban on handguns, a law that some gun opponents have advocated elsewhere. Civil liberties groups and pro-gun organizations say the ban in unconstitutional.

At issue in the case before a federal appeals court is whether the 2nd Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" applies to all people or only to "a well regulated militia." The Bush administration has endorsed individual gun-ownership rights but the Supreme Court has never settled the issue.

If the dispute makes it to the high court, it would be the first case in nearly 70 years to address the amendment's scope. The court disappointed gun owner groups in 2003 when it refused to take up a challenge to California's ban on high-powered weapons.

In the Washington, D.C. case, a lower-court judge told six city residents in 2004 that they did not have a constitutional right to own handguns. The plaintiffs include residents of high-crime neighborhoods who want guns for protection.

I would rather wait for the Supreme Court to gain another Justice who believes in the Constitution before they address this issue, but given the results of the last election, that seems to be highly improbable.

It is about time for the Supremes to earn their keep by restoring the Bill of Rights to it’s pre-Roosevelt status, as a inviolable limitation on the powers of the government, rather than the “just a list of preferences of our founders” to which it has been reduced by the six decades of judicio-legislative venturism engaged in by over-zealous justices who believe themselves to be greater and smarter than were our founding fathers. Such arrogance in those who sit on the bench is not unusual, merely uncalled for. We hire our judges and justices to interpret law, not make it.

Whether or not the SCOTUS will take this case is very much in question. As stated in the article, they refused to take up the question of the 2003 California ban on high-powered weapons. The SCOTUS has a long history of being reticent in addressing this issue…it’s in the Constitution somewhere about Justices having to be spineless jellyfish or something like that, I can’t seem to find it in there, but judging from the way the Justices behave, I know it’s there.

Why is it that the court, when it is balanced slightly toward the “originalist side, seems unwilling to address these cases, and when it is balanced to the Left, seem so eager to impose their will on the people? I suppose the answer lies within the question, but how are we ever to return this nation’s laws to sanity if no “originalist court is ever willing to redress the errors of prior over-zealous activist courts?

Anyway as to the particulars of the case, were it not for the afore mentioned over-zealous lower court judges and Justices who have populated the Supreme Court in the past, there would be no need for concern as to the eventual outcome of it. There is no real question as to what the Bill of Rights says, or as to what the Framers intended in their words. I guess at this point, I am going to be forced to repeat that which I have already said so often:

The Bill of Rights is not an enumeration of the Rights granted to the people of the United States by their government, it is an enumeration of the limits of power granted to the government by the people of the United States of America. The Framers of the Constitution were quite clear in their various writings that certain Unalienable Rights are endowed to the people by their Creator. Those rights include, but are not limited to, Life Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness (Liberals please take note that the word is “Pursuit” not “Attainment”). As the “People” have all the rights, and the government none, only the People have the ability to grant power to their government.

With the knowledge that a government must have certain powers if it is to govern, our forefathers very carefully laid them out, along with how the government was to be structured, in the Constitution. Knowing the natural proclivity of governments to seek greater and greater power “for the good of the people,” and after much doubt and debate, they added a “bill of rights” so that those in government would always be aware of the limits our Founders placed on their powers. Some of our Forefathers, Alexander Hamilton for one, questioned the wisdom including a bill of rights and thereby of forbidding government from doing that for which they had no power to do in the first place, in Federalist Paper #84. He correctly foresaw that those “who would usurp” would argue that “if the government has no power to abridge a certain right, why would the Framers have expressly forbidden it to do so?”

That is precisely what the City of Washington D.C. is arguing in this case. “Why would the 2nd Amendment contain the words ‘a well regulated militia’ if the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right of the people?” The responses to these idiotic questions have been repeated endlessly to the inattentive ears of those whose lives are ruled by fear of their fellow citizens. People like Senators Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, as well as those involved in the various campaigns to disarm the American citizen know them well and yet choose to ignore them, preferring their own twisted opinions over those of our Founding Fathers.

1. “Well regulated” at the time of writing meant “well ordered,” or “orderly and efficient,” not “under the authority of a governmental entity.”
2. “Militia” as it was then defined (and still is) is a force composed of all of the citizens thus it was (and arguably still is) necessary for our citizens to have free and unfettered access to weapons capable of effectively fighting a “contemporary military conflict,” i.e. any and all “small arms” as defined by the military.
3. Our forefathers knew that an armed citizenry, as described above, would be the ultimate insurance against a government, or individuals in government, seeking to usurp all power and abridge all citizens’ rights.
4. “Life,” being one of those “unalienable rights,” the people must have at hand the means to preserve their lives from hostile acts. If anything, this is more true of America today than it was in colonial days.
5. The Courts have already ruled in numerous cases that the police have “no Constitutional obligation” to protect individual citizens, thus if a citizen is going to be protected, he (or she) must be armed in a manner so as to be capable of doing so. The restrictions as laid out in Washington D.C. violate that fundamental right by forcing citizens to be at the mercy of those who would do them harm, and render them dependent on a police force which as we have already been told has no obligation to protect them.

It is time for the Justices of our Supreme Court to stand up and confirm the wisdom of our constitution’s framers, or just go ahead and wad the old sheet of parchment up and toss it in the trash can. I know that some Justices like Bryer, Souter, and Ginsberg would prefer to write their own version which would fall in line with their internationalist’s opinion of what a constitution should be.

If for no other reason than his Federal Judiciary appointments, I can say “Thank God for President Bush. There are many things in the President’s agenda with which I take exception, but thanks to his efforts, the current federal bench is as close as it has ever been (in my lifetime) to an “originalist” or “constitutionalist” bench. There is still a long way to go, but any aspirations towards that goal must now await a Republican victory (hopefully in 2008). Until that day, gun owners will be at the mercy of our President’s willingness to use his veto power, and our SCOTUS’s willingness to abide by the Constitution rather than create their own.

Quotations from our Founding Fathers supporting our right as citizens to “keep and bear arms,” abound, as they were not hesitant to make their opinion of centralized government known.

Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people. ---Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

We established however some, although not all its [self-government’s] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; ---Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. Memorial Edition 16:45, Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation...[where] the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. ---James Madison,The Federalist Papers, No. 46.

[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it. ---Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.

[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it 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...I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers.--George Mason, Virginia Constitutional Convention, 1788

[All quotations courtesy of GunCite]

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