We wanted to touch on this yesterday, but didn’t get around to it. The Supreme Court will decide next Tuesday whether or not it will hear arguments regarding the Constitutionality of Washington D.C.’s gun ban which has been in place now for 31 years. Read story here.
District officials and proponents of the gun ban say its needed to reduce gun violence as 4 out of every 5 homicides was committed with a gun………… We suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Another may be that a full 20% of homicides were committed with knives, screwdrivers, chainsaws, concrete boots, cyanide, high voltage (!) or anything other than a gun as a direct result of the effectiveness of the gun ban. We echo the sentiments of our President with regards to the District fathers' logic in this regard.
And with respect to the 2nd Amendment around which the arguments will revolve, the gun banners say that the amendment addresses only the establishment of militias but not so the individual right to own guns.
After exhaustive research we located the 2nd amendment and we have taken the liberty to download the entire text of the amendment below. We are keeping our fingers crossed hoping that the enormity of verbage that is sure to be contained in this amendment regarding such a complex legal issue that has vexed policy makers in this country for years, would not crash the system. Screw it… here goes:
"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Whoa. That is some heavy, heavy legalese there, brothers and sisters. We don’t really see anything obvious there that would counter the gun banner’s argument that the amendment does not address the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. Thank g*d, we have lawyers to sort out all this stuff and astute judges on the benches to make these decisions for us.
Seriously, though…. One of the most depressing aspects of taking a mild interest in politics and constitutional rights is the realization that many of the same people we have parodied above who think the second clause of the 2nd amendment was written in invisible ink have been able to locate some, as yet undected by us, guaranteed right to abortion on demand elsewhere in the Constitution. A little freaking consistency is all we ask – don’t be making up crap on one hand and then wishing away other parts of the Constitution just because it doesn’t fit your agenda.
Anyway, we want to wish everyone a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving!
District officials and proponents of the gun ban say its needed to reduce gun violence as 4 out of every 5 homicides was committed with a gun………… We suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Another may be that a full 20% of homicides were committed with knives, screwdrivers, chainsaws, concrete boots, cyanide, high voltage (!) or anything other than a gun as a direct result of the effectiveness of the gun ban. We echo the sentiments of our President with regards to the District fathers' logic in this regard.
And with respect to the 2nd Amendment around which the arguments will revolve, the gun banners say that the amendment addresses only the establishment of militias but not so the individual right to own guns.
After exhaustive research we located the 2nd amendment and we have taken the liberty to download the entire text of the amendment below. We are keeping our fingers crossed hoping that the enormity of verbage that is sure to be contained in this amendment regarding such a complex legal issue that has vexed policy makers in this country for years, would not crash the system. Screw it… here goes:
"A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Whoa. That is some heavy, heavy legalese there, brothers and sisters. We don’t really see anything obvious there that would counter the gun banner’s argument that the amendment does not address the right of the people to keep and bear Arms. Thank g*d, we have lawyers to sort out all this stuff and astute judges on the benches to make these decisions for us.
Seriously, though…. One of the most depressing aspects of taking a mild interest in politics and constitutional rights is the realization that many of the same people we have parodied above who think the second clause of the 2nd amendment was written in invisible ink have been able to locate some, as yet undected by us, guaranteed right to abortion on demand elsewhere in the Constitution. A little freaking consistency is all we ask – don’t be making up crap on one hand and then wishing away other parts of the Constitution just because it doesn’t fit your agenda.
Anyway, we want to wish everyone a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving!
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5 comments:
As I pack to go to Yosemite, the argument for arming bears weighs mightily about my Toledo/ Carolina emotional comedic inheritance. (pertaining to the nature of comedy, really a word!)
Happy Thanksgiving to all, and I will look forward to eulogizing my Secret Santa recipient along with my 25 dollar gift from Target as demanded by he who is devoid of humor!!!
Road Dawg- Go Dawg Go
Alas, the Constitution IS indeed silent on the matter of arming bears.... they do quite well on their own.
Amazingly enough there is an opinion article in today's Union-Tribune by Jeffrey P. Kaplan that argues that because the phrase "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state," is not actually true, (Kaplan's opinion) then the second amendment has no meaning and is therefor void. I am not kidding, you might be able to read the whole thing here. I could barely believe the point he tries to make at first, but the reader can be the judge.
I am glad the Supreme Court took the DC gun ban case, because I can't believe that the court will void the Second Amendment, but I thought Kelo was going to go 5-4 the other way, so what do I know.
.edu-linguistic guy making his case for 2nd amendment linguistics. Wonderful.
One of his arguments regarding the relevance anymore of the 2nd amendment falls flat. The next amendment concerns quartering of troops in your home. Is that something we really have to worry about anymore? Probably not, but I'm sure glad its on the books if 20, 30, 100 years from now, it does become an issue.
Hell, we've paved right over the 10th amendment but that doesn't mean we should disregard it out of hand just because a certain element of society says it isn't relative anymore.
Its that same element that plays verbal jujitsu fashioning logic(?) that runs contrary to a common sense reading of the amendment and which runs contrary to strong, law-abiding and patriotic culture of gun-ownership in this country.
Kaplan probably doesn't like John Wayne, either. Loser.
... and another thing...
Since this is a High Holiday for football, I'm looking at this case as a whole like instant replay.
The call on the field is that individual gun ownership is legal and constitutional. Now what evidence exists that would overturn the call?
Employing the "reasonable man" theory in reading the 2nd amendment leads .edu guy to counter with head-ache inducing tortured logic. If Kaplan has to strain that hard to debunk a single sentence, then he doesn't have much of a case.
Really... we don't have to overthink this one.
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