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| Mired in the Fog of Lucidity |
The Second Amendment is so clear and simple that only liberals, aided by a half-wit liberal law school professor-tariat that is to real lawyering as Jerry Nadler is to Chippendales, could pretend to be confused about its meaning with a straight face. “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.” The whole “shall not be infringed” part is a real problem for the left, since collectivist Castro-channelers prefer that we Americans be defenseless serfs existing at the government’s (i.e., their) mercy when we should be armed, freedom-loving citizens with the personal firepower to veto their pinko utopian schemes. So, they fixate on the 2A’s passing reference to the militia, spinning a prefatory statement that recognizes that a militia is a good thing into a directive to cancel out the whole “citizens having guns” part of the Second Amendment. In other words, to defeat its very purpose. It’s a silly interpretation, and one that’s not even remotely asserted in good faith, but why not put aside all the constitutional arguments supporting our right to pack heat and just call their militia bluff? Maybe we should reinvigorate the concept of a militia in our great nation, if only to annoy liberals. So, pick up your weapon and fall in. Let’s do this thing. America, let’s get our militia on. What is the “militia” anyway? It’s not goofy dudes in camo playing army. It’s the American people. It was those farmers, blacksmiths and other assorted non-hipsters who the Brits tried to disarm and who got all shooty in response. Today, it’s us, you and me, regular citizens with military arms so they can cap criminals and tyrants like bosses just as Nature intended. That “well-regulated” part is what the Second Amendment Truthers focus on, but their analysis here (as with everything) is all wrong. They think Congress can well-regulate the militia into oblivion, presuming to misuse the clause to regulate away any right of actual citizens to have firearms with the ultimate goal of a militia that can’t be militant. That violates the longstanding principle that you do not interpret Constitutional provisions in such a way as to negate them, but liberals hate the Bill of Rights so what do you expect? Just for fun, let’s assume Congress can regulate the militia instead of the individual states outside of the situations set forth in Article 1, section 8, clause 15 (“To provide for the calling of the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions."). If so, then Congress has already clearly chosen to regulate the militia by not really regulating it much at all. It has left it to us citizens to prepare ourselves for armed service, primarily by privately owning guns. And many of us are doing our duty, but tragically, there are millions of Americans who lack the effective modern weapons they need. This must change. You see, that militia reference, when read as the liberals wish to read it, means Congress can regulate the militia to be more than it is now. You libs are always talking about the militia, so fine. Let’s make the militia a thing again. First, we need to start by re-well-regulating the militia’s exact composition. United States Code Title 10, § 246 defines the “militia” as follows: “The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.” Clearly, this definition is far too restrictive for 2019, as well as sexist and cis-normative. The modern militia should consist of all healthy, law-abiding American citizens (and those intending to become American citizens) between 17 and, say, 65. After all, back in the olden days, if you made it to 35 you were pretty crusty, practically Joe Biden-like. Everybody. Basically, if you aren’t nuts, incapacitated, a crook or as old as a leading Democrat candidate, you’re in the militia. And that’s good, because a republic requires participation. For too long, we’ve outsourced the vital duties of individual citizens to our great first responders and organized military. No more. Time to step up, people. You’re in the Army now, sort of. We all are. Now, the militia is not the National Guard, which I’m a bit familiar with after serving in it for 23 years. People who know nothing often claim it is, but that’s silly. Review 10 USC § 246 above. The combined Army and Air Force Guard membership in 2019 is about 442,000 personnel. That’s about .001% of the ~329,000,000 million Americans, not even close to even the limited Section 246 membership. Moreover, the Guard is an organized reserve component of the United States that operates under state control except when mobilized – as an officer, I held both a federal commission and a state commission from California. My uniform read “U.S. ARMY.” I had the same training as active officer – in fact, like most of us, I spent years on active duty. We had guns (the same as the active Army’s) locked away in centralized locations. To join, you had to meet active Army or Air Force standards. It’s an awesome and vital force, but it is not a militia. The idea of the militia is that it includes (almost) everybody, but everybody can’t join the military – only a fraction of our citizens can. The militia is different. It is about all of us doing our part personally for our nation, like answering a jury summons or paying taxes. Hey citizens, time to do your duty. Time to get well-regulated. And that starts with owning a weapon. What kind of weapon? Well, the requirement for every citizen should be a firearm suited to combat – an actual assault rifle. The M16/M4 is the classic American military weapon, and every member of the militia should have one or an appropriate analogue. If you want to go with a 7.62 mm battle rifle instead of a 5.56 mm, that’s your prerogative. As a member of the modern militia, you’ll need to provide your own kit, and Kit Item No. 1 is some kind of rifle. You need to be able to defend yourself, your family, your community and your Constitution, whether with an AR, AK, FAL, SIG, HK or some other high-velocity acronym. Oh, you need to have a pistol too. Supplementary shotguns are optional but encouraged. Training? We won’t need a huge amount, other than requiring citizens to maintain proficiency on their firearms. Every citizen can show up for a month at 18 years old and take a break from dope smoking and their crappy Taylor Swift music to learn some basics, including safe weapons-handling procedures. Also, it would be a good time to do some basic lifesaving first aid training – stop the bleeding, treating shock, CPR. That’s not just vital for when the lead flies– what if you come on a car wreck and a fellow citizen has face-dived through the windshield and is spurting from an artery? What do you do? Oh yeah, my militia training! If it saves one life, right? Once initial training is done, then citizens can be assigned to local militia units with an annual muster. Everyone gathers with their basic equipment, updates contact info, touches base with the leadership, and then goes home after a BBQ to regular life until being called up. Don’t think they could never be called up either – I spent three weeks with the Army on the streets of Los Angeles during the 1992 riots and another week after the 1994 Northridge earthquake. LA is shaking as we speak; we citizens need to be ready. How long is there going to be nonsense going down if everyone on the street is carrying a rifle? Not long. It’s not too much to ask citizens to take personal responsibility for their own country, and the ultimate responsibility is to defend it. That’s why the Second Amendment’s militia reference, taken seriously, means not stripping Americans of their ability to defend their freedom but enhancing it. After all, for the security of a free state, it’s necessary that every healthy, law-abiding American citizen owns a real combat rifle and is ready to deploy on a moment’s notice to protect our people and our Constitution. The Second Amendment prevents the kind of nightmarish leftist hellscape that I describe in my action-packed yet highly amusing novels about the United States’ split into red and blue countries, People's Republic, Indian Country and Wildfire. Hated by liberals and hailed by the sad Loser Boat crew from the failed Weekly Standard as “Appalling,” your right to be entertained shall not be infringed! https://townhall.com/columnist...litia-bluff-n2549829 | ||
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A quick history reading will identify who the "militia" was at the framing of the Constitution. The ordinary armed citizen. Even the Brits knew that, since they used "militia" to support their operations during the French and Indian War. End of Earth: 2 Miles Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles | |||
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Just another example of the libs trying to slice the pie and analyze in their own mind, what words, documents and statement means. They know damn well that the militia is 'the people', and the 2A, is the lawful & legal mechanism that allows citizens to form armed groups in defense of laws & rights. | |||
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I disagree and think it is an important distinction; the 2A does not "allow" anything. It recognizes that the militia is necessary for a free state so then restricts government from any infringement on "the people's" RTKBA. The 2A doesn't grant or allow a right, it recognizes a right and function that is necessary for a free state and restricts the government from ever infringing upon it. Put another way, the 2A is a pair of handcuffs placed on the government, not a permission slip for the people. “People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.” –Chuck Palahnuik Be harder to kill: https://preparefit.ck.page | |||
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Yes, Strambo has that important detail correct. The Bill of Rights in essence RESTATE the obvious - it recognizes that as citizens we have inalienable rights - IE “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, etc. etc.” Rights that cannot be minimized, twisted or misconstrued, no matter how much they would like to “clarify” them. The Authors were no dummies. They had seen the abuse by the govt on the other side of the pond. They knew the history and evolution of how it got to be the way it was. They thought and decided something like “Let’s write this into our Constitution so it can’t happen here...” Another IMPORTANT detail - as CITIZENS we have those Rights. Does it state that “illegal invaders”have the same Rights as citizens? Don’t remember reading that anywhere. Not saying visitors don’t have any rights here, but they are guests - not citizens. | |||
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| You're going to feel a little pressure... |
The "well regulated" part doesn't mean "controlled by the authorities" but "in good order, disciplined" and not a gaggle or a mob. We need to rob them of that misinterpretation. Bruce "The designer of the gun had clearly not been instructed to beat about the bush. 'Make it evil,' he'd been told. 'Make it totally clear that this gun has a right end and a wrong end. Make it totally clear to anyone standing at the wrong end that things are going badly for them. If that means sticking all sort of spikes and prongs and blackened bits all over it then so be it. This is not a gun for hanging over the fireplace or sticking in the umbrella stand, it is a gun for going out and making people miserable with." -Douglas Adams “It is just as difficult and dangerous to try to free a people that wants to remain servile as it is to try to enslave a people that wants to remain free." -Niccolo Machiavelli The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. -Mencken | |||
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delicately calloused |
...and yet we have the NFA, Hughes amendment, 68 and 94 GCA. How does this even happen if the supreme law of the land states otherwise? How can the supreme court not just strike it all down given their directive? You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier | |||
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Ammoholic |
This
And this It's quite clear from anyone who has two brain cells. We just freed ourselves from a tyrannical government with nothing but the every day citizen with a rifle. The 2A recongizes this right to protect ourselves from tyranny and domestic/foreign threats. In order for the whole of the population to do so the individual needs the right. If the individual is infringed upon the militia can not be a well regulated one. Pretty darn simple. It may sound awkward to today's generation who have no clue why the 2A exists - our nation's creation history, and the founders intent. Jesse Sic Semper Tyrannis | |||
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Member |
Well the Leftist blowhards of this country either don't know ANYTHING about our history or they're too busy trying to bury/alter it to care, the latter being the one that puts a nuclear case of the red-ass on my hind parts. "If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24 | |||
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Member |
You guys are over complicating this. Let's review exactly where we stand today. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State..." That's no longer open to interpretation as the SCOTUS has already weighed in and established (in Heller and MCDonald) that the right to keep and bear arms is an 'individual' right. As such, the militia interpretation/argument is dead, and we should actively make it so anytime some dumbass, corrupt, liberal tries to chase that issue down the rabbit hole again. “...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” This is all that's left open to SCOTUS interpretation in the 2A at the moment, and as the article notes, its so simple and unambiguous, that arguments indicating it means something other than what it actually says are absurd. We need one more real conservative justice on the court to replace RBG, and a case challenging this interpretation in 2A, and the issue will be solved...legally...once and for all. There will still be stupid, moronic, challenges by liberals in the courts, but once SCOTUS finally does its job, the legal meaning of the 2A will be over. Oh, and John Roberts will have to go and change his pants because he will most certainly soil them when he's forced to weigh in on this issue. ----------------------------- Guns are awesome because they shoot solid lead freedom. Every man should have several guns. And several dogs, because a man with a cat is a woman. Kurt Schlichter | |||
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It's not that they don't know our history or the founder's intentions with the 2A, they don't care. Much like they treat any law in this country they disagree with, or that more accurately, stands in their way when it comes to acquiring and exercising power over the masses. These people are lying cowards who need to be pounded viciously at every turn on this issue. ----------------------------- Guns are awesome because they shoot solid lead freedom. Every man should have several guns. And several dogs, because a man with a cat is a woman. Kurt Schlichter | |||
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As bigdeal states; we need a good case before the court to weigh in on the "infringement" side of the equation. Congress can pass and the President can sign any un-constitutional laws they want to. They can pass a law re-instituting slavery. The check and balance is the court system, but a case has to be brought by someone with standing. This is why the left presses so hard to pack the court with radical leftist judges who legislate from the bench. That way when they are in charge of Congress and the Presidency, they can pass un-constitutional laws like Obamacare...then have them survive the court challenge as well. “People have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.” –Chuck Palahnuik Be harder to kill: https://preparefit.ck.page | |||
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Member |
Here is some interesting reading and a starting place to 'understand' why the 2A came to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants%27_Revolt This is just a start, there is ample information on many 'revolts' past and present that were suppressed by those with control of the weapons of the times. It is ongoing and will continue ...... -------------------------------- On the inside looking out, but not to the west, it's the PRK and its minions! | |||
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The Washington Post published an article about the VCDL at the special session in Richmond. “Armed militia confronts peace protestors.” So their own words, we’re a militia. Thanks for admitting it you fools! | |||
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Another issue is that the left and their colluding media has bastardized the term "militia" into something negative. Its current use, by them, is pejorative often painting those so labeled as uncouth, unwashed, ignorant peasants to be looked down on. Its similar to their vilification of guns in their made up terms such as "gun crime" or assault weapon. | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine  |
District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) put and unequivocal end to any claims that the Second Amendment is a collective right requiring militias, and affirmed that it is an individual right independent of the existence (or non-existence) of a militia. If this is an argument that we should form a militia to further bolster our Second Amendment claims, it is unneeded and, perhaps, counterproductive. If you just want to have militias for some other reasons, knock yourself out. I think for the purposes of the Second Amendment, we ARE the militia, at whatever state of organization we are. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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| Little ray of sunshine |
Roberts joined in the Heller majority, and wrote no separate opinion. You may not like his opinions on some other things, but you have no beef with him on Heller. The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything. | |||
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Correct. I have no beef with him on 'Heller'. But any time he's been forced to weigh in on anything substantial (i.e. Barrycare or the Census question) he punts because he doesn't want the court to 'fully' take control of an issue. He will most surely foul himself when forced to weigh in on what "...the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" actually means which is why its so important for us to have another 'real' conservative justice on the court when that case finally is brought. After all, according to Roberts, the terms 'fee' and 'tax' mean exactly the same thing, so I don't think we can count on this person to act reasonably or honorably when it comes to executing his job. ----------------------------- Guns are awesome because they shoot solid lead freedom. Every man should have several guns. And several dogs, because a man with a cat is a woman. Kurt Schlichter | |||
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Told cops where to go for over 29 years… |
 What part of "...Shall not be infringed" don't you understand???  | |||
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