With all the controversy over legislating gun laws it is worth revisiting why the 2nd Amendment exists:
Dr. Suzanna Gratia had both of her parents executed in a 1991 massacre along with 21 other people in a Texas restaurant. A gunman plowed his pickup truck through the restaurant window and then opened fire with a Glock 17 pistol and later a Ruger P89. Gratia’s father charged the gunman and was mortally wounded by a shot to the chest. His wife refused to flee and crawled over to her husband of 47 years at which point she was shot in the head while cradling her husband’s body.
Dr. Gratia relates that she had a pistol less than 100 yards away in her car, but due to concealed weapons laws in Texas at the time, was not allowed to carry the firearm on her person. Without that law, she says, her parents and dozens of others in that restaurant could have survived.
Addressing the Texas legislature, Dr. Gratia dismisses some common beliefs that firearms are intended for sport, and says why the 2nd Amendment really exists:
“I’m not going to make very many friends saying this, but it’s about our rights, all of our rights, to be able to protect ourselves from all of you guys up there.”
The text of the Second Amendment:
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.
This is a statement relinquishing the federal government from the ability to regulate weapons. There is controversy over interpretation-many feel as though the term “militia” implies that the federal government has authority to regulate firearms amongst individuals, but not state militias.
The purpose of the law is to restrict the federal government from regulating weapons, period. Militias were, and in many cases are, comprised of individuals who retain their own weapons. The intent of the law is to restrict federal authority and provide a check on power-the people are supposed to maintain the right to physically remove federal authority should they find it unacceptable.
At the time of the creation of the law states maintained full sovereignty, exercising greater latitude of authority than the federal government. It was never envisioned that states would be subordinate to the central authority. Now they are.
After the civil war beat states into submission, and nearly an hundred years of accepting federal handouts, states no longer retain comparable authority to limit federal power. The final check on the central bureaucrats has always been, and still remains, the people. As such, it is perverse to think the federal government has the right to disarm its populace.
In order to remain free, a people must have the right to self-armament with weapons that are at least comparable to that which federal troops possess.
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Rob -
Excellent post. Once again, it is to the U.S.Constitution that we must appeal, to combat the usurpation, by the federal government, of the rights that the Founders intended for a free people. “Moral” arguments can be made from all sides of the argument regarding gun laws, but it is, ultimately, the moral argument, ingrained in the spirit of the Constitution, to protect its citizens for the tyranny of governments, to which we must appeal.
Our government derives its authority to govern by the consent of the people, not the other way around. Its limitations, spelled out in the Constitution, must be obeyed, or they forfeit their moral authority and pervert the law.
It is sad that Dr. Gratia’s parents (and others) were murdered by this man, it is even worst that our government has prohibited the citizens of the republic from legally defending themselves from violent acts such as these.
Thanks for highlighting. And thanks to Dr. Gratia for her courage to speak out on behalf of the Constitutionally protected rights (such as the 2nd Amendment) of this great republic.
Lou Dobbs voices concern over Obama’s desire to eradicate 2nd Amendment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv3p2lLmjGk
Respectfully, your basic premise is wrong. The purpose of the law is to restrict the federal government from regulating weapons to people who are included in a “well regulated militia”.
This so called controversy “over interpretation” has to do with people wanting to own a gun either for local protection, hunting or some other trivial reason. Organizations such as the NRA have twisted the meaning and original intent of the second amendment.
The founders knew that the security of a free state was paramount to the survival of this great nation. With foresight and clarity they crafted the Second Amendment. If the founders wanted any citizen to bear arms, for any particular reason and for any particular agenda, then it could have simply stated that. Notice that they didn’t do that. Instead, the 2nd Amendment states (without any ambiguity) “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State”.
To put it another way, an isolated individual has no realistic chance of providing a check on power to the federal government alone. A well regulated militia has a much more realistic chance of protecting our freedoms from a corrupt government, then an isolated individual with his Smith & Wesson.
The interpretation is quite clear.
@Mike F. – We can glean intent from noting what happened-or did not happen-immediately following the passage of the Bill of Rights. The federal government did not immediately launch a gun confiscation program to prevent individuals, outside of a militia, from owning firearms. It was never an issue until late in the 20th century.
Moreover, the Bill of Rights is fundamentally, in every case, protection for the individual. Not a single one of the first ten Constitutional amendments (what we know as the Bill of Rights) pertains to groups, but rather, protects individuals from groups, including states. No state shall infringe upon individual rights guaranteed in the Constitution.
It would be odd for the framers to slip this one and only group right (pertaining to militias, not individuals) into the Constitution.
Excellent video
The Second Amendment is simple to understand for those willing to accept what the Forefathers meant. Reviewing Historic statements by the Forefathers clarify’s their intentions. When questioned about the statement “Who are the Militia” Jeffersons answer was “The People”. Clouding of the meaning of the 2nd is caused by the agendas of groups like the Brady Bunch and their mis-information targeted at mis-informed people. One must remember that without “Guns and Men who knew how to use them–we would be living under The Rising Sun, or saluting a swaztica”