Saturday, August 22, 2009

What to wear to a town hall meeting, or Rights erroroni . . .

Saturday morning. Sofa. Coffee.

"Honey, I don't know what to wear to the President's town hall meeting. Are slacks okay, or do you think I should go with a dress?"

"Both would look great on you dear, but you may want to know I'm wearing the brown tooled leather USA leg holster for my 9mm Smith and Wesson. I thought about the AR-15 with the black strap, but that seemed a bit pretentious. Besides, you know Harry. He'll probably be wearing his. He's so tasteless. He's the kind of guy that makes you question the second amendment. But remember, we may be moving into the church at some point, so watch the cleavage."

During the past week it became popular among second amendment enthusiasts to sport unconcealed weapons at or near President Obama's town hall meetings. In New Hampshire, the first place this happened, a man with a Smith and Wesson 9mm strapped to his leg was in the crowd. He had been given permission by a church near the town hall meeting to stand in its yard so that he could not be arrested. I can hear Jesus now, "I wore my instrument of death upon my leg, and you came to my defense . . ." I think that part of Matthew was left on the cutting room floor. The NRA was apparently not as strong with the Constantine administration.

I am not a fan of the second amendment as presently interpreted. I would defend Michelle Obama's right to bare arms, but that's about it. But it is a problematic amendment, and until it is amended or interpreted differently by the Supreme Court, it is the law of our land.

Expounding a rather creative defense, some of the folks who were packing heat at the town halls said they had no intention of using the weapons. The action was more of an expression, or a statement, that they wanted to make. Exercising both the first and second amendments at the same time. Sort of a whole body constitutional work-out.


I am going to make an assumption here. I think that most of the folks exercising the first and second amendments in their display, if not use, of their personal arsenals, are constitutional strict constructionists. That is what they say when someone tries to suggest that the right to own and carry firearms be restricted. One wonders then if they have ever really read 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."


It was the stated reason by the authors of the constitution that the purpose of the amendment was for the benefit of the state, not the individual. The right is couched in the State's right to regulate it's militia, and the State's right to maintain its security. If the members of the U. S. Supreme Court were to act as the strict constructionists that most of them claim to be, things would have to change. A citizen's right to bear arms would be subject to conditions.


Are you willing to be called into the state's militia at any time and bring your weapon with you?


Do you support the state in what it is doing?


Do you have any notion that your right to bear arms gives you the right to do anything in opposition to the will of the State?


Many of us have the belief that the second amendment was written to allow individual citizens the right to own and bear arms to keep the power of government in check. That romantic notion belongs in a Nicholas Sparks novel. The right of the citizen to bear arms is clearly conditional on it being for the benefit of the state and it organized militia.


Clearly, under the amendment, the government, at the very least, reserved the power to the state to regulate the ownership and use of firearms.


So just a bit of advice for you who desire the unfettered right to bear arms. Look for some of those evil "activist" judges. That is what you truly need.


Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, always good for a sound bite quote in his opinions, wrote now famous words regarding freedom of speech in his opinion in U. S. v. Schenk (1919):

"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."

The case involved the challenge of a statute which made it illegal to protest against the draft for WW I. The insidious behavior in question was the handing out of flyers in opposition to the draft.

We have rights of expression and rights to bear arms. It is our responsibility to use them wisely. The most serious threat to our rights is not the government. It is the stupid, irresponsible exercise of those rights that ultimately cause the wisdom of those rights to be questioned. Carrying firearms, loaded or not, to a presidential appearance is the kind of infantile behavior that will require more restrictions. Like parents of irresponsible adolescents, the government will be forced to put us in time out, and take away our toys.

And a church that thinks it glorifies the Body of Christ to allow a person to carry a firearm to a presidential town hall meeting is a topic for another day. While I know I have a first amendment right of expression, for the moment , I am rendered speechless, probably by the grace of God.

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10 comments :

  1. man they aren't gonna take betsy [thats my fav shot guns name] from me, hell me and bess is ready for enything.

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  2. I think that the second amendment was primarily issued for the protection of the individual states as a check on the power of the federal government. Unfortunately I believe that if some of these gun toting Yosemite Sam's were given the opportunity to fight for their state against the interests of the United States government, they would welcome the occasion (Especially in Texas).

    But your point is well taken. Nice intensity!

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  3. While I am a bit dismayed by your moniker "therealbobthought" I am pleased to hear from you on a Saturday morning. Having looked at your writing I figure you either hired somebody to do your profile for you, you have an incredibly advanced version of spell check, or you are pullin' my leg with the present comment. Being a loosiana boy, I opt for the latter.

    At any rate, thanks for the comment. I've been looking for the realbobthought all my life.

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  4. you are correct first anonymous comment person. I got a bit lazy in my language and perhaps a bit zealous. I made a couple of minor changes to be more accurate. Thanks for reading.

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  5. I do believe in a strict interpretation of the Constitution. It is not a "living and breathing" document. That is just what those say who want to have its words back up their political agenda. "The People have the right to keep and bear arms." If the framers had meant only the militia, they would have said that the state could have a well regulated militia and that militia has a right to keep and bear arms. Back when that was written, the people were just as armed as the army (government) was, and it meant exactly what any normal person knows -- the people had a right to defend themselves against an overbearing government. Nowadays, you'd have to be stupid to think that the people with our 9mm hand guns and AR15s could take on an army. However, if this government continues down this Socialist path too far, I have a feeling that most of the "well regulated militia" would be on the side of "we the people" who are bearing arms. I'll tell you that if you ever see me in public, 9 times out of 10, I am armed. It is my right, and I am not some homegrown terrorist. I have a family to protect, and I pray that I never have to. It is much easier to carry a concealed hand gun than it is to carry a cop around with me.

    As far as open carrying to a Presidential town hall, that is just dumb. For one thing, anywhere the president is having one, becomes federal land, and you can't carry on federal land (unfortunately, which is why I can't carry to work on the Arsenal). And while it is legal to open carry here in AL, I never do. It is just asking for trouble and the element of surprise is lost.

    I guess I'm going to have to stop reading your blog so often. I have to meet a doctor in a couple of weeks about my blood pressure, and this isn't helping. I just feel like I have to be the voice of reason when I read posts like that. ;)

    See (or read) you later,
    Jason

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  6. Don't quit reading, Derf, just comment more often. That may help the blood pressure.

    Hope y'all are doing well.

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  7. "The most serious threat to our rights is not the government. It is the stupid, irresponsible exercise of those rights that ultimately cause the wisdom of those rights to be questioned."

    Well said Bob. Well said indeed. The more I look into it, the more I believe that when people look at the constitution, as with other stuff in life, they see what they want to see. In the 2nd amendment you see the right to bear arms as contingent on the state's militia and I see it as conveying an unalienable right to carry an assault rifle to a town hall meeting.

    These town hall opposition wackos need to bring it back to planet earth. Back during the initial stages of the Iraq war two people were arrested for not taking off anti-bush t-shirts. We have come so far.

    Why on earth are these people allowed to be armed at these things? Why on earth are they allowed to act like 3yr olds crying over candy in the grocery store? What's going on?

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  8. You seem to have missed the fact that our Supreme Court did, in fact, rule on the 2nd amendment last year and determined that it includes an individual right to keep and bear arms.

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  9. I think I'll use this blog post -- and the resulting thread -- in my undergraduate American Government class this week (talking 'bout the Bill of Rights). It should result in a worthwhile debate for a classroom of young adults. What I won't tell them, at least not right away, although it's true, is that Bob B. is right.

    As to the anonymous comment that Bob B. did not mention the Supreme Court, he acknowledged it, I imagine, in his lament of the current interpretation of the Second Amendment. The states have the right to regulate firearm ownership and possession, and in cases with good facts and prudent justices, courts will eventually affirm that.

    As for my own thoughts on it, I cannot reconcile claims of a people being a Christian or God-fearing people with the same culture exhibiting and even glorifying a love of guns. These two things are inherently and completely incongruous.

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  10. You are correct, Aug. 24, commentator, that the Supreme Court affirmed the individual's second amendment right in District of Columbia v. Heller,128 S.Ct. 2783 (2008), striking down a ridiculously dishonest municipal ordinance that made it impossible to exercise the individual's reasonable rights. However, the court affirmed what I was trying to say:


    "Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not
    unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators
    and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep
    and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for
    whatever purpose. See, e.g., Sheldon, in 5 Blume 346; Rawle 123; Pomeroy
    152-153; Abbott 333. For example, the majority of the 19th-century
    courts to consider the question held that prohibitions on carrying
    concealed weapons were lawful under the Second Amendment or state
    analogues. See, e.g., State v. Chandler, 5 La. Ann., at 489-490;
    Nunn v. State, 1 Ga., at 251; see generally 2 Kent *340, n. 2; The
    American Students' Blackstone 84, n. 11 (G. Chase ed. 1884). Although we
    do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full
    scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to
    cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by
    felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms
    in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws
    imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of
    Page 55
    arms.[fn26]
    * * *
    We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and
    we take seriously the concerns raised by the many amici who believe that
    prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves
    the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem,
    including some measures regulating handguns, see supra, at 54-55, and
    n. 26. But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes
    certain policy choices off the table. These include the absolute
    prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home.
    Undoubtedly some think that the Second Amendment is outmoded in a
    society where our standing army is the pride of our Nation, where
    well-trained police forces provide personal security, and where gun
    violence is a serious problem. That is perhaps debatable, but what is
    not debatable is that it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the
    Second Amendment extinct."

    I never said there was no second amendment right. I said it could be limited by the government, and if we the people tolerate, support and refuse to condemn the stupid abuses of that right, there will be pressure on the courts to interpret the right more strictly. The Supreme Court clearly left plenty of room for regulation, especially in a 5-4 decision.

    The activist majority opinion is an interesting read for history wonks. I would suggest anyone interested in the issue, no matter your postition, read it.

    Thanks for the comment.

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