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Guns: All about firearms and gun rights
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This gun mini-site is for people who are opposed to crime.
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| Second Amendment Explained | |
| Key Concept: The Second Amendment has nothing to
do with arming citizens to form a militia. It was written so that armed
citizens could protect themselves against a militia. At the time the Bill of Rights was created, the USA had no standing army. It had a militia. The fear was that the government could use the militia to subjugate the people. The Second Amendment was to provide a counterbalance to the government's power of arms. This, like the other nine items in the Bill of Rights, was a personal freedom. The drafters of the Bill of Rights wanted to "regulate" the militia. The word "regulate" means "control" or "set limits to." To limit the militia's power so that the free state could be secure, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Today, there is opposition to this basic freedom on grounds that defy logic. At the time this was drafted, there was also oppostion, but on the grounds that this freedom was self-evident and the government had no authority to infringe upon it. So, spelling it out was just redundant. 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.
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| It does not take much brainpower
to understand, theoretically, what happens when you disarm people.
But the "debate" is not theoretical. With the September 11
wakeup call on "gun control," the issue has moved from one
where a person might be too misinformed to understand to one where a
person must be passionately pro-criminal to promote disarming
citizens.
Anyone who promotes disarming citizens is essentially endorsing what happened on September 11. People like Barbara Boxer, who support that kind of violence, are despicable beyond description. Not only should they be immediately turned out of office, but they should be either locked up or exiled. Yes, we do have the First Amendment. But, you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater--nor can you commit certain other acts under its protection. Abusing a government office for purposes of gaining a stump from which to promote the mass murder of Americans, plus the individual murders of Americans, does not come under First Amendment protections. | |
| An old sheriff was attending an awards dinner when a lady commented on his wearing his sidearm. "Sheriff, I see you have your pistol. Are you expecting trouble?" "No, Ma'am. If I were expecting trouble, I would have brought my rifle." |
- Click here for an extensive collection of liberty-related documents
- Click here for an ISP that supports gun rights. (Outdoorsunlimited.net)
Firearms and
the right to have them:
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QUOTES (23 Feb 98), Compiled by Ed Monk CHARLES A. BEARD (American historian) Founding Fathers on the 2nd Amendment
THOMAS JEFFERSON (Author of Declaration of Independence, member Continental Congress, Governor of Virginia, Minister to France, Secretary of State, Vice President, 3rd President ):
"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back
to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the
debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented
against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed." "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." (Jefferson Papers, p. 334, C.J. Boyd, 1950) "And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Letter to William S. Smith 13 Nov 1787 (Jefferson, On Democracy p. 20, 1939; Padover, editor) "The few cases wherein these things (proposed Bill of Rights) may do evil, cannot be weighed against the multitude where the want of them will do evil...I hope therefore a bill of rights will be formed to guard the people against the federal government..." (letter to Madison 31 July 1788, The Papers of James Madison, Hobson amp Rutland, p.11:212) "I have a right to nothing which another has a right to take away." (letter to Uriah Forrest, 1787, Jefferson Papers, 12:477). "Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not." Exact source unknown.
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