Monthly Archives: September 2014

Geraldo Rivera Goes Off on Second Amendment and Gun Nuts in Facebook Post
Geraldo Rivera Goes Off on Second Amendment and Gun Nuts in Facebook Post.

By: hartyhj8

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Geraldo Rivera Goes Off on Second Amendment and Gun Nuts in Facebook Post - Video

A girl killed a gun instructor as he was teaching her to shoot an Uzi at this Arizona outdoor shooting range.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. He has just published "Jesus: The Human Face of God," a biography of Jesus. Follow him on Twitter@JayParini. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

(CNN) -- The gun outrages continue, the latest the shooting of a gun instructor in Arizona by a 9-year-old girl who was taken to the range by her parents so she could shoot an Uzi, an Israeli-made submachine gun.

The question that the whole world asks is this: Why was a 9-year-old girl allowed even to try to shoot a submachine gun?

Jay Parini

I have a further question: Why does anybody not on the front lines of the military in a war zone need to have access to a submachine gun?

It's not as though we haven't had plenty of evidence that this gun thing in America isn't working. Since the ghastly massacre of elementary school children at Sandy Hook on December 14, 2012, by a deranged teenager, as of June there were at least 74 school shootings, on school grounds or in schools themselves. It's commonplace in this country now: A deranged shooter appears, armed to the teeth, out of his mind. Everyone ducks or runs for cover. The shooter proceeds calmly through the building, taking out innocents.

What kind of country have we become? Was this what the Founding Fathers had in mind?

The NRA will scream: The Second Amendment! The Second Amendment! Please be aware that most of what you think you know about the history of this amendment is nonsense. Many good books and articles exist on the subject, all neatly summarized by Saul Cornell a couple of years ago. He wrote: "If the nation truly embraced the Second Amendment as it was originally written, it would be the NRA's worst nightmare."

Link:
2nd amendment and 'gun rights' fraud

In March 2008 I chatted with a silver-haired law school professor under the marble pillars of the U.S. Supreme Court building. He was very excited. The court was to about hear Heller v. D.C. The case would decide whether the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects an individual right to own and carry guns. He had 20 law students with him. He said anxiously, When I put in the paperwork to get seats months ago I didnt know wed get to see one of the last unresolved constitutional questions debated. He said this while looking at a line of people hoping to get seats that went down the block, around a corner and out of sight.

Hours later a mainstream reporter next to me in the press section gasped, Oh no, when Justice Anthony Kennedy hinted that he believed the Second Amendment to be an individual right while asking the governments attorney a question.Months later, when the high court ruled 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual right from government infringement, the media was paying attention. Many, however, are missing whats happening now. The Second Amendment is having its defining moment in history. The decisions now percolating up to the Supreme Court are deciding what guns the Second Amendment covers, when requirements become infringements and more.

Gun-rights and gun-control groups understand that these court decisions illustrate how much elections matter, as the federal judges making these decisions are nominated by the president and voted on by the senate. However, two recent federal court decisions from judges appointed by former president Bill Clinton show how difficult these decisions can be to handicap.

In one just-decided case, California Senior U.S. District Court Judge Anthony W. Ishii found that 10-day waiting periods of Penal Code violate the Second Amendment as applied to people who fall into certain classifications. He found this arbitrary wait time burdens the Second Amendment rights of the plaintiffs. (The decision can be read here.) This court decision orders the California Department of Justice to allow the unobstructed release of guns to those who pass a background check and possess a California license to carry a handgun, or who hold a Department of Justice-issued Certificate of Eligibility and already possess at least one firearm known to the state. Basically, it says if someone already legally has a gun in California the state cant make that person wait 10 days for a second gun just because it wants to. If that sounds like common sense to you, youre right, but common sense isnt a given in the courts.

Brandon Combs, a plaintiff in the case who is also director of the executive director of the Calguns Foundation, said the decision clears the way for them to challenge other irrational and unconstitutional gun-control laws. We look forward to doing just that.

United States Supreme Court building. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A flurry of such challenges began right after Heller, led to McDonald v. Chicago (2010) and are still ongoing. In an important example, in February 2014 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to carry firearms for self-defense in public. The decision came in Peruta v. San Diego County. The majority opinion in Peruta said, We are called upon to decide whether a responsible, law-abiding citizen has a right under the Second Amendment to carry a firearm in public for self-defense.

The California Rifle and Pistol Association Foundation brought the case on behalf of five individuals who were denied the right to carry a handgun by the San Diego sheriff. According to California law, a person applying for their Second Amendment right to carry a concealed handgun must: (1) be a resident of their respective city or county; (2) be of good moral character; (3) have good cause for such a license; and (4) pass a firearms training course. Many rural California counties accept self-defense as good cause for a person to get a license to carry a handgun, but some urban sheriffs and chiefs of police disagreed. In those jurisdictions the few who attain permits had to beg, plead, and show imminent danger to their lives before they could exercise their right to bear arms.

The Ninth Circuit decided 2 to 1 that the restrictive good cause policy of the San Diego County Sheriffs Department was unconstitutional. The majority opinion accepted that the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose. Rather, it is a right subject to traditional restrictions, which themselvesand this is a critical pointtend to show the scope of the right.

The majority decision in Peruta said, Our reading of the Second Amendment is akin to the Seventh Circuits interpretation [in Shepard v. Madigan] and at odds with the approach of the Second, Third, and Fourth Circuits. We are unpersuaded by the decisions of the Second, Third, and Fourth Circuits for several reasons. First, contrary to the approach in Heller, all three courts declined to undertake a complete historical analysis of the scope and nature of the Second Amendment right outside the home. As a result, they misapprehend both the nature of the Second Amendment right and the implications of state laws that prevent the vast majority of responsible, law-abiding citizens from carrying in public for lawful self-defense purposes.

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The Second Amendment's Defining Moment

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBCs Morning Joe more >

Former Florida Rep. Joe Scarborough said Wednesday that the Founding Fathers did not write the Second Amendment to allow children to fire semi-automatic machine guns.

Mr. Scarborough, the Republican co-host of MSNBCs Morning Joe, was responding to the news that a 9-year-old girl lost control of an Uzi at an Arizona shooting range this week and accidentally killed her instructor.

SEE ALSO: Girl, 9, kills firing instructor with Uzi in Arizona range accident

Why are you putting an Uzi in the hands of a 9-year-old girl? It is sick, Mr. Scarborough said. What is wrong with these people? What is wrong with this culture?

NBC reported that shooting range allowed children as young as 8 years old to fire weapons.

I find it hard to believe that our Founding Fathers put together a Second Amendment to give 8-year children the right to fire semi-automatic weapons, and if you think that is what the Constitution of the United States, says you should really go back and read the Second Amendment, Mr. Scarborough said.

Originally posted here:
Joe Scarborough: Second Amendment shouldn't open door for kids to wield Uzis

By Justine McDaniel, Robby Korth and Jessica Boehm August 29

Across the country, a thriving dissatisfaction with the U.S. government is prompting a growing spate of bills in state legislatures aimed at defying federal control over firearms more than 200 during the last decade, a News21 investigation found.

Particularly in Western and Southern states, where individual liberty intersects with increasing skepticism among gun owners, firearms are a political vehicle in efforts to ensure states rights and void U.S. gun laws within their borders. State legislators are attempting to declare that only they have the right to interpret the Second Amendment, a movement that recalls the anti-federal spirit of the Civil War and civil-rights eras.

I think the president and the majority of Congress, both in the House and Senate, are just completely out of touch with how people feel about Second Amendment rights, said Missouri state Sen. Brian Nieves, who has fought for bills to weaken the federal governments authority over firearms in his state.

In Idaho, the Legislature unanimously passed a law to keep any future federal gun measures from being enforced in the state. In Kansas, a law passed last year says federal regulation doesnt apply to guns manufactured in the state. Wyoming, South Dakota and Arizona have had laws protecting firearms freedom from the U.S. government since 2010.

A News21 analysis shows 14 such bills were passed by legislators in 11 states, mainly in Western states, along with Kansas, Tennessee and Alaska. Of those, 11 were signed into law, though one was later struck down in court. In Montana, Missouri and Oklahoma, three others were vetoed.

More than three-quarters of U.S. states have proposed nullification laws since 2008. More than half of those bills have come in the last two years after the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. All but three have been introduced since President Barack Obama took office.

Underneath the policy jargon lies a culture of firearms woven into the heritage and politics of states whose histories were shaped by guns.

(The federal government) is diving off into areas unchecked that theyre not supposed to be involved in, said Montana state Rep. Krayton Kerns, who introduced a bill in 2013 to limit the ability of local police to help enforce federal laws. Not only is it our right in state legislatures to do this, its our obligation to do it. Somebodys got to put a whoa on it.

Opponents say its not federal gun regulation thats unconstitutional, but laws to nullify it.

Read the rest here:
GovBeat: In states, a legislative rush to nullify federal gun laws