Category Archives: Second Amendment

I am fascinated by clever commentaries like Dave Andersons recent submission (If Democrats show respect for the 2nd Amendment, Republicans will compromise on gun safety legislation, June 2). Mr. Anderson seems so earnest in his attempt to bring us all together on the crisis of gun violence in America, but is he?

Mr. Anderson suggests that there is only one thing holding Republicans back from entertaining sensible gun restrictions. And you guessed it, its Democrats. His thesis is that Republicans would be onboard if Democrats would just show respect for the Second Amendment. Thats all.

The writer explains that it is very simple if you threaten what I love, I will fight to keep it. Well, guess what. Most of us love our families, our children and going to public places without the fear of being gunned down indiscriminately by rapid fire assault rifles. And we are ready to fight for that.

This articles real intent seems to be to inject the word, confiscation, into the conversation. Pro-gun advocates use the straw man of confiscation as a shield from meaningful discussion. Confiscation, seriously? No one is scheming to confiscate that gun you love so much, except perhaps those Americans who are burying their children this week after an 18-year-old used his birthday money to buy an AR-15 since he couldnt legally buy beer.

Mr. Anderson sums up his meeting of the minds argument with this: If Democrats show respect for the Second Amendment, compromise is possible. If not, the slaughter will continue.

I have another idea. Why dont Republican lawmakers start showing respect for the Second Amendment? Stop raising money by fear mongering confiscation. Stop glorifying your long rifles on campaign ads and Christmas cards. Show some honest respect for your constituents and start doing the hard work of coming to the table with real ideas for real compromise. If not, the slaughter will continue.

Mitch Vitullo, Columbia

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Why won't Republicans respect the 2nd Amendment and their constituents? | READER COMMENTARY - Baltimore Sun

The leftists who wanted to force you to take a vaccine in order to keep your job and wanted to use a "Disinformation Board" to silence your First Amendment right to speak out against the government now want to eliminate your Second Amendment right to defend yourself and your family.

Our Bill of Rights, which includes the Second Amendment, is crucial to protect our personal liberties from an all-powerful federal government. If anyone questions the power of the modern federal government, think back to the power the federal bureaucracy seized to impose COVID mandates in the name of public safety while at the same time restricting your First Amendment right to challenge those mandates through censorship.

In the wake of the horrific tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, shameless politicians immediately pushed their political agenda of eliminating the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens. President Joe Biden was behind a White House podium within hours to deliver a divisive political speech, claiming we have too many rights and telling us he must take away our rights to make us safer.

Leftists don't care about public safety they are in complete control of Baltimore and Chicago, two of the most dangerous cities in the world. Leftists made these cities more dangerous by releasing criminals during COVID and refusing to prosecute criminals as part of their "woke" agenda. Democrats keep our southern border open for gangs and drug cartels to pass through, and they refuse to cooperate with ICE to deport criminals. These soft-on-crime policies have created a crime wave, which has been exacerbated by the left's "Defund The Police" movement to cut police budgets. Leftist politicians who claim to care about student safety eliminated school resource officers, kicking police officers out of their schools.

These same leftists made children suffer with school closures, COVID lockdowns, and forced masking, which caused spikes in depression, drug use, and suicide. As we all suspected, the Biden administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coordinated with national teachers unions to prolong remote learning and mask mandates for political reasons unsupported by "the science." Now, the Left is confusing children by telling them they have no gender, are not created in the image of God, and can experiment with puberty blockers to change their gender without consequence.

Children are suffering, and we face a mental health crisis in our country because the radical Left has spent decades attacking the role of God in our society, attacking the church, attacking the nuclear family, and dismissing the important role fathers play in raising their sons. The Left tells our children they do not come from God, they are not born for any purpose, and they cannot obtain salvation. The Left embraces abortion without restriction because life has no grand meaning to them, and the ability to create life is not treated with the awe and reverence it deserves.

Conservatives cannot back down under pressure from these radical leftists. We must be strong in defending the central pillars of our society and the constitutional rights of the people, including the Second Amendment. Leftists only care about taking away the rights of law-abiding citizens to make themselves more powerful and to make citizens powerless.

Americans have a fundamental right to keep and bear arms that "shall not be infringed." I will continue to defend our Second Amendment rights as a member of Congress, and I have never supported the Left's gun control agenda or their push for red-flag gun confiscation.

As you watch statements from leftist politicians and liberal media figures attacking the Second Amendment, remember that leftist politicians and celebrities are all protected by walls and guns because they know that walls and guns are effective at keeping themselves and their families safe. Leftists believe they have a right to defend themselves they just don't believe you should have the same rights they do.

In times of tragedy and evil, we turn to our faith in the Lord and are guided by what unites us. As Americans, we are united by our belief that our divine rights come from our creator. As Christians, we are united by a shared purpose to serve God above ourselves. We cannot let those who are attempting to destroy our society's central pillars of family, faith, and freedom succeed. We must work together to defend our rights, our freedoms, and our American way of life.

Rep. Mary Miller is a Republican representing the 15th District of Illinois. She runs a small family farm with her husband, Chris, and is a member of the House Freedom Caucus, Republican Study Committee, and House Second Amendment Caucus.

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Beware the Left's Second Amendment power grab - Washington Examiner

Warren Burger, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Supreme Court, 1969-1986, said and wrote:

The gun lobbys interpretation of the Second Amendment is one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the work fraud, on the American people by special interest groups that I have seen in my lifetime. The real purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that state armiesthe militiawould be maintained for the defense of the state. The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon he or she desires.

Former Chief Justice Warren Burger made his position clear in 1991 In an interview with Public Broadcasting and later in the same year in what we now call an Op-Ed article for the associated press.

It is long past time that we re-started this conversation.

The text of the Second Amendment reads; 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. Firearms are for the use of a militia.

Control of a militia is spelled out in Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution. Congress is To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions. This is what a Militia is supposed to do.

Who tells the militia what to do and who controls it? Section 8 of Article 1 answers those questions: Congress is to provide for organizing, arming and disciplining the Militia and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by congress. Militias, and hence firearms, are completely under Governmental control.

How did we go from this, perfectly clear, outline of ownership and control of firearms to an 18 year old legally purchasing a military grade firearm and slaughtering 19 small children, two adults and inflicting life-changing wounds on 17 others? As Chief Justice Burger indicates, we have been the victims of one of the greatest pieces of fraud on the American public. It isnt just stealing money or goods; it is stealing lives.

The gun lobby went from being gun safety advocates to gun sales advocates and along the way have given rise to a great slaughter of Americans, many of them, children, in defense of a myth. There are many groups advocating myths in this county, but this particular one was reframed as a fundamental right and the cause was taken up by right-wing politicians in pursuit of votes.

This pursuit of election and power resulted in 45,222 firearms deaths in 2020, the last year for which statistics are available of which 24,292 were suicides and 19,384 were homicides. As gun laws loosen around the country, deaths go up. These arent peaceful deaths. Bones are shattered, heads are blown apart, brains splattered and chunks of flesh are ripped from often very young bodies.

The gun culture advocates stand before us defending the ownership of military grade weapons before the children have been buried. Their words and hands drip with the blood of the innocent and yet they continue to advocate for this great fraud; this great myth of the right to ownership of weapons of death. The gun lobby and their allies in congress and state legislatures took 40 years to get control of this issue and we need to reverse the trend, even if it takes another 40 years.

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Fraud and the Second Amendment - InsiderNJ

The argument for citizens wanting to keep their firearms often goes to "They want to take away or Second Amendment", but when it's thought about, citizens don't have a right to own semi-automatic weapons. Even those in the military are not able to keep their military firearms. Also, those in the military have to qualify each year to operate those weapons. So, why do those who are trained to operate those types of firearms have to qualify each year, but regular citizens do not?

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What is the Second Amendment used for? - Free Speech TV

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The conservative movement to expand the scope of the Second Amendment - MSNBC

Local Second Amendment activist James Everard is organizing a counter-protest to the Bell County Democrats March for our lives anti-gun violence event.

The anti-gun violence event will be held from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday at Killeen Community Center Park, 2201 E. Veterans Blvd, while the counter-protest is planned for 11 a.m. at the same location.

Everard said Thursday that his event, called Protect Gun Rights Killeen, is meant to educate residents on gun control and to present an alternate view on what Killeen can do to protect the community from gun-related crimes.

I know why shes doing this, Everard said of Harker Heights Councilwoman and Bell County Democratic Part chairwoman Lynda Nash. She wants to make our community safer, but I dont think she has the firmest grasp of gun laws and firearms technology.

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2nd Amendment activist organizing counter-protest in Killeen - The Killeen Daily Herald

Anthony Akubue| St. Cloud

The tragedy of mass shooting and killing of innocent children and adults has become a regular occurrence and increasingly becoming what our country is associated with worldwide. With each mass shooting that occurs, there is this display of simulated acrimonious debates in the U.S. Senate and House, which then peters out to naught until the next mass shooting. Whither is the beacon of democracy bound and are our politicians purposely dividing our great nation and complicit in the erosion of Abraham Lincolns government of the people, by the people, for the people?

It seems that we the ordinary citizens have become the unsuspecting dupes of politicians whose priority is to retain power. What is it about reasonable gun control that defies understanding? What are the real reasons politicians are enabling us to arm ourselves to the teeth with combat-style assault rifles? This recklessness and irresponsibility conjures up the specter of something calamitous in the offing. Sadly, I see our great country on a trajectory of self-implosion because we insist on hating and detest peaceful coexistence with each other. It does seem we would rather perish together as fools than learn to live together as brother and sisters.

President Eisenhower warned that …we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex; noting that The potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

President Reagan remarked that there is no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying a loaded weapon. He also observed that politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession, but added that he has come to realize that it now bears a very close resemblance to the first.

Why are our politicians condoning citizens perambulating the streets with combat-type assault rifles? Is it because it is constitutional? Is it what the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is all about? The Second Amendment says that A well-regulated militiabeing necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Me and my ignorant self, I dont even know what that statement means; however, I think I know what it doesnt mean in todays reality. It doesnt mean granting private citizens/civilians the same privilege to keep and bear combat-type assault rifles as our men and women in the armed forces protecting and defending our country and citizens against foreign aggression and invasion.

Ours is not a milieu requiring us to be at alert and on guard because the British are coming. Today, one would correctly interpret the people in the Second Amendment as the men and women of the United States armed forces. Of course, the Second Amendment grants our civilian populace the right to keep and bear firearms, but not the AK-47 combat rifles and their ilk. I can imagine the people keeping and bearing muskets in the 18th century, the type Eli Whitney assembled in minutes before Congress with standardized interchangeable parts. These are not automatic or semiautomatic rifles owned by citizens in that era.

How is the man who first shoots his grandmother and then proceeds to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, with an AR-15 rifle to kill 19 children, two adults, and wounding others on May 24, 2022, defending himself or his home? AR-15 is definitely not Eli Whitneys musket.

The scary thing is that the frequency of mass shooting is increasing, not decreasing. The mass shooting on South Street in Philadelphia Saturday, June 5, 2022, which killed three people and inflicting 11 with major injuries, was the ninth mass shooting in the city of Philadelphia this year already. The worse thing is that it appears we are becoming numb to gruesome cases of mass shooting in our country as political charlatans and demagogues spew incendiary speeches that divide us.

We may choose to hate and detest peaceful co-existence with each other, but like it or not, we are stuck together for the long haul. I dont know why Frank Leahy remarked that egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity, but may God help us all!

This is the opinion of St. Cloud residentAnthonyAkubue. Submit a Your Turn of your own by emailing it to columns@stcloudtimes.com.

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Your Turn: This can't be what the founders had in mind - SC Times

Washington As lawmakers at the state and federal level mount renewed efforts to enact stricter gun control laws in response to the latest mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the Supreme Court is poised to issue its most significant Second Amendment ruling in more than a decade.

The decision from the high court in a dispute over New York's stringent licensing regime for carrying concealed handguns outside the home could come as soon as next week, setting it against the backdrop of two mass shootings in a span of 10 days that shocked the nation the first, a racist attack at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York, that left10 dead; the second at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas where 19 students and two teachers were killed.

New York's rules require a resident seeking a license to carry a firearm outside the home to demonstrate a "proper cause" to obtain one, which state courts have said is a "special need for self-protection." Challengers to the law argue the Second Amendment protects the right to carry firearms outside the home for self defense, while supporters warn invalidating the restrictions could lead to more firearms on the streets.

Following oral arguments in November in the case, known as New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a majority of the court appeared poised to invalidate the New York law, though the scope of a forthcoming decision on the right to carry outside the home remains unclear.

Joseph Blocher, a law professor at Duke University and co-director of its Center for Firearms Law, said it's unlikely the Supreme Court finds all permit requirements for public carry of handguns to be unconstitutional, which would be a sweeping decision mandating nationwide permitless carry. Instead, the high court could strike down the New York law on the grounds it is too strict or gives too much discretion to state licensing officials.

Either way, Blocher predicted that a decision from the Supreme Court to invalidate New York's rules could prompt states to shift their focus to new restrictions that prohibit firearms in sensitive spaces, such as in bars.

The prospect of location-specific restrictions on public carry was an issue raised by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in November, as they questioned whether a city or state could ban guns on university campuses, in football stadiums or in Times Square. Justice Clarence Thomas and Elena Kagan, meanwhile, questioned the potential for varying degrees of regulation based on the density of the population.

"It seems completely intuitive that there should be different gun regimes in New York than in Wyoming or that there should be different gun regimes in New York City than in rural counties upstate," Kagan said. "But it's a hard thing to make with our notion of constitutional rights generally."

Blocher, though, noted that throughout the nation's history, guns have been regulated more in urban areas than in rural places.

"Rules about permit requirements or open carry and the kinds of guns people possess might be tailored to the communities where they're being used," he said, adding that Thomas appeared open to the notion that the "urban-rural divide could play a role in charting the boundaries of the Second Amendment going forward."

The New York case is the most significant involving gun rights that the justices have heard since 2008, when the high court ruled the Second Amendment protects the right to have a handgun in the home for self-defense, and in 2010, when the court said the right applies to the states.

Writing for the majority in 2008's Heller v. District of Columbia, which involved D.C.'s handgun ban, Justice Antonin Scalia noted a rise in handgun violence nationwide and said the Constitution leaves the government a "variety of tools for combatting that problem, including some measures regulating handguns," but the court provided little guidance as to what gun restrictions are constitutionally permissible.

Since then, the 2008 decision is often cited by both sides of the gun control debate as a reason against enacting new firearms regulations and as the reason why gun violence has continued to rise in the U.S.

Nelson Lund, a law professor at George Mason University who is an expert on the Second Amendment, said the forthcoming ruling in the New York legal fight could allow the court to clear up uncertainties left after the Heller decision.

"There are so many questions left unanswered by Heller, and ever since that case was decided in 2008, people have been arguing about what it implies," he said. "You can make arguments on both sides because Heller was written in a way that allowed people to do that."

Lund noted that a decision from the high court voiding New York's concealed-carry licensing framework could jeopardize regimes in other states at least six allow a person to carry a firearm in public only if they demonstrate a need to do so though that raises the question of what law then could replace those rules.

"They could write an opinion that basically has very little effect beyond invalidating this particular statute, or they could also write an opinion that gives a lot of guidance about how far state and local governments may go," he said.

Amid the wait for the Supreme Court's decision in the challenge to New York's limits, the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde have spurned new attempts by elected officials at the state and federal levels to change laws to curb gun violence.

In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said the state "must reassess the twin issues of school safety and mass violence" and requested state legislative leaders convene special legislative committees to develop recommendations on issues to prevent future school shootings, including mental health and gun safety.

And in Congress, a bipartisan group of senators has been meeting this week to find common ground on new firearms laws.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in a statement Wednesday that he and Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, are working through details of a measure focusing on "red flag" laws, which allow courts to order the confiscation of firearms from those threatening to harm themselves or others. He is also discussing with senators a plan for the safe storage of firearms.

Sen. Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine who is also involved in gun control talks, said negotiators are "making rapid progress toward a common sense package" that could garner bipartisan support.

The House Judiciary Committee is meeting to consider eight different gun control measures that together will be packaged as the "Protecting Our Kids Act" and taken up by the full House next week. Among the bills are plans to raise the minimum purchasing age for semiautomatic rifles from 18 to 21, ban large-capacity magazines and establish requirements regulating the storage of firearms on residential facilities.

Any legislation that clears the House, though, must be able to garner 60 votes to advance in the evenly divided Senate.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has blessed the attempt at bipartisan negotiations to reach consensus on laws to reduce gun violence, but he warned last week that the Senate will proceed with a vote on gun control legislation in the near future even if the talks fail.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said during an event in Kentucky on Wednesday that the discussions are meant to "see if we can find a way forward consistent with the Second Amendment that targets the problems."

But Blocher said the failure by Congress to enact new limits on firearms has more to do with politics than constitutional bounds.

"Politically, we are nowhere near the limits that the Supreme Court has set out. In Heller, the Supreme Court made clear that a potentially wide range of gun regulations are perfectly constitutional, and thus far we have for political reasons not taken advantage of that, whether it's expanded background checks or extreme-risk laws or other possibilities as well. The [New York] case could change that, but I expect the court will recognize gun rights and regulations can go hand-in-hand like they have for all of American history," he said. "The greatest obstacle to gun regulations in the United States is political, not judicial."

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Upcoming Supreme Court ruling in major Second Amendment case looms over calls for new gun laws - CBS News

What is the Second Amendment?

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives Americans the right to bear arms. It states:

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.

Bill of Rights

The Second Amendment is one of 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, collectively called the Bill of Rights. These amendments were written to protect individual Americans from tyrannical rule and include the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of speech, religion and press, and the Seventh Amendment, which proclaims the right of a trial by jury in civil cases. Other rights include the right to due process and freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

Historical perspective

When the Founding Fathers added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution in 1791, they wanted to protect individuals from potentially dangerous central and state governments. Most scholars say the Constitution might not have been ratified without the 10 amendments, as many Americans feared the power of a centralized government and military. Much of that fear stemmed from laws the British imposed in the lead-up to the American Revolution, including levying taxes that were deemed too high and depriving some colonists of the right to bear arms.

A well regulated Militia

Legal scholars have debated the Founding Fathers intentions with respect to the Second Amendment. Those who support gun control measures often argue that the Founders intentions was only for well-regulated forces authorized by state governments to have access to weapons, and not for all individuals to be able to bear arms. Those who oppose restrictions on gun rights say the Second Amendment protects the right of ordinary citizens to own weapons and argue that the Founders included the words a well-regulated militia as just one example of why citizens could be in need of arms.

What have courts said?

In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects a persons right to own firearms unconnected to military service and allows them to use those weapons for lawful purposes, including self-defense. Courts have also upheld a range of laws that put some restrictions on gun ownership, including for reasons of age, prior criminal convictions and issues of mental health.

Gun culture

Thirty percent of all Americans own a gun, while 42% live in a household with a gun, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center survey. Guns have long been a part of the countrys history and culture from its days fighting the American Revolution and exploring the Wild West and continue to be an enduring part of life for many people. However, the right to self-defense, while long held in the country, has in recent decades started to come under question in the wake of numerous high-profile mass shootings and a rise of gun violence that has led to guns becoming the leading cause of death among children and teens.

Gun control

Because of the Second Amendment and Americas long history with gun ownership, the gun control debate in the country generally focuses not on questions of whether or not citizens have the right to bear arms, but over matters of who should have access to guns and which weapons should be legal. Even those questions have been difficult for politicians to come to agreement over, with Congress unable to act on the issue for more than a decade.

World comparisons

America has more guns per person than anywhere else in the world, according to a 2018 report by the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based organization. U.S. gun owners possess 393.3 million weapons, higher than the countrys population of 330 million, according to the report. The Small Arms Survey says India has the second-highest number of civilian-owned firearms, with 71.1 million for its population of 1.4 billion.

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What is the Second Amendment? - Voice of America - VOA News

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A Washington Post reporter argued on Tuesday that conservative groups reinterpreted the Second Amendment to claim individuals have a right to own a gun.

Staff writer Amber Phillips explained in an analysis titled "How the Second Amendment was reinterpreted to protect individual rights" that historians claim the amendments protection of individual gun rights is a "relatively recent reading" pushed by conservative groups rather than the text of the Second Amendment.

"The historical consensus is that, for most of American history, the amendment was understood to concern the use of guns in connection with militia service. The Founding Fathers were likely focused on keeping state militias from being disarmed, said Joseph Blocher, who specializes in the Second Amendment at Duke Universitys law school," Phillips wrote.

Joseph Blocher similarly attributed claims that the amendment protects individual rights "to a relatively recent political push by gun rights groups to reinterpret the Constitution."

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Bodyguard with gun indoor home (iStock)

"There has been a decades-long and very successful movement to change the public perception of what the Second Amendment is for," Blocher said.

Phillips also cited Yale law professor Reva Siegel insisting that "an individuals right to use guns in self-defense is not expressly written in the Constitution."

"The interpretation that the Second Amendment extends to individuals rights to own guns only became mainstream in 2008, when the Supreme Court ruled in a landmark gun case, District of Columbia vs. Heller, that Americans have a constitutional right to own guns in their homes, knocking down the Districts handgun ban," Phillips wrote.

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Comedian Dean Obeidallah echoed this view in an MSNBC column on Saturday in which he insisted the individuals right to own a firearm came from a "cravenly political" Supreme Court following the Heller decision rather than the Constitution.

Phillips concluded with a quote from Saint Josephs University professor Susan Liebell suggesting that an upcoming gun case in the Supreme Court could expand gun rights even further.

"We have moved to more and more radical interpretation of the Second Amendment," Liebell said.

With loaded firearms in hand and flags all around people gather for a 5 Mile Open Carry March for Freedom organized by Florida Gun Supply in Inverness, Florida, U.S. July 4, 2016. (REUTERS)

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In 2021, the Supreme Court announced it will hear the case New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen. The case focuses on whether people have the right to carry a firearm in public for self-defense. The court is expected to announce its decision in the next few days or weeks.

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Washington Post reporter claims the Second Amendment was reinterpreted to include individual gun rights - Fox News