I am about half-way through reading a legal opinion written for the US Attorney General on the question whether the second amendment secures an individual right. Enemies of our right to keep and bear arms like to point to the preamble of the second amendment "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, . . . " as limiting the application of this right to members of a militia or to states. The opinion concludes, based on 60+ pages of solid legal reasoning, that the second amendment secures a right of individuals generally, not a right of States or a right restricted to persons serving in militias. If you have serious interest in the battles to preserve our second amendment rights, you ought to read this document. It will provide good basis for arguments with enemies of the second amendment. Find the document at:
www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.htm
One of the discussions is of the historical context of individual rights to keep and bear arms and points out that it has long been a ploy of the aristocrats or the conquoring parties (barbarian tribes overrunning Rome and the Norman Conquest in England) to restrain the common people from owning arms, not just as a matter of self-preservation to avoid an uprising against the aristocrats, but simply to keep the common people under the aristocrats's thumbs, to keep them in a low condition. While pretty far removed from the heaviest arguments of this legal opinion, this resonates with my feeling about why liberals try to stuff gun control down our throats. In my opinion it is simply a matter of subordinating us to and making us dependent upon the government. We are too weak and stupid and base to be granted the grace of protecting ourselves from threats to our person and/or our property. This protection will be provided to us -- in the slow course of time, and free from much accountability to us for the quality of the provisioning -- by the government.
Anyway, read the legal opinion. We should demand supreme court justices who are on-board with the understanding of the second amendment and its context illuminated by this legal opinion.
Your reading assignment . . .
