Thread: Summer gun wars: Jesse Jackson leads the way

NYT Hopes For SCOTUS Gun Grab
By Warner Todd Huston
November 21, 2007 - 10:03 ET

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/warner-...cotus-gun-grab

The "paper of record" once again makes like a broken record with another prosaic call to take away guns from the average American. The New York Times again displays its complete disregard of the Constitution in an editorial titled, "The Court and the Second Amendment", claiming our founding law is out of date and doesn't "confront modern-day reality." In another editorial filled with extreme language, untrue definitions and arrogance, and cementing its reputation against self-defense and American principles, the Times addressed the recent decision by the Supreme Court to soon take on the DC Gun banning reversal case.

Hitting all its best low notes and filled with propaganda-laced verbiage, the Times again made the case that you, Mr. and Mrs. America, are too stupid and filled with bloodlust to be trusted with a firearm... quite despite that musty, stupid old, out of date Constitution thingie.

It's hard to believe such a small editorial can have so many lies, distortions and misconceptions but the Times really packed them into this rant. Nearly every paragraph has something that is either incorrect technically, or just plain propagandistic. I'll take each paragraph one at a time here:

By agreeing yesterday to rule on whether provisions of the District of Columbia’s stringent gun control law violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court has inserted itself into a roiling public controversy with large ramifications for public safety. The court’s move sowed hope and fear among supporters of reasonable gun control, and it ratcheted up the suspense surrounding the court’s current term.

The Supreme Court "inserted itself into a roiling public controversy," New York Times? Like most cases, this one came TO them, the SCOTUS didn't go out to actively seek this case. And, notice the soft selling of their attempts to advocate for a reversal of the Constitutional right by calling the issue a "public safety" issue? No, it is a rights issue, not a "public safety" issue, Times, and you know it. By trying to reframe this debate as a "safety" issue, you are purposefully trying to pretend it has nothing to do with your plans to eliminate a Constitutionally guaranteed right to self-protection. It is also amusing that you call your gun grabbing "reasonable." I am sure that totalitarians everywhere, in every age termed their desires to disarm the public "reasonable" before they undertook that outrage. It was quite a smooth propaganda effort there, though, Times, so props for trying to hide behind misleading language. I am sure your attempts at subterfuge might fool some.

The hope, which we share, is that the court will rise above the hard-right ideology of some justices to render a decision respectful of the Constitution’s text and the violent consequences of denying government broad room to regulate guns. The fear is that it will not.

Again, terming this court one of "hard-right ideology" is amusing, not subtle, but amusing none-the-less. Your extremist language was followed by an even more amusing claim that your efforts coincide with a desire to be " respectful of the Constitution’s text." I'm sorry, but that is just an outright lie. You want guns removed from the hands of We the People, yet the text you claim to "respect" says that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." So, um, What part of "shall not be infringed" implies that guns can be banned, exactly?

At issue is a 2-to-1 ruling last March by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that found unconstitutional a law barring handguns in homes and requiring that shotguns and rifles be stored with trigger locks or disassembled. The ruling upheld a radical decision by a federal trial judge, who struck down the 31-year-old gun control law on spurious grounds that conform with the agenda of the anti-gun control lobby but cry out for rejection by the Supreme Court.

There's even more propaganda in this paragraph. Notice the "The ruling upheld a radical decision" part? Sorry, Times, but it is only a "radical decision" because you disagree with it. But, it's nice that you can keep the extremist language up in every paragraph. At least you are consistent!

Much hinges on how the justices interpret the Second Amendment, which says: “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.”

Well, OK, not every paragraph is filled with propaganda. They got one out of 7 sans the extremism.

Opponents of gun control sometimes claim a constitutional prohibition on any serious regulation of individual gun ownership. The court last weighed in on the amendment in 1939, concluding, correctly in our view, that the only absolute right conferred on individuals is for the private ownership of guns that has "some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well-regulated militia." The federal, state and local governments may impose restrictions on other uses -- like the trigger guards -- or outright bans on types of weapons. Appellate courts followed that interpretation, until last spring’s departure.

Again, with the couched terminology, this time calling gun bans "serious" as if those who are more interested in Constitutional rights are not serious.



Next the Times goes into its assumptions that the Constitution isn't any good anymore because it has somehow gone out-of-date.

A lot has changed since the nation’s founding, when people kept muskets to be ready for militia service. What has not changed is the actual language of the Constitution. To get past the first limiting clauses of the Second Amendment to find an unalienable individual right to bear arms seems to require creative editing.

Yes, NYT, a lot has changed in 200 years. The Founders didn't imagine that Newspapers would be transmitted electronically, either. Should we throw out the 1st Amendment because the Founders didn't know about that technological advancement or should we realize that the basic rights of a free press are sacrosanct and correct? See, we can use the "living document" theory the Times subscribes to for eliminating or "updating" any right at all can't we? Of course, that would make them suggestions and not rights, now wouldn't it?

Beyond grappling with fairly esoteric arguments about the Second Amendment, the justices need to responsibly confront modern-day reality. A decision that upends needed gun controls currently in place around the country would imperil the lives of Americans.

So, as the Times tries its level best to cloud this issue with their couched, misleading language, they have the gall to say the argument is "esoteric" as if you lowly citizens out there are just not up to the challenge of the discussion. And with the final lie in the face of facts, the Times claims that gun bans help prevent gun crimes when study upon study shows just the opposite. In fact, the very city from which this case hails, the District of Columbia, has some of the highest crime rates and murder stats in the entire country and yet some of the most strict gun laws. Just on its face that fact says loads about the falsity of the Times' argument.

I agree with the Times on two points, though. It will be an interesting case and there truly is "fear" surrounding this important issue for this case is one fraught with implications for our nation, its laws, and our status as free citizens. Do we follow the Times down the path to an America that finds that its citizens have become as chattel slaves to a government that has summarily removed their right to self-defense as befits a free people? Or do we uphold the real language of the Constitution as well as the intent that the Founders had for the individual right to bear arms?

Sadly, we must wait for an unelected few to make that determination. Just as sadly we have one of the oldest papers in the country angling to eliminate our rights.



The second amendment doesn't confront modern day reality? Are they insane? Given that privately owned firearms are used an estimated 2+ million times per year to foil crimes in this country?

But, let's neglect the implied self-protection aspect of the second amendment for the moment. Have second amendment rights being exercised, or the threat of such exercise, ever caused the government to revise an unpopular policy in modern times?

The answer to that question is "Yes!" It wasn't too long ago, the legislature of the State of Oklahoma realized that renters were not paying the personal property tax. The reasoning of the non-payers was that "I paid sales tax on my television, electronics, appliances, etc., when I bought it. It's mine. I'm not going to pay the state for the use of my own purchases." So, the state legislature in its infinite wisdom, passed a law, which the governor signed, authorizing the state's county tax assessors to enter a dwelling, without a search warrant, in order to inventory and assess the value of the personal possesions therein for the purpose of taxation. The state legislature and county tax assessors recieved several thousands of letters and phone calls telling them to hire a bunch more assessors, because "If the s.o.b. comes in my house, I'll kill him." The assessors refused to enforce that law, and the legislature repealed that very short-lived law.

How is that for "confronting modern reality" NYT?

November 21, 2007
New York Times Editorial
The Court and the Second Amendment

By agreeing yesterday to rule on whether provisions of the District of Columbia’s stringent gun control law violate the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the Supreme Court has inserted itself into a roiling public controversy with large ramifications for public safety. The court’s move sowed hope and fear among supporters of reasonable gun control, and it ratcheted up the suspense surrounding the court’s current term.

The hope, which we share, is that the court will rise above the hard-right ideology of some justices to render a decision respectful of the Constitution’s text and the violent consequences of denying government broad room to regulate guns. The fear is that it will not.

At issue is a 2-to-1 ruling last March by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit that found unconstitutional a law barring handguns in homes and requiring that shotguns and rifles be stored with trigger locks or disassembled. The ruling upheld a radical decision by a federal trial judge, who struck down the 31-year-old gun control law on spurious grounds that conform with the agenda of the anti-gun control lobby but cry out for rejection by the Supreme Court.

Much hinges on how the justices interpret the Second Amendment, which says: “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.”

Opponents of gun control sometimes claim a constitutional prohibition on any serious regulation of individual gun ownership. The court last weighed in on the amendment in 1939, concluding, correctly in our view, that the only absolute right conferred on individuals is for the private ownership of guns that has “some reasonable relationship to the preservation of efficiency of a well-regulated militia.” The federal, state and local governments may impose restrictions on other uses — like the trigger guards — or outright bans on types of weapons. Appellate courts followed that interpretation, until last spring’s departure.

A lot has changed since the nation’s founding, when people kept muskets to be ready for militia service. What has not changed is the actual language of the Constitution. To get past the first limiting clauses of the Second Amendment to find an unalienable individual right to bear arms seems to require creative editing.

Beyond grappling with fairly esoteric arguments about the Second Amendment, the justices need to responsibly confront modern-day reality. A decision that upends needed gun controls currently in place around the country would imperil the lives of Americans.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/21/op...gewanted=print


Never forget that the New York Times believes that they are the "pulse" of the nation and their deliberate intent to shape the debate is critical to its agenda. The Times attempt to proclaim that the constitution is out-dated on this issue speaks volumes as to what level the Times think they have more intelligence than what the founding fathers intended, which was to insure the right of individuals to keep and bear arms so that no government would be in a position to become a monarchy or a dictatorship by force of arms.

The Times overlooks this basic principal that our founding fathers understood to protect the individual. This error in judgement by the Times proves their questionable intelligence.

Modern reality is that the Federal and local governments have never been larger or more powerful.

Modern reality is that we have never needed to be an armed citizenry more than we do now.

Modern reality includes Waco and Ruby Ridge, the failed AWB, and 9/11 which could have been prevented if passengers had carried guns.

http://www.usdoj.gov/olc/secondamendment2.pdf

Sorry NYT. This is the Department of Justice's research report on the 2nd Amendment. It discusses the language and intent of the amendment, and clarifies that RKBA is an individual right, and is NOT contingent on such entanglements as service in a militia. In fact it traces how such interpretations crept into popular thinking, and how they are aberrations of the original intent.

PLEASE read it! It answers all the anti-gun arguments.

In fact, don't just read it - download it, keep it handy, and make use of the info it contains. You might consider sharing the link with other interested parties, so that the info gets out where it's needed.

Oh, and remember, the Constitution and Bill of Rights do NOT "grant" rights. They affirm rights that are ours inherently ("endowed by their Creator"). The reason for enumerating them was to make it difficult for those in governance to ignore them or brush them aside.

---

Yahoos should check out some of these statistics... I can't believe the stupidity and ignorant assertions Moonbats make. We couldn't expect any more from NYT, though, could we?

http://www.nraila.org//Issues/FactSh...ead.aspx?ID=73



There's a LOT more where these came from, but these caught my eye...

oooppsss ...

You don't have to be a "gun nut" to know your basic American rights!
Why does the U. S. Government want to take guns away from its citizens while the U. S. Government is the biggest supplier of arms throughout the world! The U. S. Govt is always sending arms to various countries fighting oppression. Funny , huh??!!??

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE

"Those who hammer their guns into plows, will plow for those who do not."
~ Thomas Jefferson

(This is why Ted Kennedy, Jesse Jackson, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and the NYTs want gun control so badly!)

1. An armed man is a citizen.
An unarmed man is a subject.


2. A gun in the hand
is better than a cop on the phone.


3. Colt: The original point and click interface.


4. Gun control is not about guns;
it's about control.


5. If guns are outlawed,
can we use swords?


6. If guns cause crime,
then pencils cause misspelled words.


7. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms.


8. If you don't know your rights,
you don't have any.


9. Those who trade liberty
for security
have neither.


10. The United States Constitution
(c) 1791.
All Rights Reserved.


11. What part of "shall not be infringed"
do you not understand?


12. The Second Amendment is in place
in case the politicians
ignore the others.


13. 64,999,987 firearms owners
killed no one yesterday.


14. Guns only have two enemies;
rust and politicians.


15. Know guns, know peace, know safety.
No guns, no peace, no safety.


16. You don't shoot to kill;
you shoot to stay alive.


17. Assault is a behavior,
not a device.


18. Criminals love gun control;
it makes their jobs safer.


19. If guns cause crime,
then matches cause arson.


20. Only a government
that is afraid of its citizens
tries to control them.


21. You have only the rights
you are willing to fight for.


22. Enforce the gun control laws
we ALREADY have;
don't make more.


23. When you remove the people's right to bear arms,
you create slaves.


24. The American Revolution
would never have happened
with gun control.

IF YOU, AGREE, PASS THIS "REFRESHER" ON TO FREE CITIZENS

San Francisco Handgun Ban Overturned,
MSM Yawns
By Ken Shepherd
January 14, 2008 - 16:30 ET

On January 9, a California appeals court struck down San Francisco's 2005 ban on handguns, citing that local governments lack authority under California law to enact such a ban.

While this is a state law struck down on state constitutional grounds, not the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, it is a major victory for gun rights advocates -- in a liberal Democratic state no less -- in a presidential election year in which the Supreme Court of the United States is hearing a 2nd Amendment case in March (District of Columbia v. Heller).

Yet while the San Francisco Chronicle's Bob Egelko covered the story on January 10, I'm having trouble finding any coverage elsewhere in the media. When searching Nexis, I found no coverage of the San Francisco gun ban story in the New York Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, nor broadcast networks ABC, CBS, or NBC.

Meanwhile, as the Chronicle's Egelko noted in a January 14 story, San Francisco's district attorney has filed a friend-of-the-court brief backing the District of Columbia in its appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the District's 1976 handgun ban: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../MNSDUE535.DTL

Prosecutors led by the district attorneys of San Francisco and New York are urging the U.S. Supreme Court not to recognize a broad individual right to gun ownership that could endanger state and local firearms laws.

The court is preparing to hear arguments in March on the constitutionality of a Washington, D.C., ban on handgun possession, with a ruling due by the end of June. A federal appeals court ruled last March that the ban violated the Second Amendment's right to keep and bear arms - the first time a gun-control law had been struck down on that basis.

In arguments filed Friday, 18 elected prosecutors, led by Kamala Harris of San Francisco and Robert Morgenthau of New York, said a similar ruling by the Supreme Court could cast doubt on numerous gun laws, ranging from bans on assault weapons to increased sentences for using a firearm during a crime.

Last week the MSM were obsessed with the supposed sea change in the Democratic race with Clinton's "comeback" in New Hampshire, and, to be fair, the primary race rightly was topic A in the news last week.

Yet the fact that the MSM are not tracking legal and political developments in what could well prove to be a sleeper issue this election season just goes to show the MSM's deficiencies in tracking issues of political substance. The fact that Democrats have been gun shy of pushing gun control for fear of being trounced at the polls by 2nd Amendment-supporting voters could also explain the media's reticence about reporting on conservative victories on this issue.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-she...urned-msm-yawn

Justices take up gun rights in D.C. case
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Mar 17, 7:42 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court gets to write on a blank slate when it takes up the meaning of the Second Amendment "right to keep and bear arms" and the District of Columbia's ban on handguns.

The nine justices have said almost nothing about gun rights, and their predecessors have likewise given no definitive answer to whether the Constitution protects an individual's right to own guns or whether that right is somehow tied to service in a state militia.

The case that will be argued Tuesday is among the most closely watched of the term, drawing 68 briefs from outside groups. Most of those support an individual's right to own a gun.

"This may be one of the only cases in our lifetime when the Supreme Court is going to interpret an important provision of our Constitution unencumbered by precedent," said Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett.

Even if they determine there is an individual right, the justices still will have to decide whether the capital's 32-year-old handgun ban can stand and how to evaluate other gun control laws. This issue has caused division within the Bush administration, with Vice President Dick Cheney taking a harder line than the administration's official position at the court.

The local Washington government argues that its law should be allowed to remain in force whether or not the amendment applies to individuals, although it reads the amendment as intended to allow states to have armed forces.

The City Council that adopted the ban said it was justified because "handguns have no legitimate use in the purely urban environment of the District of Columbia."

Dick Anthony Heller, 65, an armed security guard, sued the District after it rejected his application to keep a handgun at his home — about a mile from the court — for protection. His lawyers say the amendment plainly protects an individual's right.

In a sign of the heightened interest in the case, about 50 people already were in line outside the court by late afternoon Monday. Jason McCrory, 23, of Lancaster County, Pa., was in the first slot, having arrived at 5:30 p.m. Sunday. "The main reason and purpose for the Second Amendment is that people should be able to defend themselves," McCrory said.

The 27 words and three enigmatic commas of the Second Amendment have been analyzed again and again by legal scholars, but hardly at all by the Supreme Court.

The 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."

The last Supreme Court ruling on the topic came in 1939 in U.S. v. Miller, which involved a sawed-off shotgun. Constitutional scholars disagree over what that case means but agree it did not squarely answer the question of individual versus collective rights.

Chief Justice John Roberts said at his confirmation hearing that the correct reading of the Second Amendment was "still very much an open issue."

Heller lost his suit in U.S. District Court in Washington. But by a 2-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down the handgun ban. Notably, it was the first appeals court to strike down a gun control law on the basis of an individual's Second Amendment rights.

In 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft reversed long-standing Justice Department policy when he asserted that the Second Amendment protects individuals' rights. The administration's brief in this case holds to that view.

But Solicitor General Paul Clement told the court that reasonable restrictions should be allowed and warns that federal laws restricting sales of machine guns and barring felons from owning guns, among others, could be threatened under the appeals court ruling. Clement wants the court to send the case back to lower courts without deciding whether the handgun ban is reasonable.

Clement's brief was harshly criticized by supporters of gun rights. Cheney joined majorities in both the House and Senate in signing a brief that says a handgun ban is clearly unreasonable. Experts on the court could recall no other case in which a vice president took a public position disagreeing with the administration he serves.

Barnett is among those on both sides of the issue who believe the practical effect of the court's ruling will be limited.

Forty-four state constitutions contain some form of gun rights, which are not affected by the court's consideration of Washington's restrictions.

"There is almost no other enacted gun law that would be threatened by this case," Barnett said.

The case is Heller v. District of Columbia, 07-290.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080317/...xsud2gwRNh24cA

On the Net:

Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov

Gun rights is biggest issue for court to decide
By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jun 15, 3:09 PM ET

WASHINGTON - One momentous case down, another equally historic decision to go. The Supreme Court returns to the bench Monday with 17 cases still unresolved, including its first-ever comprehensive look at the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

The guns case — including Washington, D.C.'s ban on handguns — is widely expected to be a victory for supporters of gun rights. Top officials of a national gun control organization said this week that they expect the handgun ban to be struck down, but they are hopeful other gun regulations will survive.

Last week, the court delivered the biggest opinion of the term to date with its ruling, sharply contested by the dissenting justices, that guarantees some constitutional rights to foreign terrorism detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The 5-4 decision, which Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for his four more liberal colleagues, was the first case this term that broke along ideological lines.

The conservative-liberal split was seen frequently last term, including in cases that limited abortion rights, reined in voluntary school desegregation plans, made it harder to sue for pay discrimination and prodded the Bush administration to combat global warming by regulating tailpipe emissions. Kennedy was the only justice in the majority in all those cases, siding with conservatives in all but the global-warming dispute.

It's hardly unusual that the cases that take until late spring to resolve are the most contentious and most likely to produce narrow majorities.

The dispute over gun rights poses several important questions. Although the Second Amendment was ratified in 1791, the court has never definitively said what it means to have a right to keep and bear arms. The justices also could indicate whether, even with a strong statement in support of gun rights, Washington's handgun ban and other gun control laws can be upheld.

Officials at the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence said recently that they expect Washington's 32-year-old handgun ban to fall but believe that background checks, limits on large-volume gun sales and prohibitions on certain categories of weapons can survive.

In addition to the guns case, the justices are still weighing whether Exxon Mobil Corp. has to pay a $2.5 billion punitive damages judgment over the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska in 1989 and whether people convicted of raping children may be executed.

Exxon has been fighting an Alaska jury's verdict for 14 years, contending that the $3.5 billion it already has spent following the worst oil spill in U.S. history is enough. The jury initially awarded $5 billion to 33,000 commercial fishermen, Native Alaskans, landowners, businesses and local governments, but a federal appeals court cut the verdict in half.

Some justices appeared, based on their comments when the case was argued in February, to favor cutting the judgment further. Justice Samuel Alito is sitting out the case because he owns $100,000 to $250,000 in Exxon stock.

Also awaiting a decision is the case of a man sentenced to death in Louisiana after he was convicted of raping his 8-year-old stepdaughter. Only five states — Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas are the others — allow executions for the rape of a child, but only Louisiana has imposed death sentences on people convicted of the crime.

The Supreme Court banned executions for rape in 1977 in a case in which the victim was an adult woman. The last executions for rape or any other crime that did not include a victim's death were in 1964.

Retirements typically are announced at the end of the term, although it would be a huge surprise if anyone decided to retire this year with a presidential election looming and little prospect of a nominee being confirmed before then.

Five justices, though, will be at least 70 by the time the court reconvenes in October. Justice John Paul Stevens is 88, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 75, Justice Antonin Scalia is 72, Kennedy will turn 72 in July and Justice Stephen Breyer will celebrate his 70th birthday in August.

On the Net: Supreme Court: http://www.supremecourtus.gov

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080615/...idJ02Fr2ys0NUE