SOMETHING PARTICULARLY AMERICAN ABOUT GUNS IN THE
HANDS OF FREE MEN
By Don Feder
July 3, 2008
Of all the inanities uttered in the wake of the Supreme
Court’s magnificent affirmation of the Second Amendment in District of Columbia v. Heller, my favorite was on The Huffington
Post, where someone named Cenk Uygur (sounds like a Guantanamo guest)
disclosed: “I believe in gun control. I believe that guns do kill people. In
fact, they are designed to kill things. It is indisputable that they make
killing a lot easier. That’s what they’re made for.” Do tell.
Having discovered that guns in fact do not build habitats
for humanity, mentor inner-city children or serve as medical missionaries, Uygur is remorselessly driven to the inescapable conclusion
that “guns do kill people.” And they say the left is clueless.
At the same time, the slogan “guns kill people,” is a
window on the left’s tortured psyche.
Guns
are used to kill people. Guns do not possess consciousness and hence are
incapable of making moral choices. (See: inanimate objects) Rather the sentient
being who pulls the trigger kills. The killing can be
a noble act – defending innocent life, hearth and home – or a barbarity. The
left is incapable of differentiating between the two.
Others with a liberal disability were equally insightful.
“I am profoundly disappointed in Justice Roberts and Justice Alito (Bush’s two
appointees who were part of the 5-4 majority in Heller), both of whom
assured us of their respect for precedent,” whined Senator Dianne Feinstein (D,
California). In other words, they promised they’d defer to the fantasies of
past liberal courts, and yet here they are adhering to the Constitution’s plain
language and obvious meaning. The nerve!
“”More handguns will lead to more handgun violence,”
chanted DC Mayor Adrian Fenty, repeating a favorite
gun-grabber mantra. Since the District’s virtual ban on private possession of handguns
went into effect, its murder rate has tripled.
Writing for the court’s non compos mentis minority in Heller, Justice John Paul Stevens
lamented that the majority “would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the
Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing
to regulate civilian use of weapons.”
You bet, just like 200 years ago the Framers made a choice
to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate the
exercise of free speech. (See: First Amendment.) Stevens apparently doesn’t
realize that the DC law was a ban – I think that’s why it was called a ban – and
not a tool used to “regulate civilian use of weapons.”
The left is once again caught in a classic bind of its own
making. For years it’s been telling us that the voice of the High Court is the
voice of God -- that the Constitution is whatever five
of nine justices say it is, regardless of plain language, logic or the
historical record.
Now, liberals are saying that the Court has made a
horrendous mistake – that it has misinterpreted a key provision of the
Constitution, which would suggest that the Supremes in fact are fallible –
which implies that the Constitution exists above and beyond shifting majorities
on the Supreme Court.
So, maybe Lawrence v.
Texas (which concocted a constitutional right to sodomy) was wrong. Maybe Kelso v.
In the case at hand, the Court is manifestly correct. While
the words abortion and sodomy appear nowhere in the Constitution, the right to
keep and bear arms is there for all to see.
The Second Amendment provides, “A well regulated militia
being necessary to the security of a
For years, the left has been telling us that “militia” is
the National Guard and that the Founding Fathers were simply guaranteeing that
the federal government would never disarm state militias.
However, as Associate Justice Antonin
Scalia -- writing for the majority in Heller -- noted, wherever the first ten
amendments to the Constitution attribute a right to the “people” (as in the
“right of the people to peaceably assemble” or “the right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects”) they refer to an
individual right. So why, in the Second Amendment, does the “people” suddenly
become a collective?
In fact, the Founding Fathers believed fervently in
individual gun ownership. Were they around today, the left would call them “gun
nuts.”
As James
Madison stated in The Federalist Papers (No. 46), “The ultimate
authority…resides in the people alone… The advantage of being
armed, which the American people possess over the people of almost every other
nation… forms a barrier against the enterprise of ambition.”
“No free man shall be debarred the use of arms,” wrote
In
his 1833 “Commentaries on The Constitution of the United States,” Justice
Joseph Story observed, “The right of the citizens (not the militia, but the people) to keep and bear arms has justly
been considered as the palladium of the liberties of the republic, since it
offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the
rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance,
enable the people to resist and triumph over them.”
FYI, when the Second Amendment was written, “militia” was
understood to mean every male citizen capable of bearing arms. Richard Henry
Lee identified the militia as “the people themselves.” Militia refers to “the
whole people,” added George Mason.
Besides serving as a restraint to tyranny, private gun
ownership is also the most effective crime-control measure yet devised – with
the possible exception of capital punishment, which the left also opposes.
There
are 70 to 80 million gun owners in the
Generally, states and municipalities with the most
restrictive gun laws have the highest crime rates. Since 1975,
But
here, as in so many other places, the left is impervious to facts.
It
loathes private gun ownership principally for two reasons.
It
doesn’t trust “the people.” It thinks “the people” -- i.e. those who live in
red states, eat red meat, listen to Rush instead of NPR, and think “vegans”
come from Mr. Spock’s home planet – are a collection of hicks, racists, morons
and Jesus-intoxicated homicidal maniacs. It is absolutely convinced that guns
in the hands of such people inevitably lead to accidental homicides, crimes of
passion and right-wing plots to overthrow the government.
While it hates guns, the left also needs guns -- to take
the heat off criminals and maintain the fiction that it’s doing something to
combat crime. Since criminals (who are, after all, the misunderstood products
of their environment) aren’t responsible for their actions, who is? Guns, of
course!
Thus, the average gun control/confiscation advocate also
opposes capital punishment and mandatory-minimum sentences and favors
rehabilitation. He believes (with a faith that would be rather touching if it
weren’t so pathetic and destructive) that crime is caused by socio-economic
factors, not by free will and the inclinations of the human heart.
Hence the left’s 40-year crusade against private gun ownership
– waiting-periods, background-checks, licensing, mandatory safety courses,
restrictions on ammunition, trigger-locks, efforts to demonize certain types of
firearms (“Saturday Night Specials,” “assault rifles,” etc.) leading ultimately
to prohibitions on the private ownership of handguns, like the DC ban just
overturned by the Supreme Court and the Chicago ban still in effect.
While we celebrate the Court upholding the Second Amendment,
we must acknowledge a truly bizarre situation: That judicial interpretation of
the Constitution now comes down to how Anthony Kennedy (who was part of the
majority in Heller) feels about any
particular issue – not what the Constitution says, but what Kennedy thinks it
should say – at any particular point in time.
Some days he wakes up feeling like Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. The
result is 5-4 decisions like Kennedy v.
Louisiana, which held that imposition of the death penalty for poor,
misunderstood child-rapists constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.
It also leads to efforts to undermine national security
like the 5-4 decision, also last week, granting habeas corpus rights to foreign
terrorism suspects held on foreign soil. Kennedy, who usually swings with the
Court’s deconstructionists, was the author of both abominations.
Occasionally, Kennedy feels like Clarence Thomas. At such
(increasingly rare) times, he hangs with the Court’s constitutionalists, as he
did in Heller.
Either way, what’s called Constitutional law is based on the
whims of one man – one over-inflated ego.
In every election the predictions come like clockwork – the
next president could appoint X justices.
Democrats seem to be more serious about these things than
Republicans. John Paul Stevens, the doyen of the Court’s left-wing -- who can’t
imagine the Founding Fathers wanting to limit the ability of elected officials
to limit the exercise of constitutional rights -- is a legacy of
pseudo-Republican Gerald R. Ford.
Ronald
Reagan gave us two bad appointments -- Sandra Day O’Connor and Kennedy -- as
well as an exceptional nomination, Scalia.
Bush
Sr. inflicted Souter on the republic, but replaced the
half-baked Thurgood Marshall with constitutionalist
Clarence Thomas. Despite his other mistakes, George W. Bush batted 1,000,
appointing two strict constructionists in Roberts and Alito.
What’s next? It’s generally acknowledged that the next
president could get three appointments – or a third of the Supreme Court -- in
his first term alone.
Father time, it would seem, is on the side of original
intent. Of the constitutionalist bloc, all but Scalia
(72) are 60 or younger. Of the activists, all but Breyer
are over 70, and he’s 69. The oldest, Stevens (88) and Ginsburg (75), are among the worst, and the most likely to retire in the
next four years.
At
68, Souter isn’t far behind. It’s rumored the justice,
who has had non-consensual relations with the Constitution for 18 years, is
eager to return to his
The left is far more exposed than the right. If Stevens, Ginsburg or Souter
retires and a president who respects the Constitution appoints his or her
successor, 4-4-1 becomes 5-4, in favor of judicial restraint, original intent
and the obvious meaning of plain English.
That’s
what makes this election so crucially important.
District of Columbia v. Heller acknowledged reality.
But the day before the Heller
decision was announced, the Second Amendment still guaranteed an individual
right to gun ownership.
Had
the case gone the other way, the Second Amendment would have continued to protect
the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The Supreme Court can
acknowledge or deny a constitutional right – or try to create a right out of
thin air – it can’t change the inherent meaning of the Constitution.
But
the Constitution itself isn’t dispositive here. If
the Founding Fathers had never inserted the Second Amendment in The Bill of
Right, we would still have a fundamental right to use lethal force to protect
ourselves, our loved ones and our homes.
Self-defense
is one of those fundamental rights which the Declaration of Independence
observed was endowed by the Creator, and hence is “unalienable.”
Tomorrow,
we will celebrate the 232nd. anniversary of our independence.
Without
private gun ownership, the American Revolution would never have happened.
Imagine those embattled farmers at
There’s
something particularly American about guns in the hands of free men – and women
– defending their liberty, their families and their native land. How fitting
that the United States Supreme Court should acknowledge that reality during
this season of our freedom.
An earlier version of this commentary appeared on
GrassTopsUSA.com