Your chance to tell the MEDIA (FOX) what you think about GUN CONTROL LAWS

I got it to work, and posted my views.

I read this one and really felt it should be read by all as it was very well written and has a lot of good info in it.

The fact that there is a 'controversy' over the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today saddens me dearly. The Constitution is the underlying principal which allows Americans to be free; it provides for the ability to enjoy liberty and pursue happiness.

Unfortunately, the reality of the world is that 'liberty' comes with a high price.


To quote one of my most favorite writer/philosophers:

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." - Thomas Jefferson

It is by the Constitution of the United States of America that we are free. But unobstructed liberty is a precocious thing that can be destroyed blindly with the best of intentions.


Each of the first Ten Amendments to the constitution is intrinsically important in order for Liberty to reign free. And each one in kind was directly created due to actions enacted against the American populace by a previously oppressive regime. Of all the amendments, there is one amendment that is the most important; for it is by THIS right that all other rights are guaranteed.

To quote the First President of the United States of America:

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty's teeth." - George Washington.


Given the importance of the Second Amendment in guaranteeing the remainder of the Rights contained in The Constitution, a common question then heard, and often proclaimed by firearm-control advocates is "that the second amendment allows for armed forces [national guard] to keep and bear arms."

Unfortunately this can be further from the truth. The most common method of reading the Second Amendment is to misunderstand the predicate clause in the first part of the sentence.

"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."


Since there is so much controversy over the intent of the Second Amendment, would it not be prudent to read the writings of the person who authored it? Firearm-Control advocates would like nothing more than this to not happen because it undermines the ideals they are promoting.


James Madison originally presented the Second Amendment to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787. There he presented the FOLLOWING to the assembled people:

"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person." - James Madison

From this reading, it is quite clear the intent was to allow every Citizen the right to keep and bear arms. There is a distinction between "the people" and "well regulated militia"; "the people" are "the militia". Further that so arming 'the people' would allow for a well regulated militia to be drawn from the citizenry thus guaranteeing the security of a free country.

However, the Constitutional Convention believed that the wording presented allowed the Federal Government too much power in deciding who could bear arms, so they removed the second part of the the Second Amendment, and country was changed to state to allow autonomy for the individual states.


This Pro-Right to Bear Arms mindset of James Madison's is further supported by other writings of his:

"No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the State. Such are a well regulated Militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen, and husbandman; who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen." - James Madison

"A people armed and free forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression."
- James Madison

"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." - James Madison

"Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation." - James Madison


The last quote of President James Madison's is the most important. Because it is by this quote that evidence of the true purpose of the Second Amendment is proven.

But what of the other forefather's of this great country?


"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
- Thomas Jefferson

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms..disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed one." - Thomas Jefferson

"The constitutions of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property and freedom of the press." - Thomas Jefferson

"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." -Thomas Jefferson

"The only way Governments can induce citizens to surrender their rights is convincing them that by doing so, they will gain a measure of safety in exchange."- Thomas Jefferson

"Arms in the hands of the citizens may be used at individual discretion for the defense of the country, the overthrow of tyranny or private self-defense." - John Adams

"When firearms go, all goes - we need them every hour." - George Washington

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun." - Patrick Henry

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" - Patrick Henry

"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recorse left but the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramont to all forms of positive government." - Alexander Hamilton

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large, is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton

"...if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and those of their fellow-citizens. This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it, if it should exist." - Alexander Hamilton

"To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human *** with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character." - Alexander Hamilton

"Congress shall have no power to disarm the milita. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American...The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." - Tench Coxe

"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - Tench Coxe
 
the rest

"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside...horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them..." - Thomas Paine

"I am thus far a Quaker, that I would gladly argue with all the world to lay aside the use of arms and settle matters by negotiation, but unless the whole will, the matter ends, and I take up my musket and thank Heaven He has put it in my power." - Thomas Paine

"Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive." - Noah Webster


As can be shown clearly, the intent of the Second Amendment was that all Citizens were allowed to be armed at all times to protect their person, their family, their property and most importantly their liberty.

Given that the intent of the founding father and the CORRECT intent and purpose of the Second Amendment as shown; there can be no laws that which infringe upon the Second Amendment baring a ratification of its wording.


It is a fact that criminals will utilize any means by which they can gain leverage over those they are to oppress. But it is not the means by which they gain leverage (which also can be used as leverage against) that is the root of the problem. It is the source of this unrest that must be addressed, not the tools by which it is carried out. If america is to last another century it must set aside its current ways and again hold true to the ideals and principals that granted it its stature. It must focus on the cause, not the means. The fact that the overwhelming majority of firearms are illegally obtained does not mean that it is the law abiding citizen who is perpetrating this violent crime. Criminals will be criminals. They do not follow the law. That is what defines them as 'criminal'. To naively believe that proclaiming the banning of violence will some how cause it to cease is ludicrous.

It is the fact that American's by and large, are no longer allowed to arm themselves for self defense. Thus allowing criminals to accost them with greater confidence.


To quote Nicollo Machiavelli "Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years."


It is certain that there is a quantifiable amount of violence perpetrated by the use of firearms. This is no small truth but a cold hard fact. However as is evident in Britain today, the criminals predisposed to violence will use ANY means available to carry out their behavior. Should we then start regulating kitchen utensils? Rope? Pencils? Box Cutters? Hand Tools? It is absurd! But each of these is now in common use by Britain's violent criminals.


"The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed -- where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once." - Judge Alex Kozinski, US 9th Cir. Ct. of Appeals.
 
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