I have an article on “Understanding the Gun Control Debate” in the current issue of Backwoods Home. It’s the first of three parts, with part 2 due out soon in the next issue.
The election is almost upon us. If Hillary Clinton is elected, she will appoint Supreme Court justices whose opinions will shape our nation for the next couple of generations. She has declared NRA members to be “the enemy.” There are still people who say, “But Hillary swears she believes in the Second Amendment.” That ignores the fact that she said SCOTUS got it wrong in the Heller and McDonald decisions that said the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right, not an empowerment of state militias. She has spoken favorably of the Australian model of mandatory confiscation of semiautomatic rifles.
Be active. Write respectful letters to the editor or essays for the op-ed pages in your local newspapers. Feel free to link the above-mentioned article.
Our future as gun-owners is on the line, and we’re getting down to the wire.
While you are not preaching to the choir as such, your arguments appealing to the intellectual aspects of the gun control debate will fail when confronted with the emotional “for the children” line trotted out in response.
Still, I recall being heartened by Levinson’s piece when it was published and I am not saying intelligent and well-reasoned articles like yours should not be written. We’re each called to do what we are supposed to do, I think, and thank you Mas for doing what you have been doing.
Maybe I’ve just spent too many years working “behind enemy lines” at Yale but I’m praying to turn hearts rather than arguing to change minds. It is certainly the lower blood pressure route at least!
That’s the sickness of our political class…….and the seeming blindness of so many of the voters.
Hillary says she supports the second amendment, yet she supports severe limitation of that enumerated inalienable right. She supports a right not enumerated, but created by activist Justices, abortion, and fiercely fights any attempts to limit it.
Tim Kaine, like Joe Biden and Obama, all claim a personal, religious, problem with homosexual marriage and abortion, but they say, ” Hey, it’s the law of the land, I’ve got to support it”!
We have long been cursed in America by politicians with no moral back bone, or worse, outright liars about what they truly believe. I’m a Christian (protestant), but one thing that impressed me about the Catholic Church in past years was their practice of excommunicating members who turned their backs on the teachings of the church. There was a time that most of our politicians claiming to be Catholic would have been kicked out of the Church and forbidden to claim affiliation with the Church, but, I guess so many of our clerics now are more politician themselves than pastor/teachers.
I apologize for the rant and hope I’ve offended no one, but I’m greatly saddened by the deterioration of my country. I fear for its future.
Have been educating as many people as possible about the next President appointments to the Supreme Court and Federal Judge appointments which will have catastrophic effects on our gun rights. We simply cannot allow Hillary Clinton to win period. She’s anti gun, hates our guns with a passion has expressed this, her husband was terrible as well and will must certainly kill us via Supreme Court ruling on the 2nd Ammendment.
NO ONE STAYS HOME NOVEMBER 8th!!!
Mr. Ayoob, that was a very good article. I look forward to reading the continuation articles as well.
Ken
It’s extremely important to stress to friends, family, anyone you know that not voting or voting for anyone other than Trump is a vote for Hillary. You may not like Trump (I can think of better choices) but either Trump or Hillary will be our next President. There’s no changing that at this point. It’s imperative that we get everyone who believes in the Second Amendment (really believes in it, not just saying so) to vote against Hillary by voting for the only person that can beat her now, Donald Trump.
I dream of a landslide victory (even a small one) for Trump to send a message to the “good old boys” network of politicians who care more about getting re-elected than their constituents desires. The nightmare of a loss this November will forever change our gun rights for the worse and it will never go back…
This is one of the legacies left by Obama and to be continued by Hillary…….
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-citing-beating-of-officer-chicago-s-top-cop-says-police-are-second-guessing-themselves-20161006-story.html
Am I the only one to miss this story on the national broadcast media? You would think that a female police officer, fearing to protect herself and face the consequences of the aftermath, is beaten senseless by an “unarmed black man” would at least spark a little interest on the national news media stage.
Nah, they can’t risk any challenges to the left-wing narrative.
Indeed, if a President Clinton Administration is allowed to “pack” the Court with left-wing, anti-gun zealots, then the 2nd Amendment may well be doomed. The Left will seize any excuse to undermine the 2A.
Consider the Heller Decision itself. Although, in the main, it was a good decision, Justice Scalia, who wrote it, made one critical error. An error that has since been seized upon and exploited to the maximum by the Left. He included the following passage in the majority decision:
“Although we do not undertake an exhaustive historical analysis today of the full scope of the Second Amendment, nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”
Justice Scalia did not offer any reasoning or legal logic for the above passage. It is not based upon the Constitution. Instead, it represents the personal opinions of the Justices in the majority. He is basically saying that, despite the “shall not be infringed” language of the 2A, the following infringements are still OK.
It endorses the status quo, in gun control, without providing the lower courts any guidance (whatsoever) as to how to judge the scope of the 2A in other areas.
Anti-gunners, in the lower courts and in the press, have used this passage as justification for their continued press for more and more gun control. This one passage is a serious, if not fatal, flaw in the Heller Decision. It has been used by the lower courts to greatly undermine (what should have been) the positive effect of the Heller Decision.
If the anti-gunners can twist Heller to suit their purposes (based upon a single passage), just imagine what they could do with a decision passed by a truly anti-gun SCOTUS.
Trump has absolutely terrified the establishment RINOs along with the Democrats and every winey-ass minority special interest group that feels (or has been told to feel) oppressed for any reason whatsoever.
Not only must we all vote, we must realize we are going to see voter fraud perpetrated by the Democrats on an unprecedented scale. It is now widely accepted that Mayor Daley of Chicago threw the election to Kennedy by opening up half the graves in Cook County, Ill. That is going to be small potatoes this time around.
Liberals suffering from white liberal guilt voted for Obozo to give themselves the warm fuzzies and to burnish their liberal street cred while ignoring his total lack of qualifications. This time they are going to vote for Killery Rotten Clinton so they can feel the same way about voting for the first woman president as they totally ignore her manifest crimes, lies, corruption and the trail of bodies and wrecked lives in her wake.
The founders placed their faith in Divine guidance and intervention. A look at history reveals several times this country should have failed in it’s infancy, but did not. Washington crossing the Delaware to engage the Hessians should have been an utter failure and a slaughter, but was a stunning victory. A freak hurricane that routed the British army after the attack on Washington D.C. during the war of 1812, A British shell that landed in the powder magazine of Ft. McHenry and did not explode. The list goes on and on..
Hopefully our Creator has not given up on us.
Yet.
Trump is right on the big issues: immigration, enforcing the law, renegotiating foreign trade deals to level the playing field, etc. He is wrong on little things, like being nice.
Hillary Clinton is owned by the establishment, and is supposedly a prime architect of the Obama foreign policy which has failed miserably in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and addressing the internal problems that drive people to flee Central and South American countries to illegally enter the US.
My wife and I received our mail-in early voting ballots yesterday and completed and mailed them back this morning. Though Clinton has no chance here in Texas, at least our straight Democratic ticket votes cancelled out a couple of Trump votes as a symbolic gesture.
Errr . . . I dislike Hilary, I think she’s a weaselly little professional politician, but sadly I think she’s a better choice for POTUS/Leader of the Free World than Trump, whom I think is an oafish buffoon just playing to the gallery. 🙁
And I am not convinced he’s as pro-gun as some think. He just seems to say whatever will go down well with whom ever he’s trying to impress at the time: http://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/blog-post/trump-vs-clinton-gun-control (Okay so does pretty much any politician, and the link is only one source, but it concurs with others I’ve come across.)
I regard Hilary as the sort of politico who talks about making the streets safe while surrounded with armed bodyguards, while Trump strikes me as the sort of man who thinks owning a gold-plated “Deagle” with mother-of-pearl grips is the epitome of cool. And it would be in .50 Action Express.
Trump is like influenza, and Clinton is like HIV. You might be able to survive and recover from the flu, but not if you have full-blown AIDS.
Imagine a Supreme Court with nine Ruth “Buzzy” Ginsburgs appointed by Killery Rotten Clinton. That is the future if the Cankle Queen is elected.
Obozo will make a lot of noise about an appointment to that court, but as she hates him even more than Bill and the unfortunate Secret Service agents appointed to her security detail, that probably won’t happen.
One more word, kinda in response to Captain Bob’s wish for a landslide for Trump:
I live on a cul-de-sac street which is about the equivalent of 2-3 normal blocks long and I’ve been here through 4-5 presidential election cycles. This being Texas, virtually all of the residents on our street are Republicans. In prior years by this time close to Election Day and despite this being a solid-red state, there are ordinarily a forest of yard signs supporting the Republican nominee (and my one sign supporting the Democrat). This year there are none for Trump (or even ones just saying “Vote Republican”). Zero, zip, nada.
Not. One. Solitary. Sign.
That is not the kind of enthusiasm which creates landslides, much less wins elections.
@Dennis: I _did_ in fact see that story. Did you see this one, 12 hours later:
“Chicago police propose new use-of-force policies aimed at reducing controversies” http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-police-use-of-force-met-20161007-story.html
It appears that they may have adopted some or all of the PERF guidelines discussed extensively in the past here, since it says, “Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, credited the draft rules for adopting widely accepted best practices. He called the proposed policy ‘impressive and state of the art.'”
Still friends.
Found this after my last post. I’ve not read it yet, but the new Chicago proposed use-of-force policy can be found here:
http://policy.chicagopolice.org/policyorder-review-regarding-use-of-force-draft/
Sorry Folks, but I just can’t believe that ANY GUN OWNER COULD POSSIBLY JUSTIFY AN EXCUSE TO CAST A VOTE, FOR HILLARY, OR ANY OTHER DEMOCRATIC POLITICIAN, FOR THAT MATTER, AS OUR NEXT, AND LAST, PRESIDENT/DICTATOR!!
When you are dragged off to jail, or murdered by the typical Government middle of the night, kick your door in RAID, killing any who might think it is a ROBBERY, and try to DEFEND THEMSELVES, Remember WHO YOU VOTED FOR THIS NOVEMBER, if you have time on your TRIP to HELL?
Paul
I feel Ted Cruz would be the better choice. Trump, was given to us. So, I’ll go with it. The liberals are at war our nation and can’t win.
One of the points that I have never seen addressed by either side is the way that language drifts and changes over time.
As a modern, within my lifetime example, the word gay has gone from meaning happy until co-opted by the homosexuals to mean homosexual to a new generation to mean “useless” (“That’s so gay!”).
Similarly the words Militia and Regulated.
Militia is derived from Latin “Miles” meaning a soldier and taken up by the Saxons to mean people defending their home area. They had a system of “Hundreds” (i.e. 100 families) and each hundred had to supply a certain number of warriors for the National Fyrd (paid for and raised by the King). The MILITIA (and don’t forget that the Saxons were a warlike people) were those not specifically in the Fyrd but were expected to defend their home territory. This had fatal consequences in 1066 when Duke William invaded. The King could only call the Fyrd and the immediate militia. The Militia in the rest of the country did not muster.
The Militia were private individuals organised to defend their homes and families usinf their own weapons. The arms seen in the stately homes of Britain were there for the Lords to equip and outfit their tennants and employees as a militia. They could (and indeed, did) make up and dress their militias in uniforms of their choosing (which makes it a fascinating field if you collect militaria) and were highly individualistic. The “Kings Regulations” related to drilling and ensuring that the various militias could be integrated into an army in the event of war and operate interchangeably.
In the UK, following the Haldane reforms aroud 1905, the Militia came under government control and were paid for and equipped by the Government. The link between the land and the service the people had always provided was broken.
REGULATED has again drifted in meaning but means, drilled, disciplined or trained and this persisted until recently.
Take a look at this list of Manuals describing REGULATIONS and note the date of issue :
http://www.storymindmedia.com/angryalien/military_manuals.htm
A quick reading of the manuals will show that they describe training for war or field operations and are concerned with the soldiers behaving in a uniform way in accordance with the orders of the officers. That way, a general commanding an army could be certain that his intentions were carried out and that that he could rely on the troops under his command.
“Regulated” does NOT mean restricted or limited in freedom.
So, if I were to rewrite the 2nd Amendment in modern language, it would be:
“Individual citizens trained in the use of weapons are necessary to ensure that the security of the state is not threatened. Therefore the right of those individuals to own and carry weapons shall not be restricted”.
It is a pity that, following the revolution that the people writing the amendment could not drop the military language or terminology.
I am an Englishman living in Australia, but I have been an NRA associate member for several years. The NRA is the principal organization lobbying for the right of self-defense anywhere in the world, and I see no reason not to support it just because I live elsewhere.
If I may offer a view from afar, Hilary seems to support the Second Amendment in much the same way that the British and Australian political establishments support the right to self-defense: they acknowledge the right while denying people the means. It’s like giving someone a driving license while banning cars. I’d have to go along with Thomas Sowell, who recently described it as a choice between a big risk (Trump) vs certain disaster (Clinton).
Whatever the outcome, the best of luck to you all. The US is still the best hope for a free world.
After Donald Trump’s 2005 off-the-cuff and on the mic trash talk, it really looks as if he’s going to be needing a fall back position. Rumour has it he’s going to be fronting a reality TV show. It’s going to be a cookery show and to make it stand out it’s going to be all about cooking with cheese.
The provisional title is, “Let’s Make America Grate Again!”
Liberal Dave,
Truthfully, I was surprised that much of these “new” additions to their (Chicago’s police) guidelines were, in fact, well, new.
In my 34 years with Dallas, much of this was already SOP. Texas, as you well know as an attorney, has never had a “fleeing felon” exception to homicide statutes. Firing at vehicles has long been prohibited by our department (with certain strict exceptions, and I believe those exceptions have been removed since I retired). The “force continuum” has long been a part of the training, and as newer “less than lethal” force options became available, they were added into this “continuum”. (it should be noted that any “force continuum must leave it to the officers discretion to go directly to deadly force level based on HIS perceptions as an incident unfolds, which was emphasized in Chicago’s proposal)
It appears to me that the proposed “changes” to to Chicago Police “guidelines” may be not so different from what Dallas did, quite some time ago, when they came up with the “Patrol Guidelines” handbook that attempted to spell out every move an officer “should” make under every conceivable situation, which was almost laughable in its expectations and its shortcomings.
Departments have, for a long time, been attempting to formulate ways to placate those who criticize incidents where an officer used force to protect themselves, while at the same time not risking the lives of its officers. The bottom line is that “guidelines” or “SOP’s” don’t supersede State Laws on justifiable use of force, it just gives the politicians another tool to fire an officer for cause, in order to placate those who will, in fact, never be placated.
Having been there, done that, in many of the type incidents making the news, I’ll share my thoughts, for what its worth. When threatened with a gun, knife, club, or by someone quite capable of beating me to a pulp, I never saw the race, gender, or age of the one threatening me. I only saw the weapon, the demeanor, and the capabilities of the one holding it. When the threat became action towards me or someone else, decisions on my part were made, not in seconds, but in fractions of a second. I must admit, for me at least, in these intense moments, time seemed to slow, and I saw things in complete clarity as it played out. Maybe that’s why I survived 34 years w/o being killed or facing any disciplinary issues, but everyone is not wired the same, and truthfully, I may not react the same if faced with such incidents in the future. We are humans, not some throw away robot that can be programmed to be infallible.
Body cams, dash cams, I-phone cameras, etc. never were a concern to me, but I predicted, when we first entered this era, that recordings of those fractions of a second would be broken down into multiple freeze frame photos that would then be scrutinized for any possible reason to find an officer at fault in his actions. Have videos captured police officers making bad decisions? Of course. I make no excuses for those officers and applaud any disciplinary action taken in those cases.
I’m rambling again, in my old age. Please forgive me. Still friends.
P.S., Please forgive my insensitivity in using the possessive descriptive word “HIS” instead of a more gender inclusive adjective when talking of a police officer. I apologize for my mistake and admit my unfitness to be a part of liberal Utopia. Still friends?
There are so many contentious sociopolitical divisions in our country today that it doesn’t appear we can ever resolve them. Hence, America seems like one hopelessly divided country and one, I fear, that is rapidly circling the drain.
But could there be a new greatest generation waiting in the wings ready to dig in, make sacrifices, and work hard to solve our nation’s problems? So far I see no signs of one.
Some final thoughts on Trump, his natural adversaries, the democrats, and those republicans who have become entrenched in the beltway system and are so quick to condemn him.
Imagine yourself as someone who has spent your whole life learning a system inside and out that required you to try to balance the desires of the voters who actually elect you, the political party that has monopolies on whose names will automatically be placed on a ballot in return for allegiance (and cash) to the party platform, and special interest donors who expect access and favors in return for their money. Add to that the fact that, while learning this system, you discover the hidden benefits of political favoritism, being able to channel monies into wasteful contracts with the promise that some of that money will find its way back to you personally or to your family, or getting a regulation passed that benefits one corporation over its competition, that results in an invitation to make millions in speaking payments in return. The list of perks go on and on.
Now, imagine someone comes along and promises to disrupt that system that favors politicians from both parties. Why be surprised when your senator or representative seems so eager to abandon their 2nd. amendment promise to the voters and their commitment to only back conservative judges and conservative principles. Their promises to the voter were always lip service. Their main concern was, and is, a self centered desire to maintain the system they helped evolve, and maintain its benefits to themselves. Of course they would rather see a Hillary Clinton, whose liberal tendencies they claim to detest, become president, rather than upset the money train, you pat my back, I’ll pat yours system, that has been so beneficial for them.
Trump may be a crude, testosterone driven ego maniac, who I wouldn’t want for a Sunday School teacher, but I do believe he is a highly intelligent man (there is a big difference between intelligence and a politically correct, highly educated politician) who sees our country heading for disaster and wants to correct the course. He didn’t build his real estate empire alone. He surrounded himself with people who understood his vision and had the ability to make it happen. That is what business people do. That’s what a good president does.
Trump may be a disaster. I have no doubt that Hillary will be. I’ll take my chances with a possible storm instead of a guaranteed direct hit by a tornado.
Hell of a choice we have to make, but the fact is we have to make a choice.
A little addendum to my political post. In a way, I envy Liberal Dave and other liberal progressive voters (feel free to correct me if I you think this characterization is wrong). I think they have little or no expectation of moral purity or even honesty in their candidates, rather, they look first and foremost if that candidate will be most true to the liberal/progressive ideology and be dependably relied upon to not veer from the path.
Conservatives voters, in contrast, feel someone who represents them should be morally pure in addition to being uncompromising on conservative principles and tend to be less forgiving of personal moral failings.
Too simplistic an observation? Probably. Is there a difference in individual definitions of morality? Without a doubt. I know this is not a universal truism, but this is what I have observed over the years as being the case.
@Dennis: Of course still friends. I do try to use generic pronouns, but I grew up using the old terms and I sometimes slip (or, frankly, just find it too confusing to the reader to use the new ones).
Even when I don’t, or don’t entirely, agree, I always read your posts with great interest and respect. I don’t have much to disagree with in your most recent, above, though when you say, “Departments have, for a long time, been attempting to formulate ways to placate those who criticize incidents where an officer used force to protect themselves, while at the same time not risking the lives of its officers. … [I]t just gives the politicians another tool to fire an officer for cause” that we probably disagree over whether that is a good thing or a bad thing.
Though I’ve still not read the policy revisions as closely as I like, I think that maybe the most important thing in them is in II.E.3. when it says, “Consistent with Department policy and training, Department members are required to employ strategies and tactics designed to provide members more response options, including creating more time and distance within which to exercise those options.” But the qualifying first clause about policy and training may, of course, strip out all the benefit of the rest.
Still friends.
If Clinton is elected and fills the Scalia vacancy… the Supreme Court will have a majority of Democrat appointees for the first time since 1969.
The Court had at least seven Republican appointees from 1975 to 2006, but still issued numerous dubious decisions favoring the Left.
If the Left gets control of the Court and the Executive, game over. Even if Republicans control Congress, it won’t matter.
The precedent is being set in Venezuela. The president is chavista; the Supreme Court is packed with chavistas; the legislature is 2/3 opposition. The president does whatever he wants, flagrantly violating the constitution at will, the court says it’s OK, and the legislature is powerless to interfere.
That’s what we’ll see here, starting in January.
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