2nd Amendment not negotiable

Dear editor:

Well, your Editor's Notebook commentary on the debate on guns managed to pull my chain, so I figured I'd better respond.

Let me start with your statement that you are "...not really concerned about the government coming to take my guns away. You've got to be pretty paranoid to think that's actually plausible." I have enclosed 12 pages of quotes from members of our government -- federal, state and local -- who have expressed their very clear goal of banning all firearms ownership by any American who is not a member of the police, military, or bodyguards of politicians. The vast majority of these quotes seeking gun confiscation came from Democrats. I won't repeat all of them in this letter, but here are a few from key Democrat leaders:

* Bill Clinton: "When we got organized as a country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to Americans ... And so a lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When personal freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it."

MTV's "Enough is Enough!", 22 March, 1994: "We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..."

USA Today, 11 March, 1993, pg. 2A: "If the personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution inhibit the government's ability to govern the people, we should look to limit those guarantees."

12 August, 1993 "There is no reason for anyone in this country -- anyone except a police officer or military person -- to buy, to own, to have, to use a handgun. The only way to control handgun use in this country is to prohibit the guns."

While signing The Brady Bill, 1993 "The purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the people." - MTV, 1993

* Senator Dianne Feinstein (D - CA):

"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of all Americans to feel safe."

Associated Press, 18 November, 1993. "The National Guard fulfills the militia mentioned in the Second amendment. Citizens no longer need to protect the states or themselves."

* Representative Jan Schakowski (D - IL): "I believe ... this is my final word... believe that I'm supporting the Constitution of the United States which does not give the right for any individual to own a handgun

* Recorded 25 June, 2000 by Matt then-Senator (now Vice President) Joe Biden: "Banning guns is an idea whose time has come." (Associated Press, 11 November, 1993)

* Sarah Brady, former chairman of Handgun Control Inc. (now The Brady Campaign): "...I don't believe gun owners have rights."

Hearst Newspapers, October 1997: "The House passage of our bill is a victory for this country! Common sense wins out. I'm just so thrilled and excited. The sale of guns must stop. Halfway measures are not enough."

1 July, 1988: "We must get rid of all the guns." (speaking on behalf of HCI, with Sheriff Jay Printz, on "The Phil Donahue Show,"September, 1994).

Concerning your call for "reasonable" gun laws, we have at least 20,000 state, federal and local laws on the books that infringe on Americans' right to keep and bear arms, and that is somehow not quite enough to make us all "feel safe"? Let me ask you a question that no Democrat politician seems to be able to answer: Can you name just ONE of those existing anti-gun laws that you would consider to be UNreasonable? Just one?

Now let's look at the legal basis for gun ownership in America. The Supreme Court has ruled, extensively (in the Heller and McDonald cases), that the Second Amendment did not create the right to keep and bear arms, it recognized that right as an INDIVIDUAL right flowing from the "fundamental human right of self-defense." When you look at the other rights mentioned in your favorite First Amendment, you will note that the First says only that "Congress shall make no law" abridging free speech and a free press, but the Second Amendment says the right to keep and bear arms "shall NOT be INFRINGED." If you need help defining" shall not be infringed," put two 6-year old kids in the back seat of a car, run a strip of masking tape down the middle of the seat, tell them "stay on your own side", and take a four-hour road trip. Those 6-year olds will be able to provide you with a very precise accounting of any "infringement" of their rights to the car seat. Why is that word so difficult to understand when it is used in the Second Amendment?

Finally, examine the legal context of the Second Amendment's "right to keep and bear arms." The Constitution is usually described as the "Founding Legal Document" of the United States of America, but there is another key document that forms the prior legal basis for the Constitution -- The Declaration of Independence. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights must be examined within the context of the Declaration of Independence, because THAT is the document that established the free states (then colonies) of America.

The Declaration and the Constitution, together, address mankind's most basic political questions. Resting on a firm moral foundation, they articulate the first principles of political organization by free peoples, seeking individual liberty.

They were not perfect, but they provided the people of America the opportunity to achieve freedom, including the right to amend the Constitution.

Remember that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were written by a group of revolutionaries who had just overthrown a tyrannical government, ruled by a king and a parliament that denied the American colonials those rights that were available to the king's English subjects.

The Declaration of Independence is clearly the legal foundation for the Constitution, both written by essentially the same people. The Constitution represented an agreement by the 13 independent States to band together under a central government set up as a representative REPUBLIC (not a democracy), with the rights of the people, the states, and the federal union clearly defined.

But the Constitution must be read in the context of the Declaration of Independence. And the Declaration, signed in July of 1776, was a result of the Colonies' "lawful British Government" sending the British army to Concord in an attempt to seize the military arms (muskets, gunpowder, cannon) of the Massachusetts minutemen. The "Shot Heard Round the World" was fired by the colonials on April 19, 1775, when they used their military arms (muskets) to prevent this weapons seizure by the British Army. Those minutemen then used their same military arms to force the British army to retreat to Boston.

Keep that context in mind while you read the Declaration of Independence. That declaration lists many unalienable rights, including the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. But there is only one DUTY described in that Declaration. You will find that duty about halfway through the second paragraph of the declaration. Go ahead, look it up, I'll wait for those who have temporarily mislaid their copy of the declaration, here is the ONLY duty mentioned in that document:

"But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their DUTY, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."

That is the context for the Second Amendment's Right to keep and bear arms. It is not hunting, it is not target shooting, it is not trap shooting -- it is to fulfill our duty, as free citizens (not subjects) to ensure the preservation of individual liberty for ourselves and future generations, and to prevent our central government from becoming an "absolute Despotism."

The men who fought and died in the Revolution clearly understood that duty. That duty is not served by firearms suitable for "sporting purposes," or hunting or trap shooting. It is served by civilian versions of the same infantry firearms used by our military. And if that duty, and the right to keep and bear arms makes you and anyone else uncomfortable, feel free to amend the Constitution. You will find the method for doing so in Article V of that document.

But do not try to remove my fundamental human rights by "reasonable" laws, or executive orders, or any other "progressive" methods. I, and many other American citizens, will not stand for that.

The question is whether or not you are willing to surrender liberty for an illusion of safety. Two American revolutionaries describe my position on this matter:

Benjamin Franklin, who said "Those who will give up essential liberty to secure a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Samuel Adams, in a speech on Aug. 1, 1776: "If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us in peace. We seek not your council, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."

-- Peter Humm