So I am up late as usual and I caught the tail end of an episode of the Rachel (I'm a lesbian can't you tell) Maddow show. She happened to be doing a piece on the growing limitations on abortions and abortion access in several of the states.
The piece goes on to talk about the difficulties faced by the employees and the legal and physical challenges (threats) they face simply for exercising their "consitutional rights".
That's funny to me because it is the same crowd that wants to restrict explicitly stated constitutional rights or remove them altogether when it comes to firearms in the hands of private law-abiding citizens. Abortion isn't a right per se but like other medical procedures it is your right to privately choose to undergo the procedure.
Freedom! but not for you because I disagree with you!
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Wednesday, January 09, 2013
Deranged
The current debate about gun control is quite heated and I for one feel that it is getting out of hand. The supreme law of the land currently guarantees you (a citizen of the USA) the right to keep and bear arms. This right can be revoked through due process as it is many times for violent offenders. In-fact any right can be revoked through the use of due process in our court system. Many felons can no longer vote. It does strike me as odd that politicians would want to give the right to vote to criminals, but don't want the average citizen who is law abiding to have a weapon for self/state/national defense.
The 2nd amendment is there to give functionality to form an infantry based army in what was a decentralized nation. There were no satellite communications, nor were there telephone/telegraph lines at the founding. The states were considered more important than Washington D.C. by most people as that was the government closest to them and was most involved in their daily lives. Between the Civil War and WWI (The Great War) there were many changes sociologically. We began to see each other as part of one nation...and not as a Virginian, or a man who is from Massachusetts. We still had some regional divides, but by and large the Civil war period followed by the first world war and the advent of telegraph and telephone/radio communications began to bring us closer together.
The United States had always had a standing army of some kind, but not on such a massive scale as we have it today. It was never designed to have a massive standing army, rather we were supposed to have citizen soldiers who would be called up (drafted), or their militia units would be incorporated into the larger army structure for a war. WWI was the last real period of demilitarization on the part of the USA. Some of this is for "practical" reasons of being able to respond quickly, and there are also more dubious reasons. Mostly our military power was used to maintain the global status quo and for the United States to supplant the United Kingdom as the dominant "empire" in the world. Much like Rome with its growing military during its imperial period, it will be unsustainable for us as out nation was designed as a Republic.
The increased rapidity of events means that more centralization became necessary if only for functionality at the bureaucratic level. As for militias, the militias were essentially folded into the structure of the National Guard in 1903 (just prior to WWI). Most of those units are still based in their home states as a militia unit would be. They are however unified in a command structure nationally. They receive Federal funding and are considered federal employees (not state). So having said all of this that would mean that any citizen who owns a firearm (at least within a certain age group) could be expected to be called up to serve for a period of years and trained. The selective service program which all USA males are lawfully obligated at the age of 18 to participate in is an example of how this is actually executed. The US. Govt draws up a database of eligible people and presses them into service. The Second Amendment indicates that this is true. The states also have primary claim on the natioanl guard and those units are the LAST to be deployed in any martial action. Active Duty, Reserves, National Guard. The reasons are two-fold. 1) Economically you don't wanna rip away every able bodied person from his or her job. 2) Socially it is disruptive.
So, back to why you have the right to own a military class weapon (SEE ABOVE). It was expected that a citizen would be able to afford a basic infantry weapon of his or her era. So in addition to being able to defend one's self and property, one could also defray some of the hardware cost that the militia would incur. Any organized armed force would have heavy weapons (like cannons, artillery, mortars etc.) that are impractical for individual use, maintenance and storage. A rifle/musket/semi-auto or full auto rifle would be considered by many at least practical for storage and maintenance even if he or she does not enjoy using it. It would have also been expected for fathers to train their sons in the proper respect, use and maintenance for the weapon. To lend some credence to this there was a great amount of talk about virtue being the core of the new republic and that without many citizens possessing such an attribute that the republic would be more or less doomed.
The idea of whether or not a person "needs" an assault rifle or semi auto pistol or whatever is beyond the scope of the governments authority to interpret what a citizen may feel he or she requires. It is a citizen's absolute RIGHT to keep and bear (possess and lawfully use) arms. This would seemingly not be restricted to firearms, but include other types of weaponry as well as arms is a generic term for any and all weapons including swords, maces, clubs, pepper spray, knives and other types that I won't bother naming. It would be up to the state to regulate how they chose to monitor possession of those items but outright bans have happened in some cases for things like brass knuckles and the like. It would be a fun legal challenge to have it overturned.
Need of a weapon is irrelevant to the language of the constitution, whereas your rights are what are spoken about. Whenever someone (politician or pundit/think-tank representative) speaks about "need" or "fairness" the person speaking about it is being disingenuous. That speaker is injecting his or her own opinion as to what he or she would have and projecting it onto each and every citizen. This is the authoritarian take on the situation. Many of these people send their children to private schools which have private armed security forces or have body guards hired to protect them...but god forbid each and every citizen be able to defend themselves. *I'm looking at you Mr. Dershowitz**Peter Jennings**President Obama**Glenn Beck* etc. You can name any number of people who find it fine to have armed body guards, but you, the lowly citizen, must wait for the police to find your dead body.
Enough is enough. If you do not want a weapon...then simply do not buy one. If you want to own one you have the responsibility to get the proper training in use, maintenance and licensing (where required by law). When a person commits a crime, the weapon is evidence but it is not charged with the crime because it is simply a tool with no conscience and it does not similarly remove one's rights. Example: The Right to free speech is not lost or given up by anyone even though a person may engage in libelous or defamatory activities. We don't talk about restricting speech further, the party responsible is dealt with through the legal system and it is resolved. We should be so mature about all violations of our rights not just the ones that we agree with on some gut level.
The 2nd amendment is there to give functionality to form an infantry based army in what was a decentralized nation. There were no satellite communications, nor were there telephone/telegraph lines at the founding. The states were considered more important than Washington D.C. by most people as that was the government closest to them and was most involved in their daily lives. Between the Civil War and WWI (The Great War) there were many changes sociologically. We began to see each other as part of one nation...and not as a Virginian, or a man who is from Massachusetts. We still had some regional divides, but by and large the Civil war period followed by the first world war and the advent of telegraph and telephone/radio communications began to bring us closer together.
The United States had always had a standing army of some kind, but not on such a massive scale as we have it today. It was never designed to have a massive standing army, rather we were supposed to have citizen soldiers who would be called up (drafted), or their militia units would be incorporated into the larger army structure for a war. WWI was the last real period of demilitarization on the part of the USA. Some of this is for "practical" reasons of being able to respond quickly, and there are also more dubious reasons. Mostly our military power was used to maintain the global status quo and for the United States to supplant the United Kingdom as the dominant "empire" in the world. Much like Rome with its growing military during its imperial period, it will be unsustainable for us as out nation was designed as a Republic.
The increased rapidity of events means that more centralization became necessary if only for functionality at the bureaucratic level. As for militias, the militias were essentially folded into the structure of the National Guard in 1903 (just prior to WWI). Most of those units are still based in their home states as a militia unit would be. They are however unified in a command structure nationally. They receive Federal funding and are considered federal employees (not state). So having said all of this that would mean that any citizen who owns a firearm (at least within a certain age group) could be expected to be called up to serve for a period of years and trained. The selective service program which all USA males are lawfully obligated at the age of 18 to participate in is an example of how this is actually executed. The US. Govt draws up a database of eligible people and presses them into service. The Second Amendment indicates that this is true. The states also have primary claim on the natioanl guard and those units are the LAST to be deployed in any martial action. Active Duty, Reserves, National Guard. The reasons are two-fold. 1) Economically you don't wanna rip away every able bodied person from his or her job. 2) Socially it is disruptive.
So, back to why you have the right to own a military class weapon (SEE ABOVE). It was expected that a citizen would be able to afford a basic infantry weapon of his or her era. So in addition to being able to defend one's self and property, one could also defray some of the hardware cost that the militia would incur. Any organized armed force would have heavy weapons (like cannons, artillery, mortars etc.) that are impractical for individual use, maintenance and storage. A rifle/musket/semi-auto or full auto rifle would be considered by many at least practical for storage and maintenance even if he or she does not enjoy using it. It would have also been expected for fathers to train their sons in the proper respect, use and maintenance for the weapon. To lend some credence to this there was a great amount of talk about virtue being the core of the new republic and that without many citizens possessing such an attribute that the republic would be more or less doomed.
The idea of whether or not a person "needs" an assault rifle or semi auto pistol or whatever is beyond the scope of the governments authority to interpret what a citizen may feel he or she requires. It is a citizen's absolute RIGHT to keep and bear (possess and lawfully use) arms. This would seemingly not be restricted to firearms, but include other types of weaponry as well as arms is a generic term for any and all weapons including swords, maces, clubs, pepper spray, knives and other types that I won't bother naming. It would be up to the state to regulate how they chose to monitor possession of those items but outright bans have happened in some cases for things like brass knuckles and the like. It would be a fun legal challenge to have it overturned.
Need of a weapon is irrelevant to the language of the constitution, whereas your rights are what are spoken about. Whenever someone (politician or pundit/think-tank representative) speaks about "need" or "fairness" the person speaking about it is being disingenuous. That speaker is injecting his or her own opinion as to what he or she would have and projecting it onto each and every citizen. This is the authoritarian take on the situation. Many of these people send their children to private schools which have private armed security forces or have body guards hired to protect them...but god forbid each and every citizen be able to defend themselves. *I'm looking at you Mr. Dershowitz**Peter Jennings**President Obama**Glenn Beck* etc. You can name any number of people who find it fine to have armed body guards, but you, the lowly citizen, must wait for the police to find your dead body.
Enough is enough. If you do not want a weapon...then simply do not buy one. If you want to own one you have the responsibility to get the proper training in use, maintenance and licensing (where required by law). When a person commits a crime, the weapon is evidence but it is not charged with the crime because it is simply a tool with no conscience and it does not similarly remove one's rights. Example: The Right to free speech is not lost or given up by anyone even though a person may engage in libelous or defamatory activities. We don't talk about restricting speech further, the party responsible is dealt with through the legal system and it is resolved. We should be so mature about all violations of our rights not just the ones that we agree with on some gut level.
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