Note to Obama Campaign
The same people who defeated Gore and Kerry may, in spite of all he has going for him, defeat Obama. He has no clue as to the meaning and origin of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. (Bill Richardson may be the only prominent Democrat who does.)
Rule 1: Never again mention hunting, sportsmen, or target practice in the same sentence with The Second Amendment.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is about DEFENSE! Self-defense, family defense, community defense, national defense, and, ultimately, defense of the People against a despotic government.
I fervently support Obama vocally and with money, but I have no argument to present to my friends who would like to vote for Democrats in general and Obama in particular, but will not because they are among those bitter folks who cling to their guns.
Hell, I'm not bitter. I'm not even religious, but I have studied the origin of The Second Amendment and I will go to the wall to defend it.
Obama's background has not given him exposure to the reality of the fact that the RIGHT to self defense implies the MEANS to self defense.
I wish someone would persuade our candidate to spend an hour or two perusing anything by Stephen Halbrook http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/, probably the quickest and most concise way to get a basic understanding of what the Right to Keep and Bear Arms means to this country's history and its future.
http://www.guncite.com/journals/haladopt.html
From the paper cited by the link above, Halbrook's
"Conclusion
"In recent years it has been suggested that the second amendment protects the 'collective' right of states to maintain militias, but not the right of 'the people' to keep and bear arms. If anyone entertained this notion in the period in which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known surviving writing of the 1787-1791 period states that thesis. Instead, 'the people' in the second amendment meant the same as it did in the first, fourth, ninth and tenth amendments, i.e., each and every free person. A select militia as the only privileged class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered as execrative to a free society as would be select spokesmen approved by government as the only class entitled to freedom of the press. Nor were those who adopted the Bill of Rights willing to clutter it with details such as non-political justifications for the right (e.g., self-protection and hunting) or a list of what everyone knew to be common arms, such as muskets, scatterguns, pistols and swords. In light of contemporary developments, perhaps the most striking insight made by those who originally opposed the attempt to summarize all the rights of a freeman in a bill of rights was that, no matter how it was worded, artful misconstruction would be employed to limit and destroy the very rights sought to be protected."
Rule 1: Never again mention hunting, sportsmen, or target practice in the same sentence with The Second Amendment.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms is about DEFENSE! Self-defense, family defense, community defense, national defense, and, ultimately, defense of the People against a despotic government.
I fervently support Obama vocally and with money, but I have no argument to present to my friends who would like to vote for Democrats in general and Obama in particular, but will not because they are among those bitter folks who cling to their guns.
Hell, I'm not bitter. I'm not even religious, but I have studied the origin of The Second Amendment and I will go to the wall to defend it.
Obama's background has not given him exposure to the reality of the fact that the RIGHT to self defense implies the MEANS to self defense.
I wish someone would persuade our candidate to spend an hour or two perusing anything by Stephen Halbrook http://www.stephenhalbrook.com/, probably the quickest and most concise way to get a basic understanding of what the Right to Keep and Bear Arms means to this country's history and its future.
http://www.guncite.com/journals/haladopt.html
From the paper cited by the link above, Halbrook's
"Conclusion
"In recent years it has been suggested that the second amendment protects the 'collective' right of states to maintain militias, but not the right of 'the people' to keep and bear arms. If anyone entertained this notion in the period in which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were debated and ratified, it remains one of the most closely guarded secrets of the eighteenth century, for no known surviving writing of the 1787-1791 period states that thesis. Instead, 'the people' in the second amendment meant the same as it did in the first, fourth, ninth and tenth amendments, i.e., each and every free person. A select militia as the only privileged class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered as execrative to a free society as would be select spokesmen approved by government as the only class entitled to freedom of the press. Nor were those who adopted the Bill of Rights willing to clutter it with details such as non-political justifications for the right (e.g., self-protection and hunting) or a list of what everyone knew to be common arms, such as muskets, scatterguns, pistols and swords. In light of contemporary developments, perhaps the most striking insight made by those who originally opposed the attempt to summarize all the rights of a freeman in a bill of rights was that, no matter how it was worded, artful misconstruction would be employed to limit and destroy the very rights sought to be protected."
posted by Eric Rush | 9:14 PM
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