|
CALNRA.ORG
Why the Government is Paralyzed over the 2nd Amendment William Lolli CalNRA Contributing Editor I think now more than ever, the US Government is sorely afraid of the 2nd Amendment, and is doing everything it can to run from any collision with it. But collision is inevitable, and here is why: There was never a better time—now more than ever—when the American people need a practical 2nd Amendment. And the number of American people that are clamoring for a practical 2nd Amendment is growing every day. This week the US Supreme Court declined to rule on the Emerson case. Tanya Metaksa properly called the decision to decline “gutless”. (See http://www.calnra.org/currents.html for more info.) The decision to decline leaves the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment in the limbo of conflicting, federal appellate-level appeal rulings—all of which have been upheld in silence from the Supreme Court. On the one hand we have the last time the Supreme Court made a direct ruling on the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment: the oft-cited United States vs. Miller case. The Miller case, and its popular notion that guns were to be used for the purpose of state militias only, led to 63 years of anti-gun laws, gun bans, gun registration, gun licensing, the formation of the BATF, the re-defining of machine guns, assault guns, sniper guns, Saturday Night Specials, cop killer this-or-that, lawsuits against defensive firearms use by private owners, lawsuits against gun manufacturers, various state and federal court rulings restricting firearm use, transportation and carry, and all manner of other infringements on the individual gun owner. On the other hand we have the ascension into public scrutiny the United States vs. Emerson case, which for the first time in an appellate decision cites the historical background and legal formulation of the fundamental inculcation of the individual’s right to bear arms. Added to this appellate ruling the serious, senior, legal-scholarship on the history and meaning of the original intent of the 2nd Amendment as created by the Founders, conducted not by wild-eyed gun-nut extremists, but by liberal law professors at Ivy League institutions. Added further a national grass-roots movement, conducted state-by-state over a 10-year period in a direct response to counter a seemingly irreversible national crime wave, ending in the successful passage of dozens of “shall-issue” Concealed Weapons laws. Laws that have had an astounding success record in every state where tried. And to the shock and surprise of politicians and all in the popular liberal-elite culture; in the wake of September 11, more polls of the American people show that 74% of believe that the 2nd Amendment protects the individual’s right to own a gun. And 79% of Americans believe in the arming of commercial pilots. Okay. So here is the point: The Executive Branch Dilemma. The Executive Branch (state and federal) is running from the 2nd Amendment because they know that to support it outright is political suicide. [just ask AG Ashcroft]. But they are caught in the middle because they can’t enforce in a practical way all of the anti-gun laws. No one in government wants to sustain the avalanche of politically correct criticism from the liberal media for taking a pro-Right to Keep and Bear Arms position. But nor can the enforcement branch of government effectively enforce all of the anti-gun laws either. The result: executive branch paralysis on the issue. [Sidebar Point: If the NRA mantra “we don’t need any more gun laws—just
enforce the ones we have on the books” was to be taken to its most
logical and realistic conclusion, the Nazi Storm troopers would be conducting
house-to-house searches for “illegal guns”. Why? Because—there are so many
laws on the books now against gun ownership and use, that if they were all to
be enforced properly, it would require literal house-to-house enforcement.
Don’t believe me? Move to The Legislative Branch’s Dilemma. The Legislative Branch’s (state and federal) chief ambition in life is to stay in office. They can’t repeal the anti-gun laws they passed, because they fear the liberal media will unseat them when the next election-cycle comes along. They fear the strong, well-funded, liberal special interests that are anti-gun. If you cross them, you don’t get re-elected (so they think). Add to this the fact that philosophically they really do believe that the destruction of gun ownership will make the world a safer and better place for “the children”. The problem they face, however, is that in a post-September 11 world, the American psyche is firmly convinced that the 2nd Amendment entitles every citizen to own a gun for self defense. To openly campaign for the disarmament of the American people in a time of war is political suicide, no matter whether you believe “the world would be safer without guns” to be true or not. The Judicial Branches’ Dilemma. The Judicial Branches (state and federal) honestly don’t know what to do. They have the biggest problem of all. You see, if you took Miller and Emerson, and laid out on one, big table all of the historical research; and from all this you had to distill a conclusive interpretation of the practical application of the 2nd Amendment in modern 21st century America, the results would shock the world. Remember that in Miller, the court simply defined the types of guns protected by the Second Amendment. In 1939, the court concluded that the "instrument" (a sawed-off shotgun) was not covered by the Second Amendment, since it was not a military weapon. Here is a direct quote from Miller: “In
the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ‘shotgun
having a barrel of less than 18 inches in length’ at this time has some
reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated
militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep
and bear such an instrument. Certainly it is not within judicial notice that
this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use
could contribute to the common defense.” Note that the court's conclusion turned solely on the fact that a sawed-off shotgun was not "ordinary military equipment." As Professor Levinson (card-carrying member of the ACLU) said of the decision: "Ironically, Miller can be read to support some of the most extreme anti-gun control arguments, e.g., that the individual citizen has a right to keep and bear bazookas, rocket launchers and ... assault weapons." [See Ann Coulter http://frontpagemag.com/columnists/coulter/2002/ac05-16-02.htm ] You see? When you combine the historical research and the Miller-Emerson decisions, it becomes no surprise as to why the Supreme Court declined to rule on Emerson appeal: If the “Wait A Minute!!” I hear you saying. Didn’t the courts provide for the proper role of the state to regulate (in law) the private ownership of firearms? Yes, that is true. But those regulations and laws over the past 63 years were passed under the false interpretation and application that the state could infringe on the individual’s right to own military arms. Whoops. So you see, the state and federal governments—in all three branches—are tip-toeing their way quietly around the sleeping bear. The problem with this strategy of course is that it won’t work. It didn’t work when the government of all the states tip-toed around the issue of slavery from 1790 to 1860. All that tip-toeing in those days just made people angrier and angrier. Indeed, despite the fact that from 1800 to 1860 this nation saw and heard the greatest statesmen the world has ever seen; and contemplated the moral implications of their pro- and anti-slavery arguments; and in spite (or because) of the government’s continued compromises and gutlessness on the issue of slavery, the anger of the American people grew to a feverish pitch. The slaves suffered horribly. The nation suffered horribly. The Civil War
tore into the fabric of Tanya Metaksa is right. It was a gutless thing to do. And if We the People continue to allow The Gutless to continue to rule this country, we will all suffer for it in the end. |