The Second Amendment Of The Constitution Of The United State

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state,
the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Do you still wish to subscribe to that tired old notion that our founding fathers were referring to the "National Guard" when they refer to the need of a well supplied militia???

"A Boston University professor, Randy Barnett, wrote in the National Review Online recently that the Congress [ought to] take seriously the responsibility that was delegated them by the people to provide for the militia," Pratt said, "meaning, getting guns into the hands of the people."

Barnett, on Sept. 18, wrote: "The next time someone tells you that the militia referred to in the Second Amendment has been 'superceded' by the National Guard, ask them who it was that prevented United Airlines Flight 93 from reaching its target. The National Guard? The regular Army? The D.C. Police Department? None of these had a presence on Flight 93 because, in a free society, professional law-enforcement and military personnel cannot be everywhere."

"Terrorists and criminals are well aware of this – indeed, they count on it. Who is everywhere? The people the Founders referred to as the 'general militia.' Cellular phone calls from the plane have now revealed that it was members of the general militia, not organized law enforcement, who successfully prevented Flight 93 from reaching its intended target at the cost of their own lives," Barnett wrote.

You only need to understand the unique importance of the second amendment as a fundamental part of the constitution. The second amendment is truly the only enforcement mechanism we Americans have in the whole constitution. The rest of the constitution is reduced to sniveling dribble when the ability to enforce it is removed...

The right of the people
to keep and bear arms,
shall not be infringed!

Do you understand the true importance of the
Second Amendment,
as is it relates to the Constitution of the United States of America?

"The strongest reason for the people
to retain the right to keep and bear arms is,
as a last resort,
to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America simply reaffirms our inalienable right as free Americans to keep and bear arms!

Why the Gun Control lobby wants you to believe that the gun control argument "second amendment" is about Guns rather than Freedom and "Constitutional Rights".

Because their feeble arguments about common sense gun laws and child safety have absolutely no relevance to this argument.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. 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."

The Second Amendment is a political issue today only because of the military reality that underlies it. Politicians who fear the people seek to disarm them. People who fear their government's intentions refuse to be disarmed. The Founders understood this. So, too, does every tyrant who ever lived. Liberty-loving Americans forget it at their peril. Until they do, American gunowners in the aggregate represent a strategic military fact and an impediment to foreign tyranny. They also represent the greatest political challenge to home-grown would-be tyrants. If the people cannot be forcibly disarmed against their will, then they must be persuaded to give up their arms voluntarily. This is the siren song of "gun control," which is to say "government control of all guns," although few self-respecting gun-grabbers would be quite so bold as to phrase it so honestly.

But forget the psychological and political for a moment, and consider just the numbers. To paraphrase the Senator, "A million pistols here, a million rifles there, pretty soon you're talking serious firepower." No one, repeat, no one, will conquer America, from within or without, until its citizenry are disarmed. We remain, as a British officer had reason to complain at the start of our Revolution, "a people numerous and armed."

Even so, the truth is that one man with a pistol CAN defeat an army, given a righteous cause to fight for, enough determination to risk death for that cause, and enough brains, luck and friends to win the struggle. This is true in war but also in politics, and it is not necessary to be a Prussian militarist to see it. The dirty little secret of today's ruling elite as represented by the Clintonistas is that they want people of conscience and principle to be divided in as many ways as possible ("wedge issues" the consultants call them) so that they may be more easily manipulated. No issue of race, religion, class or economics is left unexploited. Lost in the din of jostling special interests are the few voices who point out that if we refuse to be divided from what truly unites us as a people, we cannot be defeated on the large issues of principle, faith, the constitutional republic and the rule of law. More importantly, woe and ridicule will be heaped upon anyone who points out that like the blustering Wizard of Oz, the federal tax and regulation machine is not as omniscient, omnipotent or fearsome as they would have us believe. Like the Wizard, they fan the scary flames higher and shout, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

For the truth is, they are frightened that we will find out how pitifully few they are compared to the mass of the citizenry they seek to frighten into compliance with their tax collections, property seizures and bureaucratic, unconstitutional power-shifting. I strongly recommend everyone see the new animated movie "A Bug's Life". Simple truths may often be found sheltering beneath unlikely overhangs, there protected from the pelting storm of lies that soak us everyday.

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

Many people advocate gun control because they believe that armed citizens are a threat to their personal safety. The fact is that cities with strict gun control laws (i.e. Washington D.C.) also have the highest crime rates. Criminals will always be able to obtain firearms by theft or the black market. Gun control only makes the world a safer place for violent criminals.

Crimes committed by common street thugs, however, pale in significance when compared to the crimes committed by governments. Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership reports the following genocides in the 20th Century alone:

The type of gun is no more relevant to the second amendment than the type of printing press, word processor, computer or web technology is to the validity of the first amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Why does the Gun Control lobby want you to believe
that the gun control argument is about a
"Public Health Issue", "Child Safety", "Common Sense Gun Laws" even "Hand Guns"
rather than Freedom, The "Second Amendment" and "Constitutional Rights"?

Is it at all related to the fact that if they discuss this in constitutional terms, They don't have a leg to stand on!

Because their feeble arguments about common sense gun laws and child safety have absolutely no relevance to this argument.

The type of gun is no more relevant to the second amendment
than the type of printing press, word processor,
computer or web technology is to the validity of the first amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

Increasingly, those opposed to private gun ownership argue that the key to curbing violent crime lies in the restriction, infringement or even complete repeal of the Second Amendment. Of course, this argument ignores the fact that criminals are the element of society least affected by firearms regulations: criminals rarely obtain their guns legally anyway, and obviously don't care about breaking the law. Thus, increased firearm regulations only serve to hinder the law-abiding gun purchaser, while debasing a fundamental Constitutional right and thus endangering all the others. It is that danger to the Constitution which we address here.

The Place of the Second Amendment in American Law

The Constitution is the absolute center of American civic life. We pay homage to it, we quote from it, and we look to it as our ultimate secular standard of right and wrong. Hardly a day passes when it does not enter into the thoughts and conversation of every American.

This is not an accident: constitutions, Americans have determined, are greater than laws. "Mere laws," regulations passed by legislatures or created by court rulings, are transient things, capable of repeal or reversal at a moment's notice. But the Constitution is unique: it requires the assent of all the people, through a process that is above and apart from the normal system of government.

The Founding Fathers were adamant about this: the Constitution ought and must have a legitimacy and breadth of acceptance that transcends all other legal and political institutions. The practical implication of the Founders' plan is simple: no law may be passed that is inconsistent with the Constitution. If one is passed, it must be struck down by the courts, because a law at odds with the Constitution is no law at all. Everything in American political life revolves around this principle.

Because an amendment to the Constitution goes through the same process of adoption as the Constitution itself, and because, upon ratification, it is equal in authority and substance with every other part of the original document -- even to the point of occasionally repealing parts of the original -- it is clear just how serious Constitutional amendments really are. And while all of them are equal in force, those first ten amendments commonly referred to as the Bill of Rights are indisputably held most dear by all Americans.

In light of this, it is perfectly obvious that the Second Amendment is truly of the character of the highest law of the land, and that nothing may abridge or demote it except another Constitutional amendment. Yet this is precisely what many in the anti-gun movement have sought to do, using statutes to abridge a fundamental right. In the process, they undermine not only the Second Amendment, but the First Amendment and all other Constitutionally-enshrined liberties as well. It is not a wise course they take.

The Meaning of the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment states: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Many gun-control advocates, realizing the danger of a direct assault on the Bill of Rights, seek to avoid the problem by claiming that "the militia" refers to the National Guard, and that if the Amendment protects anything for the citizen it is sport shooting. On this basis, they claim, government may control guns any way it likes.

Without an understanding of history, this argument is tempting; yet in fact, it is utterly wrong. The Federalist, that well-spring of Constitutional interpretation straight from the pens of three of the Constitution's principle authors, shows us plainly the importance the Founding Fathers attached to the rights enshrined in the Second Amendment. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, wrote in Federalist No. 46 that the Constitution preserves "the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation . . . (where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." He was seconded by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 29, where that great New York statesman called for an armed citizenry permanently the equal or better of any army the nation might raise. Elsewhere, George Mason, one of the greatest of Virginia statesmen, reported that "when the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually. . . . I ask, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers."

Every Supreme Court decision for two hundred years has stood by this definition of the militia. That stands to reason: there would be no need for an amendment to give the military a right to bear arms. And Mason's description of British gun control law haunts the mind of every German immigrant who once lived under Hitler.

The Founders weren't concerned about target shooting. They were concerned about defending the people from a government run amok. And they were enshrining into the Bill of Rights the power of the people -- just used against Britain -- to uphold by force all of their other rights. They were dead serious, because if they hadn't all had guns just a few years earlier, they would have all been dead. And while this seems quaint to some today, the fact remains that, being placed into the very heart of the Constitution, it is an idea which must be viewed with respect. And today's threats of violence from gangs, crack dealers, rapists and serial killers are no less real than yesterday's occupation by British troops.

Conclusion

Even if the Framers had really given Constitutional weight to shooting squirrels, the point remains: they did in fact place it in the Constitution. No mere statute may supersede it; and yet thousands of gun control laws do, with more enacted every day.

This very thought is terrifying: if one Constitutional right can be eroded and debased this way, anyone, anytime, can take away our free press, our freedom of worship, or any other liberties we cherish, by exactly the same means. The Vanguard opposes this sort of creeping judicial and legislative tyranny, and calls on our governments and our people to remember, even when inconvenient, that "the price of freedom is eternal vigilance."

The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms. -Samuel Adams

Little more can reasonably be aimed at with respect to the people at large than to have them properly armed. -Alexander Hamilton

The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun. -Patrick Henry

Don't be fooled into trading your rights for a false since of security...

"For those of us who have fought for it, FREEDOM has a taste that the protected will never know."

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The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America

The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed!

The Right to Keep and Bear Arms

The Second Amendment
of the
Constitution of the United States of America

The right of the people
to keep and bear arms,
shall not be infringed!