What Liberals Get Wrong About the Second Amendment
Must we really respond to the “musket” argument again?
Apparently so. It’s all the rage among Democrats right now.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (Democrat) and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Democrat) both think it’s quite brilliant to claim that, if we care what the framers of the Constitution meant, then the Second Amendment applies only to “muskets”!
In The New York Times, a couple of professors (Democrats, but you knew that) asked: “Is a modern AR-15-style rifle relevantly similar to a Colonial musket? In what ways?” They liked their argument so much, the op-ed was titled, “A Supreme Court Head-Scratcher: Is a Colonial Musket ‘Analogous’ to an AR-15?”
[Frantically waving my hand]: Yes, professors, it’s exactly analogous.
The Second Amendment does not refer to “muskets”; it refers to “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” “Bear” means to carry, so any handheld firearm carried by the military can be carried by the people. Just as the musket was once carried by our military, the AR-15 is a handheld arm (technically, the less powerful version of the automatic M-16) carried by our military today. As soon as the U.S. military goes back to muskets, then muskets it is!
The Second Amendment is nearly the only prescriptive policy in a document that liberals have been trying to pump their nutty ideas into for 50 years. Unfortunately for them, there’s nothing in the Constitution about a right to dance naked in strip clubs, contraception, marriage or sticking a fork in a baby’s head.
But on the right to bear arms, our Delphic framers were nearly Tolstoyian with their explosion of words: “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.” (An earlier draft of the amendment specifically defined “militia” as “composed of the body of the people,” but was rejected as redundant.)
In the boldest affirmation of their worldview, the framers announced our natural, God-given right to self-defense — against the government, against criminals, and against assailants the government can’t or won’t stop. Free people prepared to defend themselves are the nucleus of the republic. It’s the most beautiful thing in the whole Constitution. Here, at last, the Founding Fathers told us something specific they want us to do: Teach the boys to shoot.
The “right to bear muskets” crowd — protected by taxpayer-supported armed guards, or cordoned off from the public by phalanxes of security officers in the lobby of, for example, NBC’s television studios in Rockefeller Center, before they return to their homes in crime-free, lily-White neighborhoods — tell us to focus on the freakishly rare mass shooting.
The highest estimates of mass shootings — including by gang warfare, drive-bys, drug wars and domestic murder-suicides — put the number of deaths at under 400 per year, or approximately the same number of Americans who drown in swimming pools every year. Four hundred, out of more than 20,000 murders annually.
Which is why, despite the media’s best effort to terrify suburban moms about weirdos shooting at crowds, nearly half of Americans prefer self-reliance to the government taking away our guns and promising to protect us.
In 2020, the Year of Our Floyd, gun sales went through the roof. The previous high for gun sales was in 2016, with about 16 million guns sold. But in 2020, as BLM tore through our cities, Americans bought 22.8 million guns. The following year saw the second-highest record for gun sales, at 19.9 million purchases.
By now, 44% of Americans report living in a gun-owning household. Thirty-two percent say they personally own a gun.
As much as I’d like to institutionalize the crazies — for their sake, as well as ours — the risks from bad faith actors at present are too high. With anti-gun zealots on the rampage and the U.S. attorney general siccing the FBI on parents who complain at local school board meetings, the most likely result would be marijuana-crazed schizophrenics continuing about their days unmolested, while gun owners get locked up.
Republicans 50%
Democrats 18%
** ** **
Conservatives 45% (Oddly, Gallup calls them “self-identified conservatives,” as if Gallup would never use this cruel epithet without consent of the accused.)
Liberals 15%
** ** **
Men 45%
Women 19%
** ** **
Southerners 40%
Eastern residents 21%
Gallup left out one category. The subgroup most likely to own a whole buttload of guns, but not admit it: gang members and other recidivist felons protected by George Gascon and other Soros D.A.s.
Being a rational people, Americans are more worried about those guys than the random rifle-bearing psycho in a woman’s dress.
COPYRIGHT 2022 ANN COULTER
DISTRIBUTED BY ANDREWS MCMEEL SYNDICATION
Imagine if someone suggested as the founders were considering the Second Amendment that this amendment is restricted to the current, late 18th-century technology of armaments. Idiotic.
Of course the Democrats’ strategy is to repeat the idiotic until it becomes commonplace and normal.
Like Ann Coulter at her worst, George, you have talked for years as if everything is a matter of Democrats (always black hats) versus Republicans (usually white hats). For that reason, your comments invariably serve to mislead and distort. In so doing, they reinforce the Deep State and serve its ends.
In the political establishment, there are NO guys in white hats—or women or fairies or trannies for that matter. That establishment consists solely of (((dedicated enemies of white Americans))) and many others who cravenly repeat the slanders of these dedicated enemies because they (i.e., the craven many) prefer position, money, and comfort to principle.
Do you deny that Democrat intellectual leadership follows a socialist ideology in which reality is “socially constructed”? I think Vlad Lenin, famous socialist and dictator, put it best, “A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth.” Republicans still hold that reality is objective and can be known by analysis and reason. The other point, is that ballots usually do not list “Left singer,” “liberal,” “progressive,” “Deep State,” “Globalist,” “New World Order,” etc. They do include labels such as “Republican” and “Democrat.”
There may be smattering of Republicans that still hold to objective reason. But the Rand Pauls and MTGs are vastly outnumbered by the Dan Cringeshaws and John Traitor Cornyns.
That’s exactly the type of idiocy endemic among our opponents. And they make their moronic arguments with thick irony, as though you’d have to be an idiot yourself not to see the stupidity of your side of the debate. It’s infuriating. But we need to get it through our heads that 90% of these people actually DO know that their arguments, when they aren’t refusing to argue a point and are just trying to shut you down, are rubbish… and they don’t care. Because they simply want to impose their will on everyone, logic be damned.
Having lived where “open carry” is legal and everybody does, these days, and having had both a concealed carry permit, been a “peace officer” and a range master, and evolving into a corrupted-government-hater, I view an honest appeals court ruling as what’s necessary to redeem American government at this juncture. Here’s what I’d include in a brief:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/data-breach-exposes-private-california-050358120.html
Not to split hairs, but 250 years ago, “bear” was more than carry. It still means “bring” but is now rarely used in that way. “Bear arms” archaically meant to be a soldier or fight. Ms Coulter shortchanges Americans by suggesting they are restricted to what they can carry. Similarly, “infringe” was a relatively new word to the English language, and much more “potent” than in today’s legaleze.
https://www.etymonline.com/word/infringe
Please see my facebook post on this article
Today the prevailing anti-majority theme seems to be that these are different times; what our finding fathers said is irrelevant to Western man’s contemporary shop. Fact: The country is divided.
A while back we were swimming in a public pool. Everyone seemed to be quiet doing their thing. Along came a Puerto Rican. She was about 50 years old. She had a boombox and ignored the lane rule (one lane to a swimmer). When a fellow, swimming peacefully, declared he was in his lane the boom boxer replied, “Whatcha gonna do about it!” Thus, a life guard was approached. The guard started, “I’m the same as you. Just let it drop.” That’s where America is today.
On the same day, a thousand miles away in a N.E. 4th of July fireworks setting, there were Ws, Bs, Asians and various Latinos. Everyone was minding their own business. They were, in a section, where one’s friend and mother were ambulating, three cops. There was a tiny pretty W female cop. With that cute blue-eyed beauty was a B and also a W male officer. During this peaceful gathering, a typical every day provocation set in. Along came a car with loud obnoxious and vulgar blasting music. It was full of Hispanics.
The W female police officer said, “Could you plez lower your music!” She was ignored and laughed at. The W male policeman told them to be considerate of others. He was also ignored and insulted. Then, the B-hispanic cop told them to put up their window. They immediately complied.
What kind of message had those provocateurs of a different culture been taught? Every honest man, with an IQ about 80 knows the answer.
What occurred in the two noted events is not isolated. It’s all across the US of A. MSM skirts the issue and that is where our country is at.
Can such a lawless society survive? You know the verboten answer(s).
I take exception to Coulter’s definition of the term “bear”, because I believe it to be far too narrow. “Merriam-Webster” includes the following in its definition of bear: “to be equipped or furnished with (something)”, i.e., it does not restrict one’s right to bear arms to arms one carries. Anyone with an IQ above room temperature understands that one reason for our right to bear arms was to protect against a tyrannical government. Why should the population be restricted to arms which can only be carried? The Colonists used cannons to fight the British, and these weren’t carried, were they? Whatever the government has, the people MUST have the right to possess. The government is created by man, and as such, it can NEVER acquire or hold ANY rights superior to man. If mankind is restricted to protecting itself only with arms its potential aggressor deems acceptable, then there is no unalienable right to self-defense!
I would put less focus on “bear” and more focus on “arms” to counter the musket argument. The Founders were not silly (unlike our current crop of elites) and therefore chose “arms” rather than “muskets” or any other specific armament. No doubt they understood “arms” had developed over time from bone fragments to bow and arrows and swords, and could reasonably see the musket would not be the last development. Thus, whatever arms the government can bear, so can the populace. The restricting of free speech only to the quill and paper is another nice touche.
As usual the author gets it WRONG. “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”. The NRA famously always leaves off the first part and so did you. The STATE is suppose to be mustering the civil MILITIA and regulating (training) it. If even one of the fifty States would muster it civil Militia once a month the federales would crap their pants. The Consitution also Prohibits a Standing Army only the NAVY(Marines) can be allowed to “stand”. No illegal Air Force, Space Force, Army CIA, FBI, DHS, all these “standing armies” are private, being operated out of the District of Columbia by the Federal “government” which is has been in rebellion since 1871. The most dangerous part of the Standing army is it’s financial branch the FRB which uses the weapon of mass destruction, USURY to lay waste to supply the Lucra violating the 2 year provision for funding the huge Standing Army.