Wherein Rachel Maddow accomplishes something I've long wanted to see on tv - the clear and deadly results of the psychotic "Wild West" ideal that hard core gun advocates salivate for. Long have we heard the argument that more permissive concealed carry laws would create a deterrent to crime and keep the peace, but the reality is very different.
I grew up in a area much like Homewood in Pittsburgh, and I can personally testify that where I grew up - South Central L.A. - the clerks at the local AM/PM Minimart were packing, and I remember a time when the closest Taco Bell to where I'm sitting right now - Used to have it's parking lot patrolled by an armed guard.
Somebody still tried to rob that AM/PM on the corner of Century & Figueroa. They weren't deterred one bit. Then very nearly succeeded too, getting the "drop" on two of the clerks, unfortunately they missed a third who was in the back when they entered and started a shoot out. The local news played footage of the gun battle unedited for days. I've lost friends and family members to gun violence. Many of the kids I went to Jr. High with in the 70's are Dead Now, and not by natural causes. I've seen what guns have done, but most people haven't.
This following video is one that every person who support unrestricted gun rights, and members of the NRA absolutely need to see. This is the devastation that unrestricted access to Guns have wrought.
It's difficult not to be affected as Rev. Ricky Burgess talks about how many of his close friends, parishiners and even his own family members have been struck down by Gun Violence.
Burgess: I think it was Mayor Bloomberg who said "When you hear the word 'Duck' in a rural community you're talking about water fowl. When you hear the word 'Duck" in an urban community you're talking about getting down and being safe. In my community, I have mothers - who have their children sleeping in bathtubs. They have their children playing in basements, because of the gun violence
Strolling down the most dangerous alley in America.
If watching this footage as Burgess - catalogues all the shootings and deaths off the top of his head - doesn't make your heart ache, I have to wonder if you're heart is still fully functioning.
More people having guns doesn't stop gun violence. It just makes those who are intent on using their guns more crafty, not more cowardly. Why do you think we now have the phenomenon of the "Drive-By Shooting"? It's because the shooters already know the people they're shooting at probably have guns too - so they fire from moving cover that allows them to make a rapid escape to avoid return fire.
How did we end up with the trend of "Car Jacking"? Was it because people figured that it was easier to avoid The Club and Lo-Jack to simply grab the car while the driver had already disabled the security himself? Do three-strikes laws deter crime, or does it force those who are "on the bubble" to go one step further and make sure to eliminate all witnesses so they don't even have to worry about facing the judge for the third time?
Where I grew up just about everyone has a gun. You can tell they do, particularly on New Years Eve when many of them fire their weapons into the air at midnight and everyone else can hear them. What we've had going on in our Urban Neighborhoods for a generation now is a deadly arms race. Hand Guns aren't enough, so people have to get M16's, AR15's and AK47's.
I support the 2nd Amendment. I always have and I probably always will.
However, I support it under it's original intention and context. Constitutionally I feel that the 2nd Amendment and the Right to Bear Arms are inseparable from the Well Regulated Militia.
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.
Under Article 1 and the Powers of Congress
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
Under Article 2 and the Powers of the President
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States,and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;
It's clear that the right to bear arms was intended to support the idea of the Militia that would be regulated by Congress and the States and commanded by the President. It's was not about Hunting, it was not about Law Enforcement, it was about Invasion, Insurrection and in the worst case scenario - Revolution.
In 1792 President George Washington signed the Militia Act which mandated that each and every able-bodied adult (white) male purchase a firearm in order to serve as a member of the Militia in preparation of an attack by England which eventually materialized in the War of 1812.
The second Act, passed May 8, 1792, provided for the organization of the state militias. It conscripted every "free able-bodied white male citizen" between the ages of 18 and 45 into a local militia company overseen by the state. Militia members were to arm themselves with a musket, bayonet and belt, two spare flints, a cartridge box with 24 bullets, and a knapsack. Men owning rifles were required to provide a powder horn, 1/4 pound of gun powder, 20 rifle balls, a shooting pouch, and a knapsack.[3] Some occupations were exempt, such as congressmen, stagecoach drivers, and ferryboatmen. Otherwise, men were required to report for training twice a year, usually in the Spring and Fall.
So much for the argument that Congress can't force people to buy stuff.
Today's modern day Militia is essentially the National Guard. A military defensive force operated through the States and commanded by the President when he calls upon them. IMO the Right to Bear, should be viewed through this lens, but unfortunately through the advocacy of the NRA and the appointment of Right Wing judges that is not how the Constitution and the Right to Bear is currently interpreted.
Not since DC v Heller where the Supreme Court established that the Right to Bear arms was a Personal Right, not a responsibility regulated through the Militia
There seems to us no doubt, on the basis of both text and history, that the Second Amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms. Of course the right was not unlimited, just as the First Amendment ’s right of free speech was not, see, e.g., United States v. Williams, 553 U. S. _ (2008). Thus, we do not read the Second Amendment to protect the right of citizens to carry arms for any sort of confrontation, just as we do not read the First Amendment to protect the right of citizens to speak for any purpose.
Reading through this decision is actually rather amazing, rather than rely mostly on case law, or even the debates which occurred within the Constitutional Congress on the matter this interpretation was drawn from re-readings of various State Constitutions which existed prior to the U.S. Constitution.
We now address how the Second Amendment was interpreted from immediately after its ratification through the end of the 19th century. Before proceeding, however, we take issue with Justice Stevens’ equating of these sources with postenactment legislative history, a comparison that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of a court’s interpretive task. See post, at 27, n. 28. “Legislative history,” of course, refers to the pre-enactment statements of those who drafted or voted for a law; it is considered persuasive by some, not because they reflect the general understanding of the disputed terms, but because the legislators who heard or read those statements presumably voted with that understanding. Ibid. “Postenactment legislative history,” ibid., a deprecatory contradiction in terms, refers to statements of those who drafted or voted for the law that are made after its enactment and hence could have had no effect on the congressional vote. It most certainly does not refer to the examination of a variety of legal and other sources to determine the public understanding of a legal text in the period after its enactment or ratification. That sort of inquiry is a critical tool of constitutional interpretation. As we will show, virtually all interpreters of the Second Amendment in the century after its enactment interpreted the amendment as we do.
Oh, do they? Never before had the Supreme Court decreed that the 2nd Amendment granted a personal individual right to keep and bear arms.
Exactly what this means for future gun restrictions or background checks remains unclear, the kind of basic and simply restrictions that Rachel and frankly most conscientious NRA members suggest may no longer be within our grasp in the wake of Heller.
Can we now keep guns out of the hands of children, of criminals and those like Jared Loughner who may be severely disturbed?
In a post Heller America, I have my doubts.
But I have little doubt that the Shooting Galleries that people like those in Homewood have to deal with are going to be with us for a very long time.
Vyan