OpEdNews, PA
March 22 2008
The Supreme Court and the 2nd Amendment
Diary Entry by Rabbi
The US Supreme Court is going to make a ruling on the last 12 words
of the Second Amendment and the judgment was a fore gone conclusion
even before the court decided the hear the case.
The US Supreme Court is going to make a ruling on the last 12 words
of the Second Amendment and the judgment was a fore gone conclusion
even before the court decided the hear the case.
Apparently the crux of the issue is the individual’s right to own
firearms and that is in relationship to the Washington D.C. gun ban
which is the toughest in the country. Since the ban was put into
place, gun related crime in the district has been ebbing. A
derogative commenter to one of my articles unwittingly provided the
numbers which mirror the Brady Center’s numbers. Bravo~!
There are those in America, and their parent organization the NRA,
who insist we would be better off with more guns free floating in
America. The 98% drop in unspecified, and undefined, crime as
promised by John Lott has not happened even though there are more
guns in circulation and one wonders what the implications are.
Rather than continuing flaming debates, why don’t we let the numbers
speak for themselves? We pull out all the stops and we have a no
holds barred evidence based scientific experiment.
First, we pick a number from a hat – let’s say 36 months for the
length of the experiment.
We give the NRA everything they are asking for (see:
), and more importantly we indemnifying the
shooters, just like the NRA wants. It is very important too that we
also give the NRA their much desired shoot first provision – the
right to engage lethal force if one perceives their life to be in
some none specified, nor defined, form of hazard. If people know
there is no penalty clause for their behavior they will more readily
do what people do or desire to do.
To have a valid study we have to insure that no one’s last 12 words
Second Amendment rights are being sequestered (i.e. no back ground
checks, no gun free zones, no prohibitive postings, permissible straw
purchases, no purchase limits/quotas, open ended CCWs’, etc.).
Entitle college students and high school students to carry a weapon
if they so choose.
The data selection criteria is was a gun used Yes or No and that
covers gun crimes, gun murders, gun fights, gun related deaths,
deadly gun encounters, bullet wounds, drive by shootings, serial gun
murders, accidental shootings, suicides, and other gun related
trauma. We would not confine the data by location, crime
involvement, nor ethic group as we are trying to determine if the
United States as a whole, as a collective (which is at the crux of
the last 12 words version of the Second Amendment), is safer or less
safe with more guns. We are not measuring knife, baseball bats, or
any other item that might be used as a weapon – WE ARE TESTING FOR
GUN INCIDENTS ONLY.
We control and restrict input from only hospitals, morgues, and
police and at the end of the three years, we retain the services of
several overseas data consultants to correlate the data. Let the
cold hard reality of numbers settle the score once and for all, and
in language we understand pure and simple. The NRA’s John Lott can
do any calculations he wants, but not in this study because our study
would be based in actual reality and facts.
After three years, we will truly know if we are safer with guns and
the law of the old west (if there ever was one that is). If we are
safer, then the issue is settled. If we are not safer then we are
well on our way to becoming victims of our own success. After three
years, there will be no more delusions.
We should also unravel the ‘guns prevent tyranny’ mystery in our
examination – we have to include the violations to our civil rights
and the abandonment of the Bill of Rights. We must include domestic
spying, intercept of our mail, wire taps, etc. which are now becoming
the rule rather than the exception. Taken on a line item by line
item, have guns in America stopped the erosion of our rights or not.
If guns have not stopped the steam roll over our rights, then we
should drop the statement that guns prevent tyranny because the
statement is not valid.
However, we do have several models to look at when we want to clarify
the assumption that guns prevent tyranny: The Communist revolution in
Russia, China, North Korea, Viet Nam and Cuba. Pol Pot is one example
and there is always Somalia and Rwanda. Last, but not least, is the
Armenian genocide.
Do guns help democracy? Hitler’s rise was through the democratic vote
and an armed SA. Read again: Hitler’s rise to power was through the
democratic process by the vote of the German people…… even though his
speeches and writings indicated that he was insane. On a side note….I
wonder what would have happened if he could have gotten his hands on
the same medications the person in our Oval Office is taking.
I am not questioning a person’s right to defend themselves as that is
a given – whether actively or passively (fight or flight). And there
are so many self defense alternatives including not going out and
looking for trouble.
We have created this gun violence mess. The fear mongering by the
patriarch of the gun culture, the NRA, who speaks for the gun
culture, and their claims the government is trying to take people’s
guns away from them led to an increase in sales (possibly called
hoarding or collecting), and then the call goes out `be afraid, very
afraid’ and more guns get sold.
The criminal sees his/her life in potential peril and they go out and
buy like crazy for they too have a last 12 words second amendment
right to arm themselves – how do criminals get guns, private sales,
straw purchases, and the gun show loophole (which the NRA does not
want to see closed).
Some people might take issue with me, but in the last 12 words second
amendment it is clearly stated `shall not be infringed’ – with no
exclusions (i.e. criminal intent or convictions or mental health).
Congress has never threatened to take people’s gun away; in fact, the
NRA is the special child of US congress, the Oval Office, and the
Supreme Court. Any savvy politician knows that an endorsement from
the NRA means they get to keep their job. Not to mention the
`donations’ the NRA makes to favored politicians, which really looks
like vote buying to me.
The Brady Center has put up an honorable fight, and after our
experiment, if the numbers give a clear indication of an escalation
in gun related incidents, then the Brady Center should be given carte
blanch – and the NRA admits defeat. Very simple solution to a
complex problem.
One a side note, another derogative commenter to one of my articles
sarcastically suggested that I hit the history books because he wants
to believe if the Jews had guns in Nazi Germany, the holocaust would
not have happened.
I’m still waiting for a logical explanation for that because the
model shown by the Battle of Little Big Horn reminds us that a
minority, even if armed with more sophisticated weapons, cannot
defeat a superior military force. Another example is the battle of
Waterloo, a superior military force overcoming a minority military
force. The third example I would like to point out is Wounded Knee
of the late 19th century where an armed minority, deprived of their
last 12 words second amendment rights, were exterminated at the hands
of a larger armed force (in this case, it was the civilian militia,
with no legal authority, that caused the massacre of native
Americans). Ah, sweet genocidal tyranny.
Having said that, just how would the Jews have prevented the
holocaust if they were armed? Sorry to burst you imagination gone
wild comment – you’d get along better in life if you learned the
meaning of the word reality.
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