I’ve never made a thing about guns or gun politics. I don’t own any guns. A close friend does. I’ve been shooting for the fun of it, and I’ve been hunting, though never successfully. Seeing a guy in the middle of the woods with a long rifle with a scope on it makes me think I should go make a new friend so I can find a reliable and generous source of venison. Seeing a guy carrying a pistol in the middle of a city makes me nervous as hell. It’s not a black-and-white issue to me, so I’ve never made a thing of it.
But today I heard somebody equate the Second Amendment with owning guns for hunting.
Ignorance of historical context is inexcusable. The Second Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. It’s about owning guns for the purpose of killing people. It was written during a time when the idea of peaceful political change was laughable; just a few years after its ratification, the good people of Paris effected their political change through repeated applications of short, sharp shocks on a thoroughly modern assembly line of death that for sheer efficiency would go unmatched until the rise of the Third Reich a century and a half later. The Second Amendment was put in place as a protection of last resort against tyranny ever again setting its booted foot on the North American continent.
If you’re going to try to have a discussion about the meaning and significance of the Second Amendment, at least do it honestly. “A people can never be deprived of their liberties,” Noah Webster wrote at the time, “while they retain in their own hands a power sufficient to any other power in the state.” The Second Amendment isn’t about hunting. It’s about war.
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Saying that the Second Amendment is there so that you can go hunting is like saying that the First Amendment is there so you can write the Sports Page.
(I’m paraphrasing somebody, but I have no idea who….)
Stephen Rider
Sunday, February 25th, 2007, 10:55 pm
Equating the 2A to hunting allows you to muddy up the issue. The Powers-That-Be are nervous of an armed populace… the Writers of the Constitution knew that and made it an amendment so it could persist over time. I just wish they’d used stronger language with less wiggle room. :-(
alli
Monday, February 26th, 2007, 5:13 am
If one is truly worried about the government, move to New Hampshire. Article 10 of the constitution provides for a “Right of Revolution”. This is permitted “whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual…”
Abortions for some and tiny American flags for all!
Wednesday Keller
Monday, February 26th, 2007, 2:23 pm
“I just wish they’d used stronger language with less wiggle room.”
They did, but people will “wiggle” any language, no matter how plain, if they don’t like what it says. You’ll note, for example, that the language on bearing arms is stronger than the language on freedom of speech. That is: “…shall not be infringed” vs. “Congress shall make no law…”.
Stephen Rider
Monday, February 26th, 2007, 5:36 pm
Weds. Morning Links
Rare image, on loan from LGF. Take a left turn, and you could be killed. Funny how often "tolerance" is a one-way street.Praise for Moslem efforts to kill Dick Cheney via SC&A. It’s a disease. If we killed everyone we disagreed with about
Maggie's Farm
Wednesday, February 28th, 2007, 6:33 am
Historical Context
From The Shape of Days:
Ignorance of historical context is inexcusable. The Second Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with hunting. It’s about owning guns for the purpose of killing people. It was written during a time when the idea of peaceful p…
Ted the Penguin
Wednesday, February 28th, 2007, 11:52 pm