MegPenrose_488_366_86_sha-40

“Why do we keep such an allegiance to a constitution that was driven by 18th Century concerns? How many of you recognize that the main concern of the 18th Century was a standing army? That’s what motivated the Second Amendment: fear of a standing army.” – Texas A&M professor Mary Margaret Penrose in Law Professor Calls for Repealing 2nd Amendment, Leaving Gun Rights Up To States [at ctnewsjunkie.com]

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

85 COMMENTS

  1. Good luck. This country couldn’t even pass the ERA, and that would have been a good change to make.

  2. Because millions and millions of people totally weren’t massacred by their own governments’ standing armies just a few decades ago. Tyranny and genocide would totally never happen in today’s enlightened society. /sarc

      • Exactly! I have no idea how people like her can bury their head in the sand as deeply as they do.

        • Her head is not in the sand. She WANTS government to be able to round up all those who refuse to submit to her sick a$$ed leftist ideology. Stripping citizens of arms is the first step.

        • Because they suffer from the normalcy bias.

          Because it is not happening right now in the U.S. in their own little world so to them it might as well be happening on the moon. That same reasoning is why they can dismiss the 2nd Amendment and reality because it is not happening now.

          They are shortsighted, naïve, and I would even go as far to say living in denial if this were to happen because they can’t handle the reality of it.

  3. Well I guess we should just remove your antiquated 18th century right to free speech then too huh lady? Nobody NEEDS to be able to speak their mind without fear of reprisal, not in our /puts on monacle “civilized” society.

    Nothing more annoying than those who attack the 2nd using the 1st.

      • Paul Revere might disagree. Using lanterns to communicate wirelessly over a distance? The technology didn’t exist yet but they could definitely see it.

        • B,

          You know, I never really thought of it but the lantern system truly was a wireless digital communication system. Granted the bit rate was quite slow (about 1 bit per second depending on how fast the lantern operators could hide and reveal their lanterns) but it was nevertheless a wireless digital communication system.

        • Granted, the “one if by land” protocol was apparently employed wirelessly in an age before wires, but I just want to note that you said “(t)he technology didn’t exist yet but they could definitely” …umm… “see it.”

      • You’re right, they don’t. That’s why they add a hyphen to the kinds of speech they want to control. “hate-speech”, “race-speech”, “religions-speech”, “political-speech”, etc.

        Then they create a zone where you’re granted the right to exercise it. “Free-Speech Zone”. “Political-speech zone”

        It’s pretty sickening.

        • Yep. And the laboratory for the destruction of free speech are the nation’s college campuses.

          For a stark overview of how limited speech is in “higher education,” check out:

          FIRE – Foundation for Individual Rights in Education
          http://www.thefire.org/

  4. The Constitution is our agreement on how we get along, you might want to chuck this little bit of it, but then I’d be inclined to chuck the rest. If we’re going to try anything goes, we’re going to try my way and I guarantee you are not going to like it. [TERMS, J.M. Thomas R., 2012]

    Has she received a penny in foreign money to overthrow our Constitution???

    Penrose is an English name, is she a citizen?

  5. And how many armed guards does she have? Lets see, all the campus security. Check. And all the guards with guns around her gated community. Check. Why? Because she is important!

  6. Yeah, standing armies are no longer a threat, in fact they didn’t even come about and they certainly aren’t being used to infringe on other rights.

  7. The problem with states individually handling firearms laws is that the .gov can at any time squash any of them at the federal level.

    That’s why the 2nd amendment exists in the first place- to prevent the .gov from doing this exact thing.

    • There is only one way the 2nd Amendment could be repealed so that the states may create fully regulate the use of firearms; create a new amendment that reads something to the like of “The Federal Government shall not write laws, nor take any action executively or legislatively, affecting the use, sale, manufacture, or keeping of any arms.”

      This would let the states freely regulate firearms to their every desire. And you know what? I would be extremely happy about that. You would get the handful of states that already work to restrict firearms (California, New York, Connecticut, etc.) that would go bat**** crazy and ban all firearms, but then you would get just as many states that would practically give out M-16s to the masses. This would simply free up many more people and companies to move to the states that would be truly free.

      At that point, who the heck cares about a standing army? You would wind up with a few states that would vastly outnumber the armies. And then you would have a few other complete police states that would just be free to implode without the good people staying to prop them up. Oh well, let them fall and then go pick up the pieces.

      • Or…. The urbanites that inhabit every largish city in every state and already support gun control as it exists would lose their shit at the prospect of absolute freedom and the threats that implies to those dependant on government. Then the masses simply scared of change throwing their numbers behind a reactionary cause would likely lead to even more severe and irrational laws in places like Arizona Texas etc. If one defines conservative as an aversion to change most Americans are conservative indeed.

      • “create a new amendment that reads something to the like of “The Federal Government shall not write laws, nor take any action executively or legislatively, affecting the use, sale, manufacture, or keeping of any arms.”

        You stopped too early. To continue, “nor shall any state, county, city, or other governmental agency of any kind, any size, any composition.”

        That way, it reads just the same as 2A now, but uses more words.

  8. It takes a special kind of ignorance to argue that you don’t need something anymore because it’s been working for a while.

  9. Well, if that ever does happen, sweetheart, you better move your happy a$$ back to whatever socialist anti-gun state you fled from….

    Because if it were solely left up to Texas, I think you would get what you want, but you wouldn’t want what you get.

    I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I know liberals here in Texas who own guns that would make Feinstein blush.

  10. OK then, but free speech, marriage and abortion laws should also be regulated by the states. Yeah didn’t think so either…

  11. Imagine 50 years ago you are an African American family living in the South and one of your teenage boys made the mistake of insulting a white woman by smiling at her. Later that evening a group of men show up on your lawn dressed in hooded sheets. If you were lucky enough to have a phone, calling the police would probably do no good, as chances are the local police were already standing in your yard wearing a hood.

    The men enter your home, beat your family and take your son away to be tortured and murdered. You are defenseless as the local law enforcement prevents you from owning a firearm, or the white store owners in town will no sell you guns or ammo.

    Bottom line – you do not need to go back in time 200 years to understand the importance of the Second Amendment. Chances are, Professor Ambrose, you and I are are close in age and were born at a time and age where people of color could not rely on the police for protection and in some cases could not protect themselves from polices acting as criminals.

    • “rely on the police for protection” Police are not required to protect anyone other than themselves, the courts have so ruled.

    • Well, maybe you should get over it. The definition of a “standing army” at the time, and I believe now as well, is an army housed and provisioned in private homes. IOW, instead of pitching a tent and starting a cookfire, soldiers walk into your home and ask what’s for dinner while testing your bed for softness. And no, we do not have a standing army, although some may exist in the world, I’m not keeping track.

      2A worked against standing armies in that when they walked in the door they might be shot.

  14. Thankfully, that same antiquated document prevents statists like her from changing said document.

  15. So, she’s saying the premise that human beings are naturally and inalienably free is an “antiquated” set of ideas. What does she think is more contemporary? The Big Government Plantation State? That individuals should only have the rights and privileges approved by the pseudo plutocracy in Washington D.C. and numerous State Houses? We have surrendered and abrogated enough of our Natural Rights already. We need to take back what we have given-up and never accept the suggestion we should give up more.

    It may be true the Founders failed to envision certain factors we must take into account today, but the principles they underpinned the Constitutional Republic with are timeless, universally true, infinitely adaptable and irrevocable.

    Want to make the U.S. a better place, Ms. Penrose? Write-out your moronic statement on a large piece of paper, wad it up into a ball and choke yourself to death with it…

      • Agreed. I am guilty of being mad as hell at these Left-wing extremists who demonstrate daily that they neither understand or care what the American Constitutional Republic represents to Humanity, and, in fact, want to destroy it. I read Patrick Henry’s famous exclamation, “Give me Liberty or give me Death!” as a two-edged sword. Recently, Dinesh D’Souza said, in his film “America – Imagine a World without Her” (and I am paraphrasing here) ‘America is not just a Country…it is an Idea…the greatest Idea the World has ever seen..’
        D’Souza also extracts from Abraham Lincoln’s quote (paraphrasing again) “All the Armies of all the Kings of Europe could not, in a trial of a thousand years, take a drink from the Potomac or set a footstep on the Blue Ridge Mountains” If America is to fall onto the ash heap of History it will be because we collapsed from within and by our own doing. Ms. Penrose (and everyone who thinks like her) wants to facilitate and advance that collapse, and will do so if those of us who love Liberty and prize our Rights and Freedom above all else stand-by passively and allow it for cause of being “nice” and “civil”. So, yeah,guilty as suggested, but not in the least bit ashamed or regretful.
        Don’t construe these words as an attack on your comment, rather I thank you for it, and for the opportunity to further clarify how I view and feel about the situation we are presently in. I hope I achieved that aim.

        • No idea WTF you are talking about, but if you think I am “defending her” as in Ms. Penrose, then that explains why your comment is nonsense.

    • DerryM,

      Your first paragraph has to be one of the best paragraphs that I have ever read, period. Bravo sir or ma’am!

  16. ” Although there is a right to practice religions, society has accepted that there is no right to practice human sacrifice or polygamy, Malloy said. Collectively, we have recognized limitations on the right to free speech, he said.”

    There you have it. Owning an AR is the same thing as eating other human beings. And when it comes to free speech, you had better accept that insulting statement without ever pointing out how twisted the lefts knickers get when we compare them to democidal despots like pol pot and stalin. This is why I have no problem bandying such claims about; we’re CANNIBALS, FFS!!!

  17. “That’s what motivated the Second Amendment: fear of a standing army”

    Yes, and? Since we now have a standing army, the second is just as valid, if not more. Wars haven’t killed the most people since 1800, despots ordering standing armies to slaughter disarmed undesirables in their own countries have. To pretend that could never happen here (again) is magical thinking.

    Ad guys, you realize her article was published November 15 LAST YEAR, right?

  18. For someone who purports to be “passionately devoted to the Constitution”, she sure is cavalier about throwing away large parts of it. And contemptuous of its present-day relevance to boot. Money quote is at the end of the article, tho–from a professor at South Texas College of Law (a majority- black institution): “there’s a close connection between gun control and racism”.

    • “there’s a close connection between gun control and racism”.
      Yes indeed, racists in the Democrat Party have ALWAYS used disarming of people to push forward their anti-American ideology, from our very founding and no matter what name they hide behind.

      • How can she so naively trust government? It was governments that:

        disarmed Native Americans (and put them in “reservations”)

        disarmed Blacks (and threw them in jail or lynched them)

        disarmed Japanese Americans (and put them in “camps”)

        • Nothing naive about it, she believes she will be one of those “special” people running it. Just as all Democrat Party a$$wipes believe. They should speak with the Bolsheviks. Oh, thats right, the Bolsheviks were rounded up and murdered by the “people” they liberated from the Czar.

  20. “Why do we keep such an allegiance to a constitution that was driven by 18th Century concerns?” — Mary Margaret Penrose

    The concerns that drive the United States Constitution are timeless.

    This is a perfect example where the left tries to define the narrative … and we have to call them on it.

  21. I find it deliciously ironic that leftists like her are trotting out “state’s rights” in support of gun control. They seem just fine with federal oversight when it comes to their pet issues.

    I’m pretty sure the reason this whole “states rights” angle is being floated out there, like turd in the punch bowl, is because the antis have realised that national opinion has shifted against them. Gun control is dead, at least for now, on the national level.

    The antis are doubling down in places with already strict gun control, like New York and New Jersey. The problem is, the federal court system is slowly but surely dismantling those bastions of gun control as well. It’s only a matter of time, with the current appeals court trend, before Federal Preemption and National Reciprocity become the law of the land.

    They can see it coming, the way segregationists saw the end of Jim Crow coming in the South, and they are fighting it tooth and nail. They’re entrenching themselves in the last bastions of gun control and a re preparing for the final stand.

    • “A polite society is a suppressed society.” That is a lie. A suppressed society/population is rude, inconsiderate and secretive. A couple thousand years of recorded human history prove that.

  24. “Why do we keep such an allegiance to a constitution that was driven by 18th Century concerns? How many of you recognize that the main concern of the 18th Century was a standing army? That’s what motivated the Second Amendment: fear of a standing army.”

    The constitution was conceived by philosophers and underwent the scrutiny of much philosophical debate. That debate was centered on rights and the best way to govern, and is very much applicable today. I know the text is dated and as technology progresses there are quite a few issues that could be addressed in the constituion (such as patents on life, privacy in a real time global networked system, transparency of governmental actions, etc). The 2nd amendment is not one of them. Arms in their time, very much equates to arms in our time. Concerns regarding government tyranny in their time, very much equates to concerns regarding government tyranny in our time. Her assertion that the motivation of a standing army doesn’t coincide with a lot of statements made by the founders at that time:

    “A free people ought to be armed.”
    – George Washington

    “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
    – Thomas Jefferson

    “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.”
    – Thomas Jefferson

    “Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self defense.”
    – John Adams

    “To disarm the people is the most effectual way to enslave them.”
    – George Mason

    “I ask sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few politicians.”
    – George Mason (father of the Bill of Rights and The Virginia Declaration of Rights

    “To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.”
    – Richard Henry Lee

    So I would say such statements encompass much more than fears of simply a standing army as Prof. Penrose suggests. I feel the founders likely would never have imagined the technological advancements of today’s time, however to dismiss the 2nd amendment on the basis of an argument of “standing army” is not justifiable. Furthermore, why shift such rights from the federal level to the states? It only acts to further remove the rights/freedoms of minorities living in particular states by the masses (mob rule). And the majority is not always right, which is why the constitution exists. The constitution protects minorities by explicitly detailing everyone’s rights which shall not be infringed, and a much greater than majority vote is required to amend it (supermajority vote).

    • You don’t get it. She doesn’t care what any of those long-dead men said. Their opinions mean nothing to her, other than that she believes they and the political ideas they spawned are obsolete. Why else do you think most modern American liberals roll their eyes when anybody mentions “the founding fathers”? They’re about as interested in hearing them as they are willing to settle for the house wine.

  26. Heck, this is one of the first times I’ve seen an opponent of the Second Amendment acknowledge the reason it exists. What’s ironic is that she then says the reason is no longer valid. Of late we’ve seen our government use the IRS to punish political opponents, then have multiple hard drive failures that stymied the gathering of evidence about that inconvenient occurrence. The NSA and US Marshall service are collecting our e-mails and phone calls without warrants, the President uses executive orders to circumvents the legislative process like they are nothing and we’ve taken to killing US citizens without a trial if we are really, really unhappy with what they are doing. I couldn’t agree more, there’s no longer a reason for the Second Amendment.

  28. “I think the Second Amendment is misunderstood and I think it’s time today, in our drastic measures, to repeal and replace that Second Amendment.” … “Penrose said she advocates redrafting the entire U.S. Constitution when she teaches constitutional law courses.”

    That’s fine, she can use her 1st Amendment rights to advocate “redrafting the entire US Constitution” – but she has to do it legally, following the US Constitution’s legal method of amendment in Section V:

    “The Congress, whenever two thirds of both houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the legislatures of two thirds of the several states, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the legislatures of three fourths of the several states, or by conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no state, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.”

    2/3 vote of both houses of Congress, and amendment approved by 3/4 of the legislatures of each state, or by 3/4 vote of a state convention called by each state.

    And she has the same chance of doing that as a snowball in hell. Of course, when a statist like this talks about “redrafting the entire U.S. Constitution”, she really means having a leftist President issue an Executive Order “suspending” the Constitution “for the duration of this emergency.” The other term for that action is “CW2”.

    • No, she has the 1st A right to stand on a street corner and screech her anti-American sh*t. She has no right to steal money from tax payers AND screech her anti-American sh*t at our children.

  29. So the name of the paper is “News Junkie” How about we turn that around and make it “Junk News”
    Pin a rose on your nose Mrs. Penrose!
    Also, we have enough problems with interstate gun laws now, can you imagine how it would be if some states outlawed guns completely, and the neighboring state had wide open laws. Interstate travel for folks with CCV permits would be a nightmare!

  30. Just another sheltered, spoiled narcissists that actually thinks “well i have never had anything bad happen to me so therefore nothing bad happens to anyone ever so therefore there is no reason to protect ones self”. When we encounter these people the only thing we can do to change their minds is give them a hard, cold reality check. Hammer them with facts until their self absorbed minds collapse under the weight of physical realities.

  32. well she’s totally right… massacres of people never happen by their own government and other people… cough holocaust cough cough cough

  34. Right, I’m sure she really wants to leave firearms laws up to the states.

    The day after the 2nd was abolished she would be leading the charge to create federal regulations so that the scary guns in states with lax laws couldn’t sneak into her community.

  36. Apparently, another faux-‘constitutional scholar’ has never left her zipcode to know what this country has turned into:

    How many of you recognize that the main concern of the 18th Century was a standing army? That’s what motivated the Second Amendment: fear of a standing army.

    just WTF does this idiot delude a nation of federalized police, trained in military tactics, protocols, who received federal funds & toys, adopted their uniforms, and command hierarchy, is, ya f’ng imbecilic dolt??

    Standing armies ARE unConstitutional. It’s high time America’s abolished the entire notion of a govt police force. It’s post 19th century aberration and an import from the RedCoats. Just WTF does this idiot delude 2A is for? By absolute metrics alone, which according to 2007 FBI’s own numbers, even in the post 9/11-policestate Amerika has turned into, there are only about 800,000 police, both federal, state/local in the entirety of United StateS of Amerika. As such, 98-99% of this nation is secured by individuals and PRIVATE security firms and solutions, as is.

    It’s a statist commie MYTH that murders and other violent crimes will not or cannot be solved without govt. Imagine how much would be saved when your hard earned wealth is NOT stolen at the point of the gun to pay for a lard-ass murderous roid-head’s retirement pension to the tune of 50-100,000 yr (if you’re a Commufornian govt terrorist kunt)?? You can more than afford CSI, & homocide investigative services, which only the average has only 50-60% of success rate in find the culpable in this country as is. And, it’s not as if it’s not like govt CSI labs have not been caught utterly fabricating evidence, along with planting DNA ‘evidence.’

    Aside from extreme cases of hostage rescue & bomb squads (which SWAT is RARELY used for), which will always need to have a consistent training, which without ‘mandatory’ retirement packages for worthless leeches, would be actually freed up to fund, at a local level, really, the rest of flatfoots can go the way of DoDo, and nobody, other than the tax leeches themselves and their govt-welfare families would give a fuck.

    It doesn’t matter. Maywood, CA & Detroit are what awaits, anyway, once currency reset concludes, as it’s already underway. The only real question is, would the citizenry decide to do it now, or be forced into doing it anyway, once towns go bankrupt.

    If anyone wants to see/research govt waste & abuse, beyond the regular, ye ol ‘oops, we misplaced TRILLIONS of dollars’-lunatic fucks at the Pentagram, just search California Public Workers pension schedules. Oh it’s a ‘fun’ read. If that doesn’t convince you NONE of what’s stolen from you in taxes actually go as advertised, then just consider yourself happy in your Blue Pill bliss.

    This shit’s gotta go. Sooner the better.

  38. Does Tenure protect you from charges of advocating Revolution? She is clearly not supporting the US Government’s constitution. Fire her and let the courts sort it out.

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