“The Constitution protects not just the right to bear arms, but the right not to bear arms. The Brady Center brought this lawsuit to establish that the Constitution protects the rights of gun owners and non-gun owners alike, and all of us must be respectful of each other’s rights.” – Brady Center Legal Action Project director Jonathan Lowy in Facing lawsuit, Georgia town holsters mandatory gun ownership law [at nbcnews.com]
Actually, the constitution does NOT respect the right to not bear arms. Ever heard of the draft…?
Repealing the Militia Acts was the stupidest thing this country ever did.
Military draft is NOT, so far as I know, discussed in the Constitution. And in my opinion the draft is a direct and blatent violation of the Fifth and Thirteenth Amendments:
5th Amendment
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
“…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” being the operative clause, and
13th Amendment:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
It is a mystery to me how anyone can call a forced draft anything other than involuntary servitude.
Just like taxes are not extortion when the government does it… More or less same logic.
I don’t support a forced draft. However, I do seem to remember reading about laws in the early US that required people to keep and maintain a musket. Some even required people to bring their gun to church on Sunday. Brady can pound sand.
@Cliff H, “due process of law” includes a lot of things, including the act of Congress that authorizes the draft. Conscription has been used right here in America since colonial times. The practice was held not to be involuntary servitude by the Supreme Court in Butler v. Perry, 240 U.S. 328 (1916). And nobody has been drafted since 1973.
The militia clause is not meaningless. It governs the operation of both the organized and unorganized militia. Since the Civil War the unorganized militia is called to service via the draft. I don’t think many people understand that like the organized militia, the draft is administered at the state level. Just as the federal government levies a requirement that states supply troops via the organized militia, they also levy a quota on each state for a draft of the unorganized militia. The feds don’t draft anyone, the states do under a quota given to them from Washington. For those of you who have relative who drafted from 1940 through 1973 you will see the designator Army of the United States on their paperwork. AUSA is the militia. If, like my father, the designator is Unites States Army then they were regular Army.
The militia clause states why the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
If that’s addressed to me what is your point? As I have explained to a couple of gun grabbing friends who keep jammering about the Second Amendment I will put the clause into a modern context.
“In order to have an army made of citizen soldiers it is important that they have a knowledge of firearms and their operation, people need to have unrestricted access to firearms.therefore the right to own and carry arms cannot be infringed”
Point of fact, because of the right to bear arms a least a quarter of the soldiers drafted in WWII could have been given an M-1, 50 rounds to learn the operations of the rifle, zero it and then qualify the first day they arrived at the training facility. The right to bear arms guarantees that the US Army will have an edge on every other army because a plurality of Americans already know how to handle a rifle.
I heard about some quote by some WWII Japanese general or admiral (that seems to have been an urban legend – I couldn’t find the actual quote) that he didn’t want to invade the US proper because there would be “a gun behind every blade of grass.”
@Rich: It’s attributed to Admiral Yamamoto, but lyrical as it is, there is no evidence whatsoever that he ever actually said that to anyone.
Rich, the boring truth about the japanese and the west coast in ww2 is that the Japanese never seriously considered an attack on mainland America. They hoped to damage the navy enough and inflict enough casualties during the Pearl Harbor strike to cause us weak and decadent Americans to abandon the pacific to the Japanese.
Japan almost immediately began having manpower and shipping problems with the areas they did attack. China, the Phillipines and the assorted pacific operations put them in a bind.
China had almost a million japanese personel tied down. One of the reasons, if not the main reason, America worked so hard at keeping China in the war.
It’s pretty much a fantasy that Japan could have invaded the US.
I couldn’t agree more; a military draft is simply a “civilized” charade no better than press-ganging.
Thanks. I needed that. 😉
So does this mean they will shut their cock holsters up about what I choose to keep in my gun safe?
No, this just means that they think we really are stupid rednecks. That we are gullible and will buy in to this BS and leave them alone.
true, but they CAN force you to buy something, as long as it’s a tax. eat your veggies and enter the impetuous vortex.
Ahh, this case has been quiet for awhile. I think the town’s defense team should use the ObamaCare arguement; making people buy a gun is a tax, and a tax is constitutional. Replace gun with health insurance, and it’s the same thing as ObamaCare. John Roberts had a plan…
It is not mandatory but does give these guys press for the stupid.
This reminds me of when the President bemoans the lack of bipartisanship. His meaning is “when Republicans go along with me.” His view is that it requires much more “give” rather than “take” on his opposition’s side.
Mr. Lowy seems to be concerned about the Constitutional recognized Gun rights only when it is his side of the argument that is losing.
Exactly! He only cares about the Constitution when he can use it to further his citizen-disarmament agenda.
The stupid thing is, the law already respected the right of people to not bear arms, whatever the hell that means. The ordinance exempted convicted felons and those who suffer from certain physical or mental disabilities, as well as anyone who objects to gun ownership. The ordinance also doesn’t include any penalty for those who don’t comply. So if you didn’t want to own one, you didn’t have to. It was basically a resolution saying “Everyone should…”
Honestly, if I lived in this little town of 1300, I’d approve of the premise, but I’d be irritated that our city had to spend money on lawyers to fight this Brady Center BS.
Quite so. Does the Brady Center for the Emotionally Stunted even have “standing?” Which of their members were harmed?
Or do any of them live there or have grounds to file suit on such matters?
The Militia Act of 1792 did not respect the right not to bear arms. It required every male citizen between 18-45, later extended to 54, to own a an infantry musket or rifle, bayonet and I believe 50 rounds of ammunition. It required everyone to join a militia company and be “well regulated” in the ability to execute the Prussian Manual of Arms as modified by Baron von Steuben in his “Blue Book.”
Mutual respect? Since when did the Brady Center respect anyone’s right to bear arms?
I’m pretty sure they were hoping no one would notice that Brady Bunch speak with forked tongue.
In line with a lot of the opinions expressed above, I’m not so sure of the existence of this “right not to bear arms”. It seems throughtout the history of human society there has been something of an expectation that people had a duty to help defend the family, the clan, the town, the monarchy, the country, etc. Over time our understanding of our “rights” have morphed and our notion of “duty” dimenished. The real trouble is that “duty” has become payment of taxes to finance mercenary forces (police, security, military) so we don’t have to personally experience the messiness of defense. And for those like Mr. Lowry who’s quoted above, their right to “not bear arms” somehow evolves into their right to insist that we don’t bear them either. Our task is to educate them as to what rights are real and which are imagined.
Says the same people who forced mandatory insurance purchases down our throats…..
Indeed.
Not sure how “the right to not bear arms” becomes “the government should ban & confiscate certain types of arms, based on how much they scare weak-ass white people”.
That’s “weak-ass Caucasian people” to you, pal.
A difference between ObamaCare and a city ordinance is that there was never a question of the right of a city to levy a special tax. The whole OC debate concerned the permissibility of an individual mandate at the federal level.
An ordinance actually has better precedent and standing.
This reminds me of the young woman a couple years back who sued her college on grounds of religious freedom. She felt that her rights as a hyper-conservative Christian were being violated by her being forced to be in the same classes, library, cafeteria and so on as non-Christians — having to endure their “impure” dress, actions and speech.
She actually was seeking a ban on non-Christians in the name of religious freedom!
This Brady nonsense smells similarly foul.
If only they WOULD show 2A some respect, and work only on the stiffer penalty and awareness fronts — areas in which they do good work.
If Micro$oft can accept the inevitability of Unix and its relatives, the Brady Bunch should be able to accept guns.
“She actually was seeking a ban on non-Christians in the name of religious freedom!”
Sounds like what the atheists have been doing all over the country for several years – banning Christian activities/symbols in the name of religious freedom (also called separation of church and state).
Now I’m confused. Did he just say that the Brady Bunch supports constitutional carry nationwide? He does respect and support 2a, or that’s what he says.
He respects* and supports* the Second Amendment
*With common sense gun control for the children.
Hard to say. Maybe the Brady Bunch just hit puberty.
Please see my “forked tongue” comment above; even the Devil can quote Scripture when it suits his purpose… and he is very good at hiding his purpose.
Except if folks can’t divine Brady’s purposes, there’s some serious impairment issues, or else it’s intentional feigning of ignorance.
I wonder how the Bible-thumpers feel when they get to the Pearly Gates and find out that Satan has been in charge since day zero.
And like the Devil, the quotes are used out of context while attempting to prove something that is incorrect.
Yes, the Brady’s cautiously support our 2A right to shoot skeet in very small amounts under strict supervision with environmentally correct, non metallic ammo. Sometimes. And subject to further review. By them.
It won’t take much supervision if they get all the guns. Which is, was, and always BE their purpose.
What a bunch of hypocrites.
Pay no attention to the Brady spokesperson of the day. They will continue to trot out some lie every so often to see if anyone is gullible enough to believe it. Make no mistake. The Brady traitors are in lock step with the Traitor in chief Obama and his sidekick Eric the maroon. Keep your powder dry and your arms at close hand.
Present arms, eh?
Mine are either present or absent with permission.
Their official stance on the RTKBA is that its the right to a, meaning one, government approved gun that can only be purchased after jumping through 9 flaming hoops and of course defeating the rancor; after that it may only be kept in your home, pending government inspection of your home of course, in your ATF approved 2000 lb, $10,000 safe, that is bolted to the floor. If you wish to open your safe, you will have to call NICS for a background check at which point they will send a police officer to open your safe and give you your gun, pending another background check once he arrives of course. Now in order to transport your firearm you will have to personally call the Brady Campaign and assure them there are no children within a 47,000 mile radius, at which point you may call NICS again and ask the police to transport your firearm to a government approved range and pay the mandatory $2000 transportation tax. Cause that’s totally how other fundamental rights are treated.
I don’t see how “popular” stuff needs any kind of protection.
True, Rick. But as we know, it’s already protected. By the Second Amendment, and by our duty to overthrow an evil and onerous government.
Do they realize that they will have to abandon their argument against “bearing” arms now? SAF needs to use this in their next suit
There’s a difference though:
Our side isn’t forcing the antis to own firearms.
On the other hand, the antis cannot allow us to own firearms for their philosophical position to be valid.
Well technically this law suit is over a town that is Requiring* firearm ownership
*Except if you are a felon, or morally opposed to firearm ownership. The law is also not enforced.
With the Obamacare debate still raging, how did this town think it could legally
compel someone to engage in commerce or be charged/fined for not doing so?
It’s a rare instance where being too pro-gun breaches Constitutional limits, albeit,
not with regards to the 2nd amendment’s right to keep and bear arms. The right
to not be forced to buy something per government order is what’s wrong with this.
It’s a shame that this was connected to gun owners and gun rights, as a lawful
mandate to remove every citizen the freedom of choice.
Don’t expect NBC, or others, to make the same argument for repealing Obamacare.
Because, as described above, the ordinance a) exempted anyone who objects to gun ownership and b) described no penalties for non-compliance.
And if one wishes to bring Obamacare into it… had there been no exemption and had there been a penalty for non-compliance – it’s just a tax.
At least for purposes of the present fakery they’re acknowledging the right to bear arms. After it stops suiting their agenda, the politeness will be out the window. Along with the right to bear arms.
“The Constitution protects not just the right to bear arms, but the right not to bear arms.”
That’s just silly. Or really really stupid. You don’t need any protection for the right to not do something. Or shouldn’t. And that claim isn’t written anywhere in the Constitution.And if it does, why doesn’t it protect our right to not be compelled buy a product that we don’t want or need, i.e., Obamacare?
“You don’t need any protection for the right to not do something.”
Really? Tell that to the conscientious objectors who sought protection under the Frist Amendment for their right to not serve as soldiers due to religious conviction.
OK, I’ll grant you that – but isn’t the draft itself unconstitutional since it’s involuntary servitude?
No and no.
There’s the bit about Congress having the right to declare war and to raise armies in tie of threat t’other U.S.
Unfortunately, that has been rather broadly interpreted times.
Still, the reciprocal duties of government and citizen are well defined.
Yes. C’MON, Ralph. Please to explain how it NOT involuntary servitude?
Someone should remind them that the law they’re fighting is “for the children” so it’s OK. Really, we’re on the same side with this one.
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