by Alan Brooks
George Polk Award-winning journalist Robert Parry wants to set the record straight on the meaning of the Second Amendment – because apparently the Supreme Court did a real hatchet job interpreting it when they ruled in the Heller and McDonald decisions. Mr. Parry did us the service of taking to his blog on Friday to educate the public on the “true” history of the Second Amendment in light of the D.C. Navy Yard tragedy, which he describes as, “just one more bloody patch in the grim tapestry that stretches from Virginia Tech to Aurora to Newtown to hundreds of other locations where thousands upon thousands of innocent lives have been taken by gun violence in America.” . . .
Of course, if we’re talking strictly about spree shootings that number is about 550 dead since 1982. Not an insignificant number, but certainly not “thousands upon thousands.” If we’re talking about firearms homicides in general then yes, the U.S. has seen 310,811 people killed by firearms since 1982 (235,861 by handguns and 74,950 by other guns), although the innocence of the majority of those lives is debatable. Still, firearms homicides are a non-trivial issue. So to what does Mr. Parry attribute this problem? It’s all due to a ruse, a “false history” that’s been spread by “right-wingers and other gun-rights advocates.” Of course.
So what – in the world according to Parry, is the “real” story behind the Second Amendment?
When the First Congress passed the Second Amendment in 1789, the goal was to promote state militias for the maintenance of order in a time of political violence, potential slave revolts and simmering hostilities with both European powers and Native Americans on the frontiers.
The amendment was never intended as a blank check for some unstable person to massacre fellow Americans. Indeed, it defined its purpose as achieving “security” against disruptions to the country’s new republican form of government. The Second Amendment read:
“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.” In other words, if read in context, you would see that the Second Amendment was enacted so each state would have the specific right to form “a well-regulated militia” to maintain “security,” i.e. to put down armed disorder.
In the late Eighteenth Century, the meaning of “bearing” arms also referred to a citizen being part of a militia or army. It didn’t mean that an individual had the right to possess whatever number of high-capacity killing machines that he or she might want. Indeed, the most lethal weapon that early Americans owned was a slow-loading, single-fired musket or rifle.
So, as we’ve heard before, the Second Amendment only applies to State-sponsored militias armed with 18th Century weaponry. The Supreme Court was wrong then when they ruled that the Amendment applies to individuals for the purpose of self defense (among other things) both within and outside their homes. It has nothing to do with protecting the citizens of these United States from potential power-grabs by the Government and people who use quotes from the Founding Fathers to support that narrative have been duped. To wit, Parry cites the quote by Thomas Jefferson who said that, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s (sic) natural manure.”
This is of course total bunk because,
Jefferson was never willing to risk his own blood as that “natural manure.” During the Revolutionary War when traitor Benedict Arnold led a force of Loyalists against Richmond, Jefferson, who was then Virginia’s governor, declined to rally the state militia in defense of the capital but rather fled for his life. Later, when British cavalry approached Charlottesville and his home of Monticello, Gov. Jefferson again took flight.
Despite his personal cowardice, Jefferson had a lust when it came to others shedding blood. He also was eager for Virginia to have a state militia of armed whites to crush possible black slave rebellions, another prospect that terrified him.
As a slaveholder and a pseudo-scientific racist, Jefferson surely did not envision blacks as having any individual right to own guns themselves or to fight for their own liberty. Reflecting on blacks who fought bravely in the Revolution, Jefferson concluded that their courage was an illusion resulting from their intellectual inability to recognize danger.
Not that the first gun-control laws were racist or anything, but the founding fathers were racist cowards so they couldn’t possibly have meant that people should have guns in order to allow them to overthrow a tyrannical government (you know, like they did to the British). Even if the original wording of the Second Amendment that Jefferson proposed was:
That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
Apparently this interpretation means that the Founders must have been advocating school shootings and killing cops and anyone who holds the view that the Second Amendment could possibly protect people from tyranny must hate the president because he is black. Or they at least hate democracy and prefer a might-makes-right system of anarchy:
This bogus narrative of the Framers seeking to encourage violence to subvert the peaceful and orderly process that they had painstakingly created in Philadelphia in 1787 also has been pushed by prominent right-wingers, such as radio host Rush Limbaugh and Fox News personality Andrew Napolitano
After last December’s massacre of 20 children and six educators in Newtown, Connecticut, Napolitano declared: “The historical reality of the Second Amendment’s protection of the right to keep and bear arms is not that it protects the right to shoot deer. It protects the right to shoot tyrants, and it protects the right to shoot at them effectively, with the same instruments they would use upon us.”
The clear message from the Right has been that armed Americans must confront the “tyrannical” Barack Obama – the twice-elected President of the United States (and the first African-American to hold that office) – especially if he presses ahead seeking commonsense gun restrictions.
But hey, what”s a little race-baiting among friends right? After all, this is part of the “National Discussion” about “common-sense gun control” and the idea that people might use firearms to revolt against a dictator like they have in every revolution since 1775 is preposterous. Never mind the fact that people in the U.S. use firearms to protect themselves and others from criminals far more often than they use them to murder each other. While there have been 300,000 some-odd firearms homicides since 1982, there have been roughly 42,000,000 (that’s 42 million) defensive gun uses during that same time.
But don’t tell that to Mr. Parry while he’s busy building a straw man about how gun owners are all psychotic traitors.
Which brings us back to the Navy Yard massacre in Washington D.C. It has quickly and quietly taken its place among the other mass slaughters that can’t be stopped because the Right’s powerful propaganda apparatus has sold millions of Americans on the dangerous – and false – notion that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution wanted it this way.
These modern “revolutionaries” have been persuaded that they are channeling the intent of the Framers who supposedly saw armed uprisings against the legally constituted U.S. government as an important element of “liberty.” But that belief is not the historical reality. Indeed, the reality is almost the opposite.
Or perhaps the reality is that the Second Amendment protects the inalienable right of individuals to keep and bear arms from infringement and it doesn’t give anyone the right to do anything. But I suppose that when you approach the idea of human rights as being privileges bestowed by a higher governmental power it becomes hard to see the freedom for the restrictions.
Last time I checked, career dirtbag felons and aspiring felons came in every conceivable color, though the exact mix likely varies by where you live in the US. Criminals are defined by intent and conduct, not by the color of their skin.
How much do you want to bet that the majority of the criminals Mr. Parry has taken notice of were black males? Projection isn’t something you find exclusively in movie theaters…
Every time I hear this “single shot musket” bullshyit from an anti that wants to label me “ignorant” in historical data (besides the obvious counters on rights such as the internet, 24 hour news and TV), I like to bring up the Girandoni Air Rifle. One of the first semi-auto repeating rifles with a (gasp) 20 round tubular magazine circa 1779. Sure it was an air gun and not a cartridge-fed firearm, but the existence of that gun and the fact that it was brought on the Lewis and Clark Expedition is a concrete example to the historically challenged that the Founders understood that “arms” did and were going to change (as they knew that everything was going to change with technological advancements).
Not to mention that this “slow-loading, single-fired musket or rifle” the citizens all owned back in the day was actually functionally identical — and in the rifle’s case, superior — to the military arms carried by professional soldiers at the time.
I agree, but then you get the classic: “But, but, but… it only shoots one bullet. They couldn’t have foreseen the weapons of mass destruction that anyone can buy now a days!” Anti’s center their argument around the number of rounds (bullets to them) that are in a magazine (clip to them). By using the logic that you do, you miss the numbers game that the anti’s try to play with their “The Founders couldn’t have known” argument. The Girandoni takes the numbers argument and the semi-auto argument away from them in the simplest of terms. When they won’t even learn the terms ’rounds’ and ‘magazines’, you can be sure they won’t learn the history of citizens being better armed than the military which was generally the case all the way up to the early 1900’s.
Agreed. What I brought up was only one step in the argument. It’s easy to completely demolish that one, both in historical examples and sound logic. You guys took it the rest of the way to the inevitable victory.
Not to mention the Ferguson rifle. The earliest mass produced breech loader that I know of. Saw limited use in the revolution.
Could fire faster, at longer distances and more accurately than muskets.
I like to point out that, in the bare sketches at least, most modern firearm technology was already envisioned before the Constitution was drafted. Breech loading, self-contained catridges, repeaters, revolvers. Even shapes for bullets besides “ball” The Continental Congress even examined some of these ideas, so they knew the future held more in store. The main impediment was the manufacturing precision and better metallurgy needed to make these ideas a reality on a suitable scale. Even then, in all important aspects, firearm technology is nearly a century old. Better materials, ergonomics, etc, yes. But basic functionality hasn’t changed for a long time
This is why I love coming here. I learn something new all of the time. Now I can gain more knowledge on a gun I wasn’t aware of. Thanks Joshua.. and absolutely agree with all of the last paragraph. For the anti’s to think that someone back during the Revolution didn’t happen to mutter “gee, I’m fighting a war with single-shot firearms, I really wish it would reload faster/fire more rounds without reloading/was easier to reload/etc” must really think that people were stupid back in the day. I always wonder if these “oh so enlightened” few think that they would have come up with fire or the wheel back in the prehistoric days. Humans were much more inventive and crafty back then because their survival depended on it.
Or just counter that the founders couldn’t have possibly known that a small hand-held device would allow you to take photographs, or video even, and instantly put them where anyone in the world could see them, thus making anything on the internet not protected by the first amendment.
Both arguments are equally bull#$@%^.
Agreed Jeremy, but the Girandoni, as well as other “exotic” arms of the day like the Puckle gun are proof that the men who wrote the BoR could foresee semi-auto firearms (because they already existed in various forms) and most likely the logical progression to automatic firearms.
But that’s “different” because they (somewhat) “agree” with the first amendment.
Mr. Parry,
I don’t need you or the Supreme Court to interpret the Second Amendment for me, I can read and it just happens to be the clearest of them all, so that being said, blow it out your ass Sir.
So because blacks were denied their right to bear arms, it was clearly not meant to be an individual right? Umm, wouldn’t that same argument hold for all the rights then, since by virtue of being slaves they were denied virtually all rights?
These modern “revolutionaries” have been persuaded that they are channeling the intent of the Framers who supposedly saw armed uprisings against the legally constituted U.S. government as an important element of “liberty.”
I’m pretty sure the intent was not to encourage armed uprisings against the legally constituted government. As near as I can tell, but then I’m no intellectual like Mr. Perry, the founders were, almost to a man, very concerned about their proposed government being subverted to the cause of tyrants despite every effort they made in devising a constitution to prevent that. They understood the base nature of some men who would always seek to enslave others and rise to power on the backs of a defenseless citizenry. They had seen it time and again in their lifetimes and in history.
Based on that, and pretty close to the majority opinion of SCOTUS, the purpose of the Second Amendment was to ensure that the people, who had formed and authorized this constitutional republic, had the means with which to oppose anyone who tried to take that republic away from them. Allowing only the government and government controlled militias the authority to “keep and bear arms” entirely circumvents that purpose.
I also notice how he conveniently, since it does not support his prejudiced conclusion, skips right over the part about “… the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms…” (emphasis added.)
’cause the second amendment was sprinkled with magic fairy dust, rendering the descriptor “the people” with a completely different meaning than it bears within any other amendment composing the Bill of Rights.
I am Black and I don’t like the POTUS. I must be an uncle tom then.
Well, yeah, but it is obviously the white half you don’t like. /sarc
Interesting aside; How many people that use the term ‘Uncle Tom’ have even read the book… or even know it’s a book? They might be surprised at what Uncle Tom is and what he won’t do in the book.
NYC2AZ, That is an excellent point. I wonder how the term Uncle Tom became a negative thing over time.
EDIT, nevermind I found it. The plays didn’t do the book justice. Sounds like a lot of movies today.
Shit, I’m white and I don’t trust him not because he’s hes half black, but because he’s half white. Lol
“I am Black and I don’t like the POTUS. I must be an uncle tom then.”
Well, up until I read a few posts, I thought I knew what “Uncle Tom” meant. I had assumed that it was similar to “Oreo Cookie,” which means black on the outside and white on the inside. I’ve been running around yammering: “I wonder how the vote-by-color crowd will react when they figure out that their idol is the biggest DoubleStuf™ Oreo in History. He’s kinda like a morphodite of Uncle Tom and Simon Legree.”
Admittedly, I haven’t read the book. In addition to my take on Uncle Tom, I’ve been ass-u-me-ing that Simon Legree was a merciless slave driver who wasn’t reluctant to use his whip.
So, my point is, even us “white” guys (actually, I’m beige) couldn’t really care less what color his skin is, but we really hate the frag out of the things he’s doing to the country.
So the constitution was written only about 18th century people and 18th century items.
Welp. Guess what dude. The Internet is no longer free speech and you are held liable for your words. Luckily the modern GIs that are housed in your homes will take care of you while seizing your home, computer, hard drives, car among other things.
Oh and that 5th amendment? Nope. You have to give us your passwords too.
Shall I continue?
you joke about it, but it’s only a matter of time until someone actually pursues that line of reasoning and wins. next thing you know, we will have “no reasonable expectation of privacy” when using such devices – not that we don’t already, but at such a time it will be official.
Mr. Parry sounds like he knows, almost as if he were consulted by the Founding Fathers and present at the signing in 1789. If you look close enough his name may very well be on it. How else could he shine such a bright light on this mysterious, cryptic document that we’ve been duped into believing is so simple?
Intellectual dishonesty at its finest!
“Indeed, the most lethal weapon that early Americans owned was a slow-loading, single-fired musket or rifle.”
Following this logic stream, Mr. Parry should only be allowed to hand write letters, or use a single stage printing press, or stand on a soap box in the town square to deliver his lies, I mean opinion…
The founders, scholarly men all, went to a great deal of trouble to devise a government and constitution that would survive the test of time. I doubt sincerely that at any point they intentionally included anything they thought would limit progress. Considering the concise wording of the Second Amendment I would have to believe that if it had been their intention they would have written “..the right of the people to keep and bear muskets…” and the First Amendment would say something about newspapers and books.
To hear these Second Amendment deniers talk you would have to believe that the First Amendment does not apply to newspapers, books or magazines printed on fully automatic (gasp!) presses.
That would be an assault press, capable of producing high capacity magazines and weapons of mass distraction.
Mr. Parry probably advocates for the arming of the Syrian “Rebels” so that they can fight against a Tyrannical Dictator.
But no one needs guns because Tyrannical Governments and Dictators are a thing of the past.
Liberal Logic = Authoritarianism
Well obviously they can have muskets… and hand grenades, those are 17th Century tech.
And I guess only far right wing nut jobs believe in the RKBA. That may be news to more than a few people on this site.
So now they’re flip-flopping on the character of the founding fathers? The new trend in patriotism seems to be hating the figures of the past, much like a teenager hates their parents. I guess that’s part of their plan to rewrite history. When I was in school you couldn’t say a negative word about the founding fathers, apparently now they’re just a bunch of short-sighted, drunken racists.
Makes me sick to think it’s up to us to protect these fools from their two-faced masters. If the 2nd ever goes so go them all.
And womanizers, don’t forget that.
It’s been going on for a while now. It hit full steam in the late ’80s/early ’90s. It was the Big New Thing when I was in high school & college.
My favorite revisionist stupidism was “Columbus didn’t discover anything! He didn’t even know where he was!”
As if the presence of this giant continent between Columbus and his intended destination were somehow a personal failing — and as if it could somehow invalidate the fact that, from the European perspective, he *did* nonetheless discover the Americas.
At the bottom of liberal progressivism is a deep, dark well of cultural self-loathing. Our Mr. Robert Parry here is a fine example, methinks.
The “George Polk Award” is any category is usually given to journalists who toe the left wing doctrine. Facts? They don’t need those as much.
Here, the author in question doesn’t even know (or care) about the origin of the term of art “well-regulated militia,” nor does he even pretend to notice that the Militia Act of 1792 explicitly stated that the men in the militia were to supply their own arms. If ordinary didn’t own their own arms, then one must wonder from where the expectation that men would muster for duty with arms.
An ironic twist to this is that it wasn’t that long ago that advocates of the Affordable Care Act were postulating that the legal precedent for requiring people to buy health insurance could be found in the Second Amendment and the Militia Act of 1792. If the government can make you buy a gun and ammunition for the purposes of national defense, then why can’t they make you buy health insurance for the purpose of improving the national economy?
As for the usual trope of “ye olde single shot musket or rifle” – well, if that is all that is recognized by the Constitution as being a protected “arm,” then only the printing press technology of Franklin would or should be recognized in that whole “freedom of the press” business that appears just a little earlier in the same document as the “well regulated militia.” His blog should be able to be shut down by the government by executive fiat – as well as radio and television stations.
Yep. This. Exactly this.
so according to this commie, if im in a militia they will leave me alone and i can have class III weapons?
” (and the first African-American to hold that office)”
Well, he’s half right. Bah dum tis
Apparently Mr. Parry is unaware of the Federlist papers. I believe they are the attempt by the founders to completely explain and sell the ideas they put together in the constitution. hmmmmmmm.
Wow, this guy went above and beyond. If there weren’t so many people who just eat this stuff up, it’d be beyond pathetic.
– Willful misunderstanding of the Second Amendment’s plain English…check.
– Willful misunderstanding of history…check.
– The hoary old “they only had muskets” non sequitur…check.
– Ad hominem attacks against key adversaries in the argument…check.
– The spurious proof of cherry-picked numbers…check.
– Poisoning the well with inflammatory emotional appeals…check.
– Setting up the political right as a straw man…check.
I dunno, did I miss anything? Is there a rhetorical fallacy this guy *isn’t* taking advantage of?
I am all for another revolution,if the administration keeps taking away our rights and making its own laws,that would be executive actions,against the citizens which the administration has no power to do,presidents have taken the executive powers far beyond what the founders of this country meant for them to have.If we let them keep trampling on us they will until we are beat down to nothing.I am 57 and this country is not the same one I grew up in,it is going to the left so fast you can’t hardly keep up with it.The president is a communist,if you don’t see it,or believe me,check his background,he was a member of the communist party in the 1990’s,and probably still is.I also believe that some of Congressmen,and Congresswomen are communists too.Due to their jumping when he says jump,and because of their trying to take our rights away,which is something that is unconstitutional,and they are not following their oath.Be prepared and ready.Keep your powder dry.
That original wording of the 2nd Amendment isn’t true. That’s actually from the Virginia State Constitution. I’m trying to find out that the drafts for the amendment were but so far I’ve only found them on Wikipedia so I can’t really trust that.
Did I miss something, or is one of his major arguments that Jefferson ran when the most powerful army on the planet was marching down his driveway?
Nope, you’re right on.
Apparently we’ve been mistaken all these years about having the right to keep and bear arms, and it’s all because Thomas Jefferson didn’t stay put and provide the British Army with a stationary target. Or because slavery.
Cuz attempts at arms control did not take place until after 1776 . . . Arms control is as old as the hills; it is even mentioned in the Bible for crying out loud! That same Bible that all of the Founders read and most beleived in.
This guy probably extols Jefferson’s more irreligious tendencies but brings up slavery and (supposed) cowardice on the part of our 3rd President when he was clearly against arms control.
You might be a liberal if:
You believe the Founding Fathers were Christians when they were beating their slaves &
Deists when they wrote the Constitution.
Incorrect, Try April 19, 1775. Concord and Lexington was about gun control. About 700 British Army regulars, under Lieutenant Colonel Francis Smith, were given secret orders to capture and destroy military supplies that were reportedly stored by the Massachusetts militia at Concord. Military supplies for the Milita……………..
I suppose its a sign of the times that Parry, a horse’s @ss with a room-temperature IQ, is looked up to by the modern left like he was Emile Freakin’ Zola. Hey, Parry: you can’t read, you can’t think, and your writing is for sh1t, too.
Ah my favorite anti gun argument:
“Every citizen has the right to a government that doesn’t have the right to disarm the government’s military because that’s necessary to be free from the… um… government. [derp] So… National Guard!!! He he he he he! [runs away]”
Yes. I’m certain the founding fathers thought that was important to write down.
This was my post on the original web page:
Mr. Parry, you have made a simple yet fatal mistake in your opening premise. The Second Amendment does NOT entitle the state to form a “militia”. Had you bothered to read the history of the debates concerning the entire bill of rights you would not have reached your conclusion. In point of fact the clause “a free state” does not now nor did it ever refer to any political body such as the state, city, town, etc. It refers to the condition of freedom, the “state” of being free. The Bill of Rights supersedes the Constitution guaranteeing rights that exist for every human regardless of the form of government. Perhaps further study of the debates and writings surrounding the adoption of the first 10 amendments is in order for you.
I wanted to repost my comment on his site but it appears that comments are closed.
I’ve been thinking about that — from a grammatical perspective and the philosophy of rights — and I think that the Second Amendment actually does entitle the government to form and manage militias (more than an entitlement, even; an obligation). Otherwise why would that opening phrase be there at all?
Grammatically the militia clause is separate (if not separable) and works in tandem with the rights clause. They don’t invalidate each other or conflict in any way; they orbit each other, like binary stars. The grammatical construction beautifully mirrors the meaning of the sentence. The people have an untrammeled right to keep and bear arms; the government is enjoined to harness that right for the necessary purpose of ensuring the security of the state. It’s a beautiful thing.
Anyway, yeah…not to get all academic about it…
I think it gives individuals the right to form a militia. How can a militia protect us from the government if the government runs the militia?
That, I dunno. Seems to me that the wording of the 2A puts the militia firmly in the realm of the state. If citizens do have the right to spontaneously form militias (as opposed to individually keeping their weapons ready), the state would have the constitutional authority to regulate their activity — specify training, vet the officers, weed out the unfit, and even call up the whole group in time of need. Heck, maybe they’d even help with the equipment budget. 🙂
I might have agreed with you except for the clear writings of the founders which, I believe, support my premise.
You’ve probably read more of the founders’ writings than I have; I mostly know them in a Cliff’s Notes sort of way. But I do know my English, and I figure the Constitution itself trumps everything else; contemporary sources might fill in the occasional gray area, but the framers knew what they were doing with language, and they wrote exactly what they meant.
I’m okay with agreeing to disagree on this one — we both have our areas of knowledge, and they both converge on the individual right, which is what we’re fighting to protect from slanderous yahoos like Parry.
Here is the problem with Mr. Parry’ view of the Second Amendment. If its intended purpose was to
“the goal was to promote state militias for the maintenance of order in a time of political violence, potential slave revolts and simmering hostilities with both European powers and Native Americans on the frontiers”
Then there was already language in the Constitution to do just that, i.e.,
The relevant language is found in Article I, Section 8:
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
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;
So if all the Second Amendment did was to
“promote state militias for the maintenance of order in a time of political violence, potential slave revolts and simmering hostilities with both European powers and Native Americans on the frontiers”
Then it would be redundant. We can only conclude that it is there for other reasons, namely to guarantee the right of the individual citizen to bear arms.
The Bill of Rights is there to as a guarantee of individual rights. The Founding Fathers had no concept of a “collective” right. That is a modern Progressive concept that is more related to Fascism then republican government.
At the risk of sounding a bit pedantic (of which my son always used to accuse me), I would really appreciate it if, in the future, rather than say “killed by guns” (because we all know that guns are inanimate objects), could you please state something like “killed by people (or humans) using guns?
If you would like to get really pedantic, we should say they expired due to exanguination from ballistic trauma.
or as one writer put it: “he died of heart failure” be it by torture, “lead poisoning”, stabbing, beating, etc
By this guys logic the founders also must not have been talking about blogs when they included freedom of the press and free speech. They must have only meant hand set printing presses with papers delivered by horses. They could not possibly have imagined satellite communications beamed through space across continents. And by freedom of speech they just meant that you could say anything you want to the people with in the sound of your voice. I could explain the 4th amendment but I think you see what I mean.
Tyrant, noun: a person exercising power or control in a cruel, unreasonable, or arbitrary way.
Is there anything more tyrannical than a guy with a gun running through a building murdering everyone in sight?
Such a person stands in opposition to my life, liberty and pursuit of happiness just as surely as any office-holding tyrant and I have no less of a right to oppose that tyrant including by force of arms just because he doesn’t hold political office.
TO: All
RE: Heh
That picture of Perry reminds me of the Cliff Clavan character from that 80s smash hit comedy series Cheers.
And his writing reminds me of Cliff’s brainless, ignorant ramblings as well.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The Truth will out…such fools are always with US….]
For what it’s worth, I just posted this tirade on his blog:
======================================================
Rich Grise on September 23, 2013 at 7:36 pm said:
Of course, the grabbers and other traitors like Mr. Parry, who are so in love with the bloody corpses of children, never ever mention the plain and simple fact that EVERY SINGLE ONE of those “mass shootings’ took place under the umbrella of “strict common-sense gun control.”
Every Single One.
In other words, the plain fact is, “gun-free zones” cause the deaths of defenseless innocent victims.
=================================================================
To shed a little light on the whole militia thing. George Mason, considered the author of much of the Bill of Rights; when questioned as to the relationship of the people to the militia answered, “The People Sir, ARE the militia”.
Since the dawn of time, people make up facts to fulfill their perspective of the world. The Supreme Court does it. This guy does it. Pretty much everybody with an agenda does it. This guy’s rewriting of history and lame, slanted clever interpretation makes him the enemy. The best way to subvert the truth is not to invent a new truth. You change one innocuous facet until it spreads like a cancer and becomes the truth.
Beware the coming of Satan. He will cloak himself in a cloth of purest white.
Nah. More like Milk Chocolate, and he’s already here.
And the only Jesus that’s going to help you is the fragment of him that’s living inside you. The one who said, “You will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you Free.”
Free Will is God’s Will; God’s Will is Free Will.
I am not interested in discussing religion with you Grise. It was a metaphorical reference to Mr. Parry. Like a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”.
So is Parry suggesting we should own muskets while the cops own machine guns?
Does he think that translates to a free society in any way?
Has anyone else noticed this little gem creeping into more and more of the Gun Grabbers messaging…
“The amendment was never intended as a blank check for some unstable persons…..”
or
“…and was not intended to allow anyone and everyone without restriction to buy whatever guns may be on the market”
or
“…to keep and carry any weapon in any manner and for whatever purpose…”
Or some variation of the language used in the Heller summation about the 2nd not giving citizens the ability to buy whatever they want from anyone anywhere and with no regulations.
Where did it come from if not the summation of the Heller agreement and why have so many of the Anti crowd latched onto that phrase so vehemently? Who has ever said we want the mentally deficient or convicted felon to own firearms?
I’m confused about where the anti gun folk get the idea that we gun owners want to violently overthrow the elected government because we don’t like the laws. It is, in fact, a very typically grabber thing to do, to ignore the rules in place (Federal Constitution, State Constitution, waiting periods for new legislation, state preemption, etc) because “we’ve gotta do something!” The purpose of the people being armed against tyranny is not for security against the law abiding, fairly elected government we still thankfully have today. It is for the government which, after disarming its populace, decides that it no longer needs warrants. Or no longer needs to allow free speech. Or provide a speedy trial by a jury of peers. Or prohibit itself from administering cruel and unusual punishment. It is on that day that we must be armed, to keep ourselves from being persecuted simply for speaking against the powers that be, or for being of a certain race or creed.
Just because this is America does not mean it can’t happen; we ourselves unfairly and unlawfully imprisoned Japanese Americans due to baseless fears in the 40’s. We ruined people’s lives and persecuted them, for no more reason than being suspected of having a particular political bend (the Red Scare of the 50’s). In other places in the world, far worse was done; Betty White was in her late teens and early twenties when German Nazis were massacring millions, and to this day even in ‘civilized’ parts of the world, people still disappear for speaking out against the establishment.
I suspect that the only reason that our current government is not more visibly tyrannical is for the very reason that so many of us are armed. They walk all over the right to bear arms; they step on the right to privacy without even bothering to tell us; they blatantly ignore reasonable cause; they routinely exhibit unnecessary force; they threaten death to those who would expose the dirty laundry of the government, and force them into exile.
And on top of all that, they refuse to admit that the standing army which is the nation’s police is here to protect us as individuals. Police, apparently, are here to protect us as a whole, from domestic enemies. What is the very definition of an Army, if not a group of individuals, employed, trained, and armed by the Government, for the purpose of defending the People as a whole? What more reason could we have to bear arms than prevent our dependence on, and therefore subservience to, such a force?
Men such as this, who would disarm us all and gladly submit to whatever their leaders suggest, are the most shortsighted of us all. They cannot see that the Democracy they hold so dear was put in place, and is held in check today, not by words and papers; but by fierce men who would do violence for the sake of peace.
Sorry for the rant.
Also, muti-barrel muzzleloaders existed, as well as the concept of keeping multiple guns ready to fire for the sake of follow up shots, throughout the history of firearms. Were we actually restricted to single-shot muzzleloaders, we would many of us have 4 pistols and 2 rifles ready for combat, as did many in the days of powder horns. How do you think the grabbers would like that?
Please forgive my repeating myself:
The Bill of Rights consists of the first ten Amendments to the Constitution, made by the means set forth in that Constution even before it came into effect and required in order to render it acceptable to the thirteen United States.
They set out individual rights and liberties in the spirit of Locke and the hand of (among others) Jefferson, against the stated stance of the Federalists who did not believe that rights should be specified.
To their credit, the Federalists feared that enumerating rights might implicitly curtail those not enumerated, and the whole “these rights do not constitute all rights” segment was largely their doing.
However, the entire philosophy set forth in that wonderful framework is that we are equal, each a peer in and of the State and that our rights end only where the nose or property of another begins.
Nowhere is there even implied the notion that we were to all be as collectivist drones in what was to be essentially a hive.
A well regulated militia is indeed essential to the security of a free State, and we must needs permit nothing — especially a centralized authority — to compromise the preparedness of that milita. However comprised, that militia must function as needed, where needed and when needed.
In the event of hostile forces landing, we could not wait for a messenger to get to whomever had the authority to call out the militia, nor to wait for a “quorum” of militiamen to assemble. In the initial response to hostile action, the militia comprised the individuals who were in a position to act, the first responders.
We each and all were expected to send a messenger and then act on individual initiative, as patriots and free persons in defense of hearth and home.
In the final anaIysis, when someone invades ones home or holds one up on the street, they are in effect attacking Kansas, Texas, Vermont et cetera as applicable and also America — a part and peer of the State.
In such cases the militia, the first responder, is the self and numbers one.
EDIT: I left this on Dweebosaur’s blog.
Cry havoc and loose the blogs of war!
So “George Polk Award-winning journalist Robert Parry” is a lying sack of shit. And this is a surprise?
Media puke talking/writing about guns = someone lying.
Nice try Mr. Parry. If you are so smug as to give 2nd Amendment supporters a history lesson, perhaps you should study your history first:
http://jenkuznicki.com/2013/01/a-treasury-of-quotes-about-our-2nd-amendment/
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