The Right to Keep and Bear Arms
Everyone Has the Right to Kick a Criminal’s Ass
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On November 19, 2021 a Wisconsin jury in Kenosha declared that it is not only legal, but I argue moral for all of us to protect our homes, property, and communities from violent anarchists. In other words, we all have the right to keep and bear arms in order to do so. Whether or not it was wise for Kyle Rittenhouse to be where he was on the night of August 25, 2020, his stake in the community and the mere fact that criminals provoked an extremely violent attack, thinking they’d be able to take advantage of a kid is what ultimately led to two of them losing their lives and one a chunk of his arm.
This should not be mourned.
Joseph Rosenbaum was not a good guy. He sexually abused kids and was charged on “11 counts of child molestation and inappropriate sexual activity around children, including anal rape...”
Anthony Huber was not a good guy and was known as a domestic abuser and rapist.
Gauge Grosskreutz was not a good guy. Coupled with his various misdemeanors to include misuse of a dangerous weapon, he also had a gun aimed at Kyle the night he lost his bicep.
Despite former Vice President Biden’s attempt to sway the narrative, Kyle was not a “white supremacist”. The riots were started by BLM Inc., Antifa and other Left-Wing radicals. Combating these criminals and their activity is neither racist nor should it be frowned upon.
Citizens should not fear criminals. Criminals should fear the citizenry*.
*For more in depth sources see: CROWDER LIVESTREAM - Kyle Rittenhouse Trial Opening Arguments!
District of Columbia v. Heller (2008)
The Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975 banned handguns in the District of Columbia (aka DC) with exceptions for cops and security guards—sometimes, which we’ll get into. Furthermore, this same act required licenses in order to buy and own those legal firearms with the addendum that any properly owned firearm must be unloaded, disassembled and/or have a trigger lock of some sort, that is unless at a place of business or in active recreational use.
You read that correctly...
Feel free to Google it. Handguns were damn near off limits and any legal firearm a citizen did own was made into an expensive doorstop and could not be used for self-defense in the home because it was either disassembled, ammunition was not loaded into it, and/or the firearm was locked away in an unusable fashion.
While this law was in place, Dick Heller, working as a special police officer in Washington, D.C. petitioned to be able to possess a handgun in his home after hours as per the licensing process outlined in the Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975. As part of his employment, he was allowed to carry a such a firearm while at work and thought it only reasonable that he be able to do so at home as well. However, his request and application were denied.
Suing and stating that his Second Amendment Right was in violation by the District of Columbia, Heller lost this as well and the lawsuit was thrown out by the district under the argument and reasoning that gun ownership does not apply to people outside of those serving in the National Guard.
The issue of appeal to the Supreme Court then came to the simple question of whether DC’s law (The Firearms Control Regulations Act of 1975) of restricting gun ownership, prohibiting the possession of handguns, and having usable firearms in the home was a violation of the Second Amendment?
“DC’s law does not violate Heller’s Second Amendment rights—the right to bear arms is not absolute and is subject to reasonable restrictions... The court must balance the burden a law must place on an individual’s right to bear arms with the importance of a state’s interest in doing so... DC’s law does not unreasonably interfere with Heller’s right to self-defense.”
Why was DC Vs Heller Important?
In a narrow 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Heller that DC’s firearm regulatory act was in fact a violation of an individual’s right to bear arms and own usable firearms within the home.
The District of Columbia V. Heller (2008) court case is the most recent exploration of what the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms really means for the everyday American citizen. This case set a precedence for a 2010 case (McDonald V. Chicago) that stated the Second Amendment was incorporated against the states**.
In other words, an individual has the right to self-defense from both individual criminals and criminal governmental bodies, i.e. State Tyranny.
*Is not a word for word quote, but rather a summary of the opinion in its entirety.
** Fun fact: Justice Breyer was on the dissenting opinion for both DC v. Heller and McDonald v. Chicago.
Playing Semantics
It shouldn’t come as a shocker that the city of DC is the bastion of Anti-American policies, it being the hub of Radical Liberalism. The dissenting opinion of the Liberal judges that were on the court aren’t surprising either.
The dissenting opinion plays a semantics game and stated that:
“As used in the Fourth Amendment, ‘the people’ describes the class of persons protected from unreasonable searches and seizures by Government officials. It is true that the Fourth Amendment describes a right that need not be exercised in any collective sense. But that observation does not settle the meaning of the phrase ‘the people’ when used in the Second Amendment. For, as we have seen, the phrase means something quite different in the Petition and Assembly Clauses of the First Amendment. Although the abstract definition of the phrase ‘the people’ could carry the same meaning in the Second Amendment as in the Fourth Amendment, the preamble of the Second Amendment suggests that the uses of the phrase in the First and Second Amendments are the same in referring to a collective activity. By way of contrast, the Fourth Amendment describes a right against governmental interference rather than an affirmative right to engage in protected conduct, and so refers to a right to protect a purely individual interest. As used in the Second Amendment, the words ‘the people’ do not enlarge the right to keep and bear arms to encompass use or ownership of weapons outside the context of service in a well-regulated militia.”
There is a strong Liberal Tactic the dissenting opinion uses here: that being subjectivism and use of abstract definitions. Here we go into a sophist thought exercise of the term “the people” and how it is used (collective people versus individual people). We also turn to cerebral masturbation by hyper-analyzing the definition of the word “protection” and the insinuation of its potential meaning (protection from an offending entity versus an active protection against an offending entity).
Stay with me here...
It’s called semantics for a reason and activists (judges or not) play them all the time.
First, let’s address the fact that the above opinion contradicts itself by saying “the abstract definition of the phrase ‘the people’ could carry the same meaning in the Second Amendment as in the Fourth Amendment”, or in other words individual protection can be read in the Second Amendment. The judge then goes into comparing preambles of amendments to help clarify collective “people” and individual “people” which gives the collectivist argument less clout. Because of this, Judge Stevens creates the addition of clarifying what “protection” could then mean, how it is used in the Second Amendment, and how that differs from the use of protection in the Fourth Amendment.
“Guns are used to hunt, for self-defense, to commit crimes, for sporting activities, and to perform military duties. The Second Amendment plainly does not protect the right to use a gun to rob a bank; it is equally clear that it does encompass the right to use weapons for certain military purposes. Whether it also protects the right to possess and use guns for nonmilitary purposes like hunting and personal self-defense is the question presented by this case.” *
Out of fear of digressing too far, we’ll ignore the fact that “self-defense” in this statement is a considered a “nonmilitary purpose.” Quite frankly, it’s just an asinine claim from someone who has never been punched in the face or engaged in personal physical confrontation. Under this argument, self-defense can be assumed to only being authorized by and for the military.
Rape away!
So, ignoring this, let’s say the dissenting argument that the Second Amendment does not justify “hunting” and “individual self-defense". If Justice Stevens in his dissent is genuine about his analysis of the Fourth Amendment protecting the individual against governmental interest in violating their private property, then wouldn’t it also be in an individual’s interest to be protected against government tyranny? Sure, maybe that’s what the well-regulated militia is for, but isn’t the well-regulated militia also for military purposes according to this line of thinking? Doesn’t that seem a little ass-backwards and idealistic that the government will use the militia/military to protect individuals from the government?
Of course, hence the need to hash out the following argument of assuming that a “well-regulated militia” is the National Guard. It’s argued here that this preamble of the Second Amendment is what differentiates the individual’s right to bear arms from the collective interest of the “the people’s” right to bear arms.
So, let’s talk about the militia.
*Interesting how “sporting activities” isn’t used here as an improper use of the Second Amendment, but hunting and self-defense is…
A Well-Regulated Militia
“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.”
It is not the amendment that created a National Guard, giving reference to “a well-regulated militia.” This argument that states otherwise takes no critical thinking whatsoever and rests on the premise that said militia is the National Guard and nothing more.
The Army National Guard was established on December 13, 1636 when the first militia regiments in North America were organized in Massachusetts—one hundred forty years prior to the Declaration of Independence and just over 150 years before the Constitution of the United States was ratified on September 17, 1787. Even if the Second Amendment was for the National Guard, the roots of this organization are that of the everyday citizen stepping up against tyrannical government oppression, and how better to do that than to let the citizenry arm themselves like they did back in the Revolutionary War? Need I also remind you that governments do not have a monopoly on oppressive behavior, but criminals can be just as authoritarian; the only difference being the macro effects versus micro effects for “the people.”
What does militia mean in the Second Amendment?
We get the term “Minutemen” (or militia in this instance) not from the Army, but from the brave patriotic individual who would rather fight in a minute’s notice than die and let their families and communities come into harm’s way.
“There is nothing in the legislative history of the Constitution, state constitutions, writings or even English history showing that the Founding Fathers intended to limit gun ownership solely for militia purposes.”
The Second Amendment is as much of symbolic empowerment as it is a gross deterrence against unchecked tyranny and crime. Any governmental power grab always starts with disarming the citizenry. From Hitler to Communist China in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, when you demoralize and disarm your citizens, you have nearly unlimited power to do with them how you will—performing a literal and figurative raping of their souls.
There is something cynical and rather genius about the subjective nature of terms like “common sense gun reform” and the sentiments of “firearm control acts”, because yes, the vague nature purposefully allows for radical interpretation and for activists to work their semantic magic. While common sense to one person might be to take away guns, common sense to a responsible firearm owner is simply the fundamentals of firearm safety: treating any weapon as if it’s loaded, keeping fingers off the trigger until ready to fire, not pointing the weapon at anything one is not willing to destroy, and knowing what's beyond the intended target as bullets often pass through.
*Is not a word for word quote, but rather a summary of the opinion in its entirety.
What Was the Second Amendment Meant to Protect Against?
The Second Amendment was meant to protect the individual, ensuring that every American keeps the right to protect themselves, their family and property...
That’s it!
It wasn’t meant to protect the government with a militia from an uprising against its citizens. The Second Amendment was not a right for the government (state or federal), but rather a right for the individual citizen to protect themselves against gross harm, including that from the government, both state and federal.
The abstract claims that Liberal activists often use when talking about the Second Amendment are nothing more than rhetoric steeped in emotion.
All too often political prostitutes use tragedy and sorrow to push forth radical agendas, knowing that strong sentiments cloud the judgements of us all. It’s why Congresswoman Barbara Lee voted the way she did against the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) on September 14, 2001, three days after the tragedy of 9/11. Emotions can drive and innovate and do amazing things for human progress, but the solution being to disarm the citizens “for our safety” has the potential to be much more deadly for the population overall than it would be to keep guns accessible to the law-abiding American citizen.
The citizenry has the right to bear arms… Period!
