Thanks to Joan Peterson for finding this amazingly ignorant article!
political candidates seeking national office fear the gun lobby—especially the National Rifle Association—more than they fear gun violence. They have learned the lesson of what happened to Al Gore who ran for president in 2000.
Gore was more courageous than most politicians when it came to advocating gun control and many political analysts believe that his courage may have cost him a considerable number of votes in swing states such as Ohio, Florida, Colorado and Arizona. Some think it may have cost him the election. Since that time, no national candidate or aspirant for national office has dared to offend the gun lobby. Even after a congresswoman, Gabrielle Gifford, was shot, Congress refused to enact even the most reasonable of restrictions on gun ownership, such as a ban on assault weapons which are not used either for hunting or for self defense.
Well they ARE used for hunting and self defense…but I’m sure Mr. Dershowitz, tho I’m sure for every hunter who bagged a deer with an AR-15, or other so-called “Assault Weapon”, or defended their lives with a rifle, or a pistol that had more than a 10-round magazine, might be quick to cite “No True Scotsman”. Still the interesting bit is so-called “Assault Weapons” ARE used for hunting and self-defense, but they WEREN’T used for shooting Gabby Giffords. If this is what you consider “Reasonable” then we’re off to a good start!
Ours is the only Constitution that explicitly protects “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” But the Second Amendment is anything but clear about what those Delphic words were intended to mean at the time they were enacted.
Not really, since you wrote this article I can assume you can read. Further its not like the founders existed at the EXACT MOMENT of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, and then never again. They had lives leading up to, and following the penning of the Bill of Rights. We can not only READ the text of the Amendment, but further read how they felt about armed citizens and weapons.
We’ll quickly see how interested in that the author is:
Its words read as follows:
“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 1793, “arms” meant musket rifles that fired one shot and had to be reloaded. Today’s assault weapons bare little relationship to those primitive weapons.
Moreover, the concept of “bearing arms” generally relates to the military use of weapons. Hunters and homeowners do not “bear arms.” They carry weapons.
First up, the deep irony that I’m reading this article on a computer, and writing my critique on my own website, where you are reading it on other computers…or maybe even a TELEPHONE!!!
Of course are we arguing that the 1st Amendment only applies to hand-set printing presses, and hand-written letters that were delivered either by hand-carrying, or delivery on horse or by ship. Certainly not Mr. Dershowitz if you look at his legal career!
I talk with people from AUSTRALIA, and just ask dumb questions like “How’s the Weather?” “How’s Your Kids?”, I can have stupid conversations with somebody who I would have to correspond to over the course of MONTHS with huge possibilities with letters being lost at sea occasionally if we were talking via 1780’s technology.
Of course Mr. Dershowitz is anti-gun, so he subscribes to the anti-gun tenant of “Guns are different because they are different!!!” If you agree with that, maybe you should comment more on this site, or give Joan Peterson some company. There aren’t many of you, you should stick together!
Further I love the “They didn’t ‘Bear Arms’, they ‘Carry Weapons'”. Next thing he’ll note is that political groups don’t “Peacefully Assemble”, they “Gather”. I don’t want to dig too much deeper into tearing that bit of tripe apart. Either you’re desperate to make history support your point, or you understand English.
That is why until 2008 most constitutional scholars interpreted the Second Amendment as conveying a collective, rather than an individual, right to possess weapons as part of “a well regulated militia.” But in a surprising decision, District of Columbia v. Heller, a divided United States Supreme Court struck down a District of Columbia ban on handgun possession in the home and other restrictions on the right of an individual to own self defense weapons.
Please note all those “Constitutional Scholars” were simply paid lobbyists for the anti-gun politicians who themselves have as much respect for the US Constitution as Mr. Dershowitz does. The only people even uttering the nonsense of “Collective right”, were talking about guns, and ONLY guns. There is no such thing as an “Collective right” to privacy, security, or speech! Further the claim was the “Collective Right” was held by the armed forces, and police force.
You want to tell me the military has RIGHTS when it comes to keeping and bearing arms? BULLSHIT! Just look at the Fort Hood Shooting! You think all those soldiers were unarmed by personal (or “Collective”) Choice? Of course not, service members, GIVE UP their rights to serve their country, they don’t GAIN Rights.
It’s all bullshit, and thankfully the US Supreme court took that crap off the table 9-0! Unfortunately 4 of those Judges might need a refresher on the word “right”.
Yet the gun lobby opposes virtually all attempts to regulate the purchase or possession of guns even at flea markets, gun shows and on the internet. The bottom line is that guns are pervasive in America with nearly half of American homes containing at least one gun.
You might be on to something if you open your eyes. Yeah HUGE number of Americans own guns, which also means they understand guns, and gun laws. Which means when somebody comes to pass a law that is irrelevant or not useful, they OPPOSE that law.
Notice that gun control activists never promise us safety. Also notice that places with more gun control are dangerous places. Hell many of the politicians who live in those crime infested holes say its the safer free-states that are to blame! The criminals get their guns there! Odd that if that is true (it isn’t) the criminals don’t bother anybody when they cross the state line!
The gun lobby does not believe that there is a need to balance gun ownership against the understandable desire to reduce gun violence, because it believes—or says it believes—that widespread gun ownership actually reduces gun violence.
And they believe that because its true!
Following the massacre in the Colorado movie theater, the mantra of the gun lobby was: “If everybody in the theater had possessed a gun, the killer would have been stopped before he killed so many people.” The fact that the killer was wearing head to toe protective armor did not seem to diminish the enthusiasm with which that absurd argument was presented.
Interesting that the killer had to drive past theaters that allowed guns to get to the one that banned them before he started shooting. Further interesting that the “Fact” that the killer was wearing “Head to Toe Body Armor” is actually fiction.
Nor does the statistical evidence that seems to show a direct correlation between widespread gun ownership and gun related deaths.
Well yeah if you only care about getting shot! How about the VIOLENT CRIME statistics. Another zealot for the “Gun Death” Utopia!
The frontier origins of the United States may help to explain both the Second Amendment and the desire of many Americans to own guns. But today there is no rational need for so many unregulated guns in our country.
Except for all those rational reasons you don’t like!
Man I’m amazed at how fact-free an allegedly smart man can make his writing. But that’s how gun control goes, anti-freedom, pro-criminal, pro ignorance.
