IS THE RIGHT TO OWN GUNS ABSOLUTE?

If you click your mouse over the underlined words, you will get more information.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States  protects the individual’s right to keep and bear arms. It was ratified on December 15^th , 1791 as part of the American Bill of Rights.

The wording of the Second Amendment is: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, (so ) the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

I will explain what those words really mean.

After the United States became a nation, the founders were concerned that if the British returned to recapture what they lost, the founders didn’t want their citizens to be caught without being prepared. That meant that the citizens should be permitted to keep their firearms so if a British attack comes again, the citizens would already be armed when they reported to their militias.

In our current era, it isn’t necessary for American citizens to keep rifles in their homes if there is an attack against the United States because their armed forces are already well prepared to thwart a sudden attack by a foreign enemy.

Switzerland has a similar right to keep firearms in the homes of its citizens.  That is because every man over the age of eighteen will automatically be called upon to defend that nation if it is attacked by a foreign enemy. Thus, the men are already trained as soldiers and if there is a call to arms, the men are already armed.  That is why Hitler didn’t attack Switzerland.

This does not mean that the men in Switzerland can walk on the streets carrying firearms during times of peace other than reporting to their militias for ongoing training.

There was a time in Canada when citizens could carry rifles and or shot guns on buses if they were going hunting or to a firing range. For example, when I was a scout master in Vancouver, British Columbia in the mid 1950s, I took four of my boy scouts to a campsite and we were all carrying rifles unsheathed on a public bus. No one on the bus was alarmed since it was a common practice in those days.  Nowadays, you have to have a licence to possess a firearm and when carrying them n public, they must be sheathed.

Obviously owners of stores and liquor stores may possess handguns in case they are being robbed.  Of course they have to possess a permit and the permit won’t be issued until they can prove that they have been trained in their gun’s use.  

This applies also when the need for a firearm in one’s home is necessary to thwart a home invasion.  Of course, the owner of a firearm needs a permit to possess the firearm and is properly stored.

Many years ago, a forest ranger who lived next door to my aunt and uncle  didn’t store his handgun . One day, one of his sons was playing with it and didn’t know that it was loaded. He accidentally shot a neighbour’s son who was visiting him and the boy died instantly. In 1951, I owned a 22 calibre  rifle. I accidentally left it loaded and a friend of mine aimed it at me in jest and I suddenly realized that it was still loaded. I was a second from being shot in my head.

The Supreme Court in the United States ruled that citizens in the USA have the right to have firearms in their homes. Of course, the citizens have to acquire a permit first.

In United States v. Cruikshank (1876), the Supreme Court ruled that, "The right to bear arms is not granted by the Constitution; neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment means no more than it shall not be infringed by Congress, and has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government.” Unquote

WOW! That means that the Second Amendment does not mean that the every person in the United States automatically has the right to possess firearms.

The Court also made the following statements.

The Government of the United States, although it is, within the scope of its powers, and beyond the individual States, can neither grant nor secure to its citizens rights or privileges which are not expressly or by implication placed under its jurisdiction. All that cannot be so granted or secured are left to the exclusive protection of the States.

In other words, the individual States will determine who can possess firearms. In addition, the Justices held that the Second Amendment restricts only the powers of the national government, and that it does not restrict private citizens from denying other citizens the right to keep and bear arms, or any other right in the Bill of Rights. The Justices held that the right of the people to keep and bear arms exists, and that it is a right that exists without the Constitution granting such a right, by stating "Neither is it the right to keep and bear arms in any manner dependent upon that instrument, the Constitution for its existence." Unquote

This means that the right specified is that of "bearing arms for a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second Amendment actually declares that it shall not be infringed, but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called, in the court case, The City of New York v. Miln, stated that the "powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police," "not surrendered or restrained" by the Constitution of the United States.

The Court’s ruling is that citizens must look to "municipal legislation" when other citizens deprive them of such rights rather than the Second Amendment of the Constitution for assistance.

The Cruikshank ruling allowed groups such as the Ku Klux Klan to flourish and continue to use paramilitary force to suppress black voting. As white Democrats dominated the Southern legislatures, they turned a blind eye on the violence. They also  refused to allow African Americans any right to bear arms.

The Cruikshank decision paralyzed the federal government's attempt to protect black citizens by punishing black violators of their Civil Rights and, in effect, the decision shaped the Second Amendment of the Constitution to the advantage of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Cruikshank decision has been cited for over a century by supporters of restrictive state and local gun control laws.

The majority opinion of the Supreme Court in Heller suggested that Cruikshank and the chain of cases flowing from it would no longer be considered good law so as a result of the radically changed view of the Fourteenth Amendment when that issue eventually comes before the various courts

This issue did come before the Supreme Court again in McDonald v. Chicago, in which the Supreme Court, "reversed the decision of the Seventh Circuit, holding that the Fourteenth Amendment makes the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms for the purpose of self-defence applicable to the states’ jurisdiction to decide who can posses firearms.

What are the federal politicians doing to protect the people in the United States?

Until members of Congress respect the safety of everyone in the United States more than they hate giving back thei money given to them from the NRA as bribes.

Mass shootings will never stop. Nearly 40,000 persons were killed in the United Sates in 2018 which was the highest number of deaths in 50 years and  Guns make for very successful suicides.

The NRA jumps through political loop-holes and goes to untiring lengths to defend the right to bear arms at any cost. In the 2016 election alone, the NRA spent $11,438,118 to support Donald Trump and another $19,756,346 to oppose Hillary Clinton. That was a whopping $30 million just for Trump alone. Now you know why Trump kisses the bums of the leaders of the NRA.

In April 2017, at the NRA's annual convention, Trump pledged his allegiance, not to the American flag, but to the NRA, when he said this: “You came through big for me, and I am going to come through for you. The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end.” Unquote

In total, the NRA spent $51,854,687 during the 2016 federal election cycle.

Further, , the FBI is reportedly investigating whether the NRA helped funnel and launder money from a Russian banker with ties to the Kremlin to the Trump campaign in 2016. No wonder the Republicans are in power.

The NRA is in constant snail and email contact with their five million members, mostly to let them know who’s good on the Second Amendment and who’s not.

If the NRA deems any candidate a threat, and/or if any candidate waivers in their support for gun rights, the NRA turns on them, uses intimidation tactics, and targets them during their election bid. The leaders  cross the NRA will never forget, and reprisals will quickly follow.

However,  if the NRA approves of   gun violence prevention, there will be favorable  results which will make   it an  easy decision for those in power who want to stay in power by fighting gun  violence.

Instead , they go with the money. And they never bite the NRA ‘s hand that feeds them—no matter how many innocent Americans are massacred in mass shootings or killed individually.

Speaking of money, the NRA stuffs its coffers from two primary sources: membership dues and outside supporters like the Koch family, Freedom Partners and Smith and Wesson.

But it’s the NRA members who bolster their agenda. They are like sheep and are wholly complicit and eagerly willing to follow NRA orders. When the NRA instructs their members to do something, they do it.

And the NRA’s expenditures for these edicts don’t need to be disclosed because they fall into the category of a membership-based group communicating with its members.

The NRA doesn’t care about the slaughtering of children. The NRA cares only about itspower. They want to win at any cost.

And winners they are. The NRA had a 73.3 percent success rate by candidates in 2016. They won bigly.

They are laser focused on opposing virtually every form of gun regulation, including restrictions on owning assault weapons, prohibiting people on no-fly and terrorism watch lists from purchasing guns, age restrictions, retention of databases of gun purchases, background checks on purchasers at gun shows and changes in the registration of firearms.

On December 14^th , 2012, deranged Adam Lanza walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and he then slaughtered 20 children and six adults with an AR-15-style rifle.

Since Newtown, over 100 pieces of gun legislation have failed in Congress. Not one reform has passed. Obviously, the bribed politicians didn’t want bite the hand of thr NRA less the bribes will no longer end up in their hands.

As the horrifying Florida shooting was unfolding, the NRA was on Twitter busily urging people to “Buy your loved one a gun.”

The information used for the NRA funding was pulled from the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-profit, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C., that tracks the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy. It maintains a public online database of its informatioat https://www.opensecrets.org/.

The NRA funding includes direct contributions, contributions from the NRA Political Victory Fund and NRA employees, as well as independent expenditure support.

There are a total of 535 Members of Congress. 100 serve in the U.S. Senate, and 435 serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Elections to the U.S. House of Representatives will be held on November 3, 2020.

I blame both the politicians in Congress and their handlers, the NRA for the murders taking place in the United Sates year after year. The pox on them both.