Miami Herald: 2nd Amendment is ‘Mythical Right’
Posted on June 10, 2008
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Miami (FL) Herald let lose with another propagandistic broadside against the 2nd Amendment on Thursday featuring some more moaning and false statements about how horrible it is for America that the misnamed “assault weapons ban” has lapsed. There is much wringing of hands, waterworks, histrionics and over dramatics by the aptly named Fred Grimm here. In “What’s a few dead cops to the gun lobby?” Grimm’s final pronouncement is that the 2nd Amendment is a “mythical right” but in between there are many misstatements and out right lies.
Grimm starts out putting on some faux “shock” that a modern “semiautomatic assault rifle” he had the occasion to handle was so light. “The shock was in the weight of the thing. Less than six pounds,” Grimm writes. And, what exactly does this mean? A butcher knife weighs less then a pound and can kill, too. What does weight have to do with anything?
Then the scare tactics:
I thought how easy it would be for some kid, some 110-pound wild-dog street punk, to heft an AR-6520 and wield it to hellish effect.
OK, so the gun is not heavy. This makes the gun somehow less than safe? Guess what, Mr. Grimm. Cars weigh in the tons and teenagers kill themselves by the thousands each year with them. In fact, they kill themselves FAR more with cars than they do guns. Yes, thousands die a year, Mr. Grimm, even though cars are really, really heavy.
Shocking, eh?
Then Grimm goes off lamenting that police forces are spending money on “assault rifles” because of the lapse of the so-called “assault weapons ban.”
No wonder Fort Lauderdale is spending $82,000 for guns designed to kill enemy soldiers. Police know that since the expiration of the federal assault weapon ban, young criminals have ginned up the arms race.
So, Grimm seems to make the claim that “assault weapons” are suddenly everywhere? Naturally, Grimm doesn’t bother to give us any facts and figures to buttress this wild claim. He just states it as fact and moves on. He also makes the absurd claim that small time criminals can easily come up with the “three grand” that he says the street price for one has reached, saying that illegal gun dealers…
…Sell them out of car trunks at twice the price to gangbangers, drug dealers and armed robbers who want to upgrade to cop killers. Sell them to felons. Sell them to kids. Sell them to certifiably crazy people as long as crazy people can ante up a cold three grand.
Nice scare tactics and propaganda. Lacking in truth, but nice propaganda.
Then Grimm makes with what he must think are “facts.”
In 2004, Congress allowed the ban on assault weapons to expire. The federal law suffered major loopholes, but it still had the effect of tamping down the firepower cops faced on the streets. Since the ban was jettisoned, police groups like the International Association of Chiefs of Police have lamented that the bad guys have the cops outgunned.
But, there is no evidence whatsoever that this gun ban really did have the “effect of tamping down firepower.” Even those in the Senate that support this gun banning law said that the rate of so-called “assault weapons” used in gun crime was only at 3.5 percent of gun crimes before the ban went into effect. And that is using their own numbers which are probably suspect because they are being used for their own propaganda.
Three percent of anything is statistically insignificant. In 1999 a study was done by Jeffery A. Roth and Christopher S. Koper of the National Institute of Justice and paid for by the Clinton Administration. The study of 15 states found that there might have been a 6.7% decline in murder rates where the Federal gun ban “could have” made a difference. But, in the end, even this Clinton paid for study admitted that assault weapons had been used in such a tiny number of crimes before the ban that it wasn’t really provable that the assault weapons ban had any significant effect at all. Saying, “it is highly improbable that the assault weapons ban produced an effect this large,” the report didn’t do much to help Clinton prove the ban worked in 1999 and things have not changed that much since.
It should also be noted that the claims of “cop killer bullets” linked with the word “assault weapon” is meaningless rhetoric. The same, high power, so-called “cop killing” bullets that some military weapons fire can also be fired by some hunting rifles. So, to link these high powered bullets only with “assault weapons” as if only those sorts of weapons can use them is disingenuous to say the least.
Our Grimm one ends his propaganda with some suitably dramatic nonsense.
Congress demonstrated in 2004 how much value was placed on the mythical right of private citizens to own semiautomatic military assault rifles.
How much? More than a few dead cops.
I see. So the Second Amendment is a “mythical right,” eh? Sorry, but the Founders just don’t agree with you, Mr. Grimm.
» Filed Under 2nd Amendment, Liberal Media/Bias, News
Trackback URL
Comments
9 Responses to “Miami Herald: 2nd Amendment is ‘Mythical Right’”
Leave a Reply
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 06/10/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Don’t invoke the Founding Fathers. I’m sure they had no concept of automatic weaponry, and if you ignore the context in which it was written (protection by militia from British, opposing forces, and tyranny), it’s easy just to dream up that it meant you could roll down the street with an arsenal at your disposal. We can debate the pros and cons of gun ownership, why it should continue to be interpreted in the courts as a right, and what laws should be in place to secure it as a right, but don’t believe for a second that your rather deliberately obtuse view of the 2nd Amendment amounts to an unambiguous and divine commandment passed down from Mount Rushmore.
Obviously you are uninformed of what the Founders meant for the 2nd Amendment. Your “opinion” is meaningless here for it.
So, you basically know what the Founders ‘meant’ for the 2nd Amendment. Meaning, apart from the words written which your clearly biased position maintains is a general statement toward owning weaponry, you’re positive they understood the modern-day implications of the 2nd Amendment, knew exactly what they were thinking, and what the future of our country had in store for it. Thanks for letting us in on your idiotic delusion that you like to call being ‘informed.’
The Founder’s meaning for the 2nd was CLEAR all the way until the left decided to try and eliminate the 2nd Amendment. For almost 200 years, no one questioned what it meant because it is obvious. It was only until liars on the left, socialists and people like you came along to twist and bend the English language to make people doubt what the 2nd Amendment says.
So, yes, I know EXACTLY what they meant and how they’d respond today. EVERY American did until anti-Constitutionalists like you tried to get their way and began a decided campaign to destroy the Constitution.
Thanks for revealing your hatred of the English language, the rule of law, the Constitution and America. We appreciate your help understanding where you stand.
Only you can be so sure you know the thoughts of men who lived hundreds of years before you. You lend a greater authority to your own opinion than their actual words. Meanwhile, you accuse me of a disrespect for the English language, but it is you who demonstrates a failure to grasp the English language. Reread the 2nd Amendment AS WRITTEN.
“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.”
The first part of the sentence modifies the latter half as a condition or circumstance. Can you see how that is all one sentence, or do your grammar skills end where your personal opinion contradicts them?
Are you in a militia?
You can pretend you’d know how the Founding Fathers would respond today for various issues, but it’s as absurd as if one were to speak for our dead relatives, making estimations on what someone would say hundreds of years ago while ignoring that our culture has had significant developments. The Founders made some truly progressive changes that have created a model for all democracies. That does not mean they were gods. So as such, it would be better if you simply discussed the issue at hand in an intellectual fashion instead of pondering something utterly unprovable as you have.
Let’s start caring about what makes sense in today’s context. If personal gun ownership is a right, then make a case for it. Otherwise, it isn’t written as such, so that fails to be a proper argument. If your best defense of gun ownership is a combination of poor reading comprehension and your Republican Ouija board, then I can only hope that your case of ‘proudly holding opinion over all else’ isn’t epidemic.
I see, so we cannot rely on what hundreds of people wrote (all of which is consistent) for nearly 200 years, yet you expect us to assume that “grammar” is exactly the same now as it was THEN for that same 200 years?
Sorry, but your back bending and twisting does not wash. You still have not explained why for generations there was no redesigning of the meaning of the 2nd Amendment until the extreme left decided they wanted to eliminate the right to self-protection affirmed in the Constitution.
Additionally, it does NOT matter if some of the Founders might have changed their minds about the Amendment should they be suddenly and miraculously transported to today. It doesn’t matter what they MIGHT have COME to believe if they knew about machine guns, modern technology, et al. See, we base our Constitution on what it meant THEN, not the fantasy of what the Founders “might” have come to think.
The meaning of the 2nd Amendment was CLEAR that it was an individual right, not a collective one. Only the disingenuous, the uninformed and the liars could possibly think otherwise.
First read; THE UNABRIDGED SECOND AMENDMENT, by J. Neil Schulman -
Then just deal with what they did say. It’s not necessary to go to “estimations” in this case.
“[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them.” — Zacharia Johnson (speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 25 June 1778)
* A well regulated Militia,
George Mason: “Who are the militia? They consist of the whole people, except a few public officers.”
* being necessary to the security of a free State,
Patrick Henry: “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined…The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.
* the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,
Samuel Adams: “The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.”
* shall not be infringed.
Thomas Jefferson: “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
“…in the coming months the public will be told that the second item in a Bill of Rights written explicitly to pro tect individual liberties does not apply to individuals. In the reading of gun-control advocates, the Founders wrote the First Amendment to protect individual rights — then took a wide detour exempting individual rights in order to preserve only a collective right to state militias . . . then doubled back to the protection of individual rights for the rest of the amendments.
In this reading, “the people” means one thing in the First Amendment, something entirely different in the Second, and in the Fourth and Ninth Amendments reverts to the meaning used in the First. Even more oddly, in this reading the Founders used the term “the people” to refer to “the states” in the Second Amendment — but took pains in the Tenth Amendment to draw an explicit distinction between the powers “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/opinion/oped.PrintView.-content-articles-RTD-2007-11-27-0001.html
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in the government.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Americans have the right and advantage of being armed– unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” — James Madison
“To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them.” — Richard Henry Lee
“The great object is that every man be armed.” — Patrick Henry
“We established however some, although not all its [self-government] important principles . The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed;”
—Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824. Memorial Edition 16:45, Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.”
—Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution (Philadelphia 1787).
“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man gainst his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American…[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
—Tenche Coxe, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.
—Richard Henry Lee, The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788.
[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually…I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor…
—George Mason
The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals…[I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.
—Albert Gallatin to Alexander Addison, Oct 7, 1789, MS. in N.Y. Hist. Soc.-A.G. Papers, 2.
*Gallatin’s use of the words “some rights,” doesn’t mean some of the rights in the Bill of Rights, rather there are many rights not enumerated by the Bill of Rights, those rights that are listed are being established as unalienable.
Roger Sherman, during House consideration of a militia bill (1790):
[C]onceived it to be the privilege of every citizen, and one of his most essential rights, to bear arms, and to resist every attack upon his liberty or property, by whomsoever made. The particular states, like private citizens, have a right to be armed, and to defend, by force of arms, their rights, when invaded.
14 Debates in the House of Representatives, ed. Linda Grand De Pauw. (Balt., Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1972), 92-3.
“…you expect us to assume that “grammar” is exactly the same now as it was THEN for that same 200 years?”
The basics of English grammar, regarding the use of appositives and subordinate clauses, have been consistent for at least that long! Your buddy, Iobonok, at least has a more reasonable defense on the intentions of the Founding Fathers. But he still misses the mark because the context he includes only further demonstrates my point. Their paranoia of a tyrannical government and invasion of opposing forces is their motivation and as such is clearly stated. Why the condition? Why not just state unambiguously that each citizen has the right to bear arms PERIOD? If it is only right that we should own weaponry (arms are not just guns), then perhaps we should understand the merits beyond the words of dead men which ring obsolete in modern context. Both your arguments are along the lines of maintaining a law that enables doctors to carry drills for trepanation to relieve a patient of headaches. The change in context renders the need unnecessary. We have an established military defense and police force. Whatever resemblance they had to those things back then wasn’t much… I’d wager to say it was more like… a militia? I’m not saying that guns should not be owned by anyone. I just think there has to be a better defense to gun ownership and it isn’t being made… And the case to complete unrestricted gun ownership seems even flimsier.