Judge Endorses Teenage Murder

Last week Federal Judge Robert E. Payne in Richmond, Va., ruled that age requirements on sales of semiautomatic handguns like Glock pistols are unconstitutional, allowing kids as young as 18 years old to buy these weapons and pack heat. Such weapons can fire as many as 15 or 22 rounds without reloading.

This comes at a time when gun violence is the number one cause of death for children and teens.

More:

“Judge in Virginia Strikes Down Federal Limit on Age of Handgun Buyers,” Glenn Thrush, New York Times

“18-to-20-year-olds can’t be barred from buying handguns, judge rules,” Salvador Rizzo, Washington Post

“Children and teens are more likely to die by guns than anything else,” Annette Choi, CNN

“Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the U.S. and Peer Countries,” Matt McGough, Krutika Amin, Nirmita Panchal, and Cynthia Cox, KFF Global Health Policy

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Warren Burger on ‘2nd Amendment Fraud’

In 1991, conservative former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said the idea that there was an individual right to bear arms was “a fraud”:

“This has been the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,’ on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime. Now just look at those words. There are only three lines in that amendment. “A well regulated militia”—of the militia, which was going to be the state army, was going to be well-regulated, why shouldn’t 16 and 17 and 18 or any other age persons be regulated in the use or arms the way an automobile is regulated?”

More:

“How the NRA Rewrote the Second Amendment,” Michael Waldman, Politico

“Not So Long Ago, the Second Amendment Didn’t Guarantee the Right to Own a Gun,” Ed Kilgore, New York Magazine

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Supreme Court Requires Blood Sacrifice

The Supreme Court of the United States thinks you should be able to carry a concealed handgun in public just because you think it’s cool and want to feel like a big shot. For over a century, New York had required gun owners to have a reason to carry a concealed weapon. Police issued concealed carry permits to business owners who carry bags of cash to a bank’s night deposit facility, those who had a demonstrable proper cause to be concerned for their personal safety, and so on. Now any dumb schmuck who hasn’t been caught committing a crime — yet — will be enabled to do so, with deadly consequences, thanks to six SCOTUS conservative ideologues. That doesn’t sound like a “well-regulated militia” to us.

What can you expect?

• More gunshot deaths, murders and suicides.
• More civilians killed by police, who will be more likely to assume that anyone they come into contact with is armed with a concealed deadly weapon.

More:

“Supreme Court strikes down New York’s concealed carry gun law,” Oriana Gonzalez, Axios

“U.S. Supreme Court expands gun rights, strikes down New York law,” Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley, Reuters

“Supreme Court strikes N.Y. law, finds right to carry guns outside home,” Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, Washington Post

“SCOTUS Strikes Down New York Gun Control Law, Expanding Gun Rights In Wake Of Mass Shootings,” Kate Riga, Talking Points Memo 

 

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Image (“Blood Sacrifice”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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How should we interpret the Second Amendment?

How should we interpret the 2nd Amendment? If only Antonin Scalia had not been on his high school rifle team …. A Washington Post video by Daron Taylor and Joyce Koh.

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If an Imam Said That, Trump Would Close His Mosque

“Hillary wants to abolish — essentially abolish the Second Amendment. By the way, if she gets to pick, if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don’t know. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”
— Donald Trump, August 9, 2016

If an American imam said that, President Trump would close his mosque. At a minimum.

More:

“Trump Wonders If Gun Owners Could Stop Hillary Clinton,” Daivid A. Graham, The Atlantic

“Gabby Giffords: Trump’s ‘2nd Amendment’ Line Insinuates Violence,” Catherine Thompson, TPM Livewire

The Founding Fathers Never Saw an AR-15

When the Bill of Rights was drafted, the 2nd Amendment was added to allow state governments to form armed militias. In 2008 Supreme Court justices raised on Western movies decided that the Constitution guarantees firearms to individual gunslingers, not just well-regulated militias.

The military firearms known to the Founding Fathers were single-shot, muzzle-loading muskets that could fire slow-moving lead balls 2 or 3 times a minute, at best, with accuracy up to about 60 yards. Even if the framers had conferred military gun ownership as an individual right, they could never have envisioned weapons that hold 30-round magazines and fire 45 aimed rounds a minute at 3,500 feet per second with 600 yard accuracy, like the rifles favored by America’s mass murders.

The Armed American

The Supreme Court of the United States has another chance to willfully misinterpret the 18th century prose of the 2nd Amendment this session. The Court will hear McDonald v. Chicago in January, to determine “Whether the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is incorporated as against the States by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Privileges or Immunities or Due Process Clauses.” In other words, if the plaintiff prevails, forget your “well regulated Militia” and your state and local gun laws.

Some Americans can’t wait, and are already exercising their God-given gun rights:

Cops: Mass. man shoots neighbor in leaf-dump fight

BOSTON – A man pleaded not guilty to armed assault with intent to murder after police said he shot his neighbor over a leaf-dumping dispute. Christopher Leonard was released Monday on $20,000 bail following his arraignment in Quincy District Court. Police said the 38-year-old shot his neighbor John Rota in the stomach Friday when they got into an argument over the disposal of leaves near their Randolph homes. 

–The Enterprise, via News Channel 8 (10/05/09)