Let me apologize for speaking about the Supreme Court's "ruling" and "go-ahead for gun control on a major scale." More accurately, I should have talked about comments members of the Court made while hearing oral arguments in the DC v. Heller case, which is a case before them challenging the Washington D.C. ban on handguns. Oral arguments are heard before the final decision is made after  which the Justices' deliberations following oral arguments are made. All the relevant documents are available for everyone's review. [1]  <p>For those who know nothing about the case, Dick Heller is a Washington D.C. special police officer permitted to carry a handgun while on duty as a guard at the Federal Judicial Center. He wanted to have a handgun in his home for the purpose of self-defense, so he applied for a registration certificate, which was denied. At that point he sued the government maintaining that the restriction on his right to bear arms was unconstitutional.  <p>Rights exist. Rights should be taken away when people act criminally or irresponsibly—not before they do, or else regulated rights become nothing more than a temporary privilege held only at the pleasure of the regulators. History has demonstrated time and again that it is the behavior of tyrannical governments to take rights away from individual citizens.  <p>This is even admitted in the Bush Administration brief, or legal arguments presented to the Supreme Court, against Heller when they wrote that "the Framers frequently contrasted American society with the perceived tendency of European governments to disarm their populations in order to facilitate oppressive rule." [2]  <p>But interestingly the Bush Administration brief asks the Supreme Count not to decide, but rather to remand, or return the decision-making to a lower court to determine how the right to bear arms in this case can be subjected to a "more flexible standard of review" [3]  <p>My concern was not in the probability that at least five of the Justices will vote agreeing that it is an individual right under the Second Amendment to bear arms. Certainly they could, on remand, pass the buck and send the case back to the lower court. My concern is not with either decision, but it is, rather, with verbiage by either the courts above or below to restrict an inviolable right.  <p>For example, consider that Justice Paul Stevens asked Heller's lawyer Alan Gura if it would be accurate to say that the right that the Second Amendment protects was a right that shall not be "unreasonably infringed." Amazingly, Gura said "Yes."  <p>

"Amazingly" I say? The Constitution says, flat out, the right of the people to bear arms "shall not be infringed." One doesn't just willy-nilly add words to the Constitution. The attorneys for Gun Owners of America point out that the framers of the Constitution did not say that "shall not be infringed" means "shall be subject only to reasonable regulation to achieve public safety." [4]

This past Sunday  <p>

 <p>Infer my answer by considering this hypothetical discussion between Thomas Jefferson and  Benjamin Franklin—Founding Fathers who led the colonies against the British—and others contemplating the writing of the Constitution of the now united States. Perhaps it will spark public written response from the Pioneer readers:  <p>"Gentlemen, we wrote and were inspired by the Truth of the Declaration of Independence. Did we mean it when we wrote therein that there was, at that moment in the course of human events, a time when it became necessary 'to dissolve the political bands' which connected us to Britain?  <p>"Did we just, sirs, when we said, at the Beginning, that Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness remain inviolable Rights given to us by our Creator? Did we quip when we wrote those awe-filled words: 'That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government'?  <p>"Gentlemen, that Terrible Nation across the Atlantic offended us with the musket and the canon—terrible weapons of war that they were. Their soldiers quartered in our homes sullying the sacrosanct homes of our families, and they sought to remove what weaponry that we had.  <p>"But our rifles and rockets were equal to theirs. Did not their Red Glare in Just War inspire Mr. Key to write of them in the "Star Spangled Banner" and to say that it was by the fury of their blasts that our Flag—that great symbol of our very right to exist—could be seen waving still as did our Cause?  <p>"Then we will not act foolishly, we who have experienced the Government of Tyrants, to secure what we have won having risen in arms against them. Nay, gentlemen! Indeed it is with grave Consideration that we must Guarantee the people of this new Nation conceived in Liberty, the same Means that will enable them to follow—God forbid that it should be necessary—the same Course of Human Events that may one day befall them!  <p>"Shall we restrict their ability to oppose this government should the people of this newly founded country deem it as tyrannical as they who wrote unjust laws and taxed us unfairly from across the Atlantic? Shall we say that it is Unreasonable to have the Right to Bear Arms that are equal to those who may oppose them?  <p>"Today we see the pistol, the musket, and the canon. How recently could we have only spoken of the sword and shield? Shall we be so foolish as to think that at some future time no greater weaponry might develop in the Hand of an Oppressor that would offend the people? How many of us, especially you, Mr. Jefferson, have written that government, even Our own, should NOT be trusted?  <p>"Nay, gentlemen! One day it might be needful to call upon the people to stand against tyranny once again. Thusly must we write that the right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed!"  <p>TexasPatriot here again: It is fashionable in this day and time of political correctness to speak disparagingly of the Old Dead White Men who wrote an out of date Constitution. I beg to differ, and would still fight to defend it. Do your children know what's in the Declaration of Independence? Can they recite the Preamble to the Constitution? Are they inspired by Patrick Henry's "Give me liberty or give me death!" speech? Are any of your children among those who refuse—and not for religious reasons, which I would understand as justifiable—to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in our schools?  <p>But these are our times. Perhaps recent developments in laws affronting our Constitution and our Liberty, written since September 11, 2001, don't bother you. They do me.  <p>

I mentioned Benjamin Franklin earlier. I end with a quotation often attributed to him: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." But that sparks a subject for another letter on another day.

TexasPatriot  <p>Notes:  <p>[1] http://www.gunowners.org/hellertb.htm.  <p>

[2] District of Columbia, et al, Petitioners v. Dick Anthony Heller, Amicus Curiae brief for the United States, No. 07-290.

[3] Id at 32.  <p>

[4] H. W. Titus & Wm. J. Olson "Opposing View: An Unambiguous Right" March 19, 2008 Internet editorial.

I am very concerned about what essential constitutes last week’s Supreme Court con job on the Second Amendment. Bottom line, the ruling is the Supreme Court’s go-ahead for gun control on a major scale.Anyone who’s tracked the articles and watched the newscasts can see the flop in calling this a "victory" for the individual right to bear arms. What really is happening is that gun owners are being made the victim of an underhanded attack on the second amendment. There is a telling article in the March 19, 2008 USA today written by lawyers from Gun Owners of America pointing out how the second amendment is the very bedrock of America and shouldn’t even be the subject of a Supreme Court debate. The Founding Fathers said that this right should not be infringed. Legal dictionaries clearly point out that this means that it is not to be touched. Most of the nine Supreme Court justices say that the right to bear arms is a "general right." That’s not the case; it is an absolute right, up there with the Fourth Amendment right to privacy, which, unfortunately has also been pretty much obliterated by the Military Commission Act passed two years ago. Just sit down and track this on the Internet.Language that the Justices used allows introducing new regulations on owning hand guns for sure. The NY Law Journal writes: Justice Kennedy’s comments appeared to spell trouble for efforts by the District of Columbia to revive its strict handgun ban, although lawyers for both the Bush administration and gun-rights advocates acknowledged that some lesser regulation of the right would be acceptable.Counting Justice Kennedy, it appeared that five or more justices were ready to recognize some form of an individual right to keep and bear arms that is only loosely tethered, if at all, to the functioning of militias. What kind of regulation of that individual right will be allowed by those justices is uncertain . . . The USA Today op-ed piece written by Herbert W. Titus and William J. Olson, attorneys for Gun Owners of America, point out that the Second Amendment was designed to apply to private individuals; this is the primary reason was for the purposes of defense against a tyrannical state or invading army. The second amendment, they write, was not designed to be secure the right of the people to keep and bear Arms — not simply “to protect deer hunters and skeet shooters, but to guarantee to themselves and their posterity the blessings of ‘a free State.’" The Constitution grants ultimate sovereignty to the people, with the Second Amendment demolishing a monopoly by the government on weapons, which is a guarantee to the people to have the firearms needed to defend against government infringement on their unalienable rights as had been done by the British. So the Second Amendment "keep and bear Arms" guarantees the right, the lawyers say, even fully-automatic rifles, which are both the "lineal descendant(s) of … founding-era weapon(s)" (Their statement was an application of a  court of appeals’ test from 2007), and "ordinary military equipment" (applying a 1939 Supreme Court standard).Amazingly, the Bush Administration says that federal gun control measures should not be limited and President Bush has even said he would re-sign President Clinton’s previous ban on guns. That bothers me. http://Gunowners.org is the perfect place to go to get an accurate take on the whole situation. The organization even looks at the NRA as being a “Judas goat” in accepting the ruling by the Supreme Court as a “victory.”Fourteenth District Texas Congressman Ron Paul, called for the Clement/Bush administration brief to be withdrawn as it sets a precedent for further erosion of individuals’ Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. He wrote: "If the Supreme Court finds that the D.C. gun ban is a "reasonable" limitation of Second Amendment rights, the Court could create a dangerous precedent for the nation in the future. Such a decision could open the door to further regulation on American citizens’ Second Amendment rights on a large scale." Bottom line any reasonable use of language interprets this as the government saying, "You have the right to bear arms, unless we say so."The Founding Fathers understood that individual ownership of weapons spoke for liberty. Where does not exist, there is tyranny because powerful organizations and governments will have a monopoly on it. The Supreme Court decision is NOT a "victory" for the second amendment, rather, the decision undoes a most fundamental right.