The Second Amendment: The Refuge Of Bumpkins And Yeehaws
BY Herschel Smith
10 years ago
Naturally, Democrats and the Left have tried to pry Southerners away from their guns and religion. Gun control has largely been a culture war effort for Democrats. “Some of the southern areas have cultures that we have to overcome,” was Congressman Charles Rangel’s explanation for why gun control was both needed and difficult.
The Washington Post’s Gene Weingarten cursed the Second Amendment as “the refuge of bumpkins and yeehaws who like to think they are protecting their homes against imagined swarthy marauders desperate to steal their flea-bitten sofas from their rotting front porches.”
So let’s deal with the second amendment yet again. To be sure, the second amendment was written within a certain cultural context of unorganized militia who used their own weapons, weapons they had to defend themselves and their families against both animals and men, as well as provide for themselves. So one might argue for the notion that the presupposition necessary for the second amendment to make any sense at all is private ownership and use of guns. But this requires deductive thought, and progressives aren’t big on that. So in legal debating terms, I will stipulate, and I won’t press the issue because I want to make another more important point.
Progressives have yet to pick up on the fact that we don’t believe the second amendment gives us rights to defend ourselves or homes. They would be much more aghast at the truth, but their blindness keeps them from seeing the truth. God gives us rights, the state only recognizes those rights.
But more importantly, the second amendment says nothing about defense of persons or the home during the normal course of life. It has nothing whatsoever to do with that. I have a right anyway to defend myself and my family with any weapon I choose, so says God. The second amendment says something different. It says that the state recognizes that God gives me the right to shoot people who would take away our guns – like Gene Weingarten – through the skull, even if their taking is approved by the state.
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On December 10, 2014 at 11:13 pm, Roger V. Tranfaglia said:
Mr. Smith, the last thing you want to do is get Ms.[Mrs?] Watts on your case. All of us gun owners are on the same page with you. Besides there is just too many of us, with twice as many [or more] firearms at our disposal,compared to ‘them’. They know that if they actually tried to confiscate, all hell will break loose. And if they don’t…….well………….they will only have themselves to blame. BTW Say hi to Angelina for me!
On December 11, 2014 at 10:53 am, Nohj Snommis said:
THE 2ND AMENDMENT IS NOT ABOUT DEFENSE AGAINST CRIMINALS. Rather, it’s defense against government and/or enemies of the Constitution. Defense against criminals merely comes with having a gun in the first place.
Hypothetical question – you are confronted simultaneously by a criminal that wants your money, and a government agent that only wants your gun. You have one bullet – who do you shoot?
On December 11, 2014 at 12:06 pm, Archer said:
Hypothetically speaking:
The government agent. No question. Take his/her gun afterward to use against the criminal, if necessary.
Petty criminals are a dime a dozen; government agents with arrest and confiscatory powers are not. The agent is the higher-value target. Plus, the agent will be better trained in the use of his/her weapon, and will likely have a better-quality and better-maintained weapon besides. He/she is the bigger threat to your immediate safety.
(Also, weigh the value of what each is demanding: money is money, but banned guns are, by definition, priceless.)
On top of that, you’re the only one who knows you only have one bullet. When shooting, ride the slide release with your thumb so it returns to “battery”, and turn it on the criminal. There’s a better-than-even chance that, after seeing you shoot a government agent, the criminal will suddenly remember an urgent appointment elsewhere and high-tail it out of there.
Again, purely hypothetical, but that’s my $0.02.