David Codrea:
“U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton last night dismissed a National Rifle Association (NRA)-backed lawsuit challenging the constitutionality on Second Amendment grounds of Washington, DC’s ban on the sale and possession of handguns,” the Violence Policy Center crowed back in 2004, before the historic Heller decision. “Judge Walton’s 68-page ruling in Seegars v. Ashcroft upholds the ban, which was adopted by the City Council in 1976.
“In his opinion, Judge Walton … wrote: ‘[T]he Court must conclude that the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to possess firearms. Rather, the Amendment’s objective is to ensure the vitality of state militias,’” the VPC release continued.
David has a discussion of the secret authority wielded by judge Walton that’s well worth the time. Another from Kurt Hofmann.
The problem with that argument is that the distinction between soldiers and “peace officers” (don’t hear that term much anymore, do you?) is rapidly disappearing. Can anyone look at the massive abuses perpetrated by “peace officers” in Boston in pursuit of the surviving alleged Marathon bomber, and dispute that “law enforcement” is becoming an occupying army?
To the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, that’s just fine, with executive director Josh Horwitz cautioning us to “not pile too much on the militarization of law enforcement,” because “they have a tough job.”
Besides, none of the forcible citizen disarmament advocates object to the police being armed with so-called “assault weapons” (although in that context, they might call them “patrol rifles,” or “personal defense weapons“), which we are told are “weapons of war, that belong on the battlefield, not on our streets,” and are thus not suitable for civilian ownership. Does that not make the police who are issued them soldiers?
Read Kurt’s setup for the situation and the argument for the following comments to make any sense.
Kurt is commenting on what we discussed in And Now They Trample The Third Amendment (which WRSA picked up and linked). Kurt makes an interesting point of logic. If the gun controllers and collectivists argue that AR-15s are weapons of war, then they cannot rationally and consistently object to the application of the third amendment to law enforcement – that is, for collectivists who want at least the pretext of being consistent and rational.
Bob Owens has a wonderful takedown of the argument that the founders didn’t imagine weapons of war in the hands of civilians, entitled ‘ … but the founders couldn’t have imagined more than muskets.” (I had asked Bob to give me the URL for this article several weeks ago and he couldn’t produce it, which means that I know more about what Bob is writing than he does, or something like that).
Bob’s piece is masterful and necessary reading. Using Kurt’s syllogism and Bob’s article, it means that there is no distinction (which also means that the Hughes amendment is obscene), and both that the police are guilty of a constitutional violation and we should have access to these “weapons of war” since the founders envisioned that we would.
Turning back to David, I don’t really find it surprising that this collectivist judge doesn’t believe in the second amendment, even though it is troubling. What I find most interesting is how he expressed his demurral: ” … the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to possess firearms.”
Dear readers, listen to me carefully and pay close attention. Might does not make right. If it did the Nazis were justified in killing Jews. The fact that you have guns and are willing to perish to keep them (like me) doesn’t mean that it’s your right to own them. Furthermore, the government – voters, rulers, policy, pieces of paper including even the constitution – does not confer rights. The government is not in a position of justifiably conferring anything on you.
Listen again, dear reader. If you believe that the constitution confers the right to own a gun, you will always be subject to the vicissitudes of constitutional interpretation and the latest hermeneutic fashions.
I rarely press my religious beliefs, but there is a time and occasion for it. This is one of those times. Your rights are conferred by your creator, and that’s why they are unalienable. The constitution merely recognizes and acknowledges those rights.
You have rights to your “weapons of war,” and so do I. And the police have no right to invade your castle. And we have a right to demand better of those who would adjudicate our laws than we have in judge Walton.
Read David and Kurt at Examiner.
