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Mychal Massie is Chairman of the National Leadership Network of Black Conservatives-Project 21 – a conservative black think tank located in Washington, D.C. He was recognized as the 2008 Conservative Man of the Year by the Conservative Party of Suffolk County, N.Y. In December, 2011, he was recognized as one of the 20 most influential black Republicans. Mychal is a prolific blogger, a nationally recognized political activist, pundit, and columnist. He has appeared on Fox News Channel, Fox Business Channel, CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, NBC, and talk-radio programming worldwide. A former self-employed business owner of more than 30 years, Mychal’s complete Bio is mychal-massie.com/premium/bio The people must fight infringements in court
Our Constitution and the Bill of Rights are under constant attack by liberal courts whose judges are feelings-driven, that is, they make decisions based on their emotions rather than the law. The Fourth Circuit of Appeals in Maryland has just issued an absurd ruling against the Second Amendment, saying that it does not protect the right to own weapons that are ”most useful in military service.” I will attempt to explain why such an idea is absurd, ridiculous, and even laughable.
Here is the Second Amendment to our Constitution: ”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.” A law degree is not necessary to understand the terms used in the Amendment. With the exception of the word “Militia”, they mean exactly the same thing today as they did in 1789.
The opening clause of the Second Amendment stated a goal of the Amendment – to assure that the people would possess their own weapons. But if the purpose of the Second Amendment had been to arm the militia, then the Amendment would have been totally unnecessary, because under Article I Section 8 of the Constitution, Congress has the power and the duty ”To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia…” To end the militia argument, the Supreme Court ruled, in DC vs Heller (2008), that the right to own and carry firearms is an individual right. Now let’s turn to the current efforts by liberals to infringe our right to keep and bear arms. In essence, their efforts focus on banning the types of firearms that liberals don’t want us to have. The anti-gun people want to ban any gun that could possibly have any military use, and that includes almost all firearms. Failing that, they try to ban the ownership of semiautomatics, calling them “assault weapons.”
“Assault weapons” are fully automatic. They continue to fire as long as the trigger is pulled. Semi-automatics fire only one round when the trigger is pulled, i.e., one round at a time. Almost all pistols and rifles are semiautomatic, and some shotguns are as well. It is absurd to call semiautomatics “assault weapons.” They are simply common everyday firearms, as were the arms of the people in 1789.
The people must fight infringements in court, and the key to defeating them is to focus on the clear meaning of the term ”Arms”. In 1789 and now, ”Arms” meant and means weapons carried by individuals. The word ”Arms” did not refer to target shooting, sporting or hunting – it meant precisely weapons with a military use. With such weapons the people could defend themselves against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That was the purpose of the Amendment.
The Second Amendment does not create the right to self-defense, it affirms it, and does so in clear language. We do not need to prove to the government that we need such weapons. The Second Amendment does not say that we are permitted with government approval to possess and carry firearms approved by liberal feelings-driven legislators or bureaucrats or the courts. The Second Amendment affirms that the people have the unfettered right to possess and to carry firearms.
Our Constitution and its amendments are under constant attack by those who would give government powers it does not have. We must fight to recover our rights when the courts have taken them away. All Americans should support the National Rifle Association, and Gun Owners of America, as they fight for our right to self-defense – and our freedoms.
The post The Right To Keep And Bear Arms appeared first on The Daily Rant.
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