What if your mother handed you five bucks and said, “I want you to go to the store and buy a gallon of milk and do not buy yourself candy,” and you declare that she said, “…buy yourself candy,” and insisted that by her words you were entitled to go to the store and buy yourself candy? She would kick your ass.
Our Supreme Court is not that mother. Our Supreme Court is if that mother was one of those moms of today too afraid to say no to their children. You know the kind. They cave in and do their kids’ homework for them while standing in line to make sure that same kid has the newest iPhone, while the kid sits home killing people on video games.
What happens when the children’s enabler has an enabler? And that enabler pays the mom to continue spoiling the living shit out of that same child. That child will grow up to send mom off out to kill people in real life for him just like in the video games. Wait, no. Sorry, I think I mangled my own metaphor.
It’s not like I’ve not seen this kind of thing before. Back in my days of religion and biblical studies, when I actually gave a shit about that book, I can’t tell you how many times people thought it guaranteed that knowing the truth set you free. There was nothing else to it. Just knowing the truth set you free. You just knew about Jesus (herein mistakenly called the Truth), and accepted him into your heart like a pig’s valve or something, and blam! Free! Or saved! No other requirements. And why?
…and you will know the truth,
and the truth shall set you free.
You’ve seen it written in marker in bathrooms, right under some mention about someone sucking dick and something scribbled about white power, because someone with a Sharpie wanted to bring Jesus to that venue of philosophy and reason. But it’s not really reasonable to cut off the last letters of someone’s main premise. It pisses me off so much I damned it above by putting it in the worst font possible: Comic Sans. I just sent bad Christians to font hell.
Truth is, however, there’s more to it that’s just too bothersome to know about. The phrase came from the eighth chapter of John. He says that only those who follow his teachings… you know, the stuff like being nice to others and caring for the sick, poor, and elderly, amongst other things… only those who do this are truly his disciples, and those disciples will know the truth, and the truth will… well, you get it. There’s more if/then statements than just knowing the truth. Like the truth that Jesus is dead and he’s not coming back and there’s no reason whatsoever to believe there’s a god or that it happens to be this particular one instead of all the others.
So when it comes to guns, it’s no surprise all gun nuts seem to know is, “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” They read that as, “No regulation can ever happen and anybody can have any gun they want no matter what, so there!” So when people say, as they always do, “What part of shall not be infringed don’t you understand?” I have to ask what part of “well regulated” don’t YOU understand?
That is NOT what that amendment means at all.
Not only do they focus only on those few words, but they read so many things into it that aren’t there. That whole notion that founders wanted you to have the ability to overthrow the government some day is incredibly wrong, as they wrote quite clearly in Article I Section VIII that the militia is to be called forth by Congress to fight insurrections:
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
Although insurrection is meant as a revolt against government, this isn’t really how the word was used at that time. So if you want to point to the last words as they seem to mean, I can point to insurrection and point out what it seems to mean. We’ll get to the insurrection point in a moment, and it’s not pretty. As a matter of fact, this line is the very reason they wrote the 2nd Amendment. It upset some southern states.
And in the next line, doubling down on the notion that government was to regulate this militia (and therefore, their “arms”), it says:
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
So really, there’s no mention of arms or armies where there is to be no regulation whatsoever. All of them suggest government oversight and regulation for a militia to carry out government’s purposes. There is nothing unconstitutional about regulations on guns. Nothing whatsoever.
Let’s go down the wording of the 2nd Amendment, and you’ll see it’s a completely useless, obsolete, and nullified piece of legislature:
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 well regulated militia – right there, regulated. Easy as pie to see.
--- - being necessary to the security of the Free state – What’s a “free state” supposed to be? Originally State was capitalized (as was Arms, oddly enough). But the security of the free state is opposed to the insurrections that threaten it from the not-so-free state. Yes, by insurrection, they meant slave rebellions. We have this concern on record from Patrick Henry and other southern leaders, so by no means should you knee-jerk into calling this liberal propaganda. It’s fact, folks.
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You see, southern states saw that government, or Congress rather, were the ones authorized to call onto the militia to squash insurrections. But this is in a time before cell phones and 24/7 news media. If your slaves are planning to revolt, do you really have time to contact Philadelphia and ask them permission to authorize the men? No. You didn’t. And that concerned southern states deeply, of course.
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Patrick Henry, the hypocrite who said he was opposed to slavery but also opposed to freeing the slaves, was greatly concerned about this unlimited power given to Congress (which he was clearly hallucinating):
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"Let me here call your attention to that part [Article 1, Section 8 of the proposed Constitution] which gives the Congress power to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States. . . . By this, sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless: the states can do neither . . . this power being exclusively given to Congress. The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed is ridiculous; so that this pretended little remains of power left to the states may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory."---
However if you think insurrections merely meant slave rebellions to them, keep in mind George Washington felt completely and constitutionally okay to violently topple the Whiskey Rebellion. So there’s that.
--- - So we need to go back to A well regulated militia – You see, the point of this amendment is in no way trying to say that anybody can have any gun anytime ever. Their point, poorly written, is that they should be able to stay armed and ready in those instances. But the purpose to stay armed is purely and simply in the case the free state is threatened. And that is so that states paranoid that they’ll not be allowed to do anything about it no longer feel that paranoia. This was so those southern states will accept annexation and still feel totally fine and safe with their ownership of other people.
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Now, it should be pointed out that we no longer allow for slavery, but that’s almost unnecessary. However some Teabaggers may be reading this, and I feel the need to be extra clear for them. What also needs to be pointed out is that we no longer consider a militia necessary for the free state, even if by free state you just mean America.
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In actual fact about militias, the militia did a pretty shitty job of being reliable. While you’re worried about government power being corrupt, it turns out gun owners who felt free to do whatever they wanted became corrupt absolutely and immediately. They did not self regulate. They did not keep to the purpose. They even abused slaves and even freed blacks using those weapons. Civil war showed us how untrained people picked up guns and died by the thousands. So we go by a standing military now.
--- - the right of the people to keep and bear arms – And by Arms we mean weapons that you had to put in powder, then tamp it down, then insert a ball, and then a fuse, and… well, certainly nothing you could use to kill hundreds of school kids in seconds. But I’m told that every time I bring up school kids, I’m appealing to emotion, so I probably shouldn’t mention the many times kids have been massacred in this country thanks to lax gun laws. You know, I wouldn’t want my argument to be fallacious or anything. That’s worse than a bunch of dead kids, apparently.
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Let’s also point out that by people they referred to men. Men were people, women were property. And also, white men. White men were people, all other people were property. They wouldn’t allow for slaves to own those weapons, so that right there is already an infringement of someone based on whether the state thought they were capable. To say it wasn’t is to ignore a giant piece of hypocrisy.
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Now not only did people mean white men, but militia itself, as I am told by a gun lover debating me at the Reason Google+ page, has a similar meaning. The militia is supposed to be every able-bodied male. All able-bodied men were expected to, therefore, take up arms to defend the free state. Of course, able-bodied white men. Well, that’s a form of conscription. We don’t have the draft any more. Conscription is also dead in this country.
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This brings me to the final words:
--- - shall not be infringed – unless, of course, you are not human enough to be considered people. Well, we no longer judge people based on their skin color or genitals (or, we’re not supposed to). We judge them based on their merit, don’t we? Absolutely. And so background checks allow us to do precisely that. It’s just as shifting of what they did then, to what we should do now.
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The real question is, do rights mean zero consequences should you abuse that right? And we all know that’s bullshit. Therefore, it is in no way infringement to hold people to standards based on that right. And that is why registration makes perfect sense. Nobody’s right to own a moving vehicle and drive it is infringed if they are expected to register said vehicle, be trained to use it properly, and held accountable if they should misuse it (by a license plate that can be called in). So since gun people are always reminding me that cars are deadlier than guns by statistic, there you go.
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You see, history didn’t stop at the writing of that document. We’ve moved on and learned some things. We learned slavery is wrong and stupid. Know what else is wrong and stupid? Letting any idiot buy any gun they want at any time with no regulation whatsoever. But today’s gun nuts are just like today’s Bible nuts. They talk about the document but only read little bits and pieces. This is their John 3:16. Or maybe we should call it Heston 3:16.
Hell, John 3:16 is their way of saying that if you don’t believe literally about Jesus being the only Son of God, you can’t get to the father. They think it means that, but the same chapter has a demonstration of how ridiculous it is to believe the things he says in a literal sense. (Nicodemus thinks being “born again” means having to crawl back into his mom and pop out again, which is super nasty!”)
So to the lovers of only the last few words of the 2nd Amendment who claim to follow that document so patriotically, they seem to think Madison said, Hold to the well regulated militia, and you will know how to be organized and disciplined enough to be armed and to use those arms, and you can have any gun you want, and the guns will set you free! ……and all anybody sees is…… you can have any gun you want, and the guns will set you free!
And really, nothing about guns is setting you free either. Cases of successful self defense are overpowered by cases of horror. Gun ownership increases personal risk. Gun ownership even increases hysteria and paranoia! And all those talking points of more guns = less killing is from an NRA that has refused to update their sources for decades! All gun nut talking points are destroyed here.
But it’s the price of freedom, they say, because one day they may have to overthrow the government in a case of tyranny, but so far they can only see tyranny as when they did not win the election. That’s insane, and it’s not legal. In fact, with so many arming against others vigilante style just to throw a political tantrum, one can clearly say they’ve become a clear and present danger to the security of the free state.
During the Bundy Ranch thing many people mentioned Washington and had to be reminded that General Washington had violently crushed the Whisky Rebellion in the same way that they were afraid Obama might do to Bundy. Which he didn’t, but he would’ve had the same Constitutional right to do it that Washington had. And in doing so, they’d have called him King Obama for that too, although he would’ve been following in the same footsteps of the same man they liked to remind people had said, “I didn’t fight George III to become George I.”
So that would mean that the 2nd Amendment is completely out of date, but the words are still there. It is just as dated and obsolete as the 3rd Amendment. But mostly, the words their itching ears want to hear are still there. Nothing about militia seems to apply, and they swear that it’s not at all meant to be an if/then statement because “shall not be infringed” is an independent clause. Funny how new that interpretation is.
Tell that to the Facebook troll of the day:
If you need a bang-bang toy to feel safe going out to buy your can of pork and beans for dinner, you don’t get to call anybody else pussy. But I’ll let that slide since clearly Beau is clearly suffering from the proven paranoia that comes with gun ownership. Notice I didn’t call Beau stupid (but he seems to think I did), haven’t said a damned thing about taking his guns away, and didn’t say a thing about the right to bear arms responsibly is the problem. He just launched into talking points without any provocation.
When Obama was elected, I was living in the south and saw this paranoia first hand. Plenty of people I knew had to go buy guns before they were all taken away (which never happened). Anybody with actual knowledge that the 2nd Amendment isn’t as clear as people want it to be are called “gun grabbers” because clearly we all want to take them away so we can have the Socialist paradise that Lord Satan promised us, or something.
Look folks, there is nothing Constitutional against regulation of guns. So when people want them to be only available by following governmental regulation, registration, and required training, they are not trying to hand over their freedoms to teh gubmints. They are simply trying to create the very well regulated situation the Constitution calls for. This is what the people want, and it’s hardly too much to ask when their children are terrified of going to school now. Fuck you if you think that’s an appeal to emotion. If only you showed as much emotion to that as you do to your guns! But I’ve already given reasonable argument here, so cut some slack on it.
Nobody’s suggesting it’ll solve all problems, and we don’t need bullshit talking points about guns not killing people, and only outlaws will have guns, or more people are killed by cars and spoons, or guns are people my friend. Well, SCROTUS hasn’t declared that one yet, but give them time.
And finally, if you think you want a gun in case you need to fight tyranny one day, check out the amount of people who want gun regulations, and the politicians who NEVER listen because the NRA and gun lobbyists are paid and/or threatened well not to listen to the people. You aren’t fighting tyranny. You are the tyrant. Or at least you’re paying NRA dues to the tyrant, and I don’t see any of you trying to overthrow him.
…and therefore you are not knowing the truth, and are clearly not setting anyone free. Our dead children are evidence we need to be set free from you.
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