Temporary Safety

It never ceases to amaze me how little self-avowed liberals are so purposefully ignorant about their own Constitution:

Our famous Constitution, about which many of us are generally so proud, enshrines -- along with the right to freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly -- the right to own guns. That's an apples and oranges list if there ever was one.

Not all of us are so proud and triumphant about the gun-guarantee clause. The right to free speech, press, religion and assembly and so on seem to be working well, but the gun part, not so much.

The dolt who wrote this, Tom Plate, is not surprisingly the former editor of the Los Angeles Times.

He is hardly alone.

Another journalist, Walter Shapiro of Salon stated the following earlier this week:

Fifteen unambiguous words are all that would be required to quell the American-as-apple-pie cycle of gun violence that has now tearfully enshrined Virginia Tech in the record book of mass murder. Here are the 15 words that would deliver a mortal wound to our bang-bang culture of death: "The second article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed."

[snip]

Looking at the Bill of Rights with more than two centuries' hindsight, it is simply irrational that firearms have a protected position on par with freedom of speech and religion. Were Americans -- liberal or conservative -- writing a Constitution completely from scratch today, they probably would agree that something akin to "freedom to drive" was more far important than the "right to bear arms." The rights of state militias (which many liberal legal theorists argue is the essence of the Second Amendment) are as much a throwback to an 18th century mind-set as restrictions on quartering soldiers in private homes during peacetime (the little-remembered Third Amendment).

Alexander Hamilton, were he still alive today, may have chosen to respond to these craven abdications of responsibility by reiterating the following:

To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

What Hamilton means, and both to Plate and Shaprio are too dim, too pampered, and yes, too cowardly to let cross their minds, is the fact that no system of government is perfect, including our own Republic. It is the very nature of government to attempt to consolidate power, usurping for itself the rights and powers afforded to other branches and levels of governments on some occasions, and always, always from the people themselves.

It is because of the creeping pervasiveness and the promised tyranny of government (the same tyranny liberals constantly accuse the Executive of trying to implement on every other issue facing this nation, but noticeably fall silent on here) that arms must always be held by the people, for the people, as Noah Webster observed in "An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution."

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.

The Second Amendment was never about hunting, or sportsmanship. The Second Amendment was, and still is, the singular Amendment guaranteeing all others. To dismantle the Second, as John Adams noted in "A Defence of the Constitutions of the United States,":

...is to demolish every constitution, and lay the laws prostrate, so that liberty can be enjoyed by no man; it is a dissolution of the government.

As goes the Second Amendment, so does the United States of America itself. Without a "well regulated militia"--"regulated" meaning practiced and competent with arms, the "militia" recognized as all people of military age and capability--the United States falls.

Noted Patrick Henry:

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.

The Second Amendment of the Constitution was never about self defense from criminals. To the Founders, that right was inherent, provided by the Creator above. The purpose of the Second Amendment was to enshrine in this nation the capability to take this nation back by force from a corrupt government, overthrowing it if necessary.

So wrote Supreme Court Associate Justice Joseph Story in "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States":

The next amendment is: '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.'

"The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers...

The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.(1) And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burdens, to be rid.

It is no accident that Justice Story chose to use the word "palladium" to describe the critical importance of the Second Amendment, which is defined as:

1. A safeguard, especially one viewed as a guarantee of the integrity of social institutions: the Bill of Rights, palladium of American civil liberties.
2. A sacred object that was believed to have the power to preserve a city or state possessing it.

The Second Amendment is our palladium, that sacred object that preserves our Republic as a nation of men instead of a nation of laws slaved to tyrants.

Story accurately pegs Plate, Shapiro, and others that do not wish to be yoked with the responsibility of protecting themselves, or their nation. It is a burden too heavy for them to carry, a responsibility they wish to be rid of. To a man, their ilk ignores the lessons history would teach, and call for the power and responsibility to be handed to the very state that would ensnare them.

They are sheep: fearful, bleating, unwilling to deal with the weighted cost of freedom. They would trade all their freedoms for the temporary illusion of safety.

I think we know how the Founder might have responded to that sentiment.