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Sunday, January 25, 2009

Rush to Ignorance: Guns, Congress, & The 2nd Amendment

Should government require individual citizens to possess a license to practice free speech or religion (1st Amendment)? How about requiring a license that grants you freedom from cruel and unusual punishment (8th Amendment)? These are ridiculous, unconstitutional proposals; but when has that ever stopped a lawmaker, especially a liberal Democrat?

Representative Bobby Rush, Democrat of Chicago and a constitutionally ignorant man, proposes to license (infringe) the constitutional right of the people to keep and bear arms (2nd Amendment). He wants to outlaw possession of firearms by anyone not possessing a federal firearms license. I can think of no other constitutional right that is treated in this manner.
HR 45
1/6/2009--Introduced.
Blair Holt's Firearm Licensing and Record of Sale Act of 2009 - Amends the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act to prohibit a person from possessing a firearm unless that person has been issued a firearm license under this Act or a state system certified under this Act and such license has not been invalidated or revoked. Prescribes license application, issuance, and renewal requirements.
The complete text of this constitutional overreach, which is fit to be printed only on toilet paper, can be found here.

The licensing requirements this former Black Panther insists upon are burdensome. The section about safe storage as pertaining to children (those under 18 years old) makes it legally impossible to keep loaded weapons or to even separately store weapons and ammo in such a manner as you could quickly use them in defense of your home.

This bill infringes upon a constitutional right which comes from God. It criminalizes the previously legal act of owning a gun. I have a right to possess firearms, and can only lose that right through illegal activity. This proposed legislation turns a citizen into a supplicant, begging a bureaucrat for the privilege to own a gun. It makes it harder to legally defend your home and property, and will impede illegal weapons trafficking not at all.

Is this the Democratic agenda for America? Write your elected officials and tell them they can keep it, and suggest they read the US Constitution while they're at it.

7 comments:

Canadian Pragmatist said...

I don't disagree with you Silverfiddle. I would be in favour of Americans having better access to guns even cheaper guns; people who have been pushed aside economically scraping together their last couple hundred dollaw to buy a cheap gun, knocked down the door into their former bosses house and blow his/her brains out.

I just don't think your argument for your position is very good. You treat the constitution as if it cannot be changed. If at some point in history hand guns are made so that they shoot out nuclear bombs instead of bullets, you'd still be for people possessing them without a license?

Again, I'm on your side. I just think your premise that the constitution was made by god, or even okay'd by god, even if true, is still not a good enough reason to let people own bomb shooting guns.

The idea that there are eternal truths, rights, etc... is laughable. I might have to scien-fi my way into the future to show how ridiculous some of those truths are, but they're still ridiculous.

Thing is, you have to have a license to own a gun in Canada, and there is far less crime, and much less violent crime here. Make of that what you will.

Anonymous said...

The point u bring out is true u liberal canuk-u have low crime rates!!! What Silverfiddle is pointing that within our "USA" constitution is the right to bear arms. If I am not mistaken that canada restricted or should I say, "taken away your right to own hand guns". In England, Your mother land, YOU CAN'T OWN NOT OWN FIREARMS AND AUSTRALIA THEY CAN'T OWN ANYTHING EITHER "I could be wrong on that one". We deal with firearms in our own big constitutional way just like you deal with the french--english language issue.

join the NRA to preserve your constitutional right own and bear arms. Redneck Ron

Silverfiddle said...

Canadian: The US Constitution can be changed only by an amendment process that sets a high bar.

The constitution sets down inalienable right (inherent to man, cannot be taken away by another man) given to us by our creator. Those are the founders' words, not mine.

This is not a left-right issue, it is a Liberty-Tyranny issue. I don't want the Republicans' grimy hands on our constitution any more than I want the sleazy Dems' messing with it.

We are a violent society here in the US. The popular culture celebrates it. I can't defend that. God bless Canada for her non-violent ways, but I haven't seen anything that correlates your low crime rate with gun licensing.

Anonymous said...

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=yTq2NEUlhDE

Redneck Ron

Anonymous said...

Hey canadian,

The constitution is purposefully made to be difficult to change. If someone wants to ban firearms here, they would have to either get 3/4 of states to pass the amendment in their own state legisltatures or 2/3 of states to do so and gain a majority in congress. Neither scenario is likely, as even many liberal states like California (So-cal especially), Washington, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Minnesota would be extremely resistant to such a move and no conservative state would even consider it. Now as for your crime rates, it is true that levels of criminal activity are lower in Canada. However, you're comparing apples and oranges here. How about instead we compare one country before and after prohibition. Namely, England. Their crime rate is still lower then Americas, but much higher then it was before prohibition. Also, the United States suffered a massive urban decay in the 1950's that threw entire portions of our society and landscape in to complete disarray and disrepair. As I recall, that never happened in Canada. And Canada has no history of slavery. All these things add to crime levels.

Russell said...

more guns, less crime.

Finntann said...

The problem with the 'Canadian' theory is thinking that illegal acts are comitted with 'legal' guns (or guns at all).

And, need I point out that raw numbers are meaningless... our population is larger than yours.

The US violent crime rate per 100,000 population in 2007 was 466.9 while the violent crime rate per 100,000 population in 2006 in Canada was 951.

Figures are from the Department of Justice in the US and Statistics Canada... your national statistics agency (statcan.gc.ca).

The numbers range from a low of 714 for Prince Edward Island, to highs over 6,000 in the North West Territories. Not considering N.W.T, Nunavut, or the Yukon, you still top out at 1598 in Manitoba. Compare that to our range of 103 for Maine to 784 for South Carolina. In order to approach Canadian numbers you need to hit the US inner cities, and they top out at an 1408/100000 rate for Philadelphia.

In England the violent crime rate is 2200/100000, Northern Ireland 2000, and Wales 1950.

Granted, you have a somewhat more than twice the chance of being the victim of 'gun crime' in the US than in Canada... but when it comes down to it, what difference does it make? Gun, Knife, Baseball bat... violent crime is violent crime, and your an idiot if you think violent criminals would stop committing violent crime just because you took their guns away.

So, explain to me why the 'bad' United States has a lower violent crime rate than the 'good' little socialist countries with restrictive gun laws.

Thanks, I'll keep my Constitution, my gun, and my high incarceration rates, for a violent crime rate only 25% of that of England and 50% of Canada. (UK figures from Walesonline.co.uk Sep 9, 2008)

Much less violent crime there my ass! Do your research before shooting your socialist propaganda out of your pie hole.

~Finntann~

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