-Caveat Lector-
Please read the enclosed article very carefully. Advocates for
preservation of the Second Amendment seem to be getting farther
and farther adrift from the real issues, and more and more being
drawn into debates of the "merits" of their right to keep and bear
arms, apparently in a desperate attempt to justify those God given
rights. Those arguments were decided over two hundred years ago
and should not now be *allowed* up for new debate.
PLEASE, recognize that any debates on the MERITS of the Second
Amendment are "distractions" that gun control advocates are using
to direct the argument away from the real issues and to waste your
time fighting the wrong battles. Those who want to destroy the
Second Amendment know they cannot win the argument honestly,
and so they have redefined the terms of the debate. Please, please,
don't fall for it.
------------------
The Myth of Gun Control
by Joyce Rosenwald ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
The term "Militia" was defined at the time the Bill of
Rights was enacted, as "all able bodied males between 18
and 45."
That has since been codified into American law as 10
USC. 311 (b) which divides the "Militia" into two groups,
the "organized" and the "unorganized." The "organized
"Militia" consists of the National Guard of the Union
States. The "unorganized Militia" consists of all members
of the militia not in the "organized militia."
So, who are these other members of the militia? U.S.
Code Section 311(a) states: "The militia of the United
States consists of all able bodied males at least 17 years
of age...." In other words....the people are the militia.
The supporters of gun control would like Americans to
believe that the Second Amendment to the Bill of Rights
doesn't exist as a "right". They claim that it is being
misinterpreted, and no longer means a natural right, but
instead, a privilege from government. They say the right
to gun ownership referred only to the state militia, now
known as the National Guard. But, the Second Amendment
says "the right of the people to bear arms," NOT " the right
of members of the militia to bear arms." "The right of the
people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
The Constitution did not grant the right. It simply
acknowledged it. The right to keep and bear arms existed
prior to the Bill Of Rights, prior to the Constitution,
prior to the Articles of Confederation, and prior to the
Declaration of Independence.
What then is the purpose of the Second Amendment? The
Court in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 US 542, 1876,
defines it this way. "This, "the Second Amendment" is one
of the Amendments that has no other effect than to restrict
the powers of the National Government."
But, even more importantly, what is to restrict the
powers of the State governments from disarming the people?
Our forefathers believed that an armed populace was the
best protection against government despotism. Noah Web-
ster, supporting the Bill of Rights, wrote: "Before a stand-
ing army can rule, the people must be disarmed as they are
in almost every kingdom in Europe." Samuel Adams hoped that
"the Constitution never be construed....to prevent the
people of the United States who are peaceable Citizens from
keeping their own arms."
Is it conceivable that the Founding Fathers would leave
such an obvious gap in our protection? The right to keep and
bear Arms is inextricably bound to the right to life it-
self. If one has a right to his or her own life, it stands
to reason that one has a right to defend that life. By
extension, property must be included. A person gives up a
part of their life in exchange for some form of compensation
(most often money) which in turn is exchanged for property,
real or personal. One's property represents small segments
of life exchanged for something tangible.
We all know that we are not all of equal ability when
it comes to self defense. Denying an individual the means
of self defense is to deny the right of self defense.
Accordingly, the right to keep and bear Arms to defend life,
liberty, and property is inexorable. The fact that "the
right to keep and bear Arms for a lawful purpose" existed
before the Constitution was written is verified by the
Supreme Court.
In United States v. Cruikshank, 92 US 542, 1876, the
first case the Supreme Court heard regarding the Second
Amendment, the Court states:
"The right there specified is that of "bearing arms for
a lawful purpose." This is not a right granted by the Con-
stitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent on that
instrument for its existence."
Notice, the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the
right to keep and bear arms exists independent of the Con-
stitution. How could you challenge the writing and passing
of restrictive firearm legislation under the State fiction
of public policy? This has already been answered. In Press-
er v. Illinois, 116 US 252, 1886, the Supreme Court
stated:
"It is undoubtedly true that all citizens capable of
bearing arms constitute the reserved military force or
reserve militia of the United States as well as of the
States; and, in view of this prerogative of the General
(Federal) Government, as well as of its general powers,
the States cannot, even laying the constitutional provision
in question (the Second Amendment) out of view, prohibit
the people from keeping and bearing arms, so as to deprive
the United States of their rightful resource for maintaining
the public security, and disable the people from performing
their duty to the General Government."
The Supreme Court made it very clear that to disarm the
people of one State would threaten the security of the
entire nation and no State has the power to do this. Would
a State by restricting the ownership of military style
weapons, be regulating the militia? The only power the State
government has over the "militia" in terms of regulation is
to provide training and to select officers. But, what of
the Arms in question? In United States v. Miller, 307 US
174, 1939, the Supreme Court ruled:
"The arms must possess...."some reasonable relationship
to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated mili-
tia..." Further, the weapon must be a ..."part of the
ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute
to the common defense."
Do you think the States have the jurisdiction to disarm
their inhabitants? Again, in United States v. Cruikshank,
92 US 542, 1876, the court declared:
"The people of the United States resident within any
State are subject to two governments: one State, the other
National, but there need be no conflict between the two.
The powers which one possesses, the other does not..
What the Supreme Court declared is that States have
certain powers, the national (federal) government has cer-
tain powers, and the two do not overlap. Each has its own
sphere of power, otherwise known as "jurisdiction." Which
government, State or federal, has the power to regulate the
"Militia?" The Second Amendment states that the militia be
"regulated." Article I, Section 8, Clauses 15 and 16 of the
national (federal) constitution:
"The congress shall have power... "To provide for
calling forth the Militia to execute the laws of the Union,
suppress insurrections and repel invasions...... To provide
for organizing, arming, and disciplining such Part of them
as may be employed in the Service of the United States, re-
serving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the
Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia accord-
ing to the discipline prescribed by Congress."
The "right to keep and bear arms for lawful purposes,"
to defend one's life, liberty and property, exists inde-
pendent of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. The Union
States have no ordained power whatsoever to regulate the
"Militia" and thereby disarm the people. Consider the
following excerpt from Sixteenth American Jurisprudence,
Second Edition, Section 256:
"The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute,
though having the form and name of law, is in reality no
law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose;
since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enact-
ment, and not merely from the date of the decision so brand-
ing it. An unconstitutional law, in legal contemplation,
is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a
statute leaves the question it purports to settle just as it
would be had the statute not been enacted.
"Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general
principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no
rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority to
anyone, affords no protection, and justifies no acts per-
formed under it.....
"A void act cannot be legally consistent with a valid
one. An unconstitutional law cannot operate to supersede
any existing valid law. Indeed, insofar as a statute runs
counter to the fundamental law of the land, it is superseded
thereby.
"No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no
courts are bound to enforce it."
The people of the thirteen original Union States were
asked to approve our present responsibility to State and
federal government respectively. This was accomplished,
according to the direction of the Constitution itself, by
the ratification of the Constitution by conventions of the
people in each of the new "United States." If the transfer
from one sovereign to another required such specific sepa-
rate approval of the American people in 1789, what has
happened since that enabled the federal government to be-
lieve it can transfer the sovereignty of the Union States,
by destroying States rights, to the federal congress? How
can the ordained Constitutions of the Union States be
bypassed, and the natural rights of the people be mandated,
or ordered away by the federal congress?
Some Americans believe it happened this way: With the
signing of the U.N. Charter our duly elected public serv-
ants gave away the Sovereignty of the United States, and
the sovereignty of the individual Union States, the Ordained
Constitutions notwithstanding. The basic purpose of our
Federal Constitution is to preserve the sovereign indepen-
dence of these united States and to provide for their
common defense.
Constitutions delicately balance the governmental
relationships and obligations of Americans between the State
of their residence and the federal government. Under the
Constitution, we are primarily responsible to our State
governments for the observance of general laws protecting
life, property, and privacy. We are protected in all con-
tacts with both state and federal government by separate,
detailed Bills of Rights and many other State and Constitu-
tional provisions. Above all, and against both State and
federal governments, we are Constitutionally protected
against violation, by arbitrary governmental action, of our
natural God given rights. This is the finely balanced
reciprocating area of our protection and allegiance that is
now supposed to have been transferred to the United Nations.
If such a transfer of our sovereignty has truly taken
place, and there is a formidable body of law to prove that
it has been, then the Ordained Constitutions of the Union
States and the federal government have not merely been
bypassed, they have been destroyed. The approval of the
American people in 1789 was needed to surrender a piece of
their sovereignty, what authority gave the president, with
the approval of two-thirds of the senate, to make us sub-
jects of France, Germany, Italy, and other countries in an
international organization known as the United Nations.
An example of past Court rulings supporting the fact
that the United Nations Charter is the law of this land :
In Missouri v. Holland, 252 US 416, 1920, the Supreme
Court decided that powers reserved to the States by the
Tenth Amendment to the Constitution could be given to the
national government by a treaty.
United States v. Curtis Wright Corporation...299 U.S.
304 ....The Supreme Court Justices said in effect that the
treaty power is separate, apart, and above the Constitu-
tion; that the treaty power of the United States was inher-
ited from the King of England and may be exercised to the
same extent that it is exercised by other governments of
the world.
The United Nations Charter is claimed to be the Supreme
Law of our Land. Since its adoption the State Department
has officially declared that "there is now no longer any
real difference between domestic and foreign affairs"
(State Department Publication 3972, F. A. Policy Series
26, September, 1950), see 83rd Congress, Senate Doc
87, Review of United Nations citing Seifujii v. The State
of California, 217 P.Rpt. 481 at page 288, 289,
"The Charter has become the supreme Law of the Land;
and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any
Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the
Contrary notwithstanding." U.S. Const. Art. VI, sec. 2.
The position of this country in the family of nations for-
bids trafficking in innocuous generalities but demands that
every State in the Union accept and act upon the Charter
according to its plain language and its unmistakable pur-
pose and intent."
The doctrine that treaties supersede or over-ride the
Constitution was extended to apply to executive agreements
negotiated by the President, or in the name of the Presi-
dent by members of the Bureaucracy. In 1933 by an informal
exchange of letters between President Roosevelt and the
Communist agent Litvinov, the United States gave full
diplomatic recognition to the Soviet government of Russia.
The agreement between Litvinov and the President was never
sent to the United States Senate for ratification. Never-
theless, in 1942 the Supreme Court in United States v.
Pink, 315, US 203, 1942, decided that the President's agree-
ment with Litvinov had all the binding qualities of a duly
ratified treaty. Like a treaty, said the Supreme Court of
the United States, this executive agreement became the
supreme law of the land. It thus over- rode the court deci-
sions, statutes, and Constitution of the State of New York,
as well as the Fifth Article of the federal Bill of Rights.
The highest judicial court of New York had solemnly decided
that certain property belonged to "A." On appeal the
Supreme Court of the United States over-ruled the New York
court and held that President Roosevelt's agreement with
Litvinov had given this property to "B," and to "B" it
therefore belonged, the Bill of Rights to the contrary
notwithstanding."
The Supreme Court held that a personal agreement bet-
ween President Roosevelt and the Russian Foreign Minister,
Litvinov, nullified provisions of the laws of New York
State, and of the American Constitution, which forbid
confiscation of private property. "A treaty is a 'law of
the land' under the supremacy clause (Article 6, Clause 2)
of the Constitution. Such international compacts and agree-
ments as the Litvinov assignment have a similar dignity."
And again in the same opinion:
"State law must yield when it is inconsistent with, or
impairs the policy provisions of a treaty or of an interna-
tional compact or agreement. Then the power of a state to
refuse enforcement of rights based on foreign law, which
runs counter to the public policy of the former, must give
way before the superior federal policy evidenced by a
treaty or international compact or agreement."
There can be NO FEDERAL JURISDICTION in any matter
today. As exhibited above, the Federal United States has
relinquished its jurisdiction over the federal united
States to the United Nations. The federal Congress, which
historically has no jurisdiction over the Union States, has
nonetheless relinquished the sovereignty of the Union
States.
In summary, the Constitution does not grant the right
to keep and bear arms, nor does it grant any other right to
the people. The Constitution only secures those rights to
the people that were given to them by GOD. The American
People do not receive their inalienable rights from govern-
ment, therefore, government has no jurisdiction to take
their rights from them. The people are not lawfully bound
to obey any law, federal or State, that would disarm us.
In view of the fact that the federal government has relin-
quished its own sovereignty, as well as the sovereignty of
all the Union States without the consent of the governed
from whom all governments derive their authority, gun
control legislation to disarm the people, or prohibit the
ownership of specific types of firearm ownership, both
federal and State, is a moot point.
Now, more than ever, the people should be arming them-
selves and organizing a militia to fulfill their respon-
sibility to protect this nation against all enemies who
would rob them of their liberty and freedom, both domestic
and foreign.
_________________________________
At sunrise on Wednesday, April 29, 1775, four hundred
government troops arrived in Lexington Massachusetts to
disarm the citizens so as to destroy any potential resist-
ance to the growing tyranny of government. About one
hundred colonists, none of whom had any personal reason for
becoming involved in what was about to occur, gathered on
the green just above the bridge. No family members were in
jail, neither had they been shot by the British. No econom-
ic gain motivated those men to stand against the British
forces. No monetary value could have been placed on the
risk to life they faced. They stood, and fought, on prin-
ciple! They fought for their Natural GOD given rights and
they fought for their GOD given liberty. The result of
this battle was the beginning of a bloody revolution and
the birth of a new Nation. From this time forward, Ameri-
cans have learned to distrust governments that would disarm
their people. Historically, gun control has been the
hallmark of tyranny.
Joyce Rosenwald ([EMAIL PROTECTED]>
--------------------------
"That government can scarcely deemed to be free, where the rights of
property are left solely dependent upon the will of a legislative body
without any restraint. The fundamental maxims of a free government seem to
require the rights of personal liberty and private property should be held
sacred." Justice Joseph Storey 1779-1845
[Justice Storey appointed by President James Madison, served on the U.S.
Supreme Court from 1812 to 1845]
--------------------
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