Who Was that Fat
Lady?
by Edgar J.
Steele
January 5,
2004
"America is
at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too
early to shoot the bastards."
-- Claire Wolfe, "101
Things to Do 'Til the Revolution" (1999)
"They have treated me and
others like me with utter contempt. They have confiscated our property and put
people in maximum-security prisons over ownership of fender washers, claiming
they were unassembled silencer parts. ... They have shot a man's wife in the
head because his gun's buttstock was too short. ... They burned 90 people
alive over a disputed two hundred dollar tax."
-- John
Ross, "Unintended Consequences" (1996)
"It ain't over until the
fat lady sings."
-- Old Southern American saying
(concerning church service)
"It ain't over 'til it's
over."
-- Yogi Berra (1973)
It's over.
The fat lady has
sung.
Elvis has left the
building.
The great American experiment finally
fizzled on December 1, 2003, when the US Supreme Court declined to hear an
appeal from a 9th Federal Circuit decision which gutted the Second
Amendment. It was a nice run - over two hundred years - but all good
things must end...I guess...at least, that's what they say.
We all know how saying nothing sometimes
can be among the most profound of statements. Ask any
husband.
Nowhere is silence so profound as when
offered by the Supremes. And, never has their silence been so
overwhelming as on December 1, 2003. That's when the US Supreme Court
issued its ruling, refusing to hear an appeal in the case of Silveira vs.
Lockyer. That made Silveira the law of the land, you see.
Here's the background, briefly:
California's legislatively-crafted "assault weapon" ban was stronger than the
national ban. Both bans essentially outlaw any rifle that looks like it
means business, regardless of capability -- I kid you not, cosmetics really is
the upshot of these bans.
Silveira sued in a losing attempt to
overturn the more-stringent California ban. Silveira unsuccessfully
appealed up through the legal system to the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals. Next stop: US Supreme Court, which now has "denied
cert," which means it allows the ruling below to stand.
Here's the real kicker, though.
Silveira doesn't just nationalize the California definition of assault
weapon. In Silveira, the 9th Circuit Court made the following
pronouncement: there is no individual right to bear arms contained
within the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.
That means that no American citizen,
since December 1, 2003, has a fundamental right to possess a
firearm.
You heard me right. You no longer
have a right to own a gun.
Mind you, here is the Second Amendment,
in full: "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."
Not just some people, but the
people. You and me, in other words.
And it's a fundamental (God-given) right,
therefore the government can't mess around with it...ever.
"Unalienable rights," was how the Declaration of Independence described these
fundamental rights. Unless we let it. We just did, by tolerating
this sort of behavior from our government.
Mind you, the Ninth Circuit Court's
judges didn't just come out and say you don't have a right to a gun.
They did it in legalese: they merely "affirmed" a prior decision of
their own, in which they said as much.
So, the US Supremes affirm the ruling of
a lesser court (by silence, thereby making it the law of America, nonetheless,
because contrary rulings from other jurisdictions will not be tolerated),
which affirmed its own prior ruling, which says you have no right to own a
gun.
Like thieves in the night, with stealth,
the black-robed dictators steal your rights.
All this silence and misdirection clearly
tells you how they feel about what it is they are doing. Yet, they go
ahead and do it anyway. And the average American is too stupefied to
know any better...or, worse, care. No, it does get worse:
many who care and understand actually applaud this result.
The ground now has been set for blanket
bans and confiscation. What? Cold, dead fingers, you say?
Yeah, sure. When martial law is declared, hardly anybody will
resist.
What? Martial law never will be
declared in America, you say? Yeah, right. Just wait until the
next Reichstag Fire....er....terrorist event which occurs on US soil.
The smart money is betting that happens within a month or two, by the
way.
Some will ask, "What's the big deal,
anyway? Guns are no match for government munitions these days,
anyway. Guns really are good only for hunting. Who needs hunting,
with the Safeway just down the street?"
Here's my response, which echoes that of
America's founding fathers: The Second Amendment's guarantee of the
individual's right to bear arms actually comprises the teeth of the
Constitution; what enables us to enforce the provisions of the Constitution
against an out-of-control government.
"Governments are instituted among Men,
deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any
Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
Government..." Sound familiar? It should. It is from the
second paragraph of the American Declaration of Independence.
Furthermore, small arms are scarcely
outmoded. One need look only to the debacle occurring in Iraq at this
moment for the proof of that statement.
And as for the Safeway? America's
supply line is about 3 days long - no more, certainly. In a crunch, you
can bet that all the publicly-available food will disappear overnight...into
government hands, for consumption exclusively by "our leaders." Safely
tucked away in all those nice, little underground shelters they built for
themselves with our tax money in recent years.
Does the current system of elections in
America constitute "Consent of the Governed?" Scarcely. Hardly
anybody votes these days, it seems. We realize that any candidate
allowed to run for office already has been vetted by the real powers that
be. You think Howard Dean will be any different from Bush II?
Really? Nobody who could make a difference will make a difference
because such a person is not allowed to run for office...at any
level.
I recently had a list member write to
tell me, "Your legal talent is wasted on commentary. We suffer not
from a lack of commentary. We suffer from a lack of lawyers who will
file lawsuits on behalf of pro-white candidates/activists. One of the
root causes for this is because the better educated, more affluent pro-white
lawyers while sympathetic don't respect those who need legal help. It's
a class thing." I disagree. What is pointless is the filing of
lawsuits; the attempt to work within the system. The system is
broken...irretrievably.
In fact, precisely what now is needed is
commentary to awaken our fellow Americans to the tyranny growing in
America.
The single best piece of commentary I
have seen on the Silveira case is by another lawyer: "Reflections
Upon the U.S. Supreme Court's Rejection of Silveira" by Peter J.
Mancus. (http://www.keepandbeararms.com/Mancus/silveira.asp)
His is a passionate and brilliant, albeit lengthy, article worthy of your
time. Among Mr. Mancus' observations:
"What value is the 'right to petition
to redress grievances' or to file a lawsuit (which is a form of the right to
petition government for a redress of a legitimate grievance) when the petition
or lawsuit or both crashes into the solid legal wall of government immunity or
the government refuses to hear the petition (lawsuit) or refuses to take it
seriously or refuses to apply the applicable law correctly? That is what
happened with Silveira at the Federal 9th Circuit...
"How viable is the 'right of
self-defense' if you must first beg government’s permission to defend your
life with a gun, when government thinks it has the power to withhold its
permission, with immunity, and to criminally prosecute you if it catches you
packing a gun without its permission?...
"(T)he entire purpose of the U.S. Bill
of Rights was to take away government’s unfettered discretion, but, guess
what, government now claims it has that very discretion that the Framers
intended to deny to government, and, to exacerbate matters, government now
hides behind its immunities when it commits wrongdoing, and, still worse, it
has the gall to accuse citizens of hiding behind their rights and being “gun
nuts” or worse when they refuse to go along to get along...
"We are on an increasingly steeper
slope toward a free fall into tyranny. The U.S. Supreme Court’s
rejection of Silveira made that slope steeper—much steeper. That fact is
simply not appreciated by some...
"I am afraid that a violent
confrontation with our own Government(s) looms ahead...
"We are in a downward spiral toward
some flashpoint where a hardcore of no-nonsense “no more” constitutionalists
will press the issue and not submit to perceived, insufferable
oppression...
"I know 'the gun solution' (political
assassination, open rebellion, etc.) is fraught with peril and inadequate and
morally complex and legally illegal. But, what is left? When we
peacefully claim our birthrights, peacefully pursue a lawsuit to the U.S.
Supreme Court and are stiff-armed while we point to what is written in the
Constitution, we are mocked, scorned, ridiculed, rebuffed, ignored, dismissed,
and rejected...
"(I)t is not about guns. It
never was about guns. It is really about this: 1) liberty; 2)
ordinary citizens retaining a legally enforceable right to retain the most
efficient, pragmatic means to enforce the rest of their rights enshrined in
the U.S. Constitution—privately owned, registered or unregistered, firearms;
3) holding government accountable; 4) keeping government from indefinitely
blowing through Constitutional red lights, violating the Constitution’s
commands; 5) forcing government to wear its Constitutional collar, connected
to a Constitutional chain, staked firmly into the bedrock of Constitutional
law.
"Now, when government slips that
Constitutional collar and refuses to put it back on and wear it compliantly
and honor the Constitution’s commands, with the judiciary’s blessings, what
then?
"How does one make a snarly, robust, active, gargantuan
government wear a collar it does not want to wear? How does one get
close to the beast’s teeth and claws to put on that collar and
survive?...
"Before Silveira and now with
Silveira, the peaceful, legal way was tried...It failed because the Black
Robes and the system failed...
"Currently, the United States is not
led, run, nor operated per its own Constitution’s rules and commands.
Our governments are out of control, and we, the People, have lost control of
our own governments...
"When Governments succeed in
manipulating us to focus on, and to chose between, Security versus Liberty,
they win. They win because the instant we choose either, we forfeit the other,
and we will inevitably lose what we chose. We especially lose when we choose
Security. That choice makes us too dependent on Governments to protect us.
Governments cannot protect us in all ways at all times. Governments can,
and do, however, use this issue to manipulate us against ourselves, to
surrender more Liberty so it can increase its powers over us and tie us down
with its chains rather than we tie it down with the Constitution’s
chains..."
Keep in mind that Mr. Mancus, like
myself, is a lawyer. He well appreciates what he dare not say aloud
concerning judges and our government, on pain of being disbarred.
Outspoken as are both he and I, still we are incapable of advocating things
that you might legally advocate.
It is not yet illegal to bury weapons, so
I can in all seriousness advise you to bury those you previously acquired "off
paper," via private sales. Do it properly, with ammunition and in
well-sealed, watertight containers. Be innovative and bury them where
metal detectors will not ferret them out. Keep a couple, the ones for
which the dealer ran background checks, to hand to the nice soldiers who
inevitably will come to your door, gun registration lists in hand. At
that point, it will be illegal for me to tell you to withhold any guns from
the government, so the guns you bury today will be an issue only between your
conscience and yourself.
Oh...and I don't know who that fat lady
was, either. All I know is that, as she left the stage, I saw she was
wearing a yarmulke.![]()
-ed
"I didn't say it
would be easy. I just said it would be the truth."
-
Morpheus
Copyright ©2004, Edgar J. Steele
Forward as you wish.
Permission is granted to circulate
among private individuals
and groups, post on all Internet
sites and publish in
full in all not-for-profit publications.
Contact author for all
other rights, which are reserved.
On-Line link to this article in HTML format: http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/arms.htm
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