Guntards.net

The Second Amendment is dead

Posted by simonov on 22 February 2007

Yes it is and you know it. The 1934 National Firearms Act (NFA) mortally wounded it and the Miller Supreme Court decision of 1939 was the coup de grâce. That was almost seventy years ago, folks. Get over it.

Students of the Second Amendment, as opposed to hand-waving social commentators, understand exactly what its purpose was meant to be. It’s not even controversial; a cursory reading of the Federalist Papers reveals all. The Second Amendment was simply a guarantee that ordinary citizens would always be able to arm themselves against a tyranny enforced by a standing army.

Do you think the armed population of the US could last a week against the US government’s standing army? The 1934 Act ensured it never could. The NFA says that outside of very restricted circumstances, only the US military (and local government police forces) may legally possess modern military small arms inside the US. The Orwellian titled Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986 (FOPA or the Reagan Gun Ban) reinforced the NFA with further restrictions on the small arms with which any civilian body would have a hope of defeating a modern military force.

The principles behind the Second Amendment are a threat to any government, like our own, that does not trust its people. So it was killed dead during the peak of pre-WWII US Federal power (the Depression), and the governments of the National Security State that appeared after the war never saw any reason to resurrect it.

The Constitutionally guaranteed RKBA has passed on; it is no more; it has ceased to be; it’s expired and gone to meet its maker; it’s a stiff; bereft of life; it rests in peace.

That being said, America still remains one of the few places in the world where ordinary citizens are free to arm themselves for whatever legal purposes they choose. While the Constitutional guarantees no longer matter, this is a civil right it is still important to preserve. We can do this with careful and considered argument, since the facts are all on our side (the enemies of gun rights invariably resort to fact-twisting or outright fabrications, the Michael Bellesiles brouhaha being merely one of the most spectacular examples).

We will not retain and expand our gun rights by making impassioned references to an irrelevant Constitutional Amendment. Invoking the Second Amendment in a discussion with someone who doesn’t believe in it (which includes the US Supreme Court, most of the Congress, almost all American mass media, and George W Bush) is a lot like invoking God: it means you have lost the argument and no longer know what else to say. And it won’t convince anyone of anything. No guntard should ever find himself in this position. Every guntard should acquaint himself with the facts and use them to make our case.

Honestly, guntards should just STFU about the Second Amendment.

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