So, yesterday the big McDonald case came out, confirming that, yes, the Second Amendment protects an individual right, and yes, it applies against state and local governments as well as the feds.
But I posted nothing. Why the hell not?
Because it’s weak and wishy-washy. Because it says, in effect, no, you can’t ban guns, but you can regulate them to death. Because it’s another crack in the wall, and not a general tearing down.
Mostly, though, because it doesn’t apply to me, or you, or any citizen.
The Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, down to the Second Amendment, have nothing to do with what We the People are allowed to do. The Constitution is directed at the government, the State, giving it structure, defining its (few and strictly limited) powers, and listing things it is forbidden to do.
We, the People, can own private property, including tools, including printing presses and telephones and guns. Period. We can defend ourselves against crime and tyranny.
We can do those things whether the State, or the states, or petty little town hall dictators like Daley, say nay or yay.
That’s what a right is: a declaration that you can act according to the dictates of your own conscience, subject to the imposed will of no one, no legislator, no executive, no judge, no uniform or badge.
So, yeah, I’m interested in McDonald in the sense that it’s good to see that the Supreme Court is slowly rousing from its long slumber, that it realized that if it tried to take that right away, it would have a real, honest-to-blood-in-the-streets fight on its front steps. It’s interesting to see the twisted logic four out of nine Justices used to try to deny a plainly written limit on their power. Scorpions and wasps are interesting, even beautiful, in their way, too.
But McDonald does not give you the right to own or carry a gun. It will only, over the long run, perhaps make it a little less legally risky to do so. It is a harbinger of change. It acknowledges that The State has pretty well gone about as far as we’ll let it, which is a good sign.
And it chips away at the cover that gun-grabbers have been hiding behind for decades, although again, it’s only a chip, not even a whole brick, much less the tumbling of the prison walls.
Daley’s scared. But not scared enough.
Personally, I won’t think he’s scared enough until he leaves town under cover of darkness, stinking with panic and warm piss running down his leg.
And frankly, not even then, not until he hits the road block, and armed citizens drag him out of his car and march him over to the nearest wall.
[update]
John Venlet “takes no pleasure” in McDonald, either:
…because the Second Amendment has been so obfuscated by the poetic license musings of the ruling class over the years that individuals no longer trust their own knowledge and understanding of the words within the Second Amendment, as presented to them by the founding fathers.
The Second Amendment, runs a total of twenty-seven (27) words, which are as follows.
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.
These twenty-seven (27) words have been mashed, bashed, pureed, and mouthed with a baby’s zeal for a zwieback, resembling not so much a learned discourse of knowledge and wisdom, but a bunch of college freshman in an American Lit 101 class analyzing a Shel Silverstein poem, and not understanding it.
I suppose, if an individual is content to waive their inalienable rights, kneeling as a supplicant before the power of the State, pleading for the right of property ownership, the SCOTUS decision will appear as a victory over the State, but it would be an unprincipled victory, as illustrated in these words from Billy Beck:
I have more principled reasons for my stand on owning firearms, and I don’t care one whit in the world for the Second Amendment. It means nothing to me. My rights have nothing to do with the U.S. Constitution, and when it dawns on people that it has finally been erased—the principal danger of all political premises posed as “social contracts”—my rights will still validly exist, even if I die defending them. I own firearms because I have a right to private property. That is the First Thing.
…Keep….Bear…infringed…
These three (3) small words were not misunderstood by individuals when The Constitution of the United States was written. “To keep” meant exactly what is implied, “to retain in one’s possession,” ownership; “to bear” meant exactly what is implied, “to carry or possess;” and “shall not be infringed” meant exactly what is implied, the State shall not violate the right to own or carry arms, yet today these three (3) small words are so misunderstood that Justice Thomas Clarence required fifty-six (56) pages worth of words to support SCOTUS’ decision that individuals do have a right to keep and bear arms in the City of Chicago.
Individuals can slice and dice the Second Amendment all they want, but the fact remains that any law restricting ownership or the carrying of firearms is unconstitutional. Period.
And let me riff for a moment on Beck’s “right to private property”. That right is also not granted by the Constitution, which says,
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable search and seizure, shall not be violated….
Again, that does not does not grant us the right to private property, or our right to defend our privacy. I don’t care what the courts say, I have that right, and the Constitution prohibits the State from violating it.
What’s more, there’s no “Congress shall make no law” limitation. No one can violate my security, no one, and I take that to mean thugs crackheaded as well as jackbooted.
And if I’m going to defend my person, house, papers and effects from whomever, I must have the tools necessary for that defense. And I may use those tools to defend myself and secure my privacy against both crackheads and jackboots.
Infringing the Second Amendment, then, violates the Fourth as well.
That the State has so egregiously infringed and violated both rights doesn’t mean that I do not have those rights; it means that the offending State is illegitimate by its own founding charter, and may no longer command my respect, or even my obedience, except by raw force.
I’ll say it one more time: I follow these cases to take the measure of those who would rule me, not determine the limits of my own actions or conscience.
