Here’s why I have more respect for people who didn’t get a college education (for the record, I did, and wish I had done something else with my life):
A Stanford University law professor took the view that the Second Amendment permits strong gun control, telling the crowd that “restriction has to be at the core” of the right to carry a gun.
John J. Donohue, a member of the Stanford Law School faculty, made his remarks during a debate with attorney Donald Kilmer, an adjunct professor at Lincoln Law School of San Jose.
“I support the right to self-defense,” said Donohue during the debate, according to The Stanford Review. “But that doesn’t mean that you have a right to high-capacity magazines.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/01/30/stanford-law-prof-second-amendment-is-about-restricting-gun-rights/#ixzz2rrCTeXqD
Talk about War is Peace, how Orwellian. If that’s the case, then the First Amendment is about burning books and crucifying Christians, oh wait, that’s not the case.
Donohue explained that the Second Amendment must be interpreted in historical context. The founding fathers had no idea how powerful–and destructive–today’s weapons would become, he said.
I doubt the founding fathers would have seen hardcore porn as free speech, yet if it has artistic value, it is protected (google “Miller Test”). As for the destructive power of today’s weapons, don’t make me laugh, cannons were and continue to be extremely destructive. A well-aimed musket can also kill a man.
He also criticized the argument that the right to bear arms was necessary for American citizens to guard against tyranny.
“It’s fanciful to think that guns in the hands of citizens acts as a realistic check,” said Donohue. “They’re not really trained to do so. And it’s fanciful to think that the military would ever turn on U.S. citizens.”
Did our military not go to war against Southerners during the Civil War? Did they not imprison Japanese and German-Americans during WW2? Ask a Native American how he feels about the U.S. Military. Don’t take me wrong, I respect our troops, but Donohue needs to study U.S. history before lecturing the rest of us. As for “they’re not really trained to do so”, guess what? The Nazis were not trained to work in concentration camps or shoot women and children in the head, but guess what? They learned pretty quick. And while we’re not German, there is a portion of Americans who think FDR was a good guy, who believe in Big Government, and who wouldn’t mind infringing upon our rights. Including former soldiers who want to take our guns away.
Kilmer disagreed, saying that citizen militias have waged successful defensive campaigns against armies all over the globe.
He reminded the audience that gun control has historically given dictators free reign to abuse their citizens.
They have, one only needs to ask a Vietnam or Afghanistan veteran how deadly those citizen militias can be. The Taliban has no plans, no tanks, no body armor, no drones, but they’re deadly with their AK-47′s and IED’s, and only an idiot would underestimate them.
Donohue did not address the fact that most would-be spree killers deliberately target places where they know armed resistance is either unlikely or explicitly prohibited, such as schools and college campuses.
Another great point. When was the last time a mass shooter targeted a gun show? Lastly, the Second Amendment serves two purposes, the militia part encourages group protection against tyranny, the right to bear arms part encourages individual protection against threats.
If the founding fathers hated individuals owning guns, why write a Second Amendment? Why use the words “right to keep and bear arms”? I don’t know any other country that guarantees this right, even pro-gun Switzerland doesn’t have those words in their constitution.
Yet we have those rights here because unlike Donohue, our founding fathers were men of vision, men who knew things change over time. Jefferson himself saw how the French Revolution became an orgy of murder, rape, and looting.
You see a stupid Broadway play like “Les Miserables” and they show you cute peasants struggling against the evil royalty, but when you read about the abuses of the Jacobins and Robespierre:
“The most fanatical extremists gravitated to Maximillien Robespierre who was a strong devotee of the writings of radical philosophers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire. Rousseau wrote that: “It is necessary to have a cohesive force to organize and coordinate the movements of (societies), members.”Rousseau advocated constant agitation for “equality” in order to maintain an atmosphere of fear where individual differences will not be tolerated. Inspired by the defiance of the Assembly and stirred up by revolutionary pamphlets and speeches , mobs began to roam the streets of Paris attacking and murdering royal officials.
…
The Reign of Terror The Jacobins mobilised the mob to invade the Convention and arrest the 31 leading Girondists . This launched the Reign of Terror, which officially began 2 June 1793. Robespierre established the Committee of Public Safety. A policy of mass public terror was unleashed with Revolutionary Tribunals, in which all “enemies of the Revolution” were summarily tried. Mere accusations were tantamount to verdicts of guilt. The trials were abrupt with no real opportunity granted to the accused to prepare or present any defense . The accused were quickly convicted and carted off to the guillotine .
See more at: http://www.frontline.org.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1229:the-french-revolution&catid=16:political-social-issues-cat&Itemid=201#sthash.UcvHp7no.dpuf
Think about that the next time you see some liberal yelling “eat the rich.” In the end, America is not France, Jefferson himself escaped France barely evading the guillotine, our goal was equality under the law, not equality or results. We did not replace dictatorship of a King with dictatorship of the State, yet that’s what Obama and his fellow gun grabbers want, that’s what “transforming America” means.