Whining liberal milquetoasts wrung their hands and beat their breasts in tearful disbelief last Thursday as the great U.S. Supreme Court struck a major blow in defense of liberty and freedom for all law-abiding Americans.
Justices Antonin Scalia, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas joined Chief Justice John Roberts in striking down the repressive and unconstitutional gun law in Washington, D.C., a case that will have huge ramifications throughout the nation. It was a courageous decision that showed both patriotism and common sense.
The National Rifle Association has already filed suit in Chicago, where a similar law is on the books, and it is only a matter of time before the gun rights champions get to New York state to put an end to the odious Sullivan Law here.
For years now, the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party has been trying to convince the American public that the Founding Fathers didn't mean what they said when they wrote the Second Amendment, which guarantees the right to keep and bear arms.
Even mainstream Democratic politicians have bought into the absurdist notion, or at least pretended to do so as a way of pandering to the "enlightened" residents of San Francisco and other wealthy enclaves of progressive nuttiness.
Most recently, the decidedly detached Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama characterized the entire state of Pennsylvania as being filled with "bitter" people who "cling to guns and religion."
When informed of the Supreme Court decision, Obama displayed his masterful command of weasel words, using up an amazing 42 of them and still managing not to say one damn thing. You could have covered him with syrup and served him up at a Waffle House.
"I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through commonsense, effective safety measures," he said.
Ironically, his marble-mouthed blathering amounts to 15 words more than the Second Amendment itself, which actually contains a declarative statement.
"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."
Many arguments have been used by those progressive, enlightened, touchy-feely liberals who have sought to follow in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and other mad totalitarian dictators in disarming the populace.
Some point out that, after all, the Constitution was written 222 years ago, and times have changed. Others have used the even more dubious argument that what the framers were really talking about was the militia, and how that organization's right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Either this is an intentional misreading of the Second Amendment or the lefty professors and anti-gun zealots who spout it lack the reading comprehension level of your average third grader.
The most recent data available from the U.S. Justice Department estimates there are more than 200 million privately owned firearms in the United States. That's one gun for every 1.5 people or, to put it another way, two guns for every three-person household.
Even if the manufacture and sale of guns were to be outlawed tomorrow -- much to the delight of the Chardonnay-and-Brie crowd -- it would do nothing to eliminate gun violence in this country. It would simply drive up the prices on currently existing firearms, and prompt a new generation of entrepreneurs to begin turning out faithful copies of favorite models in basement machine shops with no government oversight whatsoever.
The American affinity for firearms drives liberals crazy. Guns can be dangerous, they point out helpfully. The kooky cadre over at Buzzflash, a Web-based clearinghouse popular with loony lefties, has even called for the repeal of the Second Amendment!
The Supreme Court wasn't buying any of it. The four sane judges on the bench found that the Second Amendment unequivocally guarantees the right of law-abiding Americans to keep firearms in their homes for the purposes of self-defense, hunting, or simply just to look at and admire.
"Logic demands that there be a link between the stated purpose and the command," the great Justice Scalia wrote. "We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans."
Scalia astutely noted that the handgun is Americans' preferred weapon of self-defense in part because "it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police."
Simple common sense. Which of course sent the liberals into a tizzy. Nancy Pelosi and Dianne Feinstein had palpitations. Michael Moore went on a hunger strike until he happened to drive by a McDonald's, and Rachel Maddow tried unsuccessfully to tear out her hair, though the butch cut she wears made getting a good grip impossible.
Dotty old John McCain summed the whole thing up artfully.
"Unlike the elitist view that believes Americans cling to guns out of bitterness, today's ruling recognizes that gun ownership is a fundamental right -- sacred, just as the right to free speech and assembly," McCain said.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | July 1 2008 |