Why Should We Keep Our Guns?  In the last century, scores of millions of defenseless civilians were slaughtered by totalitarian regimes that first disarmed them.  Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Communist China, the Ottoman Turks, and several dozen other despotic regimes committed mass murder of millions upon millions.  Historically, genocide follows confiscation of arms as surely as day follows night.  In order to foster the deterrence of tyranny in American government, the Founders ratified the Second Amendment, acknowledging the unalienable right of the people to bear arms.  The published statements of the Founders clarify their points of view with regard to their purpose for acknowledging that right.  They clearly meant for the people not to be impeded from owning weapons similar to the ones used by government forces, so that any future despots might be deposed by an armed populace.

Elon Musk Drops Unforgettable Take on Who's Running the Shadow Government.  [Scroll down]  He said the Second Amendment is there to protect the First and warns that once you disarm a population, the country is doomed to become Venezuela.  Musk then called out Maduro, saying that he lost in a landslide but rigged the election.  And the only reason Maduro was able to hold onto power is because the disarmed citizens can't fight back.  "So now you're facing soldiers with assault rifles.  Are you going to throw some sticks at them or something?  Use finger guns?  It doesn't work.  So Maduro, even though he lost the election, is still in power.  And that's the kind of risk that we face," Musk said.

Footage Shows New York SWAT Raid and Arrest of Dexter Taylor for Building Firearms.  CBS New York published an interview with Brooklyn native Dexter Taylor on Monday highlighting his case and showing the bodycam footage of the 2022 SWAT raid and subsequent arrest at his home.  Taylor, a software engineer and gun hobbyist, was convicted in May for having built so-called "ghost guns" in his home.  Taylor is now serving a ten-year sentence at the Coxsackie Correctional Facility in New York for having possessed 13 unregistered firearms, including several AR-style rifles and pistols that he assembled at his home.  During the interview, Taylor argued that the state is infringing on his constitutional rights.  The host asked whether he had a license to possess the firearms.  "I still do have a license," Taylor replied.  "It's called the Second Amendment."

Post office firearms ban faces constitutional challenge.  A federal ban on carrying guns in post offices is now in question as a legal filing is now challenging whether the ban violates the Constitution.  Two men, Gavin Pate and George Mandry, have filed suit against the Department of Justice over the ban on carrying and storing weapons at federal post office locations.  Pate is an Anglican priest in Arlington, Texas who argues he should be able to keep his weapon on him for personal protection.  Pate and Mandry filed suit this week.

NYC Man Convicted Over Gunsmithing Hobby After Judge Says 2nd Amendment 'Doesn't Exist in This Courtroom'.  A Brooklyn man has been convicted of 13 weapons charges after having been arrested and charged in 2022 for building his own firearms.  Dexter Taylor's ordeal could become a landmark Second Amendment case in light of the Bruen ruling handed down in the same year.  The jury found Taylor guilty of second-degree criminal possession of a loaded weapon, four counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, five counts of criminal possession of a firearm, second-degree criminal possession of five or more firearms, unlawful possession of pistol ammunition, violation of certificate of registration, prohibition on unfinished frames or receivers.  Two lesser charges, including third-degree criminal possession of three or more firearms and third-degree possession of a weapon, were not voted on.  Taylor, a 52-year-old New York native and a software engineer, discovered the world of gunsmithing years ago.  He decided to take it up as a hobby and possibly turn it into a business later.  However, when a joint ATF/NYPD task force discovered he was legally buying parts from various companies, they opened up an investigation that led to a SWAT raid and arrest.  He is currently being jailed on Rikers Island as he awaits sentencing.

Bucking For A New Waco?  It was stated in the Second Amendment, that a well-regulated militia was "necessary to the security of a free state."  A modern reading of that makes the "free state" into the federal government, the idea being that a "state" is another term for a "nation."  But I have long held that's an incorrect reading of the amendment and that a "free state" was one of the thirteen that was under the Articles of Confederation, the legitimate government of the revolutionary era, that held that each state was not a part of the whole, but, by agreement, would act as one. [...] This fits also with the reasoning of the founders who, in every breath, cautioned against a tyrannical government and the one they were devising was not incapable of becoming despotic and tyrannical itself.  So for the free state to remain free, it might have to engage the centralized government with arms.  They did not view the United States as we do, today.

A 'backdoor violation of the Second Amendment'
122 gun dealers were stripped of their licenses by the ATF.  Gun dealers have lost their licenses this year at an unprecedented rate, with critics accusing Joe Biden of undermining the Second Amendment by stealth.  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has revoked the licenses of 122 gun dealers in the fiscal year that began in October.  The previous fiscal year the figure was 90, and in 2021 it was only 27.

The Man Who Saved the Second Amendment.  In recent weeks, federal courts have begun to nullify a number of gun control laws on the grounds they violate the Second Amendment.  In the Western District of Oklahoma, judge Patrick Wyrick found that prohibiting marijuana users from owning guns is unconstitutional.  The Fifth Circuit Court concluded that people subject to domestic violence restraining orders cannot be compelled to surrender any weapons they own.  A federal district court in West Virginia ruled that the federal law which makes it a crime to possess a firearm with an altered, obliterated or removed serial number is unconstitutional.  The tide at last has turned: two-hundred and thirty-two years after its ratification, the federal courts are finally starting to take the Second Amendment seriously.

FOIA Request Uncovers FBI Effort to Get Americans to Forfeit 2nd Amendment Rights.  A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Gun Owners of America (GOA) secured release of information surrounding a form which was used by the FBI in an effort to secure forfeiture of Second Amendment rights.  Ammoland.com warned of the FBI effort in 2019, after GOA discovered the "NICS Indices Self-Submission Form" in December 2019.  The form gave Americans the opportunity to "voluntarily" give up their Second Amendment rights, allowing no means by which the forfeited rights could be resecured.  GOA filed a FOIA suit for information related to the form and its use by the FBI.

The Rittenhouse Trial Underscores the Left's Determination to Eliminate the Natural Right of Self-Defense.  To what extent does man have a natural or God-given right to self-defense and protection of himself and his property?  This question has been bandied about for thousands of years and that issue, not guns (which are an instrument of self-defense), is at the heart of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.  The United States is the only nation in the annals of mankind to be established on the basis of a political and social philosophy centered on natural, or God-given, rights.  Among these are self-defense and property.  Property rights are the bedrock of the American political system; without that foundation, there is no freedom.  The Founders held that property rights encompass not just physical property but also one's life, labor, speech, and livelihood, as individuals own their own lives; therefore, they must own the products of that life which can be traded in free exchange with others.  Further, as there is a natural right of self-preservation, man has the right and duty to defend himself against transgressors, including the state, that would deny, abrogate, or unlawfully seize his property.

What You Need To Know About Today's Gun Rights Case In The Supreme Court.  Today [11/3/2021], for the first time in more than a decade, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral argument in a case involving the Second Amendment.  While the appeal in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen concerns the constitutionality of New York's restrictive concealed-carry permitting system, the high court's analysis will prove as important as the ultimate outcome.

Gun rights showdown — Supreme Court case a potential big win for Second Amendment.  On Wednesday [11/3/2021], the Supreme Court will take up arguably the oldest and most controversial right in our history.  New York State Rifle Association v. Bruen is the first major gun rights case in over 10 years to come before the Supreme Court and it has the makings of a major gun rights victory.  The case concerns concealed-carry restrictions that require a showing of "proper cause."  Lower courts have upheld the New York law, but there are ample constitutional concerns over its vague standard, such as showing that you are "of good moral character."  New York wants to exercise discretion in deciding who needs to carry guns in public while gun owners believe that the law flips the constitutional presumption in favor of such a right.  There are few constitutional rights that have been debated so long in this country as gun rights.  Indeed, before other Englishmen were given a written guarantee of the right to bear arms, colonists in Virginia in 1607 were given such a written guarantee by the Crown.  Since that time, the right to bear arms has been an ingrained part of our culture and ultimately our Constitution.
Italics added by The Editor.

Proof of vaccination required to retain your right to life.  Mark my words:  soon we will need a vaccine passport/proof of vaccination to purchase a firearm.  To the tyrants, that's a twofer.  They will either force individuals to get vaccinated or deny them the right to protect themselves.  You know they are getting incredibly aroused just pondering that idea.  They tend to believe that most unvaccinated folks are uneducated redneck rubes from flyover states, NRA members, Trump supporters, Republicans, the uneducated and uncaring.  This notion, however, is simply incorrect.  The elites have already masterfully used COVID-19 to dramatically increase their own power, and their hold on itmin perpetuity, while boldly stealing power and God-given rights from the people.  What a coup it would be if they could also use the pandemic to skirt the Second Amendment!  They will tell us firearm ownership is a privilege, not a right.  Progressives blur the distinction between privileges and rights like they blur the distinction between males and females, truth and fiction and reality and fantasy.

ACLU Excoriated for Claiming Racism [is] 'Foundational' to [the] Second Amendment — 'Embarrassment to Your Own History'.  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) faced an online backlash Sunday [7/25/2021] after publicizing claims racism is "foundational" to the Second Amendment and its inclusion in the Bill of Rights.  Critics accused the civil rights group of spreading misinformation and abandoning its own founding principles.  In a recent ACLU "At Liberty" podcast episode, historian Carol Anderson, a professor of African American Studies at Emory University, explained how "anti-blackness" determined the decision to include the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights and informed its "unequal and racist enforcement over the last several hundred years."

The Top Ten Pending Eruptions.  [#7]  Not only is our 1st Amendment being challenged, so is the 2nd Amendment.  These are lines we cannot cross and yet every time there's a shooting the ante ratchets up another notch and we all know that if the 2nd Amendment goes, the 1st disintegrates and without those we have no freedoms of any kind.  This assault on our freedoms of speech is made worse by the power of the mega-media and its desire to shut us up.  It's a relief to see some states staking out their ground on this issue.  Sooner or later we'll see a three-way face-off amongst states' rights, federal overreach, and Big Tech.

The Second Amendment:  More important now than ever.  The tyrants are in charge, and they want your guns.  While the left has denied it for decades, anyone who pays attention knows that the ill named "progressives" want to totally eliminate the Second Amendment.  Period.  The so-called "red flag" laws popping up around the country, as well as the gun-hating zealot nominated by Biden to head the ATF, are just two examples of Marxism's accelerated drive to disarm law-abiding citizens.  It won't be long before the Democrats attempt to push through a gun registration law, always the final step before total confiscation.  We can't allow this to happen.

3 Things to Know About Second Amendment's Return to Supreme Court.  It's been well over a decade since the Supreme Court last decided a meaningful Second Amendment case.  That wait is about to end.  Although District of Columbia v. Heller (2008) and McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010) answered some foundational questions about the right to keep and bear arms, the Supreme Court's decade of silence enabled lower courts to undermine these core cases routinely.  This in turn allowed states to run roughshod over the Second Amendment.  We've gotten our hopes up before that the Supreme Court finally would stop treating the Second Amendment as a second-class right, unworthy of consistent legal review.  Just last term, the high court excited millions by taking up New York State Rifle & Pistol v. City of New York, which was about New York City's incredibly restrictive laws on transporting firearms.  That excitement came to a crushing end when New York City enacted minor changes to its laws and the Supreme Court declared the case moot, declining in the interim to take up any of the remaining Second Amendment challenges for the term.  Many suspected we might go another decade without seeing the court hear another challenge to gun control laws.

SCOTUS Will Decide Whether the Right to Bear Arms Extends Beyond Your Doorstep.  While it may seem obvious that the constitutional right to "keep and bear arms" extends beyond the home, federal courts have been debating that question for years.  This week, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that could finally settle the issue, which the petitioners call "perhaps the single most important unresolved Second Amendment question."  The case involves a New York law that requires applicants for handgun carry licenses to show "proper cause," which according to state courts means more than a "generalized desire" to "protect one's person and property."  Applicants must "demonstrate a special need for self-protection distinguishable from that of the general community," which in practice means that ordinary New Yorkers have no right to armed self-defense once they leave their homes.  The vast majority of states are less demanding, typically requiring that people who want to carry concealed handguns meet a shortlist of objective criteria.  But several states have laws like New York's, enforcing subjective standards such as "good cause" (California), "proper purpose" (Massachusetts), "justifiable need" (New Jersey), "good and substantial reason" (Maryland), or a special "reason to fear injury" (Hawaii).

Governor Signs Bill Making Oklahoma a Second Amendment Sanctuary State.  Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt on Monday [4/26/2021] signed into law a bill that makes the state a Second Amendment Sanctuary State. [...] The new law, also known as the "Second Amendment Sanctuary State Act," or SB 631, would prevent any lawmakers in the state from infringing upon the right of an Oklahoma citizen to keep and bear arms, by preventing them from enacting any new laws or regulations related to arms and ammunition.  It would also prevent any buy-back, confiscation, or surrender of firearms, firearm accessories, or ammunition from abiding citizens of Oklahoma.  Any such order, rule, policy, or regulation by any federal, state, county, or municipality, would be considered an "infringement on the rights of citizens to keep and bear arms as guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States and Article II, Section 26 of the Constitution of Oklahoma," according to the text of the legislation.

Supreme Court to take up major Second Amendment concealed handgun case.  The Supreme Court said Monday [4/26/2021] it will consider how much protection the Second Amendment provides for carrying a gun outside the home.  The case is the first time in more than a decade that the court has agreed to take up a central issue of the gun rights debate, something it has consistently ducked since issuing a landmark ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 that the Second Amendment provides an individual right to keep a handgun at home for self-defense.  The court agreed to hear a challenge to a New York state law that allows residents to carry a concealed handgun only if they can demonstrate a special need beyond a general desire for self-protection.

Joe Biden Said The Bill of Rights is NOT "Absolute".  Earlier today Joe Biden raised some eyebrows when he said "no amendment to the constitution is absolute."  The first ten amendments to the constitution are commonly known as "The Bill of Rights."  The occupant of the oval office, and head of the executive branch, saying the Bill of Rights is not absolute, should be challenged immediately to qualify that statement.

Biden Declares Second Amendment Not 'Absolute'.  In a press conference Thursday, President Biden unveiled the proposed executive orders on gun control.  "Nothing I'm about to recommend in any way impinges on the Second Amendment" Biden declared.  Addressing potential opposition, Biden added, "they're phone arguments suggesting that these are Second Amendment rights in what we're talking about."  In an immediate contradiction, Biden then stated his position that "no amendment to the Constitution is absolute."  How can you not impinge upon something that is not absolute?  Biden attempted to give an example by saying "you can't yell 'fire' in a crowded movie theater and call it freedom of speech."  As his example pertains to the Second Amendment, he said, "from the very beginning of the Second Amendment existed, certain people weren't allowed to have weapons."  Biden's administration announced six gun control initiatives.

All Gun Laws Are Unconstitutional.  We all do it.  We'll share a pro-gun piece from a news source that's normally anti-gun and get a good laugh out of how, say, the New York Times is making a pro-gun case.  More times than not, though, those are op-eds which don't reflect the official position of pretty much anyone else at the paper. [...] The problem with this kind of rhetoric isn't that it's wrong — clearly, it's not — only that the only people who will accept such an argument aren't the people you need to convince in the first place.  People who either support gun control or will consider supporting gun control aren't going to be swayed by this.  They know the amendment says "shall not be infringed," they just figure that the Founding Fathers didn't really mean that, or they buy into the idea that since the militia is now the National Guard, that's what they intended.  Regardless, simple arguments about the unconstitutionality of gun control aren't likely to be accepted by any of the people who need to be convinced.

A short primer on the importance of our Second Amendment rights.  Joe Biden's had a lot on his plate.  First, he erased America's immigration laws by order government employees not to enforce them.  Then he destroyed the economy by attacking the oil and gas that are essential for modern life.  After that, he sowed some racial discord.  Next, he insulted our only ally in the Middle East while sucking up to "Death to America" Iran.  And that's just the shortlist.  But the people in charge haven't forgotten one of their most important missions:  To destroy the Second Amendment.

Gun Rights Don't Come from the Second Amendment.  Whenever there is a gun massacre, statists inevitably respond that it's time to repeal the Second Amendment.  The idea is that if the Second Amendment is gone, so will be the right to own guns in the United States.  There is just one big problem with that position:  It's wrong.  The Second Amendment, like the First Amendment, doesn't give anyone any rights.  Instead, it prohibits the federal government from infringing on rights that are natural and God-given and that preexist government.  The Declaration of Independence sets forth the essential principles.  Every person (i.e., not just American citizens) is endowed by nature or God with fundamental rights.  These include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Thus, given that people's rights are natural and God-given, they preexist government.  The rights come first and the government comes second.

Americans' Very Right to Keep and Bear Arms Is on the Ballot This Election.  Democrats will "confiscate your guns and appoint justices who will wipe away your Second Amendment," President Trump warned in his recent acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination.  He's right.  Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has promised to use executive orders to ban guns, and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has promised to make former Congressman Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) his gun czar.

How the Left Can Abolish the 2nd Amendment in Days not Decades.  Though at times Democrats won't admit it, they are actively making plans to impose extreme gun control and even abolish the 2nd Amendment.  These Leftists claim the 2nd Amendment is why we can't go to school, or work, or a house of worship, or a nightclub, or a movie theater, or a music festival, or pretty much any public gathering without fear of getting shot to death.  They further claim the 2nd Amendment is how law enforcement justifies the need for military-grade armaments — to match the "firepower" they meet in the streets.  The 2nd Amendment is why we have a generation of young people that are scarred or missing from gun violence.

Sean Hannity [is] Wrong on Armed Michigan Protestors.  One of the constitutional freedoms liberals are trying to use the Wuhan virus pandemic as an excuse to shred is the Second Amendment's guarantee that our right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  There is no asterisk indicating an exception in case of pandemic, so when law-abiding gun owners show up to protest a government's attempt to infringe on their rights, why should they not show up with the weapons the government is trying to curtail their use of, even take them away if the liberals could.  Which part of "bear arms" does Sean Hannity not understand? [...] Critics of the Second Amendment say that they are not going after guns used for legitimate activities such as hunting.  But when the Founders wrote the Second Amendment it was because the British were coming, not because it was the start of deer season.

Butter, Not Guns:  New Jersey Suspends Second Amendment; Gets Sued.  Firearm ownership may be guaranteed under our Constitution by the Second Amendment.  But it's secondary at best to the New Jersey officials who've closed down gun stores during our Wuhan flu panic, calling them non-essential.  Now two Garden State officials — who some would say are non-essential themselves — are being sued for trampling constitutional rights.  "The case was filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and the New Jersey Second Amendment Society on behalf of Robert Kashinsky and Legend Firearms, a gun shop in the state," reports WND.com.  "Defendants are Gov. Philip D. Murphy and State Police Supt. Patrick J. Callahan."  "'Gov. Murphy cannot simply suspend the Second Amendment, and neither can Supt. Callahan,' said SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb," WND continues.  "Yet, under this emergency order, that's exactly what they're doing.  The Constitution, and federal law, don't allow that.  New Jersey may have been the first state to ratify the Bill of Rights, but they're the last state to recognize it."

We Are on the Precipice of Incrementally Losing the Second Amendment.  The far-left politicians and media are sadly winning the gun control argument by framing every suicide, every mass shooting, every gang crime as gun violence instead of what they are.  San Francisco has labeled the NRA a terrorist organization and many Americans agree with that extreme and outlandish viewpoint, even some Republicans, according to Rasmussen.  Possibly unconstitutional laws like Red Flag laws are being instituted throughout the nation.  Both represent the incremental destruction of the Second Amendment.  We are in the danger zone and could lose the Second Amendment.

Mo Brooks: 'The Long-Term Strategy of the Democratic Party Is to Eliminate the Second Amendment'.  Thursday [9/5/2019] during an appearance on Huntsville, AL radio's WVNN, Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) argued that although House Democrats will likely pass a number of gun control bills that will not make it through the U.S. Senate, the long-term strategy was to get at the Second Amendment's right to bear arms.

Joe Biden on the Second Amendment:  No amendment is 'absolute'.  Joe Biden is calling for a cultural shift around how the country thinks about gun ownership.  "The Second Amendment — no amendment is in fact absolute," Biden told the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund's Presidential Gun Sense Forum Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa.

Let's Call The Liberals' Second Amendment Militia Bluff.  The whole "shall not be infringed" part is a real problem for the left, since collectivist Castro-channelers prefer that we Americans be defenseless serfs existing at the government's (i.e., their) mercy when we should be armed, freedom-loving citizens with the personal firepower to veto their pinko utopian schemes.  So, they fixate on the 2A's passing reference to the militia, spinning a prefatory statement that recognizes that a militia is a good thing into a directive to cancel out the whole "citizens having guns" part of the Second Amendment.  In other words, to defeat its very purpose.

Kamala Harris Wants To Ban AR-15s With Executive Order.  Before she was a United States Senator, Kamala Harris was the attorney general for the state of California.  She's an attorney, like so many other legislators.  She studied and worked in the profession people approach for clarification on the laws of this great nation of ours.  Apparently, she managed to get to that point without ever attending a single civics class.  In the presidential hopeful's latest effort, she's decided that in her quest to dictate gun control by fiat, she'll also go after AR-15s and other so-called "assault rifles."

Second Amendment supporters rejoice as Supreme Court decides to hear a critical case.  The case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v.  New York City, at a minimum will decide whether or not a New York City law that limits residents' ability to transport their guns outside of their homes is constitutional.  Currently, residents in that city can carry a licensed (if they can get one), locked and unloaded handgun to one of seven shooting ranges within city limits, but nowhere else, including homes or shooting ranges outside of the city.  [Larry] Keane is worked up because lower courts have been disagreeing with each other over basic gun rights questions for years.  Some courts have even ruled that a local government can ban the most popular firearm design sold today — semiautomatic firearms — just because some are cosmetically different than others.

The right to bear arms.  The Second Amendment protects the natural right to keep and bear arms; the same type of arms that crooks and thugs might use against you; and the same type of arms that government agents might use against you.  We all know that the police can't be everywhere.  We also know that the first thing tyrants do when they come to power is to disarm the population.  Sometimes tyrants are jackbooted thugs.  Sometimes tyrants are the majority in an elected government.  But to the framers of the Constitution, an armed population is the best defense against tyranny.  And to those who understand the right to self-defense and the history of its use in America, we know that more guns means less crime.

Does the Second Amendment Apply Outside Your Home?  The Second Amendment makes it very clear that its purpose is to protect the right to keep and bear arms.  In fact, it says the right "shall not be infringed."  Of course, our right to keep and bear arms has been infringed for years at this point.  To make matters worse, the very courts that are supposedly there to protect our rights have joined in on the effort to curtail them.  Earlier this month, one such court decided to up the curtailment by claiming that the Second Amendment doesn't exist outside your home.  Yes.  Seriously.

2 New Court Decisions are Quietly Eliminating Californians' Second Amendment Rights.  Two new federal court decisions highlight a harsh new reality:  California has effectively repealed the Second Amendment inside its borders.  In the first case, decided yesterday [5/9/23018], a district judge ruled against the National Rifle Association's state affiliate in a challenge to onerous new California rules targeting popular semi-automatic rifles.  That 2016 law, signed by Gov. Jerry Brown (D), is called the Assault Weapons Control Act.  "Even an outright ban on certain types of semiautomatic weapons does not substantially burden the Second Amendment right," wrote Judge Josephine Staton, a Barack Obama appointee in Santa Ana, California.

'No Amendment Is Absolute': D.C. Student School Walkout Organizer Says We Must 'Regulate the Second Amendment'.  A small group of mostly high school students gathered in front of the White House on Friday [4/20/2018] as part of the National School Walkout, an anti-gun protest launched by a Connecticut teen following the shooting deaths of 17 people at a Florida high school in February.  Following a moment of silence plus 13 seconds to honor the 13 people shot and killed at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, the group walked to the Capitol where speakers lashed out at Republicans and the National Rifle Association (NRA).

What Is a Militia, Anyway?  [The Second A]mendment is perfectly clear to anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of English.  Yet in recent decades, it has become the source of lies, distortion, and obfuscation by assorted opponents of the Bill of Rights who claim that only members of a militia may own guns.  They include federal judges, left-wing activists, the politicians they support, and assorted anti-gun nuts in academia and news organizations.  They [...] spread demonstrable nonsense about the Bill of Rights.  Most of them, unlike the mawkish teens pumping their fists like Weathermen at a Viet Cong rally, are real grown-ups in coats and ties, many with law degrees and lots of official-sounding titles that make them seem like authoritative folks who really know what they're talking about.  But they don't.  The ACLU, for example, in its hallucinatory interpretation, claims that "the people" in the amendment refers not to persons, but to state governments and their power to establish militias.  The left-wingers there do not explain how a description of state powers ended up in a list of things called the "Bill of Rights."

Is the Second Amendment for Just the Militia?  Our United States Constitution serves two distinct purposes.  The first is to explicitly enumerate the powers and procedures of our nation's central government, which was defined as the three distinct bodies (which, by the way, two thirds of the high school students currently lecturing us about the Second Amendment cannot name) — the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial, with levels of authority descending in that precise order.  The second is to explicitly enumerate the limitations of that central government's power, which is the sole reason why our Bill of Rights exists.  The Constitution would not have been ratified in 1791 without the addition of these first ten amendments.  Therefore, our Constitution would not exist without the limitations to our central government's authority described therein.

If the Second Amendment falls, our entire Bill of Rights falls.  The startling new proposal by 97-year-old former Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment to our Constitution's Bill of Rights is unwise, dangerous and totally unrealistic.  For 227 years, the amendment has guaranteed that "the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."  We should not abandon it.  The first 10 amendments to the Constitution make up the Bill of Rights.  These amendments are the foundation of our liberty and the lasting legacy of the Founding Fathers who so wisely created a Constitution designed to protect the freedom of generations far into the future.  These rights are a major factor in what makes America an exceptional nation and a beacon for freedom that attracts people from the world over.

Justice Stevens' Dishonest Attack On The Second Amendment Must Be Taken Seriously.  Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has an op-ed in the New York Times today where he agrees that the case against firearms made by a crew of ill-bred cretinous teens is so powerful that the Second Amendment should be abolished.  There is a lot wrong with the article.  The errors are so glaring that it is hard to attribute them to mere carelessness and not to a deliberate attempt to deceive.

Democrats Want To Repeal The First And Second Amendments.  Retired Supreme Court Associate Justice John Paul Stevens, a liberal appointed by establishment Republican President Gerald R. Ford, yesterday penned an op-ed in the New York Times calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment.  Calling the Second Amendment a "relic of the 18th century" Stevens wrote that the "March for Our Lives" demonstrators "should seek more effective and more lasting reform.  They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment."  This call for the repeal of the Second Amendment is a significant extension of Justice Stevens' previous position stated in his judicial opinions and even his 2014 book "Six Amendments:  How and Why We Should Change the Constitution" wherein he suggested that the Second Amendment be rewritten to read:  ["]A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed.["]  Liberal-leaning pundits were quick to embrace Stevens' call for repeal, and polling shows that there is significant support for such a move among Democrats.

Larry King: Repeal 2nd Amendment... It Was Passed To Fight Off Slaves.  Larry King has an interesting tidbit for why the Second Amendment should be repealed — and it's got to do with what he says is the real reason it was created ... to fight off slaves.  We got the ex-talk show host Wednesday at E. Baldi in Bev Hills, where we asked what he thought of former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens' NYT op-ed calling for the amendment giving Americans the right to bear arms to be repealed.  Larry says he's completely on board, adding that the antiquated provision needs to be rewritten due to unclear language ... and also, because it's "real" purpose is moot now.

Here We Go... Louisiana Democrat Party Leader Calls for Repealing the Second Amendment.  Karen Carter Peterson is a Democrat in the Louisiana State Senate.  Peterson is also the current Chair of the Louisiana Democratic Party.

Biden: 'The 2nd Amendment Is Being Very Badly Interpreted' — There Is 'Prostitution of the 2nd Amendment'.  During a discussion at the University of Pennsylvania on Thursday, former Vice President Joe Biden stated that the 2nd Amendment has been interpreted "badly" and the nation has decided it can't ignore the "prostitution" of the amendment.  Biden said, "I think there's a 2nd Amendment.  I think the 2nd Amendment is being very badly interpreted.  It's not consistent with what they're — our founders intended, in my view.  You saw Justice John Paul Stevens say that we should — because it's been so prostituted, we should repeal the 2nd Amendment.  It was about a standing militia.  It's a long story.  I won't go into all the legal side of that having taught it in law school.  But there's rational or irrational policy."

'March for Our Lives' Leaders Deny They Want to Repeal Second Amendment.  Leaders of the "March for Our Lives" anti-gun protest movement scrambled Tuesday [3/27/2018] to distance themselves from an op-ed in the New York Times by former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens calling for the Second Amendment to be repealed.  In the op-ed, Stevens wrote that in the wake of last weekend's nationwide protests, "the demonstrators should seek more effective and more lasting reform.  They should demand a repeal of the Second Amendment."

Former Supreme Court Justice:  Repeal the Second Amendment.  Gather round, fellow paranoid gun rights supporters.  Leftists claim they don't want to strip us of our Second Amendment rights.  Saying we're absolutely bonkers for assuming so.  Even though they admit it.  No, according to the left, gun owners worried about their Second Amendment rights are a mere baby-step away from being full-on schizo.

Former Supreme Court justice: 'Repeal the Second Amendment'.  Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is calling for a repeal of the Second Amendment, decrying the right to bear arms as outdated and misunderstood.  In an op-ed published by The New York Times, Stevens, a Republican, said that students and anti-gun violence advocates should press lawmakers to take on the amendment.  While protests have so far focused on implementing new restrictions on semi-automatic weapons and strengthening background checks for gun purchases, he wrote, repealing the Second Amendment would result in more lasting change.

Gun Laws and the Second Amendment.  The Second Amendment of our Constitution exists for our protection against a tyrannical government and the self-defense of our God-given right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  I have been mocked publically for stating this truth as if I am a "nut" for thinking I need protection against our very own government in this day and age.  The Second Amendment is about protecting our future, and it acts as a mighty deterrent to prevent tyranny.  I find it interesting that those that call our current president a tyrant and warn that he is like Hitler don't have a different view on the Second Amendment?  We must be cautious and objective and look at the entirety of an issue before legislating an inalienable and constitutionally protected right.  A constitutional right is an entirely different thing than government legislated privileges such as driving a car or purchasing alcohol.

Do Not Give An Inch On The Second Amendment.  [A]s liberals line up behind a shield made of children to march on the Second Amendment, it's important to remember what happens when you attempt to compromise with people whose ultimate goal is your obliteration and why no amount of compromise will ever be enough. [...] There is no compromise with someone who doesn't want you to exist, there is only incrementally losing ground until you no longer exist.  A right diminished will never return, government does not cede back power once seized.  The NRA is right to hold its ground, it's why the organization exists in the first place.  Liberals are not honest brokers when it comes to the issue of guns, and neither is the media.  Trying to appease leftists never works because nothing short of everything they want is ever enough for them.

Gun Sales Skyrocket As Gun Owners Brace For An All-Out Assault On Our Second Amendment Rights.  Every time the left goes into a gun grabbing frenzy, gun sales always end up going through the roof.  In the aftermath of the recent tragedy in Florida, we are seeing an all-out assault on our 2nd Amendment rights like we haven't seen in decades.  Politicians from both parties are pushing for new gun control legislation, and as a result gun owners all over the nation are feverishly stockpiling weapons and ammo while they still can.  In fact, Google searches for "buy a gun" and "buy AR15" both just hit the highest levels ever recorded.  At a gun show down in Tampa, Florida over the weekend, nearly 7,000 people showed up on a single day.  The Republican governor down there has turned out to be a gun control nut, and so true conservatives are buying guns while they still can.

The Contemptible American Left.  My life's experience has reinforced the concept that the right to bear arms is the foundational basis of preserving and protecting freedom of speech, religion, assembly, and private property.  The socialist oligarchy the left is determined to establish in America requires that that fundamental right to be dramatically eroded and under the thumb of a central authority.  I immigrated to the United States from a continent that had nearly destroyed itself in World War II.  The war was the end product of the ascension to power of various egomaniacs, steeped in socialist-Marxist ideology, determined to amass all political power within their countries.  Once elected to office, these despots began to centralize their authority and eliminate all individual freedoms and democratic institutions.  As they lived in nations that historically did not allow unfettered gun ownership, the people were incapable of stopping the inexorable seizure of power, and many paid the price as nearly 40 million were killed and untold millions displaced during the war.

Counterattack Hard Against Liberal Attacks on Our Gun Rights and Other Civil Liberties.  We're now supposed to give up our guns because it's the 21st Century, people, and the cops will totally protect us and oh, you can't dare criticize the FBI for failing to disarm yet another ticking time bomb and what kind of crazy nut would expect a police officer to actually confront a gunman?  Show of hands:  Who thinks this stops, even slows down, once those mean old not-actually-assault weapons get banned?  That liberals have taken a hard stand in favor of cowardice does not exactly fill one with confidence that once we give up our Second Amendment rights that we'll be safer or freer.

Trump at CPAC: Democrats 'Will Take Away Your Second Amendment'.  President Trump warned CPAC attendees on Friday [2/23/2018] that Democrats will take away tax cuts and the Second Amendment if given control of Congress.  He said, "They will take away those massive tax cuts and they will take away your Second Amendment."

It's True, The Founding Founders Said Second Amendment Is God-Given Right.  As expected NRA chief Wayne LaPierre's speech at CPAC was panned by liberal commentators.  But there was a tiny part of his speech that was trashed more than others — the part where he mentioned God.

Assault Weapons [are] Not Protected by [the] Second Amendment, Federal Appeals Court Rules.  Maryland's ban on 45 kinds of assault weapons and its 10-round limit on gun magazines were upheld Tuesday [2/20/2018] by a federal appeals court in a decision that met with a strongly worded dissent.

Democrat Doug Jones:  The Second Amendment Has 'Limitations'.  Doug Jones, the Democrat running for Alabama's U.S. Senate seat, says he loves to hunt but the Second Amendment has "limitations."  He believes that every right enumerated in the Bill of Rights is limited, and the Second Amendment is no exception.  According to the Alabama Political Reporter, Jones described himself as "a Second Amendment guy," but stressed that some gun control is necessary.

Justice Thomas Calls Out The Supreme Court For Not Believing In The Second Amendment.  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had stern words for his colleagues when the Court declined to hear a case challenging California's handgun laws, saying that the jurists do not understand the importance of self-defense.  The case, supported by the National Rifle Association, involves San Diego resident Edward Peruta, who challenged his county's refusal to grant him permission to carry a concealed firearm outside of his home.

Justices Thomas, Gorsuch blast court decision to reject gun rights appeal.  Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch issued a scathing dissent Monday to a Supreme Court decision turning away yet another gun rights case.  On a busy morning of decisions, the court on Monday [6/26/2017] rejected a challenge out of California regarding the right to carry guns outside their homes, leaving in place a San Diego sheriff's strict limits on issuing permits for concealed weapons.  But Thomas, in a dissent joined by Gorsuch, countered that the case raises "important questions" — and warned that Second Amendment disputes aren't getting the attention they deserve from the Supreme Court.  "The Court's decision ... reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right," they wrote.

A Federal Court of Appeals Goes to War against the Second Amendment.  What happens when you mix contempt for individual rights with a healthy dose of willful ignorance and fear?  You get the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court that's teaching the legal Left the recipe for attacking the Second Amendment.  Twice in less than a month, the court has radically restricted the constitutional rights of gun owners.  In January, it held that even lawful gun owners are inherently "dangerous" and can face limitations on their constitutional rights, including the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure, simply because they possess a gun.

The Fourth Circuit Runs Roughshod over Heller and the Second Amendment.  Freed up by the Supreme Court's ongoing reluctance to engage in depth with the Second Amendment, the Fourth Circuit has taken it upon itself to rewrite Heller en banc.  In a 10-4 decision, issued yesterday afternoon [2/21/2017], the court upheld Maryland's ban on both "assault weapons" and "high capacity magazines."  By so doing, it deprived the people of Maryland, the Carolinas, and the Virginias of the core protections to which the Constitution entitles them.

Federal Court Strikes A Blow To The Second Amendment.  A federal court just hammered away at the Second Amendment with an asinine ruling with regard to waiting periods.  The lawsuit, Silvester v.  Harris, was filed over a California law that required a 10-day mandatory waiting period for a person to obtain a firearm even if they already passed a background check, have a concealed-carry permit and/or own a registered a firearm.  The District Court initially ruled that the law was unconstitutional.  However, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the District Court's ruling, claiming that the law provided "a reasonable safety precaution."

Ice-T: Guns Are The 'Last Form of Defense Against Tyranny'.  When it comes to guns and the Second Amendment rap artist and TV star Ice-T, who is liberal, does not pull punches and says that the right to bear arms is "the last form of defense against tyranny," and that the right is not about hunting animals but about protecting oneself from an oppressive government.

Will Curtailing 2nd Amendment Help Protect U.S. from Terrorism?  Rep.  Foxx: 'No'.  Rep.  Virginia Foxx (R-NC) said Wednesday that curtailing Americans' Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" will not keep the nation safe from radical Islamic terrorism.  CNSNews.com asked Foxx:  "Will curtailing the Second Amendment right of Americans to keep and bear arms protect this country from radical Islamic terrorism?"  Foxx had a two-word answer:  "No.  Simple."

The American Left is Beneath Contempt.  The United States has just experienced the worst terrorist attack on its shores since September 11, 2001.  Forty-nine innocent fellow Americans were wantonly slaughtered by a radicalized Muslim, and traitor, who had pledged his allegiance to a foreign entity, ISIS, whose declared objective is the reinstitution of the Islamic Caliphate and the butchery of western infidels.  These victims were murdered primarily because they were in a gay night club, thus subject to summary execution under Sharia Law, and secondly because they were Americans.  Yet, today nearly all of the voices from the Left, and their front group, the Democratic Party, choose not to focus on the victims, the terrorist or the blood stained failure of their approach in dealing with radical Islam.  Instead they are using this tragedy to unabashedly pursue one of their primary ideological objectives:  the de facto repeal of the Second Amendment.

Concealed carry, California and the 9th Circuit's misrepresentation of the facts.  Thursday [6/9/2016], the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in a 7-4 decision that Americans don't have a right to carry concealed handguns for protection.  Since California bans people from openly carrying guns, their decision amounted to prohibiting people from carrying guns at all (whether openly or concealed).  It is clear that a judge's political affiliation determines whether he thinks that people have a right to defend themselves.  Democratic judges are now moving to overturn recent Supreme Court decisions that struck down bans on guns.  Last year, about 0.24 percent of adult Californians had a concealed handgun permit.  In the rest of the U.S., the rate was 24 times higher, for a rate of 5.8 percent.  In many parts of California, it is essentially impossible to get a permit.  In San Francisco County, just four people (0.0005 percent of the adult population), got a permit in 2015.  That is an improvement over 2012, when just two permits were granted — one of which was to the sheriff's personal attorney.

9th Circuit Paves The Way To Ending Gun Rights:  Ben Shapiro.  On Thursday [6/9/2016], the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling stating that there is no right under the Second Amendment to carry concealed weapons in public.  This, of course, is surprising, given that the actual language of the Second Amendment explicitly declares the right to "bear arms" — and bearing arms means carrying them.  But the Court truly just wants to allow localities to regulate firearm ownership out of existence, or like practice of religion, to restrict the right to the privacy of your home.

9th Circuit Court of Appeals Attempts to Repeal the Constitution.  Though the Supreme Court is probably reluctant to take on another gun case at the moment, this case is headed that way.  In a ruling that reverses a previous ruling by a smaller, three-judge panel, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has decided that a California law requiring "good cause" to apply for concealed carry permits should stand, and also said the Second Amendment does not apply to concealed carry.

Watch: Hillary Refuses Say Right to Bear Arms Is a 'Constitutional Right'.  Sunday [6/5/2016] on ABC's "This Week," Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton refused to say conclusively the Second Amendment is a constitutional right and that it "is subject to reasonable regulations."

Kasich Spits on the Second Amendment.  The Heller decision, confirming that the Second Amendment acknowledges an individual right to keep and bear arms, written by the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia was in many respects the Roberts court's finest hour.  In its acknowledgment that rights are inherent, not granted by government Heller is constitutional originalism at its finest and Scalia at his incisive and eloquent best.  But someone on his staff apparently forgot to tell Ohio Governor John Kasich about just how important Heller is to limited government constitutional conservatives because over the weekend he told CBS News that if he were elected President he would consider appointing to the Supreme Court the judge whose decision Heller overturned.

Gun Owners of America: Senators Must Tell Obama That His "Supreme Court Pick is D.O.A.".  Today, President Obama took the most significant step in his sordid journey to fundamentally transform our nation.  Obama nominated a virulent anti-gunner to fill the seat of Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court.  Let's be clear:  the U.S. Senate should bury this nomination and write "Dead On Arrival" as its epitaph.  Despite promises to nominate a consensus candidate, Obama has chosen a radical leftist in Judge Merrick Garland:  [#1] He supported the DC gun ban in 2007, voting to reconsider the Heller case after a three judge panel had ruled against the ban. [...] [#2] In a 2000 case, Garland voted to maintain the registration of gun owners, supporting efforts by the Clinton administration to use the instant check to illegally retain gun owners' names for six months.

NRA: Why we oppose Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination.  In 2008, the Supreme Court answered the question of whether individual citizens have a right to own a firearm in their homes for self-defense.  It was [Antonin] Scalia who wrote the majority opinion in that case, District of Columbia v. Heller.  That landmark decision made clear that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms.  Shockingly, the decision was only 5 to 4.  Two years later, in McDonald v. Chicago, Scalia joined Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.'s opinion holding that that individual right is fundamental and applies to all Americans regardless of where they live.  Once again, the decision was 5 to 4.  With Scalia's tragic passing, there is no longer a majority of support for Heller and McDonald among the justices.

The Living Constitution And Second Amendment Alarmism.  With the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, the American philosophical divide has been thrown wide open, particularly on the issue of gun control.  One side that believes the Constitution means what it says and can be readily understood by the common man, warns that if the ideological balance on the Court could shift from a bare majority that usually interprets the Constitution based on its text and the clear intentions of the founders, to the current minority that would regularly make law based on progressive desires alone.  The other side is warning that establishing a larger constitutional majority on the Court would result in the Court deciding cases more regularly on the text of the Constitution and the intent of the Founders. [...] It is no small irony that the President will surely nominate someone dedicated to the ideology of a "living Constitution," which can best be understood as a Constitution that has no fixed, understandable meaning or intent.  It means whatever Progressives want it to mean for their transitory political purposes.  Of one thing, however, we can be absolutely sure:  if the living Constitution ideology ever gains a majority of the Court, the Second Amendment is dead.

Biden: 'The Second Amendment Says You Can Limit Who Can Own A Gun'.  Vice President Joe Biden says "the Second Amendment says you can limit who can own a gun."  In an interview with CNN's Gloria Borger on Monday [1/11/2015], Biden said, "people who are criminals shouldn't have guns.  People who are schizophrenic and have mental illnesses shouldn't have guns."

Real Reason for Gun Control.  One of the most controversial measures is Obama's idea that the act of selling even a single gun effectively makes you a gun dealer and subject to federal registration.  We're not quite sure the executive office can promulgate directives for individuals. [...] A normal person looking at the Second Amendment would probably conclude that it means what is says — that government cannot stop people from buying, selling, owning and using weapons.  But in introducing the caveat "reasonable regulation," the Court probably left the argument as muddy as before.  And Obama, late in his second term, is not one to miss an opportunity.

The right to bear arms isn't up for debate.  When debating the wisdom of the Constitution's Second Amendment, the media tends to start from the presumption that the question is purely scientific, and that the answers can — and should — be derived from statistical analyses and relentless experimentation.  This approach is mistaken.  The right of the people to keep and bear arms is not the product of the latest research fads or exquisitely tortured "data journalism," but a natural extension of the Lockean principles on which this country was founded.  It must be protected as such.  The Declaration of Independence presumes that all men enjoy certain inalienable rights, among them "life" and "liberty."  Practically speaking, at both the state level (as a bulwark against tyranny) and at the individual level (as a means by which to protect oneself), this necessitates the auxiliary right to the private ownership of "arms," which, in the common law that preceded the Second Amendment, was understood to include personal weapons that could be wielded by an individual — such as the "musket and bayonet"; "sabre, holster pistols, and carbine"; and sundry "side arms."

The Second Amendment Is One Supreme Court Justice from Repeal.  In August, my colleague Charlie Cooke wrote an epic rant daring the Left to stop talking about repealing the Second Amendment and start doing it.  Introduce the repeal to Congress, work it through the states, and tell the American people what you want to do — take from them a fundamental, enumerated right from the Bill of Rights.  As Charlie eloquently outlines, repealing the Second Amendment is an impossible task.  Even worse for the Left, it's political suicide.  But if the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v. Hodges teaches us anything, it's that the age of judicial supremacy means that five justices can amend the Constitution far more efficiently than Congress and the state legislatures.

7th Circuit Court: Illegal Immigrants Have Second Amendment Rights Too.  In a case regarding a specific gun control law which bans "unauthorized aliens" (illegal immigrants) from possessing firearms in the United States, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit did the work of a contortionist by upholding the law while also pointing out that they "see no principled way to carve out the Second Amendment and say that the unauthorized (or maybe all noncitizens) are excluded."  In a word — illegal immigrants have Second Amendment rights too.  The case was titled United States v. Meza-Rodriguez, and the decision was handed down on August 20.

Court Rules Illegal Aliens Have Second Amendment Rights.  A recent decision by the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals that says illegal aliens — what the left likes to call "undocumented immigrants" — enjoy a Second Amendment right to bear arms, even if their presence in this nation is criminal.

The Editor apologizes for the thinly-redacted profanity herein:
BuzzFeed Editor Regrets Bashing 2nd Amendment of 'G**d*** Constitution'.  In a tweet sent while news of the tragic July 23 attack in Lafayette's Grand Theatre was still rolling in, BuzzFeed News Editor Rachel Zarrell exclaimed, "Let's just give everyone guns, right?  It's in the g*dd*mn constitution."  This tweet was preceded by one in which Zarrell wrote:  "If this were someone in my family I'd want every person alive screaming about gun control to anyone who would listen."  And another in which she tried to stir people to action:  "Don't pray.  Push for gun control."

Karl Rove vs. the 2nd Amendment.  Guns don't kill people, the Constitution kills people, at least according to Karl Rove, Republican strategist and architect of George W. Bush's election and reelection as president.  Rove, speaking on Fox News Sunday, and in the wake of the South Carolina church massacre, embraced the liberal mantra that there are too many guns on the street and went a step further and a step too far, saying the way to avoid more such tragedies is to repeal the Second Amendment and its guarantee of our right to keep and bear arms.

You Mean the Founders Were Serious About That Second Amendment Stuff?  That's what the liberal ninnies at the Washington Post must be wondering right about now.  Despite their best efforts to stampede the American public into surrendering yet another of its consitutional rights (and one very dangerous to the Leftist project), more and more states are moving toward — gasp! — Constitutional Carry. Which means, basically, "shall not be infringed."

Ben Carson Gives Blunt Explanation Of Why The 2nd Amendment Is Vital.  Hosting Sean Hannity's radio show, Dr. Ben Carson gave a frank take on why the 2nd Amendment is so important.  A caller asked Carson's opinion on the Administration's attempt to "gut" the 2nd Amendment, and he came back with a brilliant response.

Right to Bear Arms Central to Liberty.  There are two popular quotations from the writings of Thomas Jefferson that have been shown to be still relevant to our culture.  "When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty" and "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."  Taken together they demonstrate why the right to bear arms is central to keeping our individual liberty.

Justice Stevens: The five extra words that can fix the Second Amendment.  [Scroll down quickly past 18 paragraphs of left-wing claptrap to get to the proposal:]  As so amended, it would read:  "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms when serving in the Militia shall not be infringed."

The Editor says...
The Second Amendment does not need fixing, but if it is to be revised, it should be made less ambiguous by removing any mention of the militia; thus; The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."

Justice Stevens thinks he knows how to 'fix' the Second Amendment.  [Clayton] Cramer destroys Stevens' arguments by citing several cases where the courts either explicitly or implicitly recognized that the Second Amendment dealt with an individual's right to bear arms.  I'm actually surprised that Stevens raised this old canard about the Second Amendment referring only to a "well regulated militia."  Besides, given his and most other justices belief in the flexibility of the Constitution, it would seem a strange time for Stevens to get religion and become a strict constructionist.

Justice Stevens and Flexible History.  Retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens had an op-ed piece in the Washington Post a couple of days ago that still has my brain doing backflips.  He claims that, "Legislatures are in a far better position than judges to assess the wisdom of such rules and to evaluate the costs and benefits that rule changes can be expected to produce."  Stevens certainly did not believe this when he signed onto decisions overturning Texas's sodomy law, or when arguing that state laws limiting abortion were unconstitutional, or when striking down Louisiana's death penalty for raping a child.  So why is Justice Stevens suddenly so supportive of the wisdom of legislatures compared to judges?  That's for a simple reason:  it's about the Second Amendment.

Stevens: Fix Second Amendment to Remove "Any Limits" on Government Power.  Retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens supports gutting the Second Amendment in order to remove any limit on government infringements on the right of self-defense.  In his new book Six Amendments: How and Why We Should Change the Constitution, Stevens — who generally favored maximum government power during his 35-year tenure on the high court — proposes, among other things, changing the language of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution so that the amendment would read, "... the right of the people to keep and bear arms [when serving in the militia] shall not be infringed."  Stevens acknowledged in an interview Sunday that this would remove "any limits" on government power over legal gun owners.

Ex-Supreme Court justice pushes gun grab, 2nd Amendment rewrite.  A liberal former Supreme Court justice, still outspoken and influential in retirement, is pushing to change the Constitution's Second Amendment in a way that could lead to massive gun confiscations in states.  John Paul Stevens, 94, who retired in 2010, would rewrite the Second Amendment in a way that would allow only state militia members to be armed, a radical change from the current lay of the land spelled out in several high court decisions.  In his new book [...], being played up in the media, Stevens would make clear that only militias, not citizens, have a right to guns.

Former Justice Stevens: Revising the 2nd Amendment 'Is a Moderate Proposal'.  During an April 20th appearance on ABC's This Week, former justice John Paul Stevens said each of his proposals to change the Constitution — including his proposal to change the Second Amendment — "is a moderate proposal."  On April 11th Breitbart News reported that Stevens uses his new book, [...] to argue that we should add five words to the Second Amendment to correct its interpretation — namely to ensure that it is interpreted as a collective right rather than an individual one.

Shock verdict — Mark Witaschek guilty of possessing muzzleloader bullets in D.C.  In a surprising twist at the end of a long trial, a District of Columbia judge found Mark Witaschek guilty of "attempted possession of unlawful ammunition" for antique replica muzzleloader bullets.  Judge Robert Morin sentenced Mr. Witaschek to time served, a $50 fine and required him to enroll with the Metropolitan Police Department's firearm offenders' registry within 48 hours.

Witaschek surrenders to D.C. police 'Gun Offenders Registry'.  Mark Witaschek never had a firearm in the District of Columbia, but he is now on the city's Gun Offenders Registry.  This bizarre case has drawn national attention because an upstanding citizen was tried and convicted of possessing unregistered ammunition for muzzleloader bullets, which are simply pieces of lead and copper.

Democrat Wants His Party to Officially Come Out Against the Second Amendment.  The Daily Surge has a clip of Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) on Bill Maher's HBO show.  Ellison says the Democratic Party should just be honest about its stance on guns. [...] For some reason, Americans murdered by drug cartel members along the border never came up.  Neither did the victims of Chicago's gang violence.

Surge in concealed weapon permits follows California court Second Amendment decision.  Orange and Ventura counties have dropped the "good cause" standard for issuing conceal carry permits after the requirement was struck down Feb. 13 by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeal.  A three-judge panel of the court ruled 2 to 1 that the Second Amendment bars California counties from requiring law-abiding gun owners who want to carry concealed firearms to demonstrate special, individualized needs for protection.

Justice Stevens: Let's Amend the Second Amendment!  Retired Justice John Paul Stevens was one of the great mischief-makers in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court.  At age 93, he has now written a book in which he recommends six amendments to the Constitution.  Presumably these are the changes he wasn't able to implement the easy way, via a 5-4 vote on the court.  One of Stevens' proposed changes relates to the Second Amendment, and is intended to reverse Stevens' loss in the Heller and McDonald cases.

Connecticut Gun Owners Deliver a Message — 'No we won't'.  Did you know that citizens of one state engaged in a mass act of civil disobedience that has left statist officials from both parties scratching their heads as an entire regulatory scheme collapsed?  Last week, Connecticut politicians were shocked to find out that only a fraction of Connecticut gun owners obeyed a state directive to come forward, declare their weapons, and register them with the government. [...] Would you register with the government before speaking?  Before attending worship services?  Government that goes too far loses its legitimacy, and in their peaceful act of civil disobedience, Connecticut citizens have rendered an unjust law utterly irrelevant.

Ninth Circuit Recognizes Right to Bear Arms Outside the Home.  The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday [2/13/2014] that the Second Amendment endows the right to carry a gun outside the home.  The opinion comes days before the Supreme Court is expected to decide whether to review two other cases that ask the question of whether the right to "bear arms" extends beyond the home.

Court Tosses California's Concealed Weapons Rules.  A divided federal appeals court on Thursday struck down California concealed-weapons rules, saying they violate the Second Amendment right to bear arms.

Connecticut Criminalizes the Second Amendment.  In a massive display of civil disobedience, tens of thousands of state residents have refused to register what the left calls assault weapons, instantly making them criminals guilty of a felony.

Supreme Court Asked to Clarify What it Means to 'Bear' Arms.  You might think the question would be settled by now, but the U.S. Supreme Court has yet to opine on whether the Second Amendment right to "bear" arms for self-defense extends outside the home.  We may soon get an answer.

The American Right to Revolt Against Tyranny: Part C — Founders & John Locke.  The Founding Fathers were in favor of the right to revolt against tyranny.  This is obvious despite widespread current attempts by progressives to suggest armed revolt and the 2nd Amendment would be opposed by the Founders today.  But how logical would be the notion that Americans could own guns, but not use them to defend themselves?  Or that Americans could arm to defend their lives and liberties, but only against invaders — not against tyrants?  Of course, such a position is transparent nonsense.

Dem Sen: Second Amendment Not Meant For Citizens To Take Up Arms Against Government.  Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) on states nullifying federal gun laws: [...] ["]The Second Amendment is not an absolute right, not a God given right, always had conditions upon it like the First Amendment has.  The idea that the Second Amendment was put in there in order to allow citizens to fight their government is insane.["]

Glenn Beck: If Police Get Drones, 'The 2nd Amendment Is Absolutely Dead'.  Senator Rand Paul's media tour following his "misunderestimated" statements on drones brought him to Glenn Beck's radio show Friday, where the two men discussed the prospects of a terrifying future where police cars have "robotic firing arms" that take down criminals with the push of a button.  If that ever happens, Beck told Paul, "the Second Amendment is absolutely dead."

Mark Levin: 'An up-or-down vote on the 2nd Amendment is unconstitutional'.  On his Tuesday [4/9/2013] radio show, conservative talker Mark Levin defended the GOP senators who are threatening to filibuster new gun control laws and argued that any attempt to threaten gun ownership would be unconstitutional.

Biden Mocks the Basis of Second Amendment.  This guy is the vice president, the former chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and supposedly a leading Democratic expert on gun issues.  And yet, he doesn't understand the Second Amendment.

Second Amendment crumbling as gun-control victories spread.  The Second Amendment got attacked this week from three sides, leaving gun owners scrambling to find safe ground.  While President Obama has lost momentum for federal gun-control laws, he has picked up victories with his allies in blue states and at the United Nations.

The War Against the Second Amendment Has Only Just Begun.  In an interview with Jason Mattera which was conducted last month but is just now hitting the news, Democratic Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky admitted that the Democrats' effort to ban "assault weapons" is "just the beginning."  In addition, Schakowsky says that she wants to ban all handguns, and thinks this can constitutionally be done, despite the Second Amendment.  I think it is obvious that Schakowsky was only saying what a great many Democrats believe.

Is Oregon writing the worst gun law ever?  If HB 3200 gets passed into law, you may as well pack up and leave the state if you have any interest in Second Amendment rights.

Federal Court Refuses State AG: Concealed Carry Stands in Illinois.  The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan's request "to reconsider a ruling that found the state's concealed carry weapons ban unconstitutional [in Dec. 2012]."  Madigan has argued that the December ruling overturning the ban was in conflict with other appeals court rulings and that it went beyond what the Supreme Court required.

Democide.  In Turkey, "reasonable" gun control laws enacted in 1911 permitted the democide of two million Turkish Christians a few years later.  In Germany, the "commonsense" 1928 gun control laws of the Weimar Republic preceded Hitler's Holocaust by a decade.  The Weimar politicians did not intend for their gun control laws to lead to the slaughter of millions of people, but it is an historical fact that those gun control laws permitted the Nazis to carry out their Holocaust.  How?  By making it economically and militarily feasible to round up and mass murder entire towns without any significant resistance.  In fact, the Nazis quickly learned that they needed only a hundred ordinary military policemen to exterminate towns of a thousand Polish Jews in a single day.

WA Dems Sponsor Bill Allowing Police to Search Gun owners' Homes.  In a mistake that probably wasn't a mistake, a Washington state bill sponsored by liberal Democrats contained a little-noticed provision that would have called for the police to have the right to search private citizens' home once per year if they own certain types of guns.

Why Americans Need Assault Rifles.  Reams of paper have been produced supporting or disparaging this or that about the 2nd Amendment, and brighter men than me have argued both for and against it, but my view is that the Founders of the Republic had a nation like Switzerland in mind.  While gun control advocates are keen on comparing the US to the UK, Canada and Australia, nations that ban guns in most cases, they tend to ignore Switzerland.  Switzerland does not have a professional army and instead relies upon civilians to participate and train in a militia.  The Swiss are issued an assault rifle, currently the SIG SG 550, a fully automatic weapons that even US gun nuts can't easily get their hands on.  The Swiss also have a very weak central government, something I believe the Founders preferred but became an idea that got lost after the North won the Civil War.

The Second Amendment is Not about Hunting.  Our Founding Fathers' perspectives are just as important and relevant today as they were more than 200 years ago because the nature of man hasn't changed over time.  The world is still full of people who would enslave us and compel us to do their bidding if they could.  Our nation's capital is still loaded with elected officials who believe they know what's best for the rest of us, and they are willing to use whatever force is necessary to subjugate us and make us fall into line behind their way of thinking even if it violates our constitutional rights. [...] As unappealing as this possibility is, the day may come when we will need our weapons to fend off an overreaching and tyrannical government, as our Founding Fathers knew could happen.

Rahm Emanuel Goes After 1st And 2nd Amendments.  A 15-year-old girl who performed at the president's inauguration is gunned down by gangs less than a mile from Barack Obama's home.  What does Chicago's mayor do?  He blames banks who lend gun makers money.

The Purpose of the Second Amendment.  In all the talk that has happened and will happen, the press and the general public seem willing to ignore the actual purpose of the second amendment.  The amendment is not about sports.  It is not about recreation.  It is not about hunting.  It is only partly about defending yourself from a criminal.  The second amendment is about ensuring a "free state."

February 23 Will Be A Day of Resistance.  While Barack Obama is calling for Americans to give up their freedom, their rights, and their guns, we're calling for Americans to resist.  We're calling on Tea Partiers, moderate Republicans, Libertarians and even moderate Democrats to stand up one month from today, on the 23rd of February and say, "No more!" [...] It'll be a Day of Resistance where gun owners and patriots can peacefully gather and show Barack Obama, the media, and the knockkneed Republicans in Congress that we may have lost a battle last November, but we haven't lost the war.  Don't meekly give up your 2nd Amendment rights when you can stand with us and RESIST!

The 2nd Amendment Is What Makes The Other Nine Possible.  As debates over firearms simmer and President Obama mulls sweeping firearm restrictions via executive orders, media personalities like Piers Morgan dismiss guests defending gun rights with contempt.  You'd think resistance to disarmament amounts to culpability for the Sandy Hook slaughter.

New York Declares War on the Second Amendment.  The Ruger, Walther P22, and Smith & Wesson target pistols all use magazines with capacities of 10 or more, and their principal purpose is to make holes in pieces of paper at up to 50 yards.  New York has therefore just made it eminently clear that the Constitution does not even protect sporting uses of firearms, let alone the Second Amendment's primary intention of individual, collective, and national self-defense.  This should mobilize all supporters of the Bill of Rights to deploy all necessary legal, nonviolent, and socially acceptable methods to take these enemies down decisively and permanently.

Advice on the Second Amendment.  The trigger for the American colonists' revolt at Lexington and Concord in 1775 was their belief that the British intended to seize their gunpowder, which would then enable the military to repress the populace at leisure.  Stephen P. Halbrook's The Founders' Second Amendment: Origins of the Right to Bear Arms (2008) documents the thinking at the time of the American Founding, and it wasn't focused on the right to shoot ducks.

Preserving the Second Amendment.  [Scroll down]  Those words, "executive orders, executive action," used in conjunction with constitutionally protected rights and liberties, ought to alarm us all.  They used to frighten Barack Obama.  On Oct. 2, 2007, then-Sen. Obama railed against what he called the abuse of executive powers purportedly perpetrated by President George W. Bush in his administration's efforts to protect the American people from acts of terror by radical Islamists.  Apparently, the current occupant of the Oval Office has overcome his early concerns about chief executives exceeding their authority.

Americans, never give up your guns.  These days, there are few things to admire about the socialist, bankrupt and culturally degenerating USA, but at least so far, one thing remains:  the right to bear arms and use deadly force to defend one's self and possessions. [...] For those of us fighting for our traditional rights, the US 2nd Amendment is a rare light in an ever darkening room.  Governments will use the excuse of trying to protect the people from maniacs and crime, but are in reality, it is the bureaucrats protecting their power and position.

Self Governance is Under Attack, not just the Second Amendment.  On Wednesday [1/9/2013], Rasmussen Reports released the results of a poll revealing that only "74% of American Adults continue to believe the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of an average citizen to own a gun."  This finding is perplexing because the Constitution hasn't changed.

More states look for ways to control gun laws.  A growing number of states are aiming to keep Uncle Sam's hands off their weapons if Congress decides to stiffen gun-control laws in response to last month's deadly shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.  Eight states — Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming — have adopted laws in recent years that would exempt guns made in the state from federal regulation as long as they remain in the state, according to Jon Griffin of the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Three completely unrelated news stories that vintage media somehow forgot to report.  [#2]  Dianne Feinstein's true stated goal is the unconstitutional confiscation of all firearms from civilians: [...] "If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States, for an outright ban, picking up [every gun]... Mr. and Mrs. America, turn 'em all in."  Note she doesn't mention the Constitution as an obstacle; only the vote tally.  As Obama's economic policies make ever more Americans dependent on government largesse, vote tallies will soon cease to be a problem for authoritarian statists like Feinstein.

Wyoming Lawmakers Propose 'Gun Protection' Legislation.  Several Wyoming lawmakers are proposing legislation designed to protect gun-owners from any potential federal firearm ban.  The "Firearms Protection Act" bill, introduced this week, would make any federal law banning semi-automatic firearms or limiting the size of gun magazines unenforceable within the state's boundaries.

The great guns debate: Grabbers rise anew.  Post-Sandy Hook, the great debate over guns has sunken to new levels of deceit and misrepresentation, all in the name of unconstitutional gun-grabbing.  Consider legislation being proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein.  The California Democrat seeks to dishonestly redefine "assault weapons" — heretofore machine-gun-type weaponry banned nearly 30 years ago — to be just about any weapon that liberals think looks especially menacing or they simply don't like.  She proposes measures clearly in violation of the Second Amendment.

We Must Control the Second Amendment Conflict.  The side that controls the language of an argument controls the argument, and the side that takes and maintains the offensive controls the entire conflict.  The enemy must then react to our actions instead of making us react to his, and continue to react until he is no longer capable of fighting.  We are indeed at war with an adversary with whom good faith and win-win negotiation are not possible.

Vanity Fair: Second Amendment 'Must Be Removed from the Constitution'.  On January 2, Vanity Fair ran an all-out attack on the constitution, the 2nd Amendment, and common sense in a column by Kurt Eichenwald titled, "Let's Repeal the Second Amendment."  Eichenwald's approach consists of attacking the NRA, arguing that gun owners avoid discussing more gun control by saying they don't want to "politicize" shootings, and taking the standard progressive position that there wasn't really a right to keep and bear arms until Justice Antonin Scalia created one in recent Supreme Court decisions.

Why the 2nd Amendment.  Today's Americans are vastly better-armed than our founders, Warsaw Ghetto Jews and Syrian rebels.  There are about 300 million privately held firearms owned by Americans.  That's nothing to sneeze at.  And notice that the people who support gun control are the very people who want to control and dictate our lives.

could any of these slaughters have happened against an armed populace?  let's keep the discussion simple, so that even a simpleton can comprehend it.  the 2nd amendment to the constitution of the united states is not about protecting "hunting rifles."  it is about resisting tyranny, and the oppression, violence and carnage wreaked upon a people by their government.  it was the framers intent that an armed people could resist such oppression, could fight against governmental murder.  think for just a moment, if you are capable.
No capitalization in original.

The Root of Mass Shootings: Mental Illness.  Our government leaders, any many others, would have us believe that putting the kibosh to the 2nd Amendment is the answer to rampant violence in the United States, particularly in the wake of recent shootings where innocent children and adult citizens have been killed.  It would seem that way.  But it's really not the answer.

The N.R.A. Is Still Vital, Because the 2nd Amendment Is.  Today, with 4 million members, the N.R.A. is one of the largest civic organizations in the U.S., and by far the largest civil liberties organization on the planet.  On top of that, polls indicate that as many as 17 million more Americans consider themselves N.R.A. members even if they haven't paid dues.  (Perhaps, for example, because they took an N.R.A. gun safety class.)

The Real Second Amendment.  [Scroll down]  The 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was derived from our understanding of the British experience that militias were necessary to curb the tyrannical powers of the king.  In our case, 'well regulated militias' were necessary as a condition of the colonies to agree to subordinate their sovereignty to a federal government.  They wanted a guarantee of power to insure that some future federal government could not egregiously exceed its powers prescribed in the body of the constitution they agreed to.  Furthermore, like the militias of the English barons, these state militias were formed ad hoc from the populace as needed on short notice and therefore depended on the populace being already proficient in the art of arms.

This is an original compilation, Copyright © 2013 by Andrew K. Dart