Arguing Gun Laws and Original Intent
By John Longenecker (08/21/07)
Anti-violence, Anti-gun organizations abuse due process in bringing the issue to non-gun owners.
Anti-gun activists are again quarreling with the brilliance of the Founding Fathers. In answering them, I usually write for the non-gun owners and connect the intent of the Founders to modern times as they wished. My motto is that you never know who may be hearing the liberty message for the very first time.
In challenging the Second Amendment, foes of our liberty want to make the Bill of Rights a living document, with all its confusing subjectivity. Liberals use this tactic a great deal in promoting ambiguity, which half the time goes to their advantage. It is the equivalent of unending coin tosses to see who goes first after it already came up Heads.
What goes to the advantage of the People of the United States is the understanding of Original Intent of the Founders in liberty for all. In sum, it is what they wanted for their families and for all of us.
The proper interpretation of the Constitution must be in legal terms, not lay terms; the idea of viewing meaning in lay terms is not a good faith proposition, and nothing less than an attack on our authority in this country. When you lose best two out of three, you go for best three out of five? C'mon.
1. The lay 'contemporary' or 'living document' interpretation of 2A is a trap for the good faith who are interested in cooperation and in resolving social problems. On this subject, we need to be unmoving, because any off-topic discussion whatsoever paves the way for surrendering more and more sovereign authority.
When it comes to dissecting the Second Amendment, the language of the Clause has to be interpreted according to the original legal meaning of the terms, not the modern meaning. This is because political frauds were anticipated in any age.
2. For that legal meaning, one may have to go not to Webster's then, but to Black's Legal Dictionary to comprehend it more fully, and, of course, when searching, one has to understand that legal meaning within the context of the time in which it was written. This is important to understand, because the anti-gun, anti-liberty crowd understands it very, very well, and works to unwind our authority by claiming that the Constitution is a living document and subject to contemporary meaning. When you say the Document is a living document, you transfer the debate out of the realm of Original Intent and into what you might call home turf of the anti-liberty nuts. The debate needs to remain on Original Intent of the Founders. Hell, there shouldn't even be a debate!
[The Founders did not write the Second Amendment for citizens, they wrote it for Government. And they did not need to imagine weapons of the future, because they did not view weapons as a danger to the nation. But they did know that abuse of due process would always be a danger to the nation, and so they wrote that this right of the people – and the force which backs that authority – shall not be infringed.]
This is how and why I focus so very much on Original Intent of what the Founders wanted us all to have on any subject I write about, from education content to RFID Chips to National ID Cards to concealed carry of weapons.
What did they imagine at the time as adversity to be faced by future generations? What did Franklin mean when he said, A republic. ...if you can keep it?
The Founders wrote that the People are the supreme authority, and they said it a dozen ways in hundreds of writings. They also knew very well that such citizen authority had to be backed by force, and forever, and – if we are to keep our republic – that force must reside with the average Joe and Josephine Citizen. They knew abuses of due process would come in the form of necessity and artificially created adverse conditions [crime and gun laws] – good heavens, they lived it!
Put another way, crime cannot legally be used as a tool to disarm citizen authority without an abuse of due process, and it is this which the Founders foresaw.
When we explicate the meaning of the Second Amendment, we need to speak to the People at large, not only to lawmakers. (You never know who may be hearing the liberty message for the very first time!) When we do explain 2A to lawmakers, we need to remind them of Original Intent and to present the argument in conformed legal meaning; e.g. what Militia meant at the time, and Original Intent of the entire clause and its supporting amendments.
(How many average people know that 2A is supported by at least three other amendments?)
But handgun confiscation interests insist on enforcement of gun laws - while in their activism, ignoring the law of the land. They debate it, they defy it, and work against a civil right, acting against the public interest. They ignore Original Intent as if it were outdated. It is not.
Therefore, you can quote me on this: As long as there are anti-gun, anti-violence, anti-liberty organizations, there will be abuse of due process, and it is this the Founders foresaw in any age, any era.
Crime cannot be used as a device to disarm the People.
This legal presentation approach is, of course, to our advantage, because it is so well documented among the writings of the Founding Fathers. The opposition to a civil right is merely opinion. The supported position of ours discredits the wedge idea that the Constitution is a living document.
And that, my friends, is good for the country.
John Longenecker
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