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Disloyal to the United
States? by Vin Suprynowicz July 27, 2001 New Attorney General (and former U.S. Sen.) John Ashcroft has said he will
honor President Bush's desire to extend the federal ban on further manufacture
or import of certain semi-automatic rifles with pistol grips, bayonet lugs, and
20-round magazines (weapons which are designed to look like "assault
weapons," even though they lack the true assault weapon's capacity for
automatic fire -- real assault rifles having been heavily taxed and regulated as
a "machine gun" ever since 1934.) Sen. Ashcroft testified at his Senate confirmation hearing, "I don't
believe the Second Amendment to be one that forbids any regulation of
guns." This is a radical defender of the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights?
Paging Wimp Central. Sen. Ashcroft does not promise the long-overdue shutdown of the firearms
division of the BATF. He does not even call for the average American to again be
allowed to purchase a newly-imported machine gun through the mails, as any of
our law-abiding grandparents could before 1934. Rather, the attorney general embraces what is now described in the legal
journals as the standard position on the Second Amendment (endorsed by the
liberal Lawrence Tribe of Harvard, among others), that while some
"pragmatic" regulation may be allowable, the Second Amendment means
what it plainly says: that individual, private citizens of these United States
have a "right to keep and bear arms," which none may
"infringe." Much is made of the "militia clause," which prefaces this ban on
infringement by stating "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the
security of a free State... ." Indeed, the Supreme Court took this militia
stipulation into account in its decision in the 1939 Miller case, in which the
justices asked the prosecutors whether the sawed-off-shotgun in question was a
weapon of military usefulness. With Miller (an indigent and itinerant moonshiner) not represented, the
spokesman for the government falsely and without opposition asserted that
sawed-off shotguns had been of no use at all in the trenches of the recent World
War. With this false testimony unchallenged, the high court remanded the Miller
case, advising that ownership of a sawed-off shotgun would not be protected
under the Second Amendment if such a weapon was, in fact, of no military
usefulness. Miller is often cited today as a case supporting the government's right to
regulate or even ban firearms except in use by the National Guard. But no one
contended Miller was involved in discharging his duties as a member of the
Missouri National Guard as he stood protecting his illicit whiskey still with
his sawed-off shotgun. Rather, under the logic of the 1939 Miller court, it is
private possession of precisely those weapons of military utility (such as the
true, fully-automatic assault rifle, and the shoulder-launched, heat-seeking
missile) which is most directly protected by the Second
Amendment. Why else would the court have asked whether the sawed-off shotgun was a
weapon of military utility? Anyway, do those who advance the "militia argument" really want to
help us make sure our local citizen militias are better armed and better drilled
(the colonial meaning of "well regulated," as it's still the British
meaning), and thus better prepared to resist any further federal usurpation of
powers not duly delegated to the central government by the Constitution? Of course not. They know full well that a disarmed populace is far less
likely to resist ever-higher taxes to fund the gun-grabbers' favorite social
engineering schemes, not to mention busy federal beavers shutting off the
irrigation water to save the "endangered sucker fish" of the Klamath
River Valley. What they want has nothing to do with the Founders' intent that America
should depend on a strong and independent-minded citizen militia instead of a
standing army under the central control of Washington City. No, this is all just
a lawyer's parlor trick to get to a result best summarized as: "I don't
want Suprynowicz and his buddies to own any more guns, except maybe one
inoffensive, single-shot hunting rifle apiece," and it doesn't matter how
much the plain-as-day writings of James Madison and Tenche Cox and Patrick Henry
and Noah Webster and Richard Henry Lee have to be twisted to get them to this
result. Meantime, how has the left -- which continually insists it has no desire to
actually ban firearms in private hands -- responded to Mr. Ashcroft's pitifully
moderate stance? There now arises from among their midst a cacophony of outraged shrieks and
bellows the like of which has not been heard since an equally timid Republican
insurgency asserted in 1994 that perhaps, just maybe, an owner whose property
had been reduced to worthlessness by environmental regulations might be entitled
to some compensation under the Fifth Amendment's "takings" clause. The prediction of the Reactionary Left at the time -- that this would lead to
the paving-over of paradise -- does not seem to have come to fruition. (In fact,
the federal government now rules millions more acres off limits to the private
citizen than ever before.) This time from the socialist fringe, the leaders of the victim disarmament
movement shriek that if Mr. Ashcroft succeeds in getting the FBI to destroy
records of their gun-buyer "instant background checks" as soon as
they're completed -- precisely as the gun grabbers assured us they would, back
when they were promoting their precious "Brady Bill" -- why, it will
"eviscerate the ability of law enforcement officials to prevent fraud and
illegal gun sales by unscrupulous dealers to straw purchasers." Why? Because "instant checks" are worthless? How many illegal sales
are permitted by the "instant check" but then tracked down, 89 days
later? And how do we know these records are really being destroyed after 90
days, anyway? Has any FBI agent ever been led away in handcuffs and locked up in
Leavenworth for retaining such a record for, say, 150 days? Is such an outcome
even conceivable? By writing a letter to the National Rifle Association, rejecting the argument
that the Second protects only a " 'collective' right of the states to
maintain militias," Mr. Ashcroft has shown "disloyalty to his client,
the United States, and an impermissible conflict of interest," charge U.S.
Sens. Edward M. Kennedy and Charles E. Schumer, in an article published in the
July 21 Boston Globe. Disloyalty to the United States? By reading out the plain English of the Bill
of Rights? Are Sens. Kennedy and Schumer now taking a page from the late Sen.
Joe McCarthy? As to this "collective right" nonsense, let us merely imagine any
elected official in these United States asserting with a straight face that the
Freedom of the Press is a "collective right" which can be properly
exercised only by each state governor naming and funding one "official
newspaper" for his state -- operated under his personal command and control
-- whereupon it will not infringe the so-called "Freedom of the Press"
in the slightest way if private individuals attempting to own and operate their
own, competing printing presses are arrested and thrown in jail. After all, it's not written down that it's an "individual" right?
So it must be a "collective" right ... right? "In a series of stealth measures and after private communication with
the gun lobby, Attorney General John Ashcroft is quietly taking steps to erode
the very gun laws he has sworn under oath to defend," thunder the rape
enablers Kennedy and Schumer, conveniently provided by the U.S. government with
all the armed bodyguards they desire, even as they would incrementally disarm
the rest of us. In his May 17 letter to the NRA, the ruffled senators squawk, "Ashcroft
also articulated a new standard for evaluating gun laws, proposing to require
that any restriction on gun ownership be supported by a compelling state
interest -- a test that very few laws can survive." What an interesting acknowledgement -- that few of the infringements on the
Bill of Rights promoted by Sens. Schumer and Kennedy could withstand this simple
test, demanding that some "compelling state interest" be shown for
further erosion of our rights. In fact, every existing "gun control" laws is
unwise, unconstitutional and counterproductive. Counties which allow law-abiding
private citizens to go armed have seen their rates of violent crime drop
markedly, as documented by Dr. John Lott of Yale in his fine, peer-reviewed book
"More Guns, Less Crime." Sens. Kennedy and Schumer are on the losing end of this debate over
individual liberties. They have nothing left in their arsenal but foot-stomping,
hog-bellowing, feigned outrage and manufactured fear. And their overreaction to
Mr. Ashcroft's extremely modest pronouncements shows that they know it. Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas
Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy
Alert, 1475 Terminal Way, Suite E for Easy, Reno, NV 89502. His book, "Send
in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is
available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html. Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com. The
Vinsends list is maintained by Alan Wendt in Colorado, who may be reached
directly at alan@ezlink.com. The web sites
for the Suprynowicz column are at http://www.infomagic.com/liberty/vinyard.htm,
and http://www.nguworld.com/vindex.
The Vinyard is maintained by Michael Voth in Flagstaff, who may be reached
directly at mvoth@infomagic.com. A Few other Gun-related Items from Mr.
Suprynowicz |
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