Tuesday, January 15, 2013

The right to keep and bear arms

It’s not about hunting deer; it’s not about a national guard.  Read your history of the Bill of Rights. Our founders feared the very power Obama is grabbing.

It looks like the president is planning to override the Constitution and our representative form of government (Congress makes the laws). Democrats should be very worried to be associated with this. You'd have to be from another planet without a course in American history, or a statist intent on taking away all personal freedoms, to think the 2nd amendment applies only to a National guard.

"When the first Congress convened for the purpose of drafting a Bill of Rights, it delegated the task to James Madison. Madison did not write upon a blank tablet. Instead, he obtained a pamphlet listing the State proposals for a bill of rights and sought to produce a briefer version incorporating all the vital proposals of these. His purpose was to incorporate, not distinguish by technical changes, proposals such as that of the Pennsylvania minority, Sam Adams, or the New Hampshire delegates. Madison proposed among other rights that "That right of the people... to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person. " In the House, this was initially modified so that the militia clause came before the proposal recognizing the right. The proposals for the Bill of Rights were then trimmed in the interests of brevity. The conscientious objector clause was removed following objections by Elbridge Gerry, who complained that future Congresses might abuse the exemption to excuse everyone from military service.

The proposal finally passed the House in its present form: "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.: " In this form it was submitted into the Senate, which passed it the following day. The Senate in the process indicated its intent that the right be an individual one, for private purposes, by rejecting an amendment which would have limited the keeping and bearing of arms to bearing "For the common defense". "

1982, Preface, THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS REPORT of the 97th Congress.

No comments: