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Armed and Safe
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Armed and Safe
We have met the militia and it is us.
BY PETE DU PONT
Wednesday, May 22, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
"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."--U.S. Constitution, Amendment II
"The militia of the United States consists of all able bodied males at least 17 years of age and . . . under 45 years of age who are . . . citizens of the United States."--10 U.S. Code, Section 311
The language of the Second Amendment is straightforward: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It was written by James Madison, and its language tracks the language of the First Amendment--"the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and petition the Government for a redress of grievances"--and the Fourth Amendment--"the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated."
Seems clear enough, doesn't it? Yet for half a century the consensus of the political establishment has been that the right to bear arms must not be construed as an individual right, lest people obtain guns to protect themselves and take actions beyond the control of government. And so the Justice Department has traditionally maintained that the right to bear arms is only a "collective" right, one limited to the organized militia--that is, the military, the National Guard and police units.
In 1989 the establishment consensus began to unravel. By 1999 liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe was saying the right to bear arms was an individual right, and that "intellectual honesty" required it be so construed.
Last November the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed in U.S. v. Emerson that the Second Amendment "protects the right of individuals . . . to privately possess and bear their own firearms," prompting Attorney General John Ashcroft to send a letter to all federal prosecutors emphasizing the importance of the Second Amendment as an individual right.
Last week Solicitor General Ted Olson filed on behalf of the federal government two briefs before the Supreme Court, emphasizing the belief of the current administration that the right to bear arms was indeed an individual right. And the pot began to boil.
The voices of the establishment objected on cue. The New York Times gloomily reported this "ominous reversal on gun rights." The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence despaired that this "extreme ideology on guns has now become government policy." The Washington Post claimed that "the great weight of judicial precedent holds that there is no individual right to own a gun." One supposes that the editors skipped a reading of the amendment itself, since the great weight of English comprehension supports the opposite conclusion.
But wait, liberals say, the amendment mentions the militia. Yes, it does, but there is no way that word can be taken as meaning just the police or army, for the U.S. Code defines militia as noted above. It further defines the "organized militia" as members of military units, and the "unorganized militia" as all other males between 17 and 44. (Subsequent advances in civil rights would presumably expand the class to include women and older people.)
But other than constitutional scholars and the establishment press, does anyone care about this legal argument? In 1999 the National Center for Policy Analysis considered that question. Its data suggest the people who use guns to protect themselves 2.5 million times each year (criminologist Gary Kleck's estimate) might care. So might women faced with rape or assault, who statistics show are "2.5 times less likely to suffer serious injury if they respond with a firearm" than if they don't resist.
Even criminals are concerned about the Second Amendment, although from a different perspective. If a malefactor cannot know in advance who might have a gun, the risk of committing a crime will increase, so he will commit fewer crimes. Safer for him, and for us.
The best analysis of the impact of arming law-abiding citizens on the crime rate is John Lott's 1998 book "More Guns, Less Crime" (updated in 2000 to cover crime data through 1996). It reinforces obvious conclusions about defensive gun use: "Criminals as a group tend to behave rationally--when crimes become more difficult, less crime is committed. . . . Carrying concealed handguns appears to make all kinds of murders less attractive."
Even more convincing are Mr. Lott's data on the decline of crime over time following the enactment of "concealed carry" laws, which make it easy to get a license to carry a handgun. The longer concealed-carry laws remain in effect, the more crime declines. The most starling chart shows the number of violent crimes in concealed-carry states. In the 10 years before the enactment of a concealed-carry law, violent crimes averaged a steady 510 per 100,000 people. In the 10 years after enactment they began to drop--to under 500 after five years and then a rapid decline to under 300 in year 10. "For each additional year that the laws were in effect," Mr. Lott concludes, "murders fell by an additional 1.5 percent, while rape, robbery, and aggravated assaults all fell by about 3 percent each year."
So potential victims of crime--that's all of us--have a real stake in taking the Second Amendment at its word. Nor are there any legal or logical reasons why we should not, for it says what it says: individuals have a constitutional right to bear arms.
Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears Wednesdays.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110001741
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
We have met the militia and it is us.
BY PETE DU PONT
Wednesday, May 22, 2002 12:01 a.m. EDT
"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."--U.S. Constitution, Amendment II
"The militia of the United States consists of all able bodied males at least 17 years of age and . . . under 45 years of age who are . . . citizens of the United States."--10 U.S. Code, Section 311
The language of the Second Amendment is straightforward: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." It was written by James Madison, and its language tracks the language of the First Amendment--"the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and petition the Government for a redress of grievances"--and the Fourth Amendment--"the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated."
Seems clear enough, doesn't it? Yet for half a century the consensus of the political establishment has been that the right to bear arms must not be construed as an individual right, lest people obtain guns to protect themselves and take actions beyond the control of government. And so the Justice Department has traditionally maintained that the right to bear arms is only a "collective" right, one limited to the organized militia--that is, the military, the National Guard and police units.
In 1989 the establishment consensus began to unravel. By 1999 liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe was saying the right to bear arms was an individual right, and that "intellectual honesty" required it be so construed.
Last November the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed in U.S. v. Emerson that the Second Amendment "protects the right of individuals . . . to privately possess and bear their own firearms," prompting Attorney General John Ashcroft to send a letter to all federal prosecutors emphasizing the importance of the Second Amendment as an individual right.
Last week Solicitor General Ted Olson filed on behalf of the federal government two briefs before the Supreme Court, emphasizing the belief of the current administration that the right to bear arms was indeed an individual right. And the pot began to boil.
The voices of the establishment objected on cue. The New York Times gloomily reported this "ominous reversal on gun rights." The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence despaired that this "extreme ideology on guns has now become government policy." The Washington Post claimed that "the great weight of judicial precedent holds that there is no individual right to own a gun." One supposes that the editors skipped a reading of the amendment itself, since the great weight of English comprehension supports the opposite conclusion.
But wait, liberals say, the amendment mentions the militia. Yes, it does, but there is no way that word can be taken as meaning just the police or army, for the U.S. Code defines militia as noted above. It further defines the "organized militia" as members of military units, and the "unorganized militia" as all other males between 17 and 44. (Subsequent advances in civil rights would presumably expand the class to include women and older people.)
But other than constitutional scholars and the establishment press, does anyone care about this legal argument? In 1999 the National Center for Policy Analysis considered that question. Its data suggest the people who use guns to protect themselves 2.5 million times each year (criminologist Gary Kleck's estimate) might care. So might women faced with rape or assault, who statistics show are "2.5 times less likely to suffer serious injury if they respond with a firearm" than if they don't resist.
Even criminals are concerned about the Second Amendment, although from a different perspective. If a malefactor cannot know in advance who might have a gun, the risk of committing a crime will increase, so he will commit fewer crimes. Safer for him, and for us.
The best analysis of the impact of arming law-abiding citizens on the crime rate is John Lott's 1998 book "More Guns, Less Crime" (updated in 2000 to cover crime data through 1996). It reinforces obvious conclusions about defensive gun use: "Criminals as a group tend to behave rationally--when crimes become more difficult, less crime is committed. . . . Carrying concealed handguns appears to make all kinds of murders less attractive."
Even more convincing are Mr. Lott's data on the decline of crime over time following the enactment of "concealed carry" laws, which make it easy to get a license to carry a handgun. The longer concealed-carry laws remain in effect, the more crime declines. The most starling chart shows the number of violent crimes in concealed-carry states. In the 10 years before the enactment of a concealed-carry law, violent crimes averaged a steady 510 per 100,000 people. In the 10 years after enactment they began to drop--to under 500 after five years and then a rapid decline to under 300 in year 10. "For each additional year that the laws were in effect," Mr. Lott concludes, "murders fell by an additional 1.5 percent, while rape, robbery, and aggravated assaults all fell by about 3 percent each year."
So potential victims of crime--that's all of us--have a real stake in taking the Second Amendment at its word. Nor are there any legal or logical reasons why we should not, for it says what it says: individuals have a constitutional right to bear arms.
Mr. du Pont, a former governor of Delaware, is policy chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis. His column appears Wednesdays.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pdupont/?id=110001741
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878