Gregory Kane: No doubt about the meaning of the Second Amendment
By: Gregory Kane
Examiner Staff Writer
August 13, 2009
My son-in-law thought the liberals were making some kind of joke.
Someone - a person no doubt trying to torment him, he figured - sent him a story fromthehuffingtonpost.com. The topic? Someone at a New Hampshire rally President Obama attended to promote health-care legislation was carrying a handgun.
Then he used his computer to play the commentary anews crew had of the "incident." There was speculation about who the guy was, why he had the gun, the potential harm he might do to the president, especially this historic president. And especially now, with folks all riled up and volatile about the health-care issue.
The commentators didn't say as much, but the implication was clear: dangerous, right-wing, gun-toting folks are out there, and they're so upset about Obama's push for health-care legislation that some of them might want to do him harm. My son-in-law got really livid when he delved deeper into the story: It turned out the man with the gun was nowhere near Obama.
Then he went into his rant about whether schools teach what the Second Amendment is all about. Schools? Our elected officials don't even know that. I doubt that many of them actually read the very Constitution they take an oath to uphold. We already have Michigan Rep. John Conyers on record as saying that our U.S. senators and representatives don't bother to read the legislation they vote on.
Here's what the Second Amendment says (hey, somebody's got to remind people like Conyers): "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."
Here's how those with a liberal mindset have interpreted those words over the years: "A well-regulated militia? That means the National Guard. And since we already have a National Guard in every state, the Second Amendment doesn't apply to individual gun ownership."
There's only one problem with that interpretation - it's not what the amendment says. A National Guard unit is a military wing of a state government that can be nationalized if necessary. All National Guard units are part of the government. The Second Amendment clearly says the right of the people, not an agency of the government, to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
But even if the libs are right in their interpretation - and I'm being way too generous in that assessment - there's always the Ninth Amendment. For the benefit of the John Conyers of the nation, I'll quote that one as well: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
In other words, don't read anything into the wording of the Second Amendment to construe that individual gun ownership is not allowed, or that a man in New Hampshire can't wear a gun to a rally the president attends, or that states can't pass right-to-carry laws.
In fact, many states have right-to-carry laws. Clearly, legislators in those states know the meanings of both the Second and Ninth Amendments. If liberals can root around in the "penumbra" of the Ninth Amendment - as they did in the Roe v. Wade case - and yank out an unenumerated "right to privacy," then we gun nuts can root around in there and pull out a clearly enumerated right to individual gun ownership.
Lawyers for Norma McCorvey - the "Jane Roe" in the Roe v. Wade case - used the Ninth Amendment to argue their client's right to privacy. (The phrase "a woman's right to choose wasn't in vogue then; the lefties added that to the lingo later, when they realized arguing for a "right to privacy" regarding abortions didn't quite jibe with their support of public funding to terminate the result of a very private act.)
Obama, in his last debate with Sen. John McCain during last year's presidential election, piously intoned that our "fundamental rights" shouldn't be left to state legislatures. He said that knowing full well some of the more liberal state legislators - and senators and representatives at the federal level - have been chipping away at fundamental Second Amendment rights for decades.
And he should know. He's been one of those legislators.
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