Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Second Amendment's True Raison D'Etre

Thanks are owed to the economist Dr. Walter E. Williams for the following, which sets the record straight about the real rationale for the Second Amendment:

How might our founders have commented about [the] U.S. Supreme Court's decision upholding our rights to keep and bear arms? Justice Samuel Alito, in writing the majority opinion, said, 'Individual self-defense is the central component of the Second Amendment.' 

The founders would have responded "Balderdash!"  

Jefferson said, "What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms." 

George Mason explained, "(T)o disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave them." 

Noah Webster elaborated: "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed . . . . The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealously will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive."

Contrary to Alito's assertion, the central component of the Second Amendment is to protect ourselves from U.S. Congress, not street thugs.

Let's not ever forget this even for a moment. It is more important now than it ever previously has been.  

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