Historically Fascism was Derived from the Left and Socialism

Fascism, Communism, Socialism, Totalitarianism, all fall under the heading of collectivism; big government viewing the citizenry as a single entity and providing for the collective with what the Intelligentsia decides their common wants and needs without any consideration for the individual, and whereby taking care of the collective by controlling everything in their lives. This is opposed to a government of the people, by the people and for the people; remembering by definition the protection of individual rights is a protection from government. The concept of fascism was developed by Benito Mussolini, considered by historians as being one of the most influential socialists of the 20th Century. Fascism was designed to address what he saw as the weaknesses in socialism, and that when the socialists nationalize businesses, the socialists in charge actually know very little about running them. So fascism is the government pairing with business, kept in government control by overseers and strict regulations, to maintain the production rates prior to government nationalization. Further like socialism, there is no one kind of fascism, it is a robust system as was seen in it's various in Spain under Franco, Italy and Germany; one thing they all share is the abolition of Democracy. The point being that the left champions collectivism, which is based on the belief that individual rights need to be done away with in the name of saving and preserving the collective; that the government needs to control the citizenry for their own good..

The US Constitution and the Bill of Rights were designed to mitigate collectivism by protecting individual rights, but even our founding fathers recognized, that no matter what restrictions are put on government, it was doubtful their new country would last more than 200 years as the progression of government tyranny is just to difficult to to withstand.

Citizenry Pushing Back on Unpopular Gun Restrictions

All those that want an Australian type of gun confiscations should consider these three facts.

1) Unlike Australia (and every other country in the world) the people do not have a 200 year history of a Bill of Rights that constrains the Federal Government, resulting in a citizenry believing that gun ownership is a right and not a privilege, dictating gun ownership, shall not be infringed by the government.

 2) In Australia the popularity for gun confiscation was 90%; a huge percentage considering the small fraction of Americans want to disarm themselves.

 3) In Australia 1 in 5 owned guns; of the 3,000,000 guns only 600,000 were turned in voluntarily. In the US gun there are a 100 times more guns with ownership exceeding 1 to 1, with some 350,000,000 guns.

So the reason that the gun restrictions in Australia works is becasue it is the will of the people, so the majority comply.  In the United States it is the opposite, where liberal politicians are governing against the will of the people and trying to push gun bans and restrictions on a very suspicious citizenry. As an example, in September of 2011 the citizenry of Colorado recalled two state legislators (the first time in Colorado history) and a third did not run for election, after they pushed through a slate of, what turned out to be, very unpopular anti-gun laws. The most contentious was a mandatory  turn in/ magazine confiscation law that would a million of previously law abiding Coloradans into criminals over night. Further in Connecticut, another unpopular law demanded owners register their assault weapons with the state or face confiscation and arrest. The law was all but ignored, plus it was also discovered that at least 68% of the police officers in the state owned an unregistered assault weapon. It appears the state is now taking a wait to prosecute tactic, charging only those when the police discover a violation during their routine calls for service. And in Los Angeles, a new law (similar to the Colorado law) required the turning in of magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds, but not one magazine was turned in.

What liberals tend to ignore is a law has to to has voluntary compliance to work. In other words, just passing a law does not mean it will be followed, and if it is not, there is little the state can do about it, bar some unreasonable punishment which is forbidden by our Constitution. This is the danger of legislating against the will of the people. At the point the people say no, there is a real danger that the current leadership will loose the peoples respect, and the current governance will collapse due to a nullification by the people of  their permission to lead.

There are many skewed studies design from the beginning to cherry pick information to show that gun availability results in gun crimes; the primary statistical issue is correlation does not equal causation, in other words it's very difficult to determine cause from effect. http://www.latimes.com/busines... However, any study on guns needs to stand up to the FBI statics that gun homicides have been spiraling down (by 50%) in the last 20 years, while gun ownership has skyrocketed; yet based on this information Peter Gelblum is horrified; that's hard to figure (hey thousand of people are not being killed, isn't that a good thing?) unless Peter simply hates guns under any circumstances. Here are some other facts; of all homicides blacks are the victim 50% of the time (although they are only 13% of the population) and 80% of black male adults die from homicides. Further some 80% of of non-suicide violent gun deaths is a result of gang violence and a majority is black on black crimes in poor black urban communities. These Democrat run ghettos are the only places bucking the trend of reduced gun violence; and these cities have the strictest gun regulations in the country. Yes, these thugs can go across the borders where gun regulations are not as strict, but FBI studies tell us that the vast majority of guns obtained by criminals are not purchased legally or stolen; most are acquired in an underground black market. Even if guns are obtained in such a manner, it does not explain why the violent crime rate is much lower where the criminals are supposedly going where guns laws are less strict. As far as background checks, again the FBI and ATF have released information that 93% of guns denied through background checks are false positives

The there is call for a so called ban to "automatic" or assault weapons; automatic is being used in-correctly as these non-military grade rifles are semi-automatic. The reason liberals use the terms automatic and semi automatic interchangeably, is first because it really piss@s off gun people and second, to promote misinformation to the ignorant masses of liberals. This is becasue if the masses were to find out the truth, that workings of a semi-automatic rifle is essentially the same as every pistol ever made going back to 1911 (or before), and that not only are these rifles rarely used in crimes, (certainly less than shotguns) even though there are some 4-5 million in the hands of the law abiding citizenry, the FBI has acknowledged that another assault weapons ban would have absolutely no affect on reducing homicides and/or violent crimes (just as what didn't occur during the last ban). Then the liberal masses might start asking; Well if that is true, why not try something that has a chance of actually reducing violent crimes? It is simply the left making a mountain out nothing (a strawman), and making a great noise of how they want to save the citizenry with this ban, so they can claim the morale high ground, when in reality the entire issue is just a smoke screen to divert attention away from the Democrats utter failure in creating cities that are no more than hellholes, that are killing off blacks in record numbers.

The Wall Between Church and State Spoke Only of Federalism

Some liberal talking points extol how founding fathers would stand against conservative contemporary issues, which remains pointless conjecture. Unlike the liberals of today our founding fathers were pragmatists and did not adhere to any one political agenda; as a matter of fact they just about defined cognitive dissonance. For one Jefferson has a abolitionists yet owned (and bedded) slaves. Jefferson also spoke of glowing of native American culture, but savagely drove Indians west and said of those that resisted  "we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or is driven beyond the Mississippi." Jefferson, the slave owner, continued, "in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy all of them". Jefferson was also so devoted to Christianity he wrote his own deist version of the New Testament.

The letters written by Jefferson were generally a discussion of Federalism, not a demonisation of religion; the protections from government in the original Bill of Rights only pertained to the Federal government not the states;  it was believed that the states could create whatever government or religion it wanted as long as it recognized and respected federal authority. What the first Amendment protections addressed was "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", IOW a prohibition from  Federal government creating a national religion. If a state wanted to establish a religion as part of their government process they would have been free to do so; the idea being no one would be trapped or force to endure what you believed to be a tyrannical state, as you could simply move to another, but that was not the fact if the Federal government established a religion. Today, because of the 14th Amendment all states must adhere to these Federal prohibitions, but that was not the case when the Constitution was written. The Federal Constitutional convention in Philadelphia in was convened in 1787, but the 14th Amendment was not ratified until 1886, 60 years after Jefferson died.

"Jefferson's wall, as a matter of federalism, was erected between the national and state governments on matters pertaining to religion and not, more generally, between the church and all civil government. In other words, Jefferson placed the federal government on one side of his wall and state governments and churches on the other. The wall's primary function was to delineate the constitutional jurisdictions ofthe national and state governments, respectively, on religious concerns,
 such as setting aside days in the public calendar for prayer, fasting, and thanksgiving. Evidence for this jurisdictional or structural understanding of the wall can be found in both the texts and the context of the correspondence between Jefferson and the Danbury BaptistAssociation".

John T. McGreevy, "Thinking on One's Own: Catholicism in the American Intellectual Imagination, 1928-1960," Journal of American History, Vol. 84 (June 1997), pp. 97-131, and Philip Hamburger, Separation of Church and State (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002).

Beware the Extreme Libertarian; the Joke that is MSNBC

What Joseph McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities Committee is to Conservatives, the Southern Poverty Law Center is to Liberals. The SPLC played an important role in investigating the Klu Klux Klan, but as the white supremacist movement has slowed to a relative trickle in the US, the SPLC has stooped to declaring and any and all patriotic organization as racists, including the Family Research Center, Tea Party, Oath Keepers, Libertarians, returning veterans, gun owners and Ron Paul Supporters.

 The SPLC has been criticized for using hyperbole and overstating the prevalence of hate groups to raise large amounts of money. In a 2000 Harper's Magazine magazine article, Ken Silverstein said that Dees has kept the SPLC focused on fighting anti-minority groups like the KKK, whose membership has declined to just 2,000, instead of on issues like homelessness, mostly because of the former issue makes for more lucrative fundraising. The article also claimed that the SPLC "spends twice as much on fund-raising--$5.76 million last year--as it does on legal services for victims of civil rights abuses." Harper's also pointed out that more than 95% of hate crimes are committed by lone wolves without any connection to militia groups the SPLC speaks . In other words, if the SPLC doesn't find a hate group under every rock, it will start to loose funding. wikipedia

The SPLS has also become a darling of the left, using the tactic embraced by liberals of attacking a group that has a political view different from theirs by declaring  they are racists (always without any proof what so ever). There has never been any validity to any of these claims as  most of the conservatives groups mentioned (and many more than exist in the US) have never been associated with violence of any kind and have bee self policing to remove any fringe elements. As a matter of fact, it is the liberal groups that have latched onto violence and intimidation to try and extinguish any dissenting  voices.  The SPLS has joined the left claiming any group the opposes a against a strong central government and the destruction of privacy  rights, or advocates for nation sovereignty or the individual rights articulated in the US Constitution as terrorists and racists and is decidedly anti-Christian. 

"one visualizes a bunch of overweight  senior citizens in colonial costumes setting off red, white and blue suicide bombs and yelling "Git-r-done!".

Imagine if you will a Saturday Night Live parody of MSNBC, were Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok is interviewed by MSNBC in an attempt to somehow prove  the their initial claims that the Boston Marathon bombings was the result of right wing extremists; in this case Extreme Libertarian group (an  imaginary extremist  group  manufactured by the SPLC). When it turned out that  Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were actually extreme Islamic terrorists associated with the ultra violent Chechnya rebels. But not to be deterred MSNBC and the SPLC  laughably uses the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to somehow connect the Tsarnaev's with their Extreme Libertarian group (the SPLC created this imaginary group as they pondered a race war in the US where a violent out growth of the Tea Party links up with al Queda at the Mexican border and reeks havoc; one visualizes a bunch of overweight  senior citizens in colonial costumes setting off red, white and blue suicide bombs and yelling "Git-r-done!". So, in amongst the jihad/terrorists/anti-Semitic they found Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a “fan”  conspiracy theorists of Alex Jones and somehow theorized Jones as simultaneously extreme right wing, extreme libertarian and racists.The real comedy here is this was no parody. Mark Potok then interjects his revisionist history (a very common tactic of the left) trying to blame the current patriot movement and Tea Party on the election of our first black President so they can label them racists. This completely ignores the patriot movement that intensified under the Clinton administration that was primarily a reaction to the Federal Assault Weapons ban; this Janet Reno/Federal attack on the 2nd Amendment resulted in the atrocities at Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing. You also have the the beginnings of the Tea Party protesting federal spending deficits and tax increases in the 1990's and by 2001 Tea Party tax protestors were sending tea bags to their representatives on April 15. It is generally accepted that rather than a reaction to a black president, it was  the bailouts of banks by the Bush and Obama administrations that triggered the Tea Party's rise in 2008, with the overriding issue of Washington tuning out the voices of the common citizen.

MSNBC Parodies Itself
 Perhaps the summer lull is to blame for Now’s decision to broadcast a segment about racial animus motivating the American right in for umpteenth time. Perhaps it is a psychological compulsion. No matter. To summarize the predictable segment below, Potok alleged that the Tsarnaevs were motivated to their bloody act of terrorism by Jones’ unhinged rants. This led the panel to decry the rise of racism in America which has followed the political ascension of President Barack Obama.

So there you have it. There is a reason why many have decried the SPLC as a hate group itself The Southern Poverty Law Center Law Center is a Hate Group
It has gone beyond it's stated purpose " a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society", and has now declared itself the morale compass of America, who's sole purpose seems to demonize the US Bill of Rights and any organization that believes in patriotism, asserts their freedoms derived from the US Constitution/Bill of Rights and or opposes their worldview that the populace needs to relinquish all individual rights and national sovereignty in the name of forced equality and social justice. 

California Current Gun Laws Continue Unfunded

In a recent blog I was asked,  Like most of what is touted as needing "reform"; immigration, gun ownership by criminals, database of criminals with mental health issues, and I'm sure you all can think of more, we need simply to enforce and apply the laws we already have. 

In other words what are the current gun laws that are not being enforced? This was the subject of an LA Times Article,  California unable to disarm 19,700 felons and mentally ill people . The article starts out saying California authorities are empowered to seize weapons owned by convicted felons and people with mental illness, but staff shortages and funding cuts have left a backlog of more than 19,700 people to disarm, a law enforcement official said Tuesday.

The article goes on to say, that in California alone, there is a 3 year year back log on simply entering the names of felons and the mentally ill that should be ineligible to posses or acquire firearms and tracking down the 19,700 known felons and mentally ill that own or have acquired some 39,000 firearms and need to be disarmed but haven't been; this is blamed on a lack of funding and there are some 3,000 names being added to the list every year.

One is therefore forced to ask why is there little political pressure for more funding of these exsisting laws rather than the likes of Diane Fienstein pushing for another Federal Assault Weapons and large capacity magazine ban? California already has such a ban, but according to FBI and DOJ studies, their use in crimes is statistically insignificant as the vast majority of guns crimes are committed with handguns. So rather than really make the citizenry safe by taking guns away from felons and the mentally ill, all the political will is to ban weapons from law abiding citizens.  The idea that we need gun and magazine bans, rather than fully fund the laws we have now is ridiculous; in California even at gun shows all buyers must have a back ground check and guns must be transferred through a registered gun dealer, but the DOJ returns are so slow many guns are sold to those that are prohibited to buy because the dealers are not advised within the waiting period). California already has all the gun control being asked for by President Obama and more, but we aren't funding it. One has to wonder what the real end game is..

The Purpose of Guns is Not to Kill People

An interesting truth that is often ignored even by those that are gun advocates, is that guns are designed to stop people from whatever they are doing, not kill them. Granted, in the process of stopping them you will likely kill them and the very act of firing a weapon is an act where the use of deadly force needs to be justified,  but killing the suspect is rarely the intended purpose. Now I'm not saying this because I think one should shoot to wound, I am saying this because if the average citizen or even police officer shoots and wounds a suspect, and the suspect is then no longer a threat, practically none will walk up on the wounded suspect and finish them off; is killing the suspect was the purpose they would! The police are taught to shoot at the center of mass at a human silhouette target. This is not because shooting a person center of mass has a greater probability of killing a human target, but because shooting center of mass increases the probability of hitting a human target, thus increasing the probability of stopping a suspect. The left has based all it's anti-gun rhetoric that all guns have one purpose; to kill. That even target shooters are only honing their skills for hunting and/or killing; never mind that of the 100 million gun owners in the US, only 37.7 million have participated in hunting of some kind. Therefore the idea that gun is actually a tool to stop someone from doing harm usually results in extreme responses. This Thursday I called KSCO and talked with Mark Silverman who had as a guest West Holts, from California Gun Talk. My call was in response of an incredibly stupid remark by Silverman. Silverman was discussing an incident where a female shot a male intruder 5 times with a handgun and the intruder survived. Silverman then said since the female didn't kill the suspect with 5 rounds there would be no reason for her to have a large capacity magazine, the impetus being since the only purpose of a gun is to kill people, the victim had somehow failed to protect herself because she didn't kill the intruder and would not need more ammunition if there were more intruders because she had already shown she wouldn't be able to kill them. When I said that she had accomplished her goal by stopping the intruder from doing her harm, which is the same reason a police officer uses deadly force, to stop someone from committing a violent act. At this Silverman cut me off, stated off the cuff that the police are not taught to shoot at knees and hung up on me; expect this result from the left because it is poison to their script..

When deadly force is justified, to sole purpose is to stop the perpetrator; whether it results in the perpetrator's death or not is really inconsequential.

Tenche Coxe, founding father, defines a militia.

 As far as the definition of a militia, it is the armed citizenry independent of hegemony by any state or federal control. A similar description by Tenche Coxe ,1789 (delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789).

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."

The left has been trying to redefine the meaning of the 2nd Amendment for decades, so it's no surprise that most of the letters seem astonished at most pro-gun arguments; let's see if we can cut through the bull and find out what our founding fathers were talking about. "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". Many are confused as to the meaning of a "militia". The meaning in context is quite clear. Our finding fathers were concerned that a strong leader would emerge and enslave the United States citizenry, using the nations own standing army . They decided however, the American citizenry would be deemed an armed militia, not controlled by the state or federal government, would be able to stand up to any army. Now read the second amendment and see if it makes more sense. This also addresses the "they meant muskets" and  "you don't need a 20 round clip to kill Bambi" arguments; so the arms in the 2nd Amendment were to arm the citizenry to defeat an Army, not to go hunting.

Here are some examples of those letters from those confused and ignorant of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

 Recent rhetoric from the NRA tries to make the case that we should be focusing our efforts on addressing the causes (i.e. crazy people) instead of treating the symptoms (i.e. banning automatic assault weapons designed with only one purpose -- to kill people). Living in a culture in which people with access to guns routinely commit massacres makes people crazy. And why are we allowing ourselves to be bullied by the NRA, anyway? They're not elected officials. Let's put this issue to a national vote and see what the rest of the country thinks. And by the way, the Second Amendment ensures a well-armed militia. We have one of those. It's called the National Guard.
Jayme Kelly Curtis, Felton

My response:  
Jayme Kelly Curtis, you sound like from the Huffington Post. #1 the NRA has a membership and 4.3 million and represent over 100 million gun owners. As a member I give them permission to bully you or anyone else that seeks to mitigate gun ownership. Further the idea that gun massacres are routine is absurd and just another attempt by the left re-define reality to fit their agenda. According to the FBI's own statistics, gun crimes in the last 10 years have gone down 49% while ownership has increased 25-30% in the same time period; how does that jive with your world view of cause and effect of gun violence?

As far as the definition of a militia, it is the armed citizenry independent of hegemony by any state or federal control. A similar description by Tenche Coxe ,1789 (delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress in 1788-1789).

"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."

Then there was a bogger name "Will Sharp" who was a walking talking point from the Huffington Post (or similar left wing information media).  True the nra is only interested in protecting gun profits period. They and their followers have nothing to do with freedom and many are unbalanced extremists who are out of touch with what the vast majority of real Americans want common sense laws that protect our society. At the end of the day we will get those laws eventually because the gun violence will contunue and the public will demand it. Gun nuts can spout off about the constitution that they barely understand all they want the solution is obvious less guns on the street period. Will Sharp



My response;
Will Sharp, here is a statement by another gun nut on the 2nd Amendment, Tenche Coxe, a delegate for Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress at the time of the ratification and implementation of the Constitution and Bill of Rights 1788-1789; "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms."

Things change with time as does the the constitution. In fact the second ammendment (sic) is just that an ammendment (sic) or change. I think the right to "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" trumps gun fanatics right to menace the vast majority of real Americans. And it's a matter of time before these same extremists abuse the second amendment and it's amended. Will Sharp

My response:
Will Sharp appears to be a typical liberal the continually accuses those he disagrees with his own shortcomings. While "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" is not in the Constitution, it is implied; the original 10 amendments of the Bill of Rights was meant to innumerate those rights under specific circumstances (they were not meant to change the US Constitution in any way). A bill of rights was actually quite contentious at the time, as historically a bill of rights was a concession by a monarch and the belief was if a Monarch could grant rights he could also take them away. The Declaration of Independence defined individual rights as not given by man but endowed by their Creator, therefore all the rights enumerated in the original 10 amendments of Bill of Rights are also "unalienable Rights" that were "endowed by our creator". The right to bear arms is a necessary component of the right to, Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, the second amendment simply articulated that the right to bear arms would also be protected by law.

Gun Control; the Australian model

 Below is a letter to the Editor espousing the Australian model of buying back guns. It is a straw man argument that still requires rebuttal.

Mentally unstable males are being blamed for many of the killing sprees. OK, but is everyone overlooking the obvious? A mentally unstable person cannot go out and kill 10, 20, 30 people without the aid of semi-automatic handguns and military style assault rifles. It's the guns stupid! Stay on message. And people keep saying there are no easy answers to gun violence. Wrong again! Australia is an excellent example of what can be done to stop mass murder with guns. In 1996, a lone gunman killed 32 people with semi-automatic guns. Within weeks, the Australian government was working on gun reform laws that banned assault weapons, tightened licensing laws and financed gun buyback programs. Since the laws were enacted in 1996 there has been a reduction of gun violence and no more mass murder rampages. Yes, something can be done. Ron Lowe


Before I discuss the Austrian buy back model, lets look at your statement  "A mentally unstable person cannot go out and kill 10, 20, 30 people without the aid of semi-automatic handguns and military style assault rifles." Perhaps you forget that terrorists currently and throughout history use bombs to commit mass causality slaughter. While an assault weapon is deadly, bombs are cheaper and are capable of much more destruction and death.

The Australian buy back is another strawman argument buy the left. The Australian mandated buy back program resulted in 650,000 firearms being turned in. While the result was a reduction in gun violence,  non-firearm violent crime increased; so the end result was a wash in violent crime. Australia has a population of about 20million; the US has a population of 300 million. For every 100 Australian, 20 owned guns; for every 100 Americans 80 own guns. Australia has not bill of rights or a constitutional right to own a firearm; the US has both; the right to bear arms in Australia has no where near the significance than it does in the US. There is also nothing in the Australian constitution that guarantees human rights, only five explicit individual rights in the Constitution. They are the right to vote (Section 41), protection against acquisition of property on unjust terms (Section 51 (xxxi)), the right to a trial by jury (Section 80), freedom of religion (Section 116) and prohibition of discrimination on the basis of State of residency (Section 117). Australia also has a limited separation of powers, so the government can pretty much dictate whatever it wants and the citizenry is expected to obey. The national laws of other countries are not created in a vacuum, a fact conveniently not brought up by the Left; remember how Obama praised China, "Everybody's watching what's going on in Beijing right now with the Olympics. Think about the amount of money that China has spent on infrastructure. Their ports, their train systems, their airports are all vastly the superior to us now, which means if you are a corporation deciding where to do business … you're starting to think, "Beijing looks like a pretty good option." Why aren't we doing the same thing?." If Ron Lowe thinks the US should model Australia, he best go to Australia, because it ain't happening here!

2nd Amendment for Muskets?

The following is a couple of responses to the Santa Cruz Sentinel blog on Gun Control. The first addressed the belief by some that our founding fathers would have drawn the line at muskets.  

When the Second Amendment was crafted, our Founding Fathers had no idea how guns would evolve over the next two centuries. They were under the belief that Americans should have the right to bear muskets! Not automatic weapons. The Obama administration should keep that in mind as they decide new guidelines on what guns Americans should legally be able to possess. William Wright, Santa Cruz

William Wright, yours is an opinion that usually comes from ignorance of the Constitution. Believe it or not the founding fathers believed that every American was in charge of his own life; and to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, if it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg..it is of no concern. The only time Americans were expected to come together was as an armed militia when "the security of a free state" was in jeopardy. Therefore "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," by the state, as it may be the the state itself that is threatening the existence of the free state; our forefathers did not trust government. The type of weapon was to be a contemporary military grade weapon; as a matter of fact the idea that one militia member with an assault weapon could be more deadly than a platoon with muskets would have been welcome when we were fighting the British; they had already learned that couple regiments of rifleman could destroy three or four regiments of Tories with muskets; the rifle was pretty much the assault weapon of the day.. However firearm innovation did not stop with rifles.100 years later the Henry rifle, "gave a single man the firepower of a dozen marksmen armed with muzzle-loading muskets." There is little doubt that a 150 year old Henry rifle would give a modern semi-automatic assault weapon a run for it's money. So no William, our Founding Fathers did not write the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution under the belief that Americans should have the right to bear muskets. Our Founding Fathers wrote the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution under the belief that the Americans citizen should be able to repel an army to preserve the Constitution itself using whatever contemporary firearm that would be available at the time to accomplish that goal.

The second was a response from a very inarticulate liberal, with their typical emotional response, but he did hit on some points the "holier than thou" liberal tend to bring up..The writer, Jack Hoff (apparently his name and self description) was responding to a Mike Marketello who wrote, "I'll take it slow and in steps so you can follow along. Yes, we do have police, and we do have a great 911 system. It is your contention that nobody needs a gun, the correct response being not to protect yourself from violence, but to dial 911 and wait for the police to show up and protect you?  Well Jack, we have police, we have 911, give it your best shot and explain to the folks here why we still have crime? I mean we have the cops and 911, nobody need be a victim it's 2013, so why do you suppose people choose to be a victim of crime instead of just dialing 911.
The forum excitedly waits your reply, it should be a good laugh."

Heh Mike, that is why we have 911 and a police dept. Get a grip pal, this is 2013 not 1774!
Gun owners==kooks!

Mike Marketello: 99% of gun owners are so called "hunters". Can't wait to play "dress up" in camo clothing, get together with a bunch of their drinkin' "BUDDIES", and go out and destroy a living animal. Let's not forget the high power scope so the animal can be shot from 200 yards away! I'd rather spend the weekend with my girlfriend.....however, I'm a straight male.
All hunters are cowards! I learned karate and earned my black belt over 30 years ago.
A real man can defend himself without a gun. P***ies are gun owners!
Get off you lazy asses and take a self defense class.
Oh, and I love how hunters carry their "weapons" on the gun rack in their rear pick-em-up
window! Like I'm a real man because I have rifles in my truck window. Jack Hoff

 Jack Hoff, you sound like a typical liberal, if the facts don't fit your world view, just make them up as you go along; 99% of gun owners are hunters? really? The reality of course is your world view is shared by very few, but your right to share them came at the barrel of a gun. Perhaps you've haven't noticed but we live in dangerous times. I am a retired Police Officer and I can tell you that 99% of the time we arrive after the fact and help clean up. Having a firearm simply gives you one more option,"If you have a gun you can decide if it's necessary to use it; if you don't have a gun that is not a decision you will be able to make." Also there has never been any correlation between gun ownership and violent crime (Britain has more violent crime per capita than the US). Yes, the US has a much higher murder rate, but subtract the gang members killing each other and suicides, the number drops considerably (these are two areas where the killings and death would still occur with or without firearms). Oh, and carrying firearms in the back window of a pickup is to be lawful; when transporting a firearm it must be unloaded and either somewhere beyond reach (ie a trunk) or in full view and most gun owners don't want their firearms rattling about in the beds or their truck. BTW, I think you parents named you right.

Thank's to VP Joe Biden for Making Guns Cool Again

The one saving grace of an over reaching government is the constant misreading of the citizenry. It should be obvious to any thinking person that with over 300 million firearms already in circulation a gun ban of newly purchased firearms will have no effect on gun crimes at all. But what it does do is make  guns really cool again and the thing to have. Before Prohibition, many Americans seemed satisfied that if they could buy a drink, it didn't really matter if they had one or not; but with a pending gun ban led by VP Joe Biden and the anti-gun lobby,  we now see Americans scrambling to buy firearms and ammunition at a here before unheard of rate, much the way the citizenry during Prohibition pursued a speakeasy. And it's not because of Zombies; it's because Americans do not like being told what they can and can not have.  The state has thrown out the straw man arguments, such as assault weapons are not designed for hunting, as if there is something in the second amendment that says the right to bear arms is for hunting. When a person that actually understands the Constitution explains the reason for the right to bare arms is to protect the citizenry from an over reaching and tyrannical government, the main stream media treats this like an extremist belief, as if our forefathers vision of a government built on the foundation of individual rights was also the act of extremists. But somewhere in the sole of every American is the belief in freedom and Liberty; one of the most common replies by Americans is, "Hey, its a free country".

I heard a British journalists that is a member  of the US media, refer to the Constitution as a book; and said during a debate that he debated the second amendment many times and he knows what is says. The reason that this journalist is so ignorant is because, while he may had read the Constitution he has never lived it. He doesn't understand that while Britain has already given up it's individual freedoms and sovereignty, partly due to the Britain's lack of a Constitution with a guarantee of individual rights, however in America our Constitution is still alive and still guarantees that America is a free country. The reason we want our guns is not just for hunting; and not just for personal protection; and even not just to fight off a tyrannical government; it's because it's is our Constitutional right to own them. Something an non-American will never understand.So thank you VP Biden, for as long the citizenry believed guns were available, gun ownership really wasn't an issue. But now your just not hip (or a true patriot) unless you are armed. VP Biden says part of his gun control program is to confiscate all unregistered firearms. How's that working out for you Joe? Found any unregistered firearms yet?

The Ground Zero Mosque and Civics 101

Recently I had an ongoing conversation on a forum for the Santa Cruz Sentinel about the ground zero mosque. I have decided to repeat some of it because it has become obvious the much of the American citizenry don't understand their Constitution and Bill of Rights. The first blog demonstrated the most common mistake, once you get past that the issue is not whether the builders have the right to build the mosque, this lack of understanding takes front stage.

"Like most emotional subjects, mosque controversy is producing more heat than light. When the anger and fear are stripped away, this is a simple question: Do the owners of this property have the right to build a community center that will contain a Muslim mosque? The answer clearly is yes. The arguments raised by the opponents are irrational and fear-based. Our Constitution specifically protects this freedom and prohibits its infringement. I am saddened by the entire controversy. It is not a proud day for our country."
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"You can't say you believe in the 1st Amendment, then turn around and say, "But they should build somewhere else."

The red herring being thrown out by the progressive left about the ground zero mosque is this is all about the First Amendment and religious freedom; this could not be further from the truth. The reason is the Bill of Rights protects the citizenry from government, but does not restrain the citizenry. If we all agree that government has no say so about building the mosque, then whatever the citizens say or demonstrate about has no attachment to the Constitution's protection against government intrusion. The citizenry is therefore protected by the First Amendment to protest the mosque; you can't claim one right to the exclusion of another. The fact that citizens want to uphold the mosque's Constitutional right to be built and can still say the disagree where it is being built should be applauded as it demonstrates the Constitutions protection of free speech. Thomas Jefferson said, as long as you don't pick my pocket or kick me in the leg, I don't care what else you do.

The Constitution also protects the minority from being trampled over by the majority. You aren't allowed to lynch Muslims simply because some sick majority has gotten their fever up and thinks they have a right ... simply because they are the majority. And I use the term "majority" lightly. Just because a group makes the most noise, it doesn't mean they are the majority.

Your are right as far as you go. The Constitution does protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority, but only if the trampling (or tyranny) is done through or by GOVERNMENT. If a majority of the citizenry attempts tyranny over a minority or individual (which does not rise to the level of criminal action), then the minority's redress is in Civil Court, where there are civil penalties, not criminal penalties. Lynching is primarily a violation of the criminal codes of kidnapping and murder, not a federal constitutional violation. There have been exceptions, but mostly when the federal governments believes the state GOVERNMENT violated the victim's rights. There are also are also so called “hate crimes” which are generally described as a person violating the “civil (or Constitutional rights) of another. However, these civil rights violations are actually enhancements to state statute law violation and not federal Constitutional rights, and do not come into play unless a criminal violation has first occurred. Further, most hate crimes enhancements are a violation state constitutional rights, not federal constitutional rights. In the mind of many, it is the State overreaching, wanting a perpetrator to be punished not just for his crime, not for his intentions, but the thought process behind his intentions; in essence it' s a thought crime. It's a shame that our citizenry is not taught basic civics in school. The only penalty a citizen can pay for tyranny (short of a criminal violation) is that which can be calculated monetarily. That's why there are so many damn lawyers..