The unspoken issue just beneath the surface...

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Fletchette

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From Rush Limbaugh's site:

I watched Dianne Feinstein this morning outside her palatial mansion in Pacific Heights in San Francisco, and she was being asked about Harriet Miers, and she said, "Well, I don't really know much about Harriet Miers." So she started a recitation of what's wrong with the court. She said her big concern, other than Roe vs. Wade, which is her #1 concern, her big concern is the commerce clause. She says, "The Supreme Court is telling us where we can and can't legislate," and then she brought up the commerce clause. She said, "This court told us that Congress cannot rule that you can't have a gun a thousand feet or a thousand yards, whatever it is, from a school. Well, she said most Americans look at that and that's silly. Do we want guns within a thousand feet of schools?"
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Isn't it amazing that the issue of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is lurking just beneath the surface of so many issues? It is the litmus test of so much in politics. While the press talks about the current Supreme Court pick, or Katrina, or National ID or (fill in the blank), "guns" are the unspoken political issue.
 
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I was listening to that this morning and thought it was a good segment. I still don't see how Feinstein thinks possessing a gun near by a school has anything to do with interstate commerce.
 
I still don't see how Feinstein thinks possessing a gun near by a school has anything to do with interstate commerce.
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Nor the war on drugs or about 90% of the federal gov's influence over the states
 
Bingo!

Fletchette, you are dead-on correct.

The Second Amendment/gun rights isssue is the best political/cultural litmus test going. In my looooong experience, it's about a 90% infallible predictor of where any person/pol/candidate stands on nearly all other issues.

Why? Not sure, but I suspect it's tied up in personal liberties vs. naive idealism and gov't control.

Anyway, why IS Senator Feinstein bleating about Gun Control anymore? Didn't party boss Dr. Howard Dean recently tell everyone that Gun Control was no longer a major national issue for the Dem-donkeys?

Right.
 
I agree. I have noticed that a politicians position on the RKBA is the best indicator of their political bent. And yes it is just right below the MSM radar and has been for a long time. Just think about it. The NRA and Second Amendment Foundation went to court and the court ordered the government to stop confiscating firearms and to immediately return them. Not one peep on the MSM not one. Oh the NYT did have an article about the confiscation but I don't remember seeing a editiorial or opinion pieced decrying the overstepping of the government on citizens civil rights. Plus I don'r remember them even writng a news article about the lawsuit and what happened. Wonder Why??????????? :neener: Now if it had been a Court overlturing lets say a Partial Birth Abortion Ban well I bet it would be page one. Plus CNN, FOX, MSNBC and lets throw in FSTV would have it on the news. Maybe I bet C-span would discuss it in their dial a grip show.
 
Maybe Feinswine ought to read the Constitution some time and realize that she, in fact, does not have the power to legislate anything and everything down to the local government level. Damn politicians! They never get it, no wonder this country is going down the toilet.
 
The Commerce Clause is the big hammer of socialism, the authority by which Congress legislates every aspect of our lives, including your toilet (no, I'm not kidding).

The Supreme Court in the '30s (immediately reverseing themselves when they struck down the NRA as unconstitutional) used the commerce clause to rewrite the Constitution into a charter of unlimited government and thus created the Anti-Constitution that the Left must defend as it is their path to socialism. The path to socialism is lit by the judiciary that they control.
 
I joined the Second Amendment Wars because I realize that it was in those wars that the statists developed tactics and strategies used in other theaters of combat. I wanted recon don't for the future and the future was best described by watching what happened to the second amendment. :scrutiny:
 
Let's aks Miers if she thinks the AWB, supported by Bush and Gonzales, was or would be constitutional. After all, Bush would sign it if he got to him.

Or is all we care about gays and abortion?
 
Thats her mantra. She can't open her mouth without something about "evil citizens having evil guns" coming out. Ignore her.
 
The real issue

Is indeed the second ammendment. When you boil it down, that's the right that lets us protect our other rights. The founders thought so and demanded a right to bear arms in the Constitution. Why do our enemies fight us in the marketplace rather than the battlefield? We're a free folk and have a desire to defend that freedom. Why has it taken sixty years for socialism to advance as far as it has when other countries have fallen to it in far less time? We are free and have the means to defend that freedom. Everyone realizes this, some conciously and others subconciously, that's the reason everyone we know falls into two major camps. Those who want a free ride and government solutions to all life's problems and are willing to trade freedom for that, then there are those who realize that life isn't fair, never has been fair and never will be. Leave us alone to take the best shot at it we can and don't deny us the right to defend what we as individuals and a society have achieved.

As far as interstate commerce, that's the nail in the coffin of free enterprise and is being driven deeper as we speak. We all remember utility regulation. Deregulation has brought higher prices due to corporate greed, but the cost of lower prices may be government intervention in the form of stricter regulation. At what point do we stop calling it "regulation" and admit to "socialization"?
 
I wholeheartedly agree that if you are wanting to be a 1-issue voter, 2A issues are a fantastic barometer to use.


Deregulation has brought higher prices due to corporate greed, but the cost of lower prices may be government intervention in the form of stricter regulation.
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When monopoly utilities aren't protected anymore, then you might call "deregulation" real. The fact is, what we have is "managed capitalism" or some other oxymoron at work, not real "deregulation."
 
I agree - RKBA is THE touchstone issue. We are in deep trouble!

The frightening thing is that History does repeat itself and we do not have to look very far back to see a parallel situation to the one we current find ourselves within. From a course at the University of Houston titled "The Interwar Period" demostrating that Europe was dealing with the same issues we are:

  • Nitche-esk love of death, dying, and human suffering ("Right to Die", "Abortion", everyone wanting to be or have been victimized, etc.)
  • Rise of socialist POV over individual rights POV (ex. individual rights must be limited or sacrificed for the good of all... warrentless searches, eminent domain, gun control/prohibition.)
  • Isolation of majority groups in preference for PC or Public Safety reasons.
  • Consolidation of government / police powers.
  • Disenfranchisement of targeted groups... which eventually led to blanket disenfranchisement.
  • Militarization of police forces (a part of consolidation of police powers.)
There are more of course. Suffice to say the above is a brief part of a thumbnail sketch of the fall of a civiliation into a sort of death cult.

Everything that we are fighting against were elements of the rise of Socialist-Fascism in Europe during the Interwar period. I don't know about everyone else, but I find this VERY disturbing. Without the means to physically fight and the ability to freely pass martial skills and attitude to the next generation, we are finished. Political struggle now CAN help avoid or minimize the spilling of blood latter on if / when the bullets fly.

Oh yes... almost forgot... this is all tied very closely with the impingment of abuses via the Commerce Clause on individual property rights.
 
When did the voters put in gun control?

I find the hand wringing by the left and our elected 'representatives' pathetic at best. Every gun control measure on the books has been enacted by the federal, state and local governments. Not once has a major gun control law be voted on by the people. Yet here we are.

I did notice one bright point this morning in the President press conference. He made reference to the fact that he did not think Miers would be a justice who would legislate from the bench.
 
Not once has a major gun control law be voted on by the people.
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Nor should we be. We are a democratic republic, not a democracy. The US lives by a rule of law, not by a rule of men. The voters should be voting for representitives, not on laws.

Be prepared, there is a first for everything . . . San Francisco is going to let its population vote on a hand gun ban. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is the same district that elects Feinstein, so don't be shocked it is passed by the "people".

Democracies are inherently evil. Just because the majority wants something doesn't make it right or just.
 
I saw the clip of her speech. She followed the above segment with "Do we want guns within a thousand feet of schools? I mean, no one wants another Columbine."

Sure thing lady. A "no guns" rule would have prevented columbine.
 
Leftist Tunnel Vision

The "liberals" seem to have serious trouble understanding that criminals don't obey laws, but break them. Their desire for total government control of every aspect of their (and everyone else's) life is such that they have a hard time imagining that someone might choose not to abide by the law. "If we want to keep criminals from committing a certain crime, we just make it a crime to commit that crime!" Doesn't make sense? It does to them!

"If guns had not been allowed in Columbine High, none of this would have happened." Yeah, right. But to leftists, this actually seems to make some kind of twisted sense.

"If murdering people had not been allowed in the U.S., none of this would have happened." Wait... that wasn't permitted, either... but somehow, this kind of logic seems flawed even to "liberals".

My guess is, that's because you can hardly outlaw murder any more than it is right now. But gun rights... plenty of liberty left to take away. It's really true: Gun control ist not about guns (or protection of citizens), it's all about control.
 
Not sure..

why we care about how far away guns need to be from schools:
She said, "This court told us that Congress cannot rule that you can't have a gun a thousand feet or a thousand yards, whatever it is, from a school. Well, she said most Americans look at that and that's silly. Do we want guns within a thousand feet of schools?"
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For 35 years my father lived the width of a narrow street from the high school. His house had quite a few guns and NONE of them ever caused any mayhem or havoc on the campus or to the students. This is not to say that the dingdongs attending football games didn't richly deserve being havoced or mayhemmed with their parking on our lawn and blocking in our vehicles...but it didn't ever happen. He did however watch with much satisfaction many cars being towed away.

Big suprise...firearms owners don't see use of said firearms as the solution to every problem.

migoi
 
Everything that we are fighting against were elements of the rise of Socialist-Fascism in Europe during the Interwar period. I don't know about everyone else, but I find this VERY disturbing.
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We didn't learn the obvious lessons of history, so we're repeating them. This time, we're going to have to learn them in our own country instead of at an ocean's remove.

Maybe the lessons will sink in this time.
 
Now, Duuuhbya is wanting partial repeal of the Posse Comitatus to use Federal Troops to enforce 'quarantines' in the event of a flu pandemic. This regime is the last group I would give that power to.
 
The Second Amendment/gun rights isssue is the best political/cultural litmus test going. In my looooong experience, it's about a 90% infallible predictor of where any person/pol/candidate stands on nearly all other issues.
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I think treatment of the 14th Amendment has more meaning since the incorporation doctrine and ducking relevant cases stands in the way of the 2A really meaning anything. So far, the 2A only inhibits the federal government and not to the extent that many believe it should. Your RKBA depends upon in which State you live or whether you live in one of the mega-large cities that may take exception to State law and its own Constitution.
 
You know, I find it sadly amusing that a Senator is willing to stand before the press and bemon the fact that the Supreme Court acted in a way that the Constitution intended. The stated purpose of the Supreme Court was to interpret the laws of the land, and to act as a check against the legislative and executive branches. In the case of "guns in a school zone" the Supreme Court looked at the law and saw that there was no arguable connection to the federal authority to pass laws. Seems obvious to me.

Yet, here we have the Senator complaining that the Supreme Court is restricting the power of Congress to legislate. Perhaps Ms. Feinstein should go back to school for a refresher course on the "checks and balances" which make the COnstitution and our government (as intended) to be the model for the free world to aspire.
 
Perhaps Ms. Feinstein should go back to school for a refresher course on the "checks and balances" which make the COnstitution and our government (as intended) to be the model for the free world to aspire.
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I recall her commenting that she was not a lawyer. It's about her feelings.
 
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