As I watched the recent vice presidential debate, I couldn't help but cringe every time I heard Gov. Sarah Palin describe herself and running mate John McCain as a "couple of mavericks." Political views aside, it just didn't make much sense to me that you get to be a maverick simply by declaring yourself as one. It reminded me a bit too much of a friend who tried to give himself a nickname to appear popular. A label like that loses some of its luster if you assign it to yourself.

I got to wondering: What exactly are the qualifications to be a political maverick? Some quick research taught me that the term comes from Samuel Maverick, a Texas lawyer who refused to brand his cattle nearly 200 years ago. The more common definition is "a person who thinks independently; a lone dissenter; a non-conformist or rebel."

So have I ever been a maverick? After some personal reflection, I can come up with three possible high-profile situations from my political career.

First, I stood up to Gov. Rendell and members of my own party (mainly from Philadelphia) on the issue of protecting our Second Amendment rights. The governor sat in our House Judiciary Committee meeting and gave a passionate speech about the need for greater gun control laws in Pennsylvania following a series of shootings in Philadelphia. He pleaded with the committee to vote for a package of bills that he firmly believed would solve the gun violence problem in that city.

As a staunch believer in our right to keep and own firearms, I joined with four other Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and voted against the bills, which then died in the committee.

Next, I called on fellow Democrat Bill DeWeese to step down from his role as the majority leader of the House of Representatives in light of the ongoing "Bonusgate" investigation, which dealt with alleged criminal activities by some legislators and staffers before I was elected in 2006. Despite the fact that he has not been charged with any criminal charges, Bill had always claimed that if he ever became a distraction, he would step down, and, unfortunately, I felt that the moment had arrived.

Finally, I recently spoke out against the plan released by the Washington County Commissioners for distributing the local share slots money from the Meadows Casino. I had proposed a plan that would have made sure that we kept our property tax relief, but also had money to help pay for water and sewage projects in the area, as well as make sure that each of our small towns had the ability to get some of the money for projects every year to prevent any local tax increases.

So in my first term, I've stood up to the governor, the majority leader of the House of Representatives and the local county government, and never once did I consider myself a maverick for doing so. Each time I simply did what I thought was right for my constituents regardless of the political consequences; just a guy doing his job.

Does that make me a maverick? I guess that's for you to decide. Or maybe Sarah Palin will read this and decide for me.

The city of New Orleans agreed to return hundreds of guns to their owners following the settelement of a law suit brought forth by the National Rifle Association according to the Times-Picayune.

Gunowners had their firearms confiscated by police and National Guard soldiers following Hurricane Katrina without a warrant or probable cause, the paper reported.

The NRA and the Second Amendment Foundation filed the lawsuit Sept. 22, 2005 after citizens believed their rights had been violated. The advocacy groups argued that the law-abiding cititzens were "left to fend for themselves after Katrina 'at the mercy of roving gangs, home invaders, and other criminals.'" They also contended that even a disaster "doesn't allow police to seize leagally-owned firearms."
(They could have also argued Fourth Amendment violations.)

Here comes the funny part: City attorneys countered the claims saying that federal law doesn't apply "because the right to keep and bear arms has never been recognized as an individual right."

Excuse me? What country are these attorneys in?

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled in District of Columbia v. Heller:

"The Second Amendment guarantees an individual's right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home."

Most anti-gun lobbyists, when faced with the Second Amendment, will almost always bring up the first part claiming the right is only for a "well-regulated militia."

But the second half states:

"...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

A common interpretation by pro-gunners, like myself and the entire family, is that the amendment was set in place for protection against the Army should the government become too powerful or should the army stage a military coup.
(Funny...those who feel that way now are labled as kooks and domestic terrorists.)

Just read what one of the founding fathers had to say about the right of the People to bear arms:

"But when once a standing army is established in any country, the people lose their liberty. When, against a regular and disciplined army, yeomanry are the only defence,—yeomanry, unskilful and unarmed,—what chance is there for preserving freedom?"
George Mason

Of course, that's also when the playing field was evened out. To paraphrase southern comedian, and self-descibed Libertarian, Tim Wilson from his 2001 album "I Should Have Married My Father-in-Law":

That's back when we had muskets and cannons and they had muskets and cannons. Now they have Apache helicopters and nuclear weapons...and we have muskets and cannons.

However,in the majority opinion in D.C. v. Heller,  Justice Antonin Scalia added a restrictive "but":

"It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose."

This is apparent through the numerous bans on certain firearms, licensure and registration and permits...a restrictive policy known as "gun control." The keyword being "control."

There are many of us gun-totin' Americans across this great land who fear the fate of the Second Amendment, as well as the rest of the Constitution. I stand firm by my God-given right and subscribe to the pro-gun mantra "When guns are outlawed, Only outlaws will have guns." If we reach that point, just call me Billy, the Kid.

I think I'll leave it there. Discuss amongst yourselves.

Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say, that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections and confidence.

-From Number 46, James Madison

If you do the math, it becomes clear that Madison was assuming that the militia included all of the people who were able to bear arms.  So the militia referred to in the Second Amendment:

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.

was all of us.

So here's how I read it:  Because a well regulated militia (the entire body of people able to bear arms) is necessary to the security of the free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.  In other words, the people need to be armed, so that they can form a militia if necessary.  But necessary for what?  Mr. Madison continues:

It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops. Those who are best acquainted with the last successful resistance of this country against the British arms, will be most inclined to deny the possibility of it. Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

The purpose is clearly to protect themselves and their liberty from a tyrannical government.  It often seems that politicians think the purpose of the second amendment is so that people can hunt, or perhaps defend themselves from robbers, but that does not seem to have been the focus. In fact, the right to basic self-defense is so fundamental that it is likely the writers assumed it.

The focus is on defense against the federal government, should it turn to tyranny!

What are the implications of this?  First of all, if we are to have the right to defend ourselves against the federal army, we must have the right to bear more than single shot rifles and shotguns.  There can be no justification for prohibiting the possession of automatic weapons and even explosive devices.

The only reason that the government would prohibit such things is that, in the words of Madison:

...the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

Is there any other way to interpret Madison on this? 

Keep in mind that Madison was no anarchist, but advocating a strong federal government.

And yet Barack Obama wants to further restrict our freedom in this regard.

The NRA's Political Victory Fund planned a national newspaper ad Thursday reviving a Clinton mailing that accused Obama of waffling on gun issues. Clinton's campaign sent the mailing when the New York senator was challenging Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination. It accuses Obama of changing his statements on gun issues to try to fit the audience he was addressing.

"Hillary was right: You can't trust Obama with your guns," says the NRA political action committee's ad, scheduled to run in USA Today. The PAC has spent at least $2.3 million on anti-Obama efforts, including more than $100,000 on the new USA Today ad.

The NRA ad includes a reproduction of Clinton's mailing, which mentioned Obama's comment at an April fundraiser in San Francisco that some small-town voters bitter about lost jobs "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

"We believe that he's trying to fog the issue and confuse the voter, and he says he's for the Second Amendment while he votes to run the firearms industry and the Second Amendment out of business," Wayne LaPierre, the NRA's executive vice president, said in an interview Wednesday with The Associated Press.

Clinton spokeswoman Kathleen Strand said the senator did not approve the NRA's use of her campaign mailing.

Obama has said people have the right to lawfully bear arms and "there's nothing inconsistent with also saying we can institute some commonsense gun laws so that we don't have kids being shot on the streets of cities like Chicago."

"Senator Obama firmly believes that the Second amendment protects the individual right to bear arms and that he will respect the tradition of gun ownership in this country, which is why he received the endorsement of the American Hunters and Shooters Association," Obama campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor said. The association calls itself a "mainstream group of hunters" and says it supports safe and responsible gun ownership.

On Thursday, the NRA said it is endorsing John McCain despite differences on some issues. LaPierre said Wednesday that the NRA  would "be foolish to overlook the vast areas of agreement" it has with John McCain.

Obama has never said anything of the sort, in fact he has said things that seem to make sense.  Namely, he wants cities to be able to curb the over-proliferation of cheap handguns into high crime areas, while protecting the second amendment- especially for hunters.

The problem with my fellow gun owners is many of them have never lived in a city.  They have no idea what it is like to go to sleep to the sounds of gun shots.  I've done it.  My son has done it.  It's not a great thing to have to go through.

I'm going to speak to the elephant standing in the room.  I am white.  And yes, I have lived in areas of Columbus, Ohio, that were unsavory.  Of course I had my gun for protection (and still do).  The area I lived in was mix of poor whites and blacks with a smattering of Ohio State students.  I saw people slinging drugs on the corner, prostitutes and all manner of night life.  It's kinda sad that I feel compelled be this black and white about the issue, but I've met some people that grew up in more rural areas that seem to really believe that only black people or Latinos live in high crime and/or gang areas.  But as the bible says, "rain falls on the just and unjust".  People of all color live in terrible areas that are made worse by an over-proliferation of $125 9mm pistols- like Hi-Point.  No, I wouldn't buy that piece of shit gun, not because I don't like cheap things, but because I like things that are built well.  Not so for junkies looking for a score.  Or rapists looking for a victim.  If the shortest route between them and their, uh.... prize (?) is laying down $125 then that's what they'll do.  I grew up in Delmar, Maryland, and the folks that live in my town and other small towns across America need to understand this.

There is a cultural difference in how guns are handled in a high crime area versus an area where the major use for firearms is target shooting and hunting.  Tell me, where is a poor person in the inner city going to target shoot?  Most public shooting ranges are located in the suburbs or the countryside.  In the city people in law enforcement need tools to deal with assholes with guns.  However, the legislators need to craft law that does not violate anyone's second amendment rights.  That is a tall order, but it needs to be done.  On the one hand you have John McCain who has no insight into how to craft such a bill and on the other you have Barack Obama who is the rare liberal that wants to try to sign such a law.  Remember, Obama is a legal wizard.  If anyone is able to do such a thing that could pass the test of a Supreme Court that features 7 (of 9) justices appointed by Republicans, then it is him.

But if you got nothing out of that, know this: Barack Obama is not trying to take our guns- and even if he did the Supreme Court of the United States is so conservative now that he would be humiliated when his law would be utterly rebuked.

Cheers,

Tom

John McCain opposes backdoor attempts to restrict Second Amendment rights by holding gun manufacturers liable for crimes committed by third parties using a firearm, and has voted to protect gun manufacturers from such inappropriate liability aimed at bankrupting the entire gun industry.

Source: Click for source

Hunters and sportsmen alike need to think long and hard about Obama trying to put more controls on manufacturers and also more controls on you the hunter!  We know that John McCain and Sarah Palin is for protecting the Second Amendment rights! 

Bob Barr has an “A+” lifetime rating from the NRA. Bob serves on the board of the NRA. His record on the Second Amendment is without question.

What is John McCain's rating?

In 2004, the NRA issued lifetime rankings of all members of Congress. Sen. McCain received a “C+”, indicating a mixed record on the Second Amendment.

In 2001, NRA President Wayne LaPierre said, “Is it possible that John McCain thinks you have too much freedom?” According to NewsMax, LaPierre was angry over advertisements McCain appeared in for Americans for Gun Safety, an anti-Second Amendment group who’s website now points to the Brady campaign, and McCain-Lieberman, a bill designed to close the so-called “gun show loophole.”

After appearing in the ads, the NRA called McCain, “one of the premier flag carriers for the enemies of the Second Amendment” and “the poster boy for Americans For Gun Safety.” Strong words.

Read the full post here.  Also in the post is this paragraph from Mobile News Network;

The NRA has not yet endorsed a presidential candidate. LaPierre planned news conferences Thursday in Pennsylvania, Missouri, Colorado and Nevada to make an announcement on the presidential election. He declined Wednesday to reveal which candidate the NRA would endorse but added that the group would "be foolish to overlook the vast areas of agreement" it has with John McCain.

Now, I am a realist.  A hopeful realist, but a realist nonetheless.  So, I am not holding my breath.  The NRA walks hand in hand with the Republican Party, even off a cliff if it has to.  But if they can put party affiliation aside, stand up for what they say they believe and endorse a candidate who is truly for the Second Amendment an endorsement for Bob Barr would be a great October Surprise and would also give Barr the credibility he deserves.

Web Archives Confirm Barack Obama Was Member Of Socialist 'New Party' In 1996

Obama's ties to the DSA's New Party is beyond just an association it is outright membership, as clearly defined by the parties August 1996 newsletter, in an outright Socialist organization.

Obama is Hiding a Radical Past!

Barack Obama was an active participant in the 1990s, and a direct political beneficiary, of the Chicago New Party and, importantly, the Chicago DSA, a group of socialists affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America.

Obama the Facilitator

Candidate Barack Obama is not an executive, by profession, but a facilitator. And therefore, he is not fit to be Commander-in-Chief.

What If Obama Doesn't Have America's Best Interests at Heart?

For people like this, Barack Obama's economic message, that he will focus on "fairness" and the middle class above all else, is every bit as effective as the Marxist rhetoric used to win over half of Europe in the last century. To any struggling, unmindful person who just wants to protect his mousy family from all the fat cats living at his expense, the party that asks, "Why him? Why not you?" sounds very vote-worthy.

Obama's Constitutional Subversion

Barack Obama's willingness to scheme in an attempt to corrupt scholarship and deceive the Supreme Court, his role in laundering money to aging terrorists (while stealing the education promised to a generation of schoolchildren), and current bid impose totalitarian free speech restrictions (more here) indicates that Barack Obama is precisely the kind of deceptive authoritarian thug liberals claim to see and hate in President George W. Bush.

RBO News & Views — All in the Alinsky Family Edition

Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City is the title of chapter 4, written by Barack Obama in 1990, for After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois. Five years after joining Rev. Jeremiah “God-Damn- Ameri-K-K-K-a” Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama wrote:

Nowhere is the promise of organizing more apparent than in the traditional black churches.

For the poll followers:

McCain vs. Obama In the Polls: What’s Going ON?

Zogby has a 2.4 point race within the margin of error.

Zogby toots its own horn, but states a fact:

Zogby International was the most accurate pollster in every one of the last three presidential election cycles…

And the two best headlines I've seen today: one Obama related, the other not:

First Nipplegate, Now Fleeting Penis

CBS claims the penis was fleeting and virtually undetectable when viewed in real time. Marcus Lehman has not commented on the assertion that his penis is virtually undetectable when viewed in real time.

Wednesday: His penis didn’t drop off

“Obama still has the main characteristics that led me to support him. He didn’t drop dead during the debate, which means he still has a pulse. His penis didn’t drop off during the debate,which means it’s still attached. I don’t have any other real requirements, he can eat puppies onstage for all I care.”–the punditry

Now when others wanted to speak out against out against this "Joyce’s staffers “objected strenuously” to their being allowed to speak". So both  the First and Second Amendment mean nothing to Obama. Remember this is the guy who has a degree in and has taught Constitutional Law. Whose Constitution I am not sure of, but it must not be ours.

The implications of Barack being president are staggering especially if there is a Democratic Congress and if he gets the oppotunity to nominate a single Liberal Supreme Court Justice. All three eggs will be liberal and the outcome could be catastrophic for the citizens of the US. With no check and balance in all three branches of the federal goverment, Barack can push through whatever agenda he chooses.

More Change You Can Believe In.

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama must demonstrate executive experience, but he remains strangely silent about his eight years (1994-2002) as a director of the Joyce Foundation, a billion dollar tax-exempt organization. He has one obvious reason: during his time as director,Joyce Foundation spent millions creating and supporting anti-gun organizations.

There is another, less known, reason.

During Obama’s tenure, the Joyce Foundation board planned and implemented a program targeting the Supreme Court. The work began five years into Obama’s directorship, when the Foundation had experience in turning its millions into anti-gun “grassroots” organizations, but none at converting cash into legal scholarship.

The plan’s objective was bold: the judicial obliteration of the Second Amendment.

Joyce’s directors found a vulnerable point. When judges cannot rely upon past decisions, they sometimes turn to law review articles. Law reviews are impartial, and famed for meticulous cite-checking. They are also produced on a shoestring. Authors of articles receive no compensation; editors are law students who work for a tiny stipend.

In 1999, midway through Obama’s tenure, the Joyce board voted to grant the Chicago-Kent Law Review $84,000, a staggering sum by law review standards. The Review promptly published an issue in which all articles attacked the individual right view of the Second Amendment.

In a breach of law review custom, Chicago-Kent let an “outsider” serve as editor; he was Carl Bogus, a faculty member of a different law school. Bogus had a unique distinction: he had been a director of Handgun Control Inc. (today’s Brady Campaign), and was on the advisory board of the Joyce-funded Violence Policy Center.

Bogus solicited only articles hostile to the individual right view of the Second Amendment, offering authors $5,000 each. But word leaked out, and Prof. Randy Barnett of Boston University volunteered to write in defense of the individual right to arms. Bogus refused to allow him to write for the review, later explaining that “sometimes a more balanced debate is best served by an unbalanced symposium.” Prof. James Lindgren, a former Chicago-Kent faculty member, remembers that when Barnett sought an explanation he “was given conflicting reasons, but the opposition of the Joyce Foundation was one that surfaced at some time.” Joyce had bought a veto power over the review’s content.

Joyce Foundation apparently believed it held this power over the entire university. Glenn Reynolds later recalled that when he and two other professors were scheduled to discuss the Second Amendment on campus, Joyce’s staffers “objected strenuously” to their being allowed to speak, protesting that Joyce Foundation was being cheated by an “‘agenda of balance’ that was inconsistent with the Symposium’s purpose.” Joyce nextbought up an issue of Fordham Law Review.

The plan worked smoothly. One court, in the course of ruling that there was no individual right to arms, cited the Chicago-Kent articles eight times. Then, in 2001, a federal Court of Appeals in Texasdetermined that the Second Amendment was an individual right.

The Joyce Foundation board (which still included Obama) responded by expanding its attack on the Second Amendment. Its next move came when Ohio State University announced it was establishing the “Second Amendment Research Center” as a thinktank headed by anti-individual-right historian Saul Cornell. Joyce put up no less than $400,000 to bankroll its creation. The grant was awarded at the board’s December 2002 meeting, Obama’s last function as a Joyce director. In reporting the grant, the OSU magazine Making History made clear that the purpose was to influence a future Supreme Court case:

“The effort is timely: a series of test cases - based on a new wave of scholarship, a recent decision by a federal Court of Appeals in Texas, and a revised Justice Department policy-are working their way through the courts. The litigants challenge the courts’ traditional reading of the Second Amendment as a protection of the states’ right to organize militia, asserting that the Amendment confers a much broader right for individuals to own guns. The United States Supreme Court is likely to resolve the debate within the next three to five years.”

(45:17-18; online link; slow).

The Center proceeded to generate articles denying the individual right to arms. The OSU connection also gave Joyce an academic money laundry. When it decided to buy an issue of the Stanford Law and Policy Review, it had a cover. Joyce handed OSU$125,000 for that purpose; all the law review editors knew was that OSU’s Foundation granted them that breathtaking sum, and a helpful Prof. Cornell volunteered to organize the issue. (The review was later sufficiently embarassed to publish an open letter on the affair).

The Joyce directorate’s plan almost succeeded. The individual rights view won out in the Heller Supreme Court appeal, but only by 5-4. The four dissenters were persuaded in part by Joyce-funded writings, down to relying on an article which misled them on critical historical documents.

Having lost that fight, Obama now claims he always held the individual rights view of the Second Amendment, and that he “respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms.” But as a Joyce director, Obama was involved in a wealthy foundation’s attempt to manipulate the Supreme Court, buy legal scholarship, and obliterate the individual right to arms.

Voters who value the Constitution should ask whether someone who was party to that plan should be nominating future Supreme Court justices.

And Mark Warner has the unmitigated gall to call me a "threat to America?"

Does he not see his own presidential candidate, the one he has pictures of in his own ads, palling around with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers and not see that as a threat? Does he not see Obama's thugs trying to silence criticism through the use prosecutors and law-enforcement officials and not see that as a threat?

No, he sees people like me, people who believe in the rights guaranteed under the first ten amendments, as a threat to America.

He might as well have just called me and millions like me a "macaca."

You can access the audio of him saying these things here:

You Tube Video

Or you can access it on-line here:

Warner Attacks The NRA And Other Groups
YouTube.com
July 22, 2008

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama must demonstrate executive experience, but he remains strangely silent about his eight years (1994-2002) as a director of the Joyce Foundation, a billion dollar tax-exempt organization. He has one obvious reason: during his time as director, Joyce Foundation spent millions creating and supporting anti-gun organizations.

There is another, less known, reason.

During Obama’s tenure, the Joyce Foundation board planned and implemented a program targeting the Supreme Court. The work began five years into Obama’s directorship, when the Foundation had experience in turning its millions into anti-gun “grassroots” organizations, but none at converting cash into legal scholarship.

The plan’s objective was bold: the judicial obliteration of the Second Amendment.

Those who are interested should read today's article by David T. Hardy at Pajamas Media -- Obama and the Attempt to Destroy the Second Amendment. Talk about a smoking gun....

The Joyce Foundation's Annual Reports list Barack Obama as one of the 12 members of the Board of Directors from 1998 until 2001 .

Here's The Joyce Foundation's page on gun violence.

And here are a few links:

• Profile: The Joyce Foundation, Discover the Networks.
• The Joyce Foundation, GuideStar grant information.
• David Hardy, Joyce Foundation, Of Arms and the Law, April 3, 2005.
• Obama Linked to Gun Control Efforts, Patterico's Pontifications, April 20, 2008.
• David Hardy, Joyce Foundation, Heller case, and Obama, Of Arms and the Law, April 21, 2008.
• John Lott, Obama Former Board Member of the Joyce Foundation, John Lott's Website, February 28, 2008.
• Kenneth P. Vogel, Obama linked to gun control efforts, The Politico, April 19, 2008.
• Jim Geraghty, DC Gun Ban Decision Likely Tomorrow; How Will Candidates Respond?, NRO's The Campaign Spot, June 25, 2008.
• Jim Geraghty, Obama’s Efforts to Fund the Self-Described ‘Most Aggressive Group in the Gun Control Movement’, NRO's The Campaign Spot, June 26, 2008.

1.) The Right to Bear Arms

2.) Freedom of Speech and the Press

Regarding speech and the press, I believe that whoever controls the media ultimately controls a society. I believe if a society controls media so that it functions to inform the people and act as a "watchdog" on government, which is also supposed to serve the people, then that media serves an honest and just cause. If individuals or individual organizations (I.E. News Corp., Disney, General Electric, etc.) control the media and influence its procedures for "creating" and delivering the "news," then we're in trouble.

If a government official or a single party control the media, or even a small fraction of it, and are the sole operators, using their control to achieve personal interests, then we're really screwed.

Regarding Obama and the Second Amendment, I went to FactCheck.org and found this:

Obama (June 26): I have always believed that the Second Amendment protects the right of individuals to bear arms, but I also identify with the need for crime-ravaged communities to save their children from the violence that plagues our streets through common-sense, effective safety measures. The Supreme Court has now endorsed that view, and while it ruled that the D.C. gun ban went too far, Justice Scalia himself acknowledged that this right is not absolute and subject to reasonable regulations enacted by local communities to keep their streets safe. Today’s ruling, the first clear statement on this issue in 127 years, will provide much-needed guidance to local jurisdictions across the country.

As President, I will uphold the constitutional rights of law-abiding gun-owners, hunters, and sportsmen. I know that what works in Chicago may not work in Cheyenne. We can work together to enact common-sense laws, like closing the gun show loophole and improving our background check system, so that guns do not fall into the hands of terrorists or criminals. Today’s decision reinforces that if we act responsibly, we can both protect the constitutional right to bear arms and keep our communities and our children safe.

Will He or Won't He?

At a campaign stop in Duryea, Pa., in early September, Obama again attempted to reassure gun owners that he doesn't intend to take away their guns, and couldn't even if he wanted to:

Obama (Sept. 5): The bottom line is this. If you’ve got a rifle, you’ve got a shotgun, you’ve got a gun in your house, I’m not taking it away. Alright? So they can keep on talking about it but this is just not true. And by the way, here’s another thing you’ve got to understand. Even if I wanted to take it away, I couldn’t get it done. I don’t have the votes in Congress.

 

Go to FactCheck.org, read-up, and decide for yourself.

All I know is I don't trust any of these crazy politicians or their rich little owners hiding behind the curtains.

Obama and the Attempt to Destroy the Second Amendment

*snip*

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama must demonstrate executive experience, but he remains strangely silent about his eight years (1994-2002) as a director of the Joyce Foundation, a billion dollar tax-exempt organization. He has one obvious reason: during his time as director, Joyce Foundation spent millions creating and supporting anti-gun organizations.

There is another, less known, reason.

During Obama’s tenure, the Joyce Foundation board planned and implemented a program targeting the Supreme Court. The work began five years into Obama’s directorship, when the Foundation had experience in turning its millions into anti-gun “grassroots” organizations, but none at converting cash into legal scholarship.

The plan’s objective was bold: the judicial obliteration of the Second Amendment.

How real is the possibility that democratic governments that have honored free-speech traditions might employ similar techniques (similar to China and parts of Africa) when they determine to warrant such actions

The possibility of democratic governments imposing restrictions on the Internet regarding free speech is very real. The people have already lost the ability to revolt by way of losing the right to bear arms. Certain governments can legally keep themselves in power for as long as they want. In the name of protecting the people the government will take the right of free speech away. Democratic governments placing similar restrictions on the Internet such as the ones they have in China is an idea that is a true possibility.

Through strict weapons laws, the government has taken away the ability of the people to rebel against unfair or unjust laws such free speech restrictions. In the United States we have written in the Second Amendment to the Constitution, that the citizens have the right to bear and keep arms. The intention of this right is to protect the citizens from the presiding government.  If the government was to become corrupt or unjust, the people through weapons could start a revolution to stop them. Just like the American Revolution. This is no longer possible. The people have lost this right. The government has created laws which keep people from having the same types of weapons as the military does. This was not the case when the Constitution was written. People can have weapons, but they no longer can buy or keep the level of weaponry that the military has. You cannot have a Machine Gun in your house legally. In other democratic nations people do not have the right to bear arms at all. Therefore, if a group of people tried to revolt, they would be outmatched by the superior weapons arsenal of the Government. Any rebellion would be wiped out with ease. There would be nothing to stop the government from creating any law against free speech.

In the name of protecting the people the government will try to justify creating laws banning free speech of the press on the Internet. If a someone were to incite a riot using a website, citizens of a nation would want the government to protect them from a riot happening again. Then, congress (assuming this occurred in the U.S.) would create a law with penalties for inciting a riot via the Internet. In the fine print of the law they could say that all content released by the press or other entity must get approved by the National Internet Committee created by the law before it can be published on the Internet. No one would approve of a law like this. However, if you give the bill a nice sounding name such as “The Riot Protection Act” it would get passed immediately. No politician would want to be known for voting against a bill that protects against riots, so it would pass. This has already been done with the U.S.A. Patriot Act. The government could easily pass a law banning free speech by using the same excuse of protecting it’s citizens.

As shown the government could easily pass similar laws to China that would impose restrictions on the Internet against free speech. It could be done under the banner of protecting the people from themselves. No one would be able to rebel against this law, because the government has all the weapons that matter. In some cases all the weapons. They could maintain the status quo and suppress rebellion should such laws be met with opposition. The idea that democratic governments is not realistic should answer these arguments, should be far fetched in no one’s mind.

Peter writes weekly here on wordpress.com. To see his daily blog go to http://therealpetermidnight.com

First a primer on the Joyce Foundation and Obama's role:

The Joyce Foundation is a philanthropic organization with an agenda bent on radical environmentalism, “social justice,” prison reform, and increased funding for social services, particularly for minorities. Obama sat on the board from 1998 to 2000. During his time dozens of leftist organizations received funds from the Foundation. $84,000 was given to the Chicago-Kent College of Law for a symposium on the theory that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual’s right to bear arms, but rather only a state’s right to arm its militia. Purposefully no opposing views were considered. $2.5 million was given to the Violence Policy Center a group that wants Congress a national handgun ban. In 2000, Obama considered becoming president of the Joyce Foundation and leave elected office.

How did they go about attempting to obliterate the Second Amendment?  From PajamasMedia:

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama must demonstrate executive experience, but he remains strangely silent about his eight years (1994-2002) as a director of the Joyce Foundation, a billion dollar tax-exempt organization. He has one obvious reason: during his time as director, Joyce Foundation spent millions creating and supporting anti-gun organizations.

There is another, less known, reason.

During Obama’s tenure, the Joyce Foundation board planned and implemented a program targeting the Supreme Court. The work began five years into Obama’s directorship, when the Foundation had experience in turning its millions into anti-gun “grassroots” organizations, but none at converting cash into legal scholarship.

The plan’s objective was bold: the judicial obliteration of the Second Amendment.

Joyce’s directors found a vulnerable point. When judges cannot rely upon past decisions, they sometimes turn to law review articles. Law reviews are impartial, and famed for meticulous cite-checking. They are also produced on a shoestring. Authors of articles receive no compensation; editors are law students who work for a tiny stipend.

In 1999, midway through Obama’s tenure, the Joyce board voted to grant the Chicago-Kent Law Review $84,000, a staggering sum by law review standards. The Review promptly published an issue in which all articles attacked the individual right view of the Second Amendment.

In a breach of law review custom, Chicago-Kent let an “outsider” serve as editor; he was Carl Bogus, a faculty member of a different law school. Bogus had a unique distinction: he had been a director of Handgun Control Inc. (today’s Brady Campaign), and was on the advisory board of the Joyce-funded Violence Policy Center.

Bogus solicited only articles hostile to the individual right view of the Second Amendment, offering authors $5,000 each. But word leaked out, and Prof. Randy Barnett of Boston University volunteered to write in defense of the individual right to arms. Bogus refused to allow him to write for the review, later explainingthat “sometimes a more balanced debate is best served by an unbalanced symposium.” Prof. James Lindgren, a former Chicago-Kent faculty member, remembers that when Barnett sought an explanation he “was given conflicting reasons, but the opposition of the Joyce Foundation was one that surfaced at some time.” Joyce had bought a veto power over the review’s content.

Joyce Foundation apparently believed it held this power over the entire university. Glenn Reynolds later recalled that when he and two other professors were scheduled to discuss the Second Amendment on campus, Joyce’s staffers “objected strenuously” to their being allowed to speak, protesting that Joyce Foundation was being cheated by an “‘agenda of balance’ that was inconsistent with the Symposium’s purpose.” Joyce next bought up an issue of Fordham Law Review.

The plan worked smoothly. One court, in the course of ruling that there was no individual right to arms, cited the Chicago-Kent articles eight times. Then, in 2001, a federal Court of Appeals in Texas determined that the Second Amendment was an individual right.

The Joyce Foundation board (which still included Obama) responded by expanding its attack on the Second Amendment. Its next move came when Ohio State University announced it was establishing the “Second Amendment Research Center” as a thinktank headed by anti-individual-right historian Saul Cornell. Joyce put up no less than $400,000 to bankroll its creation. The grant was awarded at the board’s December 2002 meeting, Obama’s last function as a Joyce director. In reporting the grant, the OSU magazine Making History made clear that the purpose was to influence a future Supreme Court case:

“The effort is timely: a series of test cases - based on a new wave of scholarship, a recent decision by a federal Court of Appeals in Texas, and a revised Justice Department policy-are working their way through the courts. The litigants challenge the courts’ traditional reading of the Second Amendment as a protection of the states’ right to organize militia, asserting that the Amendment confers a much broader right for individuals to own guns. The United States Supreme Court is likely to resolve the debate within the next three to five years.”

(45:17-18; online link; slow).

The Center proceeded to generate articles denying the individual right to arms. The OSU connection also gave Joyce an academic money laundry. When it decided to buy an issue of the Stanford Law and Policy Review, it had a cover. Joyce handed OSU $125,000for that purpose; all the law review editors knew was that OSU’s Foundation granted them that breathtaking sum, and a helpful Prof. Cornell volunteered to organize the issue. (The review was later sufficiently embarassed to publish an open letter on the affair).

The Joyce directorate’s plan almost succeeded. The individual rights view won out in the Heller Supreme Court appeal, but only by 5-4. The four dissenters were persuaded in part by Joyce-funded writings, down to relying on an article which misled them on critical historical documents.

Having lost that fight, Obama now claims he always held the individual rights view of the Second Amendment, and that he “respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms.”But as a Joyce director, Obama was involved in a wealthy foundation’s attempt to manipulate the Supreme Court, buy legal scholarship, and obliterate the individual right to arms.

Voters who value the Constitution should ask whether someone who was party to that plan should be nominating future Supreme Court justices.

I keep telling my husband that I don't believe we are just dealing with a very liberal Senator, potential President, here.  Having read for months about Obama's associations, his rise through Chicago Politics and his policies, I do not believe that Obama plans to simply govern from the Left.  I believe he plans to undermine the Constitution in any way he can and he will have the media to cover for him, not to mention, numerous far left Senators and Representatives that think like him.

Reading this information on Obama's time at the Joyce Foundation further confirms that notion.

We. elect. Barack. Obama. at. our. own. peril.

New at colleges this fall: an instructional DVD, “Shots Fired on Campus,” featuring tips and techniques for surviving a shooter attack like the horror at Virginia Tech. Some see this sort of thing as fear-mongering. The 20-minute video goes for $495 apiece and an additional $1,000 for a campus Intranet license, and a lot of schools have ponied up.

Now, understand -- I favor allowing concealed weapons on campus. However, I support this only insofar as the effect on campus is like to be negligible. The number of students and staff who have actually gone through the Byzantine concealed-carry process can probably be counted on two hands -- the Wild West this ain't. And, when a policy has such small effects, it is best to err on the side of liberty, rather than priggishness.

Yet this is simply fear-mongering, akin to the communist air raid drills of the the 1950s. Perhaps there are more attacks than before, but they still are rarer than, say, campus fires.  And for the schools to spend thousands of dollars on this?

The article that the NY Times links to also contains another dispatch from the Nanny State:

With this program we teach students how to identify a shooter before he actually shoots. Indications such as a fascination for guns or a sudden change of behaviour in a student should be taken into account and reported immediately.

Shoot; I guess they're already watching me.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A new study finds no evidence that gun shows lead to substantial increases in either gun-related homicides or suicides.

The University of Michigan and University of Maryland study also shows that tighter regulation of gun shows does not appear to reduce the number of firearms-related deaths.

...

The researchers offered two caveats to their analyses. The study focused on the geographic areas surrounding the gun shows, and would not capture the effect when weapons were transported more than 25 miles away. In addition, the data tracked the effects only up to four weeks after the gun shows, which would exclude later gun-related deaths.

Read it all.  Here's the report.