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Freedom Action of the Week
Email List Archive
Free-Market.Net's F r e e d o m A c t i o n o f t h e W e e k
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Edited by Thomas L. Knapp. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this and
other lists, click to: http://www.free-market.net/features/lists/
----- Featured Action of the Week -----
Second week of October, 2001:
Support the Second Amendment
A law doesn't do much good if it isn't enforced, and that includes the
highest law of the land -- in the United States, it's called the
Constitution. This week's action is about demanding that the Constitution
be enforced. I encourage our subscribers outside the United States to
either find a way to copy this action (if your nation has constitutional
guarantees that are under suppression), or to
pick another option from our database of Action Opportunities.
The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is pretty
clear: "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."
There has been some effort in recent years to read revisionist
interpretations into the Second Amendment. Some advocates of victim
disarmament (the proper English interpretation of the euphemism "gun
control") have attempted to peg the right to keep and bear arms to service
in the National Guard. Others have opined
that the amendment, having been ratified prior to the revolutions in
manufacturing that gave us the semi-automatic rifle, the revolver and
magazine-fed pistols (as well as nuclear weapons and intercontinental
ballistic missiles), has been invalidated by subsequent events.
The debates surrounding ratification of the Bill of Rights and of the
Constitution itself, coupled with the statements of those who framed those
documents, clearly demolish such obfuscation. The framers regarded the
"militia" as being composed of all able-bodied citizens, and the proper
armament for that militia as being on a par with that available to the
national government.
The Second Amendment recognized, and recognizes today, an inalienable
individual right to keep and bear arms. And, as Chief Justice John Marshall
held in _Madison v. Marbury_, "Certainly all those who have framed written
constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law
of the nation, and
consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act of
the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void."
Two Free-Market.Net partner organizations -- KeepAndBearArms.Com and
Citizens of America -- are getting serious about enforcement of the law of
the land (Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership also makes strong
constitutional efforts). Their first target is the state of California and
its mishmash of unconstitutional victim disarmament laws, and their method
of approach is also based in the Constitution -- specifically in the First
Amendment reference to petitioning for redress of grievances.
The Attorney General of the United States has publicy endorsed the plain
meaning of the Second Amendment ... and his office is charged with
responsibility for bringing rogue states which break the highest law of the
land to heel. Our two partners are petitioning the Attorney General to take
legal action against the government of California in order to force state
officials to cease and desist from their illegal programs of victim
disarmament.
Obviously, they'll need your help. This effort is not confined to internet
petitioning. It involves actually circulating the petition to get written
signatures, and turning those signatures in for forwarding to the Attorney
General.
I hope that you'll visit KABA or COA, download the petition, and ask your
friends to sign it. While you're at it, print out a few more copies and
drop them by your local gun shop. There's a little effort involved, but the
potential payoff -- bringing the power of the federal government to bear in
support of, rather than opposition to, our rights -- is worth it.
Citizens of America:
http://www.citizensofamerica.org/
KeepAndBearArms.Com:
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/
Direct link to the petition project:
https://www.keepandbeararms.com/Petition/
Action of the Week Archive:
http://www.free-market.net/features/list-archives/activism/maillist.html
----- Alternate Actions -----
The Freedom Action of the Week Club: Commit yourself to doing one
action per week. If the action above doesn't appeal to you, consider
one of the alternate actions at:
http://www.free-market.net/features/action/
If you know about another action or organize one of your own, e-mail
Tom at tlknapp@free-market.net so we can tell the rest of the group
next week.
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