Rule Five Friday

2015_09_04_Rule Five Friday (1)Gotta love it:  An Open Rant Aimed at Those Who Would Repeal the Second Amendment.  Excerpt:

When the likes of Rob Delaney and Bill Maher and Keith Ellison say that we need to get rid of the Second Amendment, they are not speaking in a vacuum but reflecting the views of a small but vocal portion of the American population. And they mean it. That being so, here’s the million-dollar question: What the hell are they waiting for? Go on, chaps. Bloody well do it.

Seriously, try it. Start the process. Stop whining about it on Twitter, and on HBO, and at the Daily Kos. Stop playing with some Thomas Jefferson quote you found on Google. Stop jumping on the news cycle and watching the retweets and viral shares rack up. Go out there and begin the movement in earnest. Don’t fall back on excuses. Don’t play cheap motte-and-bailey games. And don’t pretend that you’re okay with the Second 2015_09_04_Rule Five Friday (1)Amendment in theory, but you’re just appalled by the Heller decision. You’re not. Heller recognized what was obvious to the amendment’s drafters, to the people who debated it, and to the jurists of their era and beyond: That “right of the people” means “right of the people,” as it does everywhere else in both the Bill of Rights and in the common law that preceded it. A Second Amendment without the supposedly pernicious Heller “interpretation” wouldn’t be any impediment to regulation at all. It would be a dead letter. It would be an effective repeal. It would be the end of the right itself. In other words, it would be exactly what you want! Man up. Put together a plan, and take those words out of the Constitution.

They won’t, of course.

But even if the most extreme gun-banners achieved this goal, there would still be the problem of rounding up all the guns:

2015_09_04_Rule Five Friday (2)You’re going to need a plan. A state-by-state, county-by-county, street-by-street, door-to door plan. A detailed roadmap to abolition that involves the military and the police and a whole host of informants — and, probably, a hell of a lot of blood, too. Sure, the ACLU won’t like it, especially when you start going around poorer neighborhoods. Sure, there are probably between 20 and 30 million Americans who would rather fight a civil war than let you into their houses. Sure, there is no historical precedent in America for the mass confiscation of a commonly owned item — let alone one that was until recently constitutionally protected. Sure, it’s slightly odd that you think that we can’t deport 11 million people but we can search 123 million homes. But that’s just the price we have to pay. Times have changed. It has to be done: For the children; for America; for the future. Hey hey, ho ho, the Second Amendment has to go. Let’s do this thing.

2015_09_04_Rule Five Friday (3)When do you get started?

Let’s be honest:  They won’t.

First of all, the Constitution is – by design – difficult to amend.  It would require the ratification by three-fourths of the various State legislatures – that means 38 States.  There isn’t any way in hell that 38 states will vote to ratify the repeal of the Second Amendment.

As the article points out:  Think Idaho will vote to repeal the Second?  Wyoming?  Alaska?  Arizona?  Georgia?  Maine?  Not a chance.

Also, think several hundred million gun owners will just go ahead and turn their legally obtained firearms in?  Every time such a scheme has been tried, even though they are only nibbling around the edges with registration and bans on certain types of guns, the result has been massive noncompliance – civil disobedience, if you like.

2015_09_04_Rule Five Friday (4)Any attempt to implement a blanket confiscation would be met with open refusal to comply, if not actual armed rebellion.  If one percent of the legal gun owners in the country resisted, you’d be looking at two million people in arms, resisting.

Disorganized, improperly trained, you say?  No chance against professional law enforcement, you say?  Tell that to ISIS.

The gun-grabbers know this.  That’s why they talk about repealing the Second Amendment, but make no effort to actually try it.

All talk, no action.

The right to bear arms may be infringed, but it won’t be repealed.