What is the Second Amendment?
The Constitution of the United States is the foundational document for American life. It establishes the supreme law of the land and the organization of American government. Ratified in 1788, the Constitution’s first three words are “We The People” to indicate that the citizenry, and not the government, determine policy, and that the government exists solely to serve We The People.
Much could be said of the Constitution and First Amendment. However, this piece concerns the Second Amendment, the guarantee that American people determine their own fate and have the strength necessary to combat all enemies, foreign and domestic.
The Second Amendment reads…
“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.”
Enemies of America
It should come as no surprise that America’s enemies despise the Second Amendment. They would rather us be unarmed or disarmed to facilitate their takeover. Now, more than ever, those enemies are already within America’s borders. They know America is too strong to overtake with soldiers and tanks, warships and jets. Instead, they seek to weaken America from within by suppressing the Second Amendment.
America’s enemies cannot overtly defy the Second Amendment—no one would stand for that—so they instead seek to weaken its application, to circumvent the Constitution in a ‘soft’ attempt to disarm the American citizenry. To accomplish this, they propose wave after wave of bills, or potential laws, to make firearm ownership expensive and onerous.
Over-regulating and discouraging firearm ownership is the next best thing to criminalizing firearm ownership. It’s a slippery slope, indeed, one that dictatorial and authoritarian governments around the world have used for generations.
Specifics, Please
One particularly heinous example of Second Amendment discouragement is a bill proposed by Sheila Jackson Lee, a Texas Democrat in the House of Representatives. The bill called HR 127 or “The Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act” has a few nasty provisions, including:
- Establish a publicly-searchable gun registry containing every citizen’s firearms, where they’re kept in the house, their ammunition and security procedures. It’s kind of like giving the world’s criminals your username and password.
- Require citizens to petition the Attorney General for a ‘license’ to own firearms and ammunition. Since when do rights delineated in the Constitution come with a ‘license’ stipulation? Next, we might need a ‘free speech license’.
- Force gun owners to obtain ‘firearms insurance’ from the federal government for $800 per year.
- Ban certain large-caliber rifles, shotguns and pistols, plus magazines with a capacity over 10 rounds. You see, because having 9 rounds is perfectly acceptable, but 11 rounds indicates terroristic intentions. Again, provisions like this seem entirely arbitrary, intended more to discourage firearms use than to serve any practical purpose.
- Punish gun owners for violations of HR 127 with massive fines and extremely long ‘minimum’ jail sentences. The shortest of these is a minimum 5-year sentence along with a $30,000 fine. From there, the punishments only get worse!
Do you think HR 127 is heinous? Let us know in the comments section!
Now, let’s explore some more proposed ‘bills’ from the government.
Background checks
HR 1446 is “The Enhanced Background Checks Act of 2021” That doesn’t sound so bad, right? Background checks are an important part of keeping firearms out of the wrong hands. In fact, GunLove supports the REASONABLE usage of background checks in the name of American safety. On its surface, HR 1446 seems perfectly innocuous:
- Increase the waiting time of a background check from 3 days to 10 days. This is good, right? It means someone who is trying to purchase a handgun in a moment of emotional fervor, or perhaps with the intent to commit a crime, will have to wait another week before they actually receive the gun. During that period of time, they may ‘cool’ off and reconsider their criminal intentions.
The great danger, however, is that government wants any hand in this process whatsoever. Background checks are already available to firearms dealers, both federal and state. The increase of a week’s waiting time might not seem like very long, but what about in a few years, when they want to make the wait time 20 days? Perhaps by then they will broaden their databases and firearm ownership criteria, necessitating even longer wait times. How about a month? A year?
Here at GunLove, we want to see same-day background checks!
The Second Amendment is not negotiable. Americans have a right to own firearms. As the famous William Gladstone once stated, “Justice delayed is justice denied.” It’s like having your right to free speech, but you can only use it after a 3-day wait, or a 10-day wait. Exercise of rights delayed can become the denial of such rights wholesale.
“Assault Weapons” Ban of 2021
First things first…’assault weapon’ is a political term. No firearm, nor class of firearms, can accurately be labelled an ‘assault weapon’. The reason for this is simple: almost any household item can become a ‘weapon’ in the wrong hands. ‘Assault’ is a synonym for attack, strike or hit. If someone stabbed you with a ballpoint pen, we wouldn’t call it an ‘assault pen.’ If your manager threw a folder at you, we wouldn’t call it an ‘assault folder’.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, along with 34 senatorial co-sponsors, has introduced a bill to prohibit what she claims are 205 different types of ‘military-style assault weapons’ in the United States. Similar to a 1994 bill that was ultimately passed—with dismal results—this bill is a confusing mishmash of legalese that bans everything from common ARs to obscure accessories like barrel shrouds, grenade launchers and threaded barrels.
Just for the record, you’re less likely to be killed by a grenade launcher in the United States than you are to be struck by lightning.
So, what is the purpose of this bill? Of course, Senator Feinstein cites a few terrible, mass-shooting related incidents to justify her proposed ban. This is a faulty generalization, like banning all steamboats crossing the Atlantic because the Titanic hit an iceberg 109 years ago.
Of course, this bill would really only accomplish taking legal firearms from responsible gun owners, and while it’s unlikely to clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate needed to become law, the very notion of Senator Feinstein’s proposal, and its questionable motivations, should be enough for Americans to wake up and get informed.
Disclaimers
Disclaimer: Gun control bills proposed by individual members of Congress do not automatically become binding law. Each proposal is carefully considered by other legislators and specialized congressional committees. Bills must be voted on in the House of Representatives and the US Senate, and then be signed by the US President, before becoming law.
ANOTHER Disclaimer: GunLove Blog and its staff firmly believe in responsible gun ownership. We believe in firearms as tools for hunting, law enforcement, self-defense and the preservation of liberty by discouraging and resisting government tyranny. We wholly reject the possession of firearms by violent felons, domestic abusers, mentally ill or deranged individuals and organized crime participants.
We do, however, support the possession and usage of firearms by freedom-loving, responsible, patriotic American citizens!