by Diane Rufino, July 20, 2016
To those who are serious about preventing the federal government from coming after our Second Amendment rights, please read and take note…..
If you really want to make a difference and prevent the government from infringing on our Second Amendment, you have to actively support Nullification as a remedy and propose nullification measures to use the power of the States and the People to protect THEIR protections expressly stated in the US Constitution – the Bill of Rights. I’m not saying you have to necessarily come out and use that word, but you absolutely need to support the concept.
Remember what the preamble to the Bill of Rights emphasizes: “The Conventions of a number of States having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added, and as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution.” In other words, amendments One through Nine are “further restrictions on the federal government” while the Tenth is a further declaration of the intent of the Constitution (as a compact) – that the States have only delegated a select few of their sovereign powers to a common government for common purposes – for a “common defense” and some regulation of commerce between the States where it was necessary to ensure free trade – and they retain and reserve the remainder of them.
You MUST start talking about the Constitution in terms of Compact Theory and reject any characterization of the country as a Union of people rather than States (Lincoln’s rhetoric). Only when the Constitution is once again referred to and characterized as it was intended – a compact (history is complete with its references and justifications, including from all our Founding Fathers, the Constitutional Convention of 1787, from the writings of our two greatest founders Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, the State Ratifying Conventions, and even Article VII of the US Constitution itself), can we stand on the firm ground necessary to reassert our position – that the government has no authority to burden the rights recognized and protected in the Bill of Rights and indeed which formed the very basis for our independence from Great Britain. Compacts have implicit rights and remedies reserved to its signing parties, very similar to contract law and even agency law.
You MUST start talking about State Sovereignty Bills that will protect the citizens in every state from any gun control measure that burdens our Second Amendment guarantee. And I mean, REAL sovereignty bills that include interposition provisions and intent to enforce them. Montana introduced such a bill (or resolution) several years ago which reasserted its sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment and characterizing her position vis-a-vis the other States and the federal government in terms of a social compact where each State, as a party to that compact, has the implicit right (just as a party to a contract) to reassert the original terms of the agreement, to ensure that they are faithfully followed, and to assert her right to sever its bond and withdraw from the Union when that compact has been violated and frustrated. The Montana bill includes a provision that puts the federal government on notice that if it attempts to do any of a list of things (I believe the bill lists 5 specific things, including GUN CONTROL, limiting the Second Amendment), then it would consider it “a fatal breach of the compact that holds us together in the Union.”
This is the only way you fight back against the designs of our present bloated, self-serving government. These bold assertions and the strong political posturing of States will put the government on notice and equally will put the US Supreme Court on notice as well. They move forward with gun control measures, they do so at the peril of the stability of the United States.
Petitions don’t amount to a hill of beans. Over 60% of the American people showed their opposition to government-mandated healthcare but the government went ahead with it anyway.
In a politically-incorrect and realistic world, laws are supposed to protect the good people and encourage constrained behavior for the benefit of an ordered and healthy/happy society. A person should always be free to exercise his or her God-given rights and freedoms UNTIL it burdens another’s free exercise thereof. Laws are also supposed to punish the bad people and DISCOURAGE bad behavior. Our government is talking about Gun Control from an incorrect point of view with respect to the purpose of laws. It seeks to punish good people because of the actions of bad people. In doing so, it will punish good people from doing what God inherently intended people to do – protect themselves, their families, and their property, using whatever means necessary to stop the evil. The very definition of a criminal or the criminally-inclined is a person who doesn’t obey laws. As with Prohibition, a prohibition on guns, a registry of guns, a long waiting period on gun ownership, a limitation on gun ownership and ammunition, etc etc will only create a thriving and creative black market which will only make sure that most criminals and super bad guys (and syndicates, such as terrorist organizations) will get lots of them while honest, law-abiding, vulnerable people which characterizes the overwhelming majority of Americans who now take huge risks now every time they venture out of their homes and go into public places, will have none.
I offer these comments as someone who is equally passionate in preventing the federal government from taking our rights away or even burdening them in any way. It’s always a slippery slope to even give in just a little.
Remember, the Second Amendment is Freedom’s Strongest Guarantee !!
