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Confusion cleared involving "The right to bear arms"

The History of The Second Amendment: Original Meaning And Intent

The Second Amendment states: "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." The NRA tends to omit the first, crucial, half of the Second Amendment - the words referring to a "well-regulated militia."

When the U.S. Constitution was adopted, each of the states had its own "militia" - a military force comprised of ordinary citizens serving as part-time soldiers. The militia was "well-regulated" in the sense that its members were subject to various requirements such as training, supplying their own firearms, and engaging in military exercises away from home. It was a form of compulsory military service intended to protect the fledgling nation from outside forces and from internal rebellions.

The "militia" was not, as the gun lobby will often claim, simply another word for the populace at large. Indeed, membership in the 18th century militia was generally limited to able-bodied white males between the ages of 18 and 45 - hardly encompassing the entire population of the nation.

The U.S. Constitution established a permanent professional army, controlled by the federal government. With the memory of King George III's troops fresh in their minds, many of the "anti-Federalists" feared a standing army as an instrument of oppression. State militias were viewed as a counterbalance to the federal army and the Second Amendment was written to prevent the federal government from disarming the state militias.

The Second Amendment Today

In the 20th century, the Second Amendment has become an anachronism, largely because of drastic changes in the militia it was designed to protect. We no longer have the citizen militia like that of the 18th century.

Today's equivalent of a "well-regulated" militia - the National Guard - has more limited membership than its early counterpart and depends on government-supplied, not privately owned, firearms. Gun control laws have no effect on the arming of today's militia, since those laws invariably do not apply to arms used in the context of military service and law enforcement. Therefore, they raise no serious Second Amendment issues.

The Second Amendment in the Courts

As a matter of law, the meaning of the Second Amendment has been settled since the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in U.S. v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939). In that case, the Court ruled that the "obvious purpose" of the Second Amendment was to "assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness" of the state militia.

Since Miller, the Supreme Court has addressed the Second Amendment twice more, upholding New Jersey's strict gun control law in 1969 and upholding the federal law banning felons from possessing guns in 1980. Furthermore, twice - in 1965 and 1990 - the Supreme Court has held that the term "well-regulated militia" refers to the National Guard.

In the early 1980s, the Supreme Court addressed the Second Amendment issue again, after the town of Morton Grove, Illinois, passed an ordinance banning handguns (making certain reasonable exceptions for law enforcement, the military, and collectors). After the town was sued on Second Amendment grounds, the Illinois Supreme Court and the U.S. Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that not only was the ordinance valid, but there was no individual right to keep and bear arms under the Second Amendment (Quillici v. Morton Grove). In October 1983, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of this ruling, allowing the lower court rulings to stand.

In 1991, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger referred to the Second Amendment as "the subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word ‘fraud,' on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime...[the NRA] ha(s) misled the American people and they, I regret to say, they have had far too much influence on the Congress of the United States than as a citizen I would like to see - and I am a gun man." Burger also wrote, "The very language of the Second Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon...[S]urely the Second Amendment does not remotely guarantee every person the constitutional right to have a ‘Saturday Night Special' or a machine gun without any regulation whatever. There is no support in the Constitution for the argument that federal and state governments are powerless to regulate the purchase of such firearms..."

Since the Miller decision, lower federal and state courts have addressed the meaning of the Second Amendment in more than thirty cases. In every case, up until March of 1999 (see below), the courts decided that the Second Amendment refers to the right to keep and bear arms only in connection with a state militia. Even more telling, in its legal challenges to federal firearms laws like the Brady Law and the assault weapons ban, the National Rifle Association makes no mention of the Second Amendment. Indeed, the National Rifle Association has not challenged a gun law on Second Amendment grounds in several years.

The Renegade Decision: U.S. v. Emerson

On March 30, 1999, U.S. District Judge for Northern Texas Sam R. Cummings restored a domestic abuser's firearms, citing the Second Amendment as guaranteeing an individual right to keep and bear arms. This decision flies in the face of years of precedence and jurisprudence and can only be viewed as a renegade decision. In his opinion, Judge Cummings was unable to follow usual judicial practice and cite legal precedents that undergird his decision because there are none. This ruling has been appealed and since that decision, two federal courts, including a higher Circuit court, have ruled that the Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms (Gillespie v. City of Indianapolis).

Gun Control Laws and The Second Amendment

Even if one believes that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to keep and bear arms, does that mean that all gun control laws are unconstitutional? Of course not. In fact, several states have clauses in their state constitutions which explicitly guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms, yet not a single gun control law has been overturned in those states for violating that clause.

The rights guaranteed by the Constitution have never been absolute. The First Amendment protects the freedom of the press, yet libel laws prevent newspapers from printing malicious lies about a person. The First Amendment also protects free speech, yet one cannot yell "Fire" in a crowded theatre. It is doubtful that the Founding Fathers envisioned a time when over 30,000 people are dying from gun violence a year, when high-power military-style weapons like AK-47's with 30-round magazines are available on the streets, when an 14-year-old can take his father's guns and mow down his classmates, or when parents leave a loaded pistol around and a two-year-old can easily fire it. The vast majority of the American people support reasonable gun control laws and view them as necessary to reduce the level of gun violence in this country. The framers of the Constitution would surely agree.

 Brady Campaign · Legal Action Project · State Gun Laws · Stop The NRA Campaign

 

Entry #375

Anomalous image on google maps

What is it? It could be a glass building, or some other type of optical effect. If it is a building, then it casts no shadow. Whatever it is, it is located between the Earth's surface and the satellite.

In the Netherlands, this anomalous image has shown up on Google Maps.

google map

 

Entry #373

Singularity

My name is Richard Beckwith and I am a State Director for MUFON as well as a field investigator. I am also a practicing attorney with a background in lab science (I have a B.S. in Molecular Biology). Below is a photo of an oil painting I did last year called "Singularity". Although I did not paint the picture with David Sereda in mind, it certainly illustrates the idea of the singularity as proposed by Mr. Sereda. I thought he might like to see that there are those of us who are thinking along the same parallel lines.

--Richard Beckwith
richard@richardbeckwith.com

singularity

Entry #372

Worst school shooting in U.S. history, atleast 31 killed

BREAKING NEWS
NBC, MSNBC and news services
Updated: 3:35 p.m. ET April 16, 2007

BLACKSBURG, Va. - A gunman opened fire in a dormitory and a classroom at a college in Virginia on Monday, killing at least 30 people in the deadliest campus shooting in U.S. history. The gunman also was killed, and at least 22 other people were injured.

“Today the university was struck with a tragedy that we consider of monumental proportions,” said Charles Steger, president of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, in southwest Virginia. “The university is shocked and indeed horrified.”

The shootings spread panic and confusion at the college, which is popularly known as Virginia Tech. Witnesses reporting students jumping out the windows of a classroom building to escape the gunfire.

Authorities said the gunman was dead after he shot more than 50 people at two locations on campus. Thirty-one, including the gunman, were confirmed dead, NBC News reported.

At least 22 others were being treated at Montgomery Regional Hospital in Blacksburg and Lewis-Gale Medical Center in Salem, the hospitals said. Six of the victims were in surgery, and five were reported in stable condition. The conditions of the 17 others was not immediately reported.

The name of the gunman was not released. It was not immediately clear whether he shot himself or was killed by police.

The man did not appear to be shooting at random, NBC News’ Pete Williams reported, quoting federal law enforcement officials. He appeared to have specifically targeted the two locations, a co-ed dormitory and a classroom housing engineering and business classes.

Law enforcement officials said the gunman carried two weapons, a 9-mm pistol and a 22-caliber handgun, Williams reported. They said gunman chained the doors of the classroom building so his potential victims could not escape and police could not enter.

Richard Kolko in Washington, a spokesman for the FBI in Washington, said there was no immediate evidence to suggest it was a terrorist attack, “but all avenues will be explored.”

Silent gunman ‘just started shooting’
A student in the engineering class describe an “unreal” scene with “blood pretty much everywhere.”

“None of us thought it could have been gunshots,” the student, who identified himself as Trey Perkins, told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing in a telephone interview. “... I’m not sure how long it lasted. It seemed like a really long time.”

Perkins said the gunman never said a word. “He didn’t say, ‘Get down.’ He didn’t say anything.” He just started shooting.”

The gunman left the classroom and then tried to return, but students kept him out by bracing the door closed with their feet. “He started to try to come in again and started shooting through the door,” Perkins said, but hit no one.

“I got on the ground and I was just thinking, like, there’s no way I’m going to survive this,” Perkins said. “All I could keep thinking of was my mom.”

Entry #371

Meet Ned, the most popular man in the world

Most Popular

Bill and Ned walk into a fast food joint one afternoon to get lunch. Bill orders and the cashier gives him his meal. Ned goes up to order and the cashier greets him with "Hello Ned! How are you? Hey everybody! Ned's here!" Everybody in the restaurant comes up and says hello to Ned. After everyone has greeted him, Bill and Ned sit down and begin to eat.

"Ned, you're pretty popular!" says Bill. "I'm the most popular man in the world," says Ned.

"Now Ned," says Bill, your pretty popular but you're not the most popular man in the world."

"Oh yeah," Ned replies "I'll bet you a thousand dollars that I'm friends with anybody you can name!"

"That so?" answers Bill, "How about the President of the United States?"

"Let's go!" says Ned.

The two fly to Washington and knock on the front door of the White House. The president answers, "Ned! How are you doing? I haven't seen you in ages!" The three go play a round of golf and then leave.

"That was luck!" says Bill, "Two thousand says your not friends with the Queen of England!"

"Let's go!" says Ned.

The two fly to Buckingham Palace and, sure enough, are greeted by the Queen. ''Hello Ned my boy! What have you been up to these days?" They enter the palace and have some tea and leave.

Frustrated, Bill says, "Double or nothing, you don't know the Pope!"

"Benny!" says Ned, "Let's go!"

When they get to the Vatican, Ned instructs Bill to wait outside and Ned will come out on the balcony with his arm around the Pope. After a while, a crowd gathers to hear the Pope speak. And as told by Ned, when the Pope came out, Ned's arm was wrapped around him. Ned looks down from the balcony and see's Bill passed out on the ground. He rushes down and wakes him up.

"Bill! Bill! Wake up!" Bill opens his eyes and says,

"Ned. You're the most popular man in the world."

"I told you that, Bill," says Ned, "but you didn't faint when I knew the President! You didn't faint when I knew the Queen!"

"Well I was shocked that you knew the Pope," says Bill. "But I just couldn't take it when the guy next to me tapped me on the shoulder and said "Who's that up there with Ned?"

Entry #369

UFO technology revealed

UFO researcher David Sereda discussed his

recent work, videotaping the disclosure of 73-year old Boyd Bushman, a Lockheed Martin Senior Research Scientist of 20 years, who held Top Secret clearance. He holds a number of patents and designed the Red Eye Missile (now the Stinger Missile), and infrared FLIR systems. Bushman also reverse engineered antigravity and UFO technology, Sereda reported.

There is a force related to the expansion of the universe that is actually stronger than gravity, and this could relate to antigravity propulsion, Bushman told him. He demonstrated phases that lead up to antigravity, including experiments in which magnets reduced the gravity of a rock. Bushman verified that Area 51 in Nevada was indeed the place where alien craft were tested-- but such testing moved to a facility in Utah after Area 51 became well known, he noted.

Bushman also revealed that he was friends with a Navy doctor that treated a pilot who shot down the Roswell craft in 1947. Though he didn't state the specific type of weapon used, Sereda speculated that it might have been Tesla's "death ray," confiscated by the government after Tesla's death in 1943. Bushman also showed Sereda a diagram for a nuclear-powered flying saucer (click on photo above), which he said was first flown out of Wright Patterson AFB in 1959.

Entry #368

Internet may be scrapped replacing it with new one

clock Apr 13, 2007 11:39 am US/Mountain

The Internet May Eventually Be Scrapped

By Anick Jesdanun - AP Internet Writer

NEW YORK - Although it has already taken nearly four decades to get this far in building the Internet, some university researchers with the federal government's blessing want to scrap all that and start over.

The idea may seem unthinkable, even absurd, but many believe a "clean slate" approach is the only way to truly address security, mobility and other challenges that have cropped up since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.

The Internet "works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions," said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. "It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today."

No longer constrained by slow connections and computer processors and high costs for storage, researchers say the time has come to rethink the Internet's underlying architecture, a move that could mean replacing networking equipment and rewriting software on computers to better channel future traffic over the existing pipes.

Even Vinton Cerf, one of the Internet's founding fathers as co-developer of the key communications techniques, said the exercise was "generally healthy" because the current technology "does not satisfy all needs."

One challenge in any reconstruction, though, will be balancing the interests of various constituencies. The first time around, researchers were able to toil away in their labs quietly. Industry is playing a bigger role this time, and law enforcement is bound to make its needs for wiretapping known.

There's no evidence they are meddling yet, but once any research looks promising, "a number of people (will) want to be in the drawing room," said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor affiliated with Oxford and Harvard universities. "They'll be wearing coats and ties and spilling out of the venue."

The National Science Foundation wants to build an experimental research network known as the Global Environment for Network Innovations, or GENI, and is funding several projects at universities and elsewhere through Future Internet Network Design, or FIND.

Rutgers, Stanford, Princeton, Carnegie Mellon and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are among the universities pursuing individual projects. Other government agencies, including the Defense Department, have also been exploring the concept.

A new network could run parallel with the current Internet and eventually replace it, or perhaps aspects of the research could go into a major overhaul of the existing architecture.

These clean-slate efforts are still in their early stages, though, and aren't expected to bear fruit for another 10 or 15 years — assuming Congress comes through with funding.

Guru Parulkar, who will become executive director of Stanford's initiative after heading NSF's clean-slate programs, estimated that GENI alone could cost $350 million, while government, university and industry spending on the individual projects could collectively reach $300 million. Spending so far has been in the tens of millions of dollars.

And it could take billions of dollars to replace all the software and hardware deep in the legacy systems.

Of course, a key question is how to make any transition — and researchers are largely punting for now.

"Let's try to define where we think we should end up, what we think the Internet should look like in 15 years' time, and only then would we decide the path," McKeown said. "We acknowledge it's going to be really hard but I think it will be a mistake to be deterred by that."

Entry #367

Where were the family members...So sad..

clock Apr 14, 2007 9:01 am US/Eastern

Elderly Woman Trapped Under Pile Of Trash, Feces

(AP) WOODMERE, N.Y. An elderly woman was rescued after being found buried beneath a pile of debris, garbage and animal feces in a home, authorities said. An elderly man was found dead.

Helen Bushwick, 85, was discovered Thursday when volunteer firefighters responded to the two-story house after relatives said they couldn't reach her. Debris mixed with human and animal waste was piled high in every room, some all the way to the ceiling.

"A six-foot pile of rubbish collapsed on her and trapped her in there," Erik Kinney, a volunteer firefighter, said of Bushwick.

The man was found Friday when authorities resumed a search. His name was not released.

Bushwick was taken to a hospital where she was admitted with dehydration. Officials weren't sure how long they had been trapped, but neighbors said they last saw them about a week ago.

There was garbage -- "cans, boxes, clothing, papers, whatever you can collect in every room, some spots to the ceiling, some three feet to the ceiling," Kinney said. "Feces -- raccoon, possum and human" were found in buckets and in the trash.

"The stench was very strong, as you can imagine," he added.

A sign was posted on the home saying it was unfit for human occupancy, John Rottkamp, first deputy commissioner of the buildings department in the town of Hempstead, which has jurisdiction over Woodmere. The gas also had been turned off.

The house will be boarded up, and the woman's relatives will be allowed to go through the contents, authorities said.

Entry #366
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