Repeal the Second Amendment: Part Three

Let's consider what kind of firearms were---and weren't--available when the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791.

What WAS available:

Rifles: Approximately seven types of breech loading and muzzle loading flintlock muskets and blunderbuses. It takes approximately 15 to 30 seconds to reload a musket.

Pistols: aproximately four types of flintlock pistols. Experts needed 15 seconds to reload these pistols.
Source.

What WASN'T available:

The revolver: They weren't invented until 1814 and 1836

The machine gun: They weren't invented until 1861 and 1865.

The assault rifle: It wasn't used until 1968.

CONCLUSIONS:

1. Even if a psychopath like Adam Lanza had existed in 1791 he never would have had the time to fire and reload any weapon then available enough times to kill 26 people at a school or other public place..  He might have been able to kill one person at the most, but then he would have been physically overpowered before he could reload his musket or his pistol and kill any more innocent victims.
2. The Second Amendment, adopted so that citizen-soldiers [militiamen] in the several states could defend the nation against the British, has been obsolete for 200 years because the state mlitias have been replaced by a standing army and the National Guard and is therefore  inapplicable in the 21st century.

 RECOMMENDATION:

Join the growing movement to repeal the Second Amendment!

Repeal the Second Amendment: Part Two

I am not alone in my call to repeal the Second Amendment.  Norm Stamper, a 34-year vetern police officer and former Chief of Police of Seattle wrote in the Huffington Post on December 18, 2012.

Excerpt:

...So we wait. We wait for the next slaughter, knowing it will surely come. Nothing has changed, nothing will change. Not unless we resolve to become, in the president's aspirational words, "better than this."

How do we accomplish that? Through repeal of the Second Amendment, and the enactment of a new constitutional amendment. 

The Second Amendment -- elevated to a state of holiness, its problematic comma debated for decades and "resolved," for the moment, by the Supreme Court -- is a relic. It made sense when it was written. It does not make sense now.

What would a new "right to bear arms" amendment look like? If I were writing it, it would contain provisions for:

• Registration of all firearms;
• Licensing of all gun owners, predicated on completion of a background check and a passing score in a reputable gun-safety course;
• Safe and secure storage and transport of all firearms;
• Criminal and civil penalties for owners whose guns have fallen negligently into the hands of violent felons, minors, the mentally ill;
• Ban on all assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, except for those possessed by the military and law enforcement;
• Ban on so-called "armor-piercing" handgun bullets;
• The elimination of the infamous gun-show loophole in the Brady bill.

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Let's join Norm Stamper and start saving the lives of Americans--men, women and children!  Write your congressman or congresswoman and your two senators as well as your state representatives and senators--NOW!

Jagor

Repeal the Second Amendment: Part One

Almost everybody in the U.S. [including the Gang of Five Republicans on the Supreme Court--Roberts, Alito, Kennedy, Scalia and Thomas] is misinterpreting the Second Amdenment.
 
The sole and unique purpose of the Second Amendment (adopted in 1791 when "semiautomatic assault weapons did not exixt) was to assure that a citizen mililtia was armed (with single-shot, muzzle-loading muskets), so that they could defend the country against the British if they tried to invade us (as they did in 1812).   

There was absolutely nothing whatsoever in the Second Amendment about possessing arms for "personal protection" despite distorted views of trhe Gang of Five.

The Second Amendment is now obsolete--and has been for two hundred years because we don't have a militia any more and, the last time I checked, the redcoats were not coming after us.

The Second Amendment should be repealed.  

How can We the People repeal the Second Amendment?  It takes is a vote of 2/3 of the House and the Senate and the approval of 3/4 of the state legislatures. Sounds hard, but there is a precedent: the 18th Amendment prohibiting alcohol was repealed by the 21st Amendment.

All it takes is the political courage to stand up to the bullies in the NRA and the gun lobby.  Do American politicans have that courage?  If not, We the People should throw the cowards in the trashcan and elect men and women who have the guts to repeal the Second Amendment.

Jagor

Best News in the Last 50 Years

From the Guardian:

UN tells Israel to let in nuclear inspectors

The UN general assembly has overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling on Israel to open its nuclear programme for inspection.

The resolution, approved by a vote of 174 to six with six abstentions, calls on Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) "without further delay" and open its nuclear facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Those voting against were Israel, the US, Canada, Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau.

 Note: a total of 190 countries have joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

What are the Israelis waiting for?  Why do the Israelis want inspections in Iran but refuse inspections in in their own nuclear facilities?  It has been estimated that Israel possesses from 75 to as many as 400 nuclear weapons, which are reported to include thermonuclear weapons in the megaton range

View a map showing all the known Israeli nuclear sites.

Jagor