David Rittgers wrote the article I have included below. He submits that the Supreme Court’s decision puts a nail in the gun control coffin. I respectfully disagree; we are no longer in an era of political discourse in which we are able to debate an issue on the merits, declare a winner and then move on to another topic.
The liberals are more akin to ENEMIES than political adversaries; as such, they will never give up, they will never move on. This issue is essential to the liberal agenda since a disarmed population is required in order for the Marxist to seize control of the country. Therefore, it is likely that they will simply find another city or state to pursue their issue.
We must continue to be vigilant in protecting the Second Amendment.
Regards,RW
David Rittgers Archive | Latest June 28, 2010 12:00 P.M. Gun Prohibition, R.I.P.The Supreme Court’s new Second Amendment decision is the end of an era. The Supreme Court’s rejection of Chicago’s handgun ban in McDonald v. City of Chicago is more than a recognition that the Second Amendment applies to the states as well as the federal government. The McDonald decision is a harbinger for the end of gun prohibition as an idea. The simple, undeniable truth is that gun control does not work.McDonald brings the law up to speed with reality, where advocates of gun control have been wrong since the issue became a national discussion. Strict gun-control policies have failed to deliver on their essential promise: that denying law-abiding citizens access to the means of self-defense will somehow make them safer. This should come as no surprise, since gun control has always been about control, not guns. Racism created gun control in America. Confronted with the prospect of armed freedmen who could stand up for their rights, states across the South instituted gun-control regimes that took away the ability of blacks to defend themselves against the depravity of the Klan.Fast forward to the 1960s, when a century of institutionalized racism began to come to an end. While racism was no longer the driving force, social change, the drug trade, and the assassination of several national figures turned gun control into an article of faith among progressive politicians. They saw the elimination of guns as the only way to counter the rapid increase of crime in inner cities. Truly onerous gun control came to fruition only in a minority of jurisdictions, predominantly those run by Democrat machines. The District of Columbia enacted a registration requirement for all handguns in 1976, then closed the registry so that all guns not on the books could never be lawfully owned in the District. Chicago followed suit in 1983. With each failure of gun control, the rejoinder was to do it again, this time with feeling.Since the Heller case invalidated the District of Columbia’s handgun ban two years ago, Chicago has served as the gun-control capital of the United States. Not coincidentally, Chicago is a dangerous place to live. Two weekends ago, 52 people were shot, eight fatally. Local politicians frequently ponder calling out the National Guard to patrol Chicago’s streets. Three times in the last month, Chicago residents have defended their homes or businesses with “illegal” guns. In the first, an 80-year-old Navy veteran killed a felon who broke into his home. In the second, a man shot and wounded a fugitive who burst into the man’s home while running from the police. In the third, the owner of a pawn shop killed one of three robbers in self-defense, sending the other two running. The Illinois legislature, confronted with clearly justified shootings like these before, created an affirmative defense for those who violate local gun bans when unregistered guns are used in self-defense. Then–state senator Barack Obama voted against this law, which passed by an overwhelming majority and over then-governor Rod Blagojevich’s veto. In passing this exception, Illinois recognized the basic injustice of the Chicago gun ban. Otherwise law-abiding citizens are victimized at a high rate. Chicagoans cannot depend on the police to defend them, cannot sue the city because the law protects officials from liability for failure to protect them, and are barred from effective means of self-defense. Now that the Supreme Court has spoken, the de facto ban against self-defense will be overturned and Chicagoans will not have to rely on the discretion of prosecutors and the benevolence of legislators to affirm their inalienable right to self-defense. Advocates of gun control will not be swayed by the Supreme Court’s holding in McDonald. No matter the evidence, the rallying cry will continue: If gun control “saves just one life” it will be worth it. This plea ignores the irony of crusading for individual safety by disarming all of society. That logic can now be squarely turned on the advocates of gun control. If it saves just one life — or many, since jurisdictions with more legally owned (and carried) guns tend to have less violent crime — we should create a sensible legal framework for gun ownership that does not hamper the right of individuals to exercise self-defense. A generation from now, legal and policy discussions will look back and see gun control for the sham that it has always been. The real shame is that it took decades of political action, millions of dollars in litigation, and thousands of lives lost to end the preposterous idea that governments can reduce the number of victims of violent crime by first taking away their means of resistance. — David Rittgers is an attorney and legal policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
David Rittgers
Archive | Latest
June 28, 2010 12:00 P.M.
Gun Prohibition, R.I.P.The Supreme Court’s new Second Amendment decision is the end of an era.
The Supreme Court’s rejection of Chicago’s handgun ban in McDonald v. City of Chicago is more than a recognition that the Second Amendment applies to the states as well as the federal government. The McDonald decision is a harbinger for the end of gun prohibition as an idea. The simple, undeniable truth is that gun control does not work.McDonald brings the law up to speed with reality, where advocates of gun control have been wrong since the issue became a national discussion.
Strict gun-control policies have failed to deliver on their essential promise: that denying law-abiding citizens access to the means of self-defense will somehow make them safer. This should come as no surprise, since gun control has always been about control, not guns. Racism created gun control in America. Confronted with the prospect of armed freedmen who could stand up for their rights, states across the South instituted gun-control regimes that took away the ability of blacks to defend themselves against the depravity of the Klan.Fast forward to the 1960s, when a century of institutionalized racism began to come to an end. While racism was no longer the driving force, social change, the drug trade, and the assassination of several national figures turned gun control into an article of faith among progressive politicians. They saw the elimination of guns as the only way to counter the rapid increase of crime in inner cities.
Truly onerous gun control came to fruition only in a minority of jurisdictions, predominantly those run by Democrat machines. The District of Columbia enacted a registration requirement for all handguns in 1976, then closed the registry so that all guns not on the books could never be lawfully owned in the District. Chicago followed suit in 1983. With each failure of gun control, the rejoinder was to do it again, this time with feeling.Since the Heller case invalidated the District of Columbia’s handgun ban two years ago, Chicago has served as the gun-control capital of the United States. Not coincidentally, Chicago is a dangerous place to live. Two weekends ago, 52 people were shot, eight fatally. Local politicians frequently ponder calling out the National Guard to patrol Chicago’s streets.
Three times in the last month, Chicago residents have defended their homes or businesses with “illegal” guns. In the first, an 80-year-old Navy veteran killed a felon who broke into his home. In the second, a man shot and wounded a fugitive who burst into the man’s home while running from the police. In the third, the owner of a pawn shop killed one of three robbers in self-defense, sending the other two running.
The Illinois legislature, confronted with clearly justified shootings like these before, created an affirmative defense for those who violate local gun bans when unregistered guns are used in self-defense. Then–state senator Barack Obama voted against this law, which passed by an overwhelming majority and over then-governor Rod Blagojevich’s veto.
In passing this exception, Illinois recognized the basic injustice of the Chicago gun ban. Otherwise law-abiding citizens are victimized at a high rate. Chicagoans cannot depend on the police to defend them, cannot sue the city because the law protects officials from liability for failure to protect them, and are barred from effective means of self-defense.
Now that the Supreme Court has spoken, the de facto ban against self-defense will be overturned and Chicagoans will not have to rely on the discretion of prosecutors and the benevolence of legislators to affirm their inalienable right to self-defense.
Advocates of gun control will not be swayed by the Supreme Court’s holding in McDonald. No matter the evidence, the rallying cry will continue: If gun control “saves just one life” it will be worth it. This plea ignores the irony of crusading for individual safety by disarming all of society. That logic can now be squarely turned on the advocates of gun control. If it saves just one life — or many, since jurisdictions with more legally owned (and carried) guns tend to have less violent crime — we should create a sensible legal framework for gun ownership that does not hamper the right of individuals to exercise self-defense.
A generation from now, legal and policy discussions will look back and see gun control for the sham that it has always been. The real shame is that it took decades of political action, millions of dollars in litigation, and thousands of lives lost to end the preposterous idea that governments can reduce the number of victims of violent crime by first taking away their means of resistance.
— David Rittgers is an attorney and legal policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
Gun Prohibition, R.I.P. - David Rittgers - National Review Online
Our culture as well as the political arena needs an impartial referee in order to maintain a civil society. Media with integrity has been that referee in our society and has enabled us to withstand corrupt politicians, bias judges, overbearing police and irresponsible educators. Recently, however, research has shown that the main media outlets exhibit an increasingly liberal bias ( http://www.mrc.org/static/biasbasics/MediaBias101.aspx> ). This research demonstrates a clear connection between the reality presented by the media and the agenda held by liberals to transform the character of our society and our political landscape. Facebook has the opportunity to hold the media accountable. Prior to this technology we relied upon the media and political representatives to accurately reflect our views; Facebook allows all people to express their true beliefs and provides a means to aggregate those beliefs into positions able to challenge the veritable institutions who have abandoned objectivity in order to promote a political agenda.
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The oil is blunt, harsh and without nuance, like the judgment of a tabloid.In this crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, the Great Obama is reduced to a helpless observer of men with whom he is uneasy, performing tasks he does not understand. Neither he nor his functionaries can do anything, and their regulatory and financial chirping alongside the roaring machinery only serves to remind the rest of us of the uselessness of those who have made a career of taking and threatening, hindering, suing and penalizing.The gritty physicality of this crisis undoes their self-imagined toughness, calling to mind Tony Soprano’s Gucci-shod thugs’ sorry encounter with the Russian Special Forces veteran in the snowy Pine Barrens. It is so easy to imagine energy czar Carol Browner, Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and President Obama huddled together like Christopher and Paulie, freezing, with nothing but packets of McDonald’s ketchup and mustard to sustain them because they don’t know where they are or what to do.The energy czar, or coordinator or whatever she is called, assures us she “has been a lifelong environmentalist,” but will be remembered only as one of those who could do little to save a rich way of life as rooted in history and place as she and her world view are abstracted from them.With luck Alan Brinkley, Doris Kearns Goodwin or some other historical conjurer may, in time, soften the focus and confuse the issue. For now, though, Obama is twice undone. Even the densest Obama-addicted voter begins to appreciate how unacceptable is the price of having handed power to a president unprepared by experience, temperament or understanding of this nation to wield it. And those of the political class are now free to do what necessity and their own low characters require.The Obama illusion is in shreds. The power on which he fed politicians and media is spent. He no longer has anything to offer them, so they will abandon him. In the end it will be the spectacle of the political elites’ scorn and betrayal that serves as the ultimate sanction for the presumptuousness of this posturing mediocrity, whose unfitness to be president of the United States has now been proven conclusively.
James V. CapuaGreene County
http://www.marklevinshow.com/goout.asp?u=http://www2.dailyprogress.com/cdp/news/opinion/letters_to_the_editor/article/crisis_reveals_obamas_weakness/57032/
I think many “normal” Americans tend to think that politics is similar to an athletic competition. This presumes that the contenders are merely on opposite sides of an objective, that they battle it out during the competition and shake hands afterwards and head out to the pizza place as friends afterwards.
If that were the case, then the Frankenstein Bride, Nancy Pelosi, would be reviewing her play book wondering what she did wrong to have caused the tide to turn so dramatically in Massachusetts. Instead, Pelosi said, "Let's remove all doubt, we will have health care -- one way or another," ( ABC News ).
The bottom line is that Nancy Pelosi and her ilk could care less what Americans want; those communist want to fundamentally change our system of government and they know that this is the very best opportunity to do it in their lifetime. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will eventually die (better sooner than later); having seen the treasonous ghoul Ted Kennedy become worm food last year without completing his bucket list, so they are hell-bent upon completing the transformation of this Great Republic into the United Socialist States of America.
Pelosi isn’t a competitor, she is an ideologue. This isn’t about the democratic party – she could care less about that. She wants socialism and she knows that healthcare is the vehicle to get us there and will stop at nothing to pass it. Frankly, we should also stop at nothing to remove her.
I’m so happy to hear that the world’s most incompetent leader would have fired Tony Hayward because he stated that he wanted his life back. Obama is apparently not a supporter of taking a person’s life back as evidenced by the “nose-to-the-grindstone” approach of Emmanuel and Biden slewing the administration’s enemies this weekend with super soakers at the VP’s estate.
It is important that his staff show the highest work ethic as they relentlessly pursue their Marxist agenda by eliminating potential obstructions through petty positions proffered in exchange for abandoning Congressional races. Makes me wonder how many were offered that we don’t know about; but don’t worry (or should I say, “Let me be clear!”) none of this activity warrants firing.
The administration also demonstrates the highest levels of technical expertise as Dr. Steven Chu, the “Nobel Prize winning” pundit keenly spued his observation that oil was still leaking from the cap. No obvious signs of any deficiencies in his understanding of the laws of physics and dynamics here; so he too should keep his job.
Couple that to Obama’s lightening fast response (remember that he as been on the job since day one) to get those sand bars placed, burn the excess oil, suck the rest into tankers, place organic scrubbers and hay into the water all in a gallant effort to keep those pesky tar balls off the gulf coast beaches – oh; that’s right, he is still waiting for that environmental impact statement to confirm that soaking up the oil with hay isn’t worse than the 20,000 barrels of oil per day entering the gulf current to transport the oil to Europe.
In reality I agree with Obama; Hayward has shown himself worthy of firing. Make no mistake, however, that this President, when faced with his first substantial challenge, has shown himself to be so grossly incompetent that he should immediately resign. I have no doubt that despite being the dumbest VP in history, Biden could do no worse because he is at least smart enough to know his limitations and let real leaders do their jobs.
I would have fired BP chief by now, Obama says - Disaster in the Gulf- msnbc.com