Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:31:54 AM
The NRA's Fraud: Fabrication of Second Amendment Rights
By Burton Newman
Attorney; Adjunct professor, Washington University School of Law
Posted: 04/17/2013 4:13 pm
"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." ~ Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution
Following the Sandy Hook massacre, gun rights, gun laws and the Second Amendment have been the subject of a national dialogue. Any discussion of these topics is severely tainted by calculated messaging by the NRA to deceive and mislead our citizens to believe that the Second Amendment grants far reaching gun rights which have not and do not exist.
The Second Amendment became part of our constitution in 1791. For well over two centuries the Supreme Court never decided that the Amendment granted a constitutional right to individuals to bear arms. The widely held notion that such a right existed was a myth fabricated by the NRA for its own self interest and for the corporate profits of gun manufacturers. This fabrication altered the mindset of most Americans to accept fictional Second Amendment rights that permitted the proliferation of all manner and kind of dangerous weapons. We became a gun culture run rampant. The gun manufacturers reaped enormous profits as gun sales soared. In 2011 industry wide gun sales were $4.3 billion. Misconceptions generated by the NRA created a warped interpretation of Second Amendment that generated these sales.
The fraud perpetrated by the NRA is patent. We do not heed the warnings of prominent citizens such as former attorneys general Nicholas Katzenbach, Ramsey Clark, Elliot L. Richardson, Edward Levi, Griffin B. Bell and Benjamin R. Civiletti. The joint statement in the Washington Post of these former attorneys general in 1992 reads as follows:
"For more than 200 years, the federal courts have unanimously determined that the Second Amendment concerns only the arming of the people in service to an organized state Militia: it does not guarantee immediate access to guns for private purposes. The nation can no longer afford to let the gun lobbies' distortion of the constitution cripple every reasonable attempt to implement an effective national policy towards guns and crime."
In a PBS News Hour interview in 1991, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger referred to the NRA Second Amendment myth as "one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by any special interest group that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
The opinions of these distinguished legal scholars had no bearing on NRA propaganda that continued unabated. During the weeks before the 2000 general election, a self-anointed constitution "scholar," Charleton Heston, ceremonial president of the NRA, flooded the airways to urge voters to support candidates who would protect and preserve Second Amendment rights. Little did most Americans realize that such rights did not exist. The NRA's reading of the Second Amendment was purely fictional and unsupported by the law of the land.
Candidates for public office both state and federal reaped in political contributions from the NRA. These elected officials feared the wrath of the NRA should they stray from the NRA's Second Amendment myth.
A norm evolved offering sanctity to gun owners and manufacturers. Gun manufacturers and the NRA prospered and profited. As one gun manufacturing executive states the equation, the NRA "protects our Second Amendment rights and those rights protect the ability to buy our products." Elected officials stand idly by while gun deaths and massacres escalate without lasting public outcry or meaningful legislative efforts.
The statistics are staggering. The depth of lost life is evident by comparing deaths in foreign wars and firearm deaths of citizens within our borders. In all foreign wars during our history about 650,000 soldiers died. In the 45 years since Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated in 1968, there have been over 1.3 million deaths in our country caused by firearms. The fraud perpetrated by the NRA as recognized by former Chief Justice Burger is linked to these deaths. The blood of thousands upon thousands of Americans permanently stain the hands of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.
How did the NRA gain such power and influence on our citizenry? For the first century of its existence beginning in 1871, the NRA primarily devoted its efforts to gun safety. Following enactment of new restrictive gun laws requiring gun licensing and taxes, a 1977 coup within the NRA membership led by militants resulted in a new harder edged and more aggressive NRA. The truth mattered not. The edifice of the NRA headquarters would now bear an abbreviated version of the Second Amendment: "The Right of the People to keep and Bear Arms Shall not be infringed." The NRA amended the Constitution unilaterally to avoid even a hint that the language pertaining to a Militia had any meaning. The law of the land spoke otherwise.
In 1939 the Supreme Court issued the Miller decision. The justices ruled that "the Second Amendment must be interpreted and applied with the view of its purpose of rendering effective Militia." That was the state of Second Amendment law until the 2008 Heller decision. Prior to Heller, the Supreme Court never recognized that individuals had an individual right to keep and bear arms. It was the NRA propaganda, not the law of the land, that led the cry for unlimited gun ownership and protection of gun owner rights. The NRA myths allowed the cycle of expanded gun sales and NRA power to purchase political influence. Democrats and Republican alike announced their allegiance to the Second Amendment and the public grew to believe that the NRA view of the Second Amendment was consistent with constitutional law. The NRA controlled too many elected officials to allow for protection of our citizens from gun violence, gun deaths and unspeakable gun horrors in schools and public places.
The NRA myths were disseminated on other fronts. Articles appeared in NRA publications and rewrote history by declaring that "Armed citizens [were] unregulated except by his own ability to buy a gun at whatever price he could afford." This credo became an NRA rallying cry.
The NRA poured millions upon millions of dollars into congressional and state legislative campaigns. Gun owners and manufacturers poured more money into the NRA. The revisionist view of Second Amendment rights gained momentum in 1982 when a Senate judiciary subcommittee issued a report about the discovery of "long lost proof" of an individual's constitutional right to bear arms. The chair of the subcommittee was Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. The "proof" has never surfaced.
For over three decades the NRA funded legal research, legal seminars and pushed for law review articles supporting individual rights to bear arms. This and the NRA persuasion of elected officials led to a dramatic shift in Second Amendment legal views. In 2003 the NRA established a $1 million chair at George Mason University law school. The views of NRA supported professors and legal scholars were relied on in the 2008 Supreme Court decision finding an individual right to bear arms for the first time.
What did the Supreme Court say in the 2008 Heller decision? The Court held that there existed an individual right to bear arms only for traditional purposes such as self-defense in the home. The Court declared that the Second Amendment should not be understood as conferring a "right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." The Court gave examples of firearms laws presumed to be lawful. These included laws prohibiting firearm possession by felons, mentally ill persons and possession of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings. The Court found that conditions on the commercial sale of firearms were presumptively lawful. The Court said this list was not exhaustive; and found that the Second Amendment is consistent with laws banning firearms that are "dangerous and unusual."
The ruling in Heller was a departure from the 1939 decision in the Miller case where the court stated that the "obvious purpose" of the Second Amendment was to ensure effectiveness of the stated Militia. However, even with this departure the decision in Heller is limited in its scope. The only right specifically mentioned in the Supreme Court's opinion is the right of an individual to possess a gun for self-defense in the home.
Did this limited decision stop the NRA from its propaganda campaign? Of course not. On Meet the Press on March 24, 2013, Wayne LaPierre declared to the nation that under the Heller decision it would be an "absolute abridgement" of constitutional rights to regulate assault weapons. That myth, heard by millions, was intended to again mislead the country into believing that there are sweeping Second Amendment rights that cannot be regulated. Nonsense. The very language of the Supreme Court opinion in Heller calls out LaPierre as a liar.
How can the American people be educated to understand the true meaning of the Second Amendment consistent with the Supreme Court's interpretation of that Amendment? Such an education process could lead to sweeping reform of state and federal regulation of firearms. But how is the mindset of the American people to be changed? The same way our mindset about drunk driving and smoking changed over time. Let's take a look at the circumstances involved in smoking. Smokers 35 years ago would never have believed there would be no public smoking. When harms caused by drunk drivers and tobacco users were known in clear terms, the mindset of the public changed. New reforms, enforcement of laws and demands for a safer society became reachable goals. The change in that mindset did not take place in a day a week or a year. Nor will the change in the mindset regarding Second Amendment rights change overnight. But it is the education of the citizenry and the education of our lawmakers that is necessary in order for the calculated messaging of the NRA to be known for what it is: Lies, myths and fictions that have harmed and killed our citizens and will continue to do so until an enlightened view of the very limited scope of Second Amendment rights is known, understood and acted upon.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/burton-newman/the-nras-fraud-fabricatio_b_3103358.html [with comments]
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Justices Refuse Case on Gun Law in New York
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: April 15, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html ] said Monday that it would not weigh in [ http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/041513zor_p86b.pdf ] on a major Second Amendment question that has divided the lower courts: May states bar or strictly limit the carrying of guns in public for self-defense?
The justices turned down a case concerning a New York State law that requires people seeking permits for carrying guns in public to demonstrate that they have a special need for self-protection. In urging the justices to hear the case, the National Rifle Association called the law [ http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2013-02-10-Kachalsky-Amicus-Brief-FINAL.pdf ] “a de facto ban on carrying a handgun outside the home.”
In November, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, upheld the law. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey have similar laws.
As is their custom, the justices gave no reasons for declining to hear the case from New York. Additional cases presenting essentially the same question are likely to reach the court in the coming months.
In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html ] that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns, and it struck down a District of Columbia law that prohibited keeping guns in homes for self-defense.
“We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority in the decision, District of Columbia v. Heller. “But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table,” he added.
Aside from saying that total bans on the right to keep guns at home for self-defense are unconstitutional, the court has said little else about what other laws may violate the Second Amendment. On the other hand, the Heller decision did include a long list of laws and regulations that would be unaffected by the ruling. Among them were “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools.”
In the lower courts, very few challenges to gun laws and gun prosecutions since the Heller decision have succeeded.
A major exception came in December, just days before the Newtown, Conn., shootings, when a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, struck down an Illinois law [ http://www.isra.org/lawsuits/coa.pdf ] that banned carrying guns in public.
Judge Richard A. Posner [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/richard_a_posner/index.html ], writing for the majority, said the ruling was required by the Heller decision. The court gave the Illinois legislature six months to modify the law.
Judge Posner reviewed the empirical literature about the practical consequences for crime and safety of bans on carrying guns in public, and he found it inconclusive. “Anyway,” Judge Posner wrote, “the Supreme Court made clear in Heller that it wasn’t going to make the right to bear arms depend on casualty counts.”
The Illinois decision is in tension with the one from New York, and such conflicts often prompt Supreme Court review. Last month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., upheld the Maryland law [ http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/121437.P.pdf ].
The case turned down by the Supreme Court on Monday, Kachalsky v. Cacace, No. 12-845, was brought by five New Yorkers who had been denied permits to carry handguns in public. In urging the justices not to hear the case, Eric T. Schneiderman [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/eric_t_schneiderman/index.html ], New York’s attorney general, said the state’s permit requirement was a reasonable regulation that was consistent with the Second Amendment. The Illinois law, by contrast, he said, amounted to a blanket prohibition.
In a statement [ http://www.ag.ny.gov/press-release/statement-ag-schneiderman-regarding-us-supreme-courts-decision-reject-challenge-new ] issued Monday, Mr. Schneiderman said that “New York State has enacted sensible and effective regulations of concealed handguns, and this decision keeps those laws in place.” He added that the court’s order declining to hear the case amounted to “a victory for families across New York who are rightly concerned about the scourge of gun violence that all too often plagues our communities.”
A lawyer for the challengers did not respond to a request for comment.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan of Illinois has said that she will wait to see what the state’s legislature does before deciding whether to ask the Supreme Court to hear the decision striking down the Illinois law.
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Related
Senators, Seeking Support, Weigh Revisions to Background Check Bill (April 16, 2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/us/politics/senators-manchin-and-toomey-consider-changes-to-gun-bill.html
Off-Duty Officer Killed Boyfriend, Their Year-Old Son and Then Herself, Police Say (April 15, 2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/nyregion/officer-killed-boyfriend-and-son-in-murder-suicide-police-say.html
Seeking Answers to Officer’s Murder-Suicide in Memories and Notes Left Behind (April 17, 2013 )
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/nyregion/seeking-answers-to-officers-murder-suicide-in-memories-and-notes-she-left.html
*
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/us/politics/supreme-court-declines-gun-law-case.html
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NRA 500 Suicide: Man Shoots Himself To Death At NASCAR Race
Drivers take run the main straight during the NASCAR Sprint Cup series NRA 500 auto race at Texas Motor Speedway, Saturday, April 13, 2013, in Fort Worth, Texas.
04/16/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/14/nra-500-suicide_n_3082119.html [with embedded video report, and (over 13,000) comments]
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States with the Most Gun Violence
April 15, 2013
1. Louisiana
2. Alaska
3. Alabama
4. Arizona
5. Mississippi
6. South Carolina
7. New Mexico
8. Missouri
9. Arkansas
10. Georgia
http://247wallst.com/2013/04/15/states-with-the-most-gun-violence/
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Law Enforcement More Likely To Be Killed In States With Weak Gun Laws, Study Finds
By Charles Posner, Guest Blogger on Apr 8, 2013 at 1:54 pm
As wrangling over the outcome of gun safety legislation in the Senate reaches a fever pitch, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) has been quiet on where she stands. Her home state, though, exemplifies the real risk weak gun laws pose–not only to residents, but also to the men and women charged with protecting them.
Gun laws in Louisiana prevent the state’s law enforcement officers from doing their jobs, and put them at a much greater risk of gun violence. Last November, the state passed an NRA-backed ballot initiative [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/08/1164791/louisiana-amendment-gives-gun-rights-strictest-constitutional-protection/ ] that enshrined gun ownership in the constitution and removed provisions that prohibited certain individuals, such as domestic abusers and the seriously mentally ill, from carrying a concealed weapon. In March, a judge ruled that the amendment outlawed a “state statute forbidding certain felons from possessing firearms,” noting that “The courts cannot question the wisdom [ http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2013/03/new_orleans_judge_rules_statut.html ] of fundamental law and frustrate the will of the people.”
This new law makes it easier for dangerous people to possess guns and endangers law enforcement officials. But Louisiana has long been a trail-blazer for weak gun laws. Prior to this amendment’s passage, the state denied [ http://smartgunlaws.org/concealed-weapons-permitting-in-louisiana/ ] giving law enforcement discretion when issuing concealed handgun permits and a slew of other weak regulations [ http://www.tracetheguns.org/#/states/LA/exports/ ] have ranked the state among the worst in the nation on key measures of gun trafficking as determined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A new study [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/03/1811311/study-states-with-loose-gun-laws-have-higher-rates-of-gun-violence/ ] released last week by the Center for American Progress analyzed 10 key measures of gun violence and found that Louisiana is worst among the 50 states. Included in the report is a 50-state ranking of law enforcement feloniously killed by guns: Louisiana ranks second worst in the nation behind South Dakota.
The Newtown tragedy has woken legislators across the country up to the need for sensible gun violence prevention measures. Landrieu, recognizing the important role law enforcement plays, has said [ http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/277783-vulnerable-senate-democrats-balk-at-obamas-gun-measures#ixzz2PWpyNRGY ] that “some of the most respected law enforcement leaders in our country are calling for commonsense reforms.” Among the most obvious and effective [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/20/1747551/why-harry-reid-must-make-universal-background-checks-part-of-gun-law-reform/ ] of these reforms is to require every gun buyer to go through a mandatory criminal background check.
Universal background checks, which enjoy support from 85 percent [ http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/9/cf/b/1397/LA_MAIG_Release_030513.pdf ] of Louisianans, would help prevent criminals and other dangerous people from having easy access to guns. And they would cut down on illegal gun trafficking by holding straw purchasers accountable for giving guns to criminals. But of course, the law must require the firearm sellers conducting background checks to keep a record; otherwise, law enforcement would once again be undercut by having no method to enforce the law.
The NRA often says that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” But in states like Louisiana, no single group has done more than the NRA to put guns in the hands of bad guys. That puts the good guys with guns—like our law enforcement officers—and good guys without guns at a higher risk. Universal background checks, as evidence has shown [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/13/1589161/study-gun-homicides-increased-25-percent-after-missouri-background-check-laws-repeal/ ], are a meaningful and uncontroversial measure that would make Louisiana a safer place and protect those charged with protecting us.
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/04/08/1835021/law-enforcement-more-likely-to-be-killed-in-states-with-weak-gun-laws-study-finds/ [with comments]
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You can’t understand what’s happened to the Senate without these two graphs
April 18, 2013
[...]
... In 1790, Virginia, the largest state, was 12.65 times the size of Delaware, the smallest. In 2010, however, California, the largest state, was fully 66 times the size of Wyoming, the smallest. The Senate is now about five times less proportionate than it was at the country’s founding.
And that’s not even the worst it’s gotten. In 1900, the largest state, New York, was a shocking 171.7 times the size of the smallest, Nevada. An individual Nevadan had 171.7 times the influence of New Yorkers in the upper house of Congress:
[...]
That’s right: If senators representing 17.82 percent of the population agree, they can get a majority in the 2013 U.S. Senate. That’s not the lowest that figure has gotten (it hit about 16.8 percent in 1970) but it’s about there. And this doesn’t even take the filibuster into account. The smallest 20 states amount to 11.27 percent of the U.S. population, but if all of their senators band together they can successfully filibuster legislation.
You can see all the data represented here in this spreadsheet [ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkeTUNT8ZF3ldDlaQkd5QXZSQnRkbHNmU0xkc1Rxbmc#gid=0 ( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkeTUNT8ZF3ldDlaQkd5QXZSQnRkbHNmU0xkc1Rxbmc&usp=sharing )].
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/18/you-cant-understand-whats-happened-to-the-senate-without-these-two-graphs/ [with comments]
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Dad arrested on gun, drug charges a week after deadly pit collapse
Posted: Apr 15, 2013 5:44 PM CDT
Updated: Apr 15, 2013 6:37 PM CDT
STANLEY, N.C. (WBTV) - A Lincoln County man, who was digging a two-story-deep pit on his property when it collapsed, killing two children, has now been arrested on unrelated charges.
31-year-old Jordan Arwood was arrested by the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office on Monday. He was charged with possession of a weapon by a felon and a drug charge.
He was placed in the Harven A. Crouse Detention Center under a $20,000 secured bond.
Last week, deputies removed firearms and a marijuana plant from Arwood's mobile home. Officers say they found six firearms, including an AR-15 rifle.
Arwood's 6-year-old daughter, Chloe Jade Arwood, and his nephew, 7-year-old James Levi Caldwell, were fatally buried when the rain-soaked walls of the pit collapsed last Sunday evening.
Arwood was operating a backhoe Sunday night in the pit when the walls collapsed and he called 911.
The bodies of the two young cousins were dug out Monday morning.
The investigation into the deaths of two young children is continuing. When the investigation is completed the information will be turned over to the District Attorney's Office to determine if charges will be filed.
Arwood's first court appearance will be Tuesday in Lincoln County District Court.
The Associated Press contributed to the report.
Copyright 2013 WBTV
http://www.wbtv.com/story/21984758/dad-arrested-on-gun-drug-charges-a-week-after-deadly-pit-collapse [no comments yet] [further to "Guns, marijuana plant seized from NC home where walls of pit collapsed on 2 children" about 40% of the way down at/see generally (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86650342 and preceding and following]
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By Burton Newman
Attorney; Adjunct professor, Washington University School of Law
Posted: 04/17/2013 4:13 pm
"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." ~ Second Amendment, U.S. Constitution
Following the Sandy Hook massacre, gun rights, gun laws and the Second Amendment have been the subject of a national dialogue. Any discussion of these topics is severely tainted by calculated messaging by the NRA to deceive and mislead our citizens to believe that the Second Amendment grants far reaching gun rights which have not and do not exist.
The Second Amendment became part of our constitution in 1791. For well over two centuries the Supreme Court never decided that the Amendment granted a constitutional right to individuals to bear arms. The widely held notion that such a right existed was a myth fabricated by the NRA for its own self interest and for the corporate profits of gun manufacturers. This fabrication altered the mindset of most Americans to accept fictional Second Amendment rights that permitted the proliferation of all manner and kind of dangerous weapons. We became a gun culture run rampant. The gun manufacturers reaped enormous profits as gun sales soared. In 2011 industry wide gun sales were $4.3 billion. Misconceptions generated by the NRA created a warped interpretation of Second Amendment that generated these sales.
The fraud perpetrated by the NRA is patent. We do not heed the warnings of prominent citizens such as former attorneys general Nicholas Katzenbach, Ramsey Clark, Elliot L. Richardson, Edward Levi, Griffin B. Bell and Benjamin R. Civiletti. The joint statement in the Washington Post of these former attorneys general in 1992 reads as follows:
"For more than 200 years, the federal courts have unanimously determined that the Second Amendment concerns only the arming of the people in service to an organized state Militia: it does not guarantee immediate access to guns for private purposes. The nation can no longer afford to let the gun lobbies' distortion of the constitution cripple every reasonable attempt to implement an effective national policy towards guns and crime."
In a PBS News Hour interview in 1991, former Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger referred to the NRA Second Amendment myth as "one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I repeat the word fraud, on the American people by any special interest group that I have ever seen in my lifetime."
The opinions of these distinguished legal scholars had no bearing on NRA propaganda that continued unabated. During the weeks before the 2000 general election, a self-anointed constitution "scholar," Charleton Heston, ceremonial president of the NRA, flooded the airways to urge voters to support candidates who would protect and preserve Second Amendment rights. Little did most Americans realize that such rights did not exist. The NRA's reading of the Second Amendment was purely fictional and unsupported by the law of the land.
Candidates for public office both state and federal reaped in political contributions from the NRA. These elected officials feared the wrath of the NRA should they stray from the NRA's Second Amendment myth.
A norm evolved offering sanctity to gun owners and manufacturers. Gun manufacturers and the NRA prospered and profited. As one gun manufacturing executive states the equation, the NRA "protects our Second Amendment rights and those rights protect the ability to buy our products." Elected officials stand idly by while gun deaths and massacres escalate without lasting public outcry or meaningful legislative efforts.
The statistics are staggering. The depth of lost life is evident by comparing deaths in foreign wars and firearm deaths of citizens within our borders. In all foreign wars during our history about 650,000 soldiers died. In the 45 years since Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated in 1968, there have been over 1.3 million deaths in our country caused by firearms. The fraud perpetrated by the NRA as recognized by former Chief Justice Burger is linked to these deaths. The blood of thousands upon thousands of Americans permanently stain the hands of NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre.
How did the NRA gain such power and influence on our citizenry? For the first century of its existence beginning in 1871, the NRA primarily devoted its efforts to gun safety. Following enactment of new restrictive gun laws requiring gun licensing and taxes, a 1977 coup within the NRA membership led by militants resulted in a new harder edged and more aggressive NRA. The truth mattered not. The edifice of the NRA headquarters would now bear an abbreviated version of the Second Amendment: "The Right of the People to keep and Bear Arms Shall not be infringed." The NRA amended the Constitution unilaterally to avoid even a hint that the language pertaining to a Militia had any meaning. The law of the land spoke otherwise.
In 1939 the Supreme Court issued the Miller decision. The justices ruled that "the Second Amendment must be interpreted and applied with the view of its purpose of rendering effective Militia." That was the state of Second Amendment law until the 2008 Heller decision. Prior to Heller, the Supreme Court never recognized that individuals had an individual right to keep and bear arms. It was the NRA propaganda, not the law of the land, that led the cry for unlimited gun ownership and protection of gun owner rights. The NRA myths allowed the cycle of expanded gun sales and NRA power to purchase political influence. Democrats and Republican alike announced their allegiance to the Second Amendment and the public grew to believe that the NRA view of the Second Amendment was consistent with constitutional law. The NRA controlled too many elected officials to allow for protection of our citizens from gun violence, gun deaths and unspeakable gun horrors in schools and public places.
The NRA myths were disseminated on other fronts. Articles appeared in NRA publications and rewrote history by declaring that "Armed citizens [were] unregulated except by his own ability to buy a gun at whatever price he could afford." This credo became an NRA rallying cry.
The NRA poured millions upon millions of dollars into congressional and state legislative campaigns. Gun owners and manufacturers poured more money into the NRA. The revisionist view of Second Amendment rights gained momentum in 1982 when a Senate judiciary subcommittee issued a report about the discovery of "long lost proof" of an individual's constitutional right to bear arms. The chair of the subcommittee was Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. The "proof" has never surfaced.
For over three decades the NRA funded legal research, legal seminars and pushed for law review articles supporting individual rights to bear arms. This and the NRA persuasion of elected officials led to a dramatic shift in Second Amendment legal views. In 2003 the NRA established a $1 million chair at George Mason University law school. The views of NRA supported professors and legal scholars were relied on in the 2008 Supreme Court decision finding an individual right to bear arms for the first time.
What did the Supreme Court say in the 2008 Heller decision? The Court held that there existed an individual right to bear arms only for traditional purposes such as self-defense in the home. The Court declared that the Second Amendment should not be understood as conferring a "right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose." The Court gave examples of firearms laws presumed to be lawful. These included laws prohibiting firearm possession by felons, mentally ill persons and possession of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings. The Court found that conditions on the commercial sale of firearms were presumptively lawful. The Court said this list was not exhaustive; and found that the Second Amendment is consistent with laws banning firearms that are "dangerous and unusual."
The ruling in Heller was a departure from the 1939 decision in the Miller case where the court stated that the "obvious purpose" of the Second Amendment was to ensure effectiveness of the stated Militia. However, even with this departure the decision in Heller is limited in its scope. The only right specifically mentioned in the Supreme Court's opinion is the right of an individual to possess a gun for self-defense in the home.
Did this limited decision stop the NRA from its propaganda campaign? Of course not. On Meet the Press on March 24, 2013, Wayne LaPierre declared to the nation that under the Heller decision it would be an "absolute abridgement" of constitutional rights to regulate assault weapons. That myth, heard by millions, was intended to again mislead the country into believing that there are sweeping Second Amendment rights that cannot be regulated. Nonsense. The very language of the Supreme Court opinion in Heller calls out LaPierre as a liar.
How can the American people be educated to understand the true meaning of the Second Amendment consistent with the Supreme Court's interpretation of that Amendment? Such an education process could lead to sweeping reform of state and federal regulation of firearms. But how is the mindset of the American people to be changed? The same way our mindset about drunk driving and smoking changed over time. Let's take a look at the circumstances involved in smoking. Smokers 35 years ago would never have believed there would be no public smoking. When harms caused by drunk drivers and tobacco users were known in clear terms, the mindset of the public changed. New reforms, enforcement of laws and demands for a safer society became reachable goals. The change in that mindset did not take place in a day a week or a year. Nor will the change in the mindset regarding Second Amendment rights change overnight. But it is the education of the citizenry and the education of our lawmakers that is necessary in order for the calculated messaging of the NRA to be known for what it is: Lies, myths and fictions that have harmed and killed our citizens and will continue to do so until an enlightened view of the very limited scope of Second Amendment rights is known, understood and acted upon.
Copyright © 2013 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/burton-newman/the-nras-fraud-fabricatio_b_3103358.html [with comments]
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Justices Refuse Case on Gun Law in New York
By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: April 15, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/s/supreme_court/index.html ] said Monday that it would not weigh in [ http://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/041513zor_p86b.pdf ] on a major Second Amendment question that has divided the lower courts: May states bar or strictly limit the carrying of guns in public for self-defense?
The justices turned down a case concerning a New York State law that requires people seeking permits for carrying guns in public to demonstrate that they have a special need for self-protection. In urging the justices to hear the case, the National Rifle Association called the law [ http://sblog.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/2013-02-10-Kachalsky-Amicus-Brief-FINAL.pdf ] “a de facto ban on carrying a handgun outside the home.”
In November, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in New York, upheld the law. California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey have similar laws.
As is their custom, the justices gave no reasons for declining to hear the case from New York. Additional cases presenting essentially the same question are likely to reach the court in the coming months.
In 2008, the Supreme Court ruled for the first time [ http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html ] that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own guns, and it struck down a District of Columbia law that prohibited keeping guns in homes for self-defense.
“We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country,” Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority in the decision, District of Columbia v. Heller. “But the enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table,” he added.
Aside from saying that total bans on the right to keep guns at home for self-defense are unconstitutional, the court has said little else about what other laws may violate the Second Amendment. On the other hand, the Heller decision did include a long list of laws and regulations that would be unaffected by the ruling. Among them were “laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools.”
In the lower courts, very few challenges to gun laws and gun prosecutions since the Heller decision have succeeded.
A major exception came in December, just days before the Newtown, Conn., shootings, when a divided three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, struck down an Illinois law [ http://www.isra.org/lawsuits/coa.pdf ] that banned carrying guns in public.
Judge Richard A. Posner [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/richard_a_posner/index.html ], writing for the majority, said the ruling was required by the Heller decision. The court gave the Illinois legislature six months to modify the law.
Judge Posner reviewed the empirical literature about the practical consequences for crime and safety of bans on carrying guns in public, and he found it inconclusive. “Anyway,” Judge Posner wrote, “the Supreme Court made clear in Heller that it wasn’t going to make the right to bear arms depend on casualty counts.”
The Illinois decision is in tension with the one from New York, and such conflicts often prompt Supreme Court review. Last month, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., upheld the Maryland law [ http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions/Published/121437.P.pdf ].
The case turned down by the Supreme Court on Monday, Kachalsky v. Cacace, No. 12-845, was brought by five New Yorkers who had been denied permits to carry handguns in public. In urging the justices not to hear the case, Eric T. Schneiderman [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/s/eric_t_schneiderman/index.html ], New York’s attorney general, said the state’s permit requirement was a reasonable regulation that was consistent with the Second Amendment. The Illinois law, by contrast, he said, amounted to a blanket prohibition.
In a statement [ http://www.ag.ny.gov/press-release/statement-ag-schneiderman-regarding-us-supreme-courts-decision-reject-challenge-new ] issued Monday, Mr. Schneiderman said that “New York State has enacted sensible and effective regulations of concealed handguns, and this decision keeps those laws in place.” He added that the court’s order declining to hear the case amounted to “a victory for families across New York who are rightly concerned about the scourge of gun violence that all too often plagues our communities.”
A lawyer for the challengers did not respond to a request for comment.
Attorney General Lisa Madigan of Illinois has said that she will wait to see what the state’s legislature does before deciding whether to ask the Supreme Court to hear the decision striking down the Illinois law.
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Related
Senators, Seeking Support, Weigh Revisions to Background Check Bill (April 16, 2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/us/politics/senators-manchin-and-toomey-consider-changes-to-gun-bill.html
Off-Duty Officer Killed Boyfriend, Their Year-Old Son and Then Herself, Police Say (April 15, 2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/nyregion/officer-killed-boyfriend-and-son-in-murder-suicide-police-say.html
Seeking Answers to Officer’s Murder-Suicide in Memories and Notes Left Behind (April 17, 2013 )
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/nyregion/seeking-answers-to-officers-murder-suicide-in-memories-and-notes-she-left.html
*
© 2013 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/16/us/politics/supreme-court-declines-gun-law-case.html
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NRA 500 Suicide: Man Shoots Himself To Death At NASCAR Race
Drivers take run the main straight during the NASCAR Sprint Cup series NRA 500 auto race at Texas Motor Speedway, Saturday, April 13, 2013, in Fort Worth, Texas.
04/16/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/14/nra-500-suicide_n_3082119.html [with embedded video report, and (over 13,000) comments]
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States with the Most Gun Violence
April 15, 2013
1. Louisiana
2. Alaska
3. Alabama
4. Arizona
5. Mississippi
6. South Carolina
7. New Mexico
8. Missouri
9. Arkansas
10. Georgia
http://247wallst.com/2013/04/15/states-with-the-most-gun-violence/
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Law Enforcement More Likely To Be Killed In States With Weak Gun Laws, Study Finds
By Charles Posner, Guest Blogger on Apr 8, 2013 at 1:54 pm
As wrangling over the outcome of gun safety legislation in the Senate reaches a fever pitch, Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu (D) has been quiet on where she stands. Her home state, though, exemplifies the real risk weak gun laws pose–not only to residents, but also to the men and women charged with protecting them.
Gun laws in Louisiana prevent the state’s law enforcement officers from doing their jobs, and put them at a much greater risk of gun violence. Last November, the state passed an NRA-backed ballot initiative [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/11/08/1164791/louisiana-amendment-gives-gun-rights-strictest-constitutional-protection/ ] that enshrined gun ownership in the constitution and removed provisions that prohibited certain individuals, such as domestic abusers and the seriously mentally ill, from carrying a concealed weapon. In March, a judge ruled that the amendment outlawed a “state statute forbidding certain felons from possessing firearms,” noting that “The courts cannot question the wisdom [ http://www.nola.com/crime/index.ssf/2013/03/new_orleans_judge_rules_statut.html ] of fundamental law and frustrate the will of the people.”
This new law makes it easier for dangerous people to possess guns and endangers law enforcement officials. But Louisiana has long been a trail-blazer for weak gun laws. Prior to this amendment’s passage, the state denied [ http://smartgunlaws.org/concealed-weapons-permitting-in-louisiana/ ] giving law enforcement discretion when issuing concealed handgun permits and a slew of other weak regulations [ http://www.tracetheguns.org/#/states/LA/exports/ ] have ranked the state among the worst in the nation on key measures of gun trafficking as determined by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A new study [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/04/03/1811311/study-states-with-loose-gun-laws-have-higher-rates-of-gun-violence/ ] released last week by the Center for American Progress analyzed 10 key measures of gun violence and found that Louisiana is worst among the 50 states. Included in the report is a 50-state ranking of law enforcement feloniously killed by guns: Louisiana ranks second worst in the nation behind South Dakota.
The Newtown tragedy has woken legislators across the country up to the need for sensible gun violence prevention measures. Landrieu, recognizing the important role law enforcement plays, has said [ http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/277783-vulnerable-senate-democrats-balk-at-obamas-gun-measures#ixzz2PWpyNRGY ] that “some of the most respected law enforcement leaders in our country are calling for commonsense reforms.” Among the most obvious and effective [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/20/1747551/why-harry-reid-must-make-universal-background-checks-part-of-gun-law-reform/ ] of these reforms is to require every gun buyer to go through a mandatory criminal background check.
Universal background checks, which enjoy support from 85 percent [ http://libcloud.s3.amazonaws.com/9/cf/b/1397/LA_MAIG_Release_030513.pdf ] of Louisianans, would help prevent criminals and other dangerous people from having easy access to guns. And they would cut down on illegal gun trafficking by holding straw purchasers accountable for giving guns to criminals. But of course, the law must require the firearm sellers conducting background checks to keep a record; otherwise, law enforcement would once again be undercut by having no method to enforce the law.
The NRA often says that “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.” But in states like Louisiana, no single group has done more than the NRA to put guns in the hands of bad guys. That puts the good guys with guns—like our law enforcement officers—and good guys without guns at a higher risk. Universal background checks, as evidence has shown [ http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/02/13/1589161/study-gun-homicides-increased-25-percent-after-missouri-background-check-laws-repeal/ ], are a meaningful and uncontroversial measure that would make Louisiana a safer place and protect those charged with protecting us.
© 2013 Center for American Progress Action Fund
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/04/08/1835021/law-enforcement-more-likely-to-be-killed-in-states-with-weak-gun-laws-study-finds/ [with comments]
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You can’t understand what’s happened to the Senate without these two graphs
April 18, 2013
[...]
... In 1790, Virginia, the largest state, was 12.65 times the size of Delaware, the smallest. In 2010, however, California, the largest state, was fully 66 times the size of Wyoming, the smallest. The Senate is now about five times less proportionate than it was at the country’s founding.
And that’s not even the worst it’s gotten. In 1900, the largest state, New York, was a shocking 171.7 times the size of the smallest, Nevada. An individual Nevadan had 171.7 times the influence of New Yorkers in the upper house of Congress:
[...]
That’s right: If senators representing 17.82 percent of the population agree, they can get a majority in the 2013 U.S. Senate. That’s not the lowest that figure has gotten (it hit about 16.8 percent in 1970) but it’s about there. And this doesn’t even take the filibuster into account. The smallest 20 states amount to 11.27 percent of the U.S. population, but if all of their senators band together they can successfully filibuster legislation.
You can see all the data represented here in this spreadsheet [ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkeTUNT8ZF3ldDlaQkd5QXZSQnRkbHNmU0xkc1Rxbmc#gid=0 ( https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkeTUNT8ZF3ldDlaQkd5QXZSQnRkbHNmU0xkc1Rxbmc&usp=sharing )].
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/04/18/you-cant-understand-whats-happened-to-the-senate-without-these-two-graphs/ [with comments]
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Dad arrested on gun, drug charges a week after deadly pit collapse
Posted: Apr 15, 2013 5:44 PM CDT
Updated: Apr 15, 2013 6:37 PM CDT
STANLEY, N.C. (WBTV) - A Lincoln County man, who was digging a two-story-deep pit on his property when it collapsed, killing two children, has now been arrested on unrelated charges.
31-year-old Jordan Arwood was arrested by the Lincoln County Sheriff's Office on Monday. He was charged with possession of a weapon by a felon and a drug charge.
He was placed in the Harven A. Crouse Detention Center under a $20,000 secured bond.
Last week, deputies removed firearms and a marijuana plant from Arwood's mobile home. Officers say they found six firearms, including an AR-15 rifle.
Arwood's 6-year-old daughter, Chloe Jade Arwood, and his nephew, 7-year-old James Levi Caldwell, were fatally buried when the rain-soaked walls of the pit collapsed last Sunday evening.
Arwood was operating a backhoe Sunday night in the pit when the walls collapsed and he called 911.
The bodies of the two young cousins were dug out Monday morning.
The investigation into the deaths of two young children is continuing. When the investigation is completed the information will be turned over to the District Attorney's Office to determine if charges will be filed.
Arwood's first court appearance will be Tuesday in Lincoln County District Court.
The Associated Press contributed to the report.
Copyright 2013 WBTV
http://www.wbtv.com/story/21984758/dad-arrested-on-gun-drug-charges-a-week-after-deadly-pit-collapse [no comments yet] [further to "Guns, marijuana plant seized from NC home where walls of pit collapsed on 2 children" about 40% of the way down at/see generally (linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=86650342 and preceding and following]
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Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
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