NOVATOWNHALL

It appears that the Supreme court will clarify one of its earlier rulings. The all important swing vote on the court, spoke as follows …

Kennedy said that in his view, the amendment says “there is a general right to bear arms, quite without reference to a militia.“

One good thing the current US President did was pick a couple of improvements for the SCOTUS. In Heller v. DC the case of U.S. v. Miller will be superseded. Miller has been the basis for many of the gun bans enacted, including the one in DC. The court in Miller erred; it attempted legal jujitsu and stumbled.

A reading of the decision in Miller shows the innate mendacity of the left in its quest to ban the public from owning arms. Justice McReynolds repeatedly stated in Miller that the individual had a right to keep and bear arms. Despite his efforts, this case has been a bane upon the country and has only caused misery for lawful gun owners. The gun bans enacted under the umbrella of Miller, directly impact an individual’s inherent, natural right to self defense. Many despots in other countries enacted gun bans because such bans enable despots to terrorize the populace under their regimes. All of these bans where enacted under the banner of public safety and order. If this sounds familiar it should as these are the tactics of the left in America the past 80 years.

From the U.S. Constitution:

Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791. Note

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.

If I recall ‘MeatHead’ from all in the family (a.k.a. Rob Reiner) actually mangled the second amendment by ‘reading’ in an episode that the amendment stated, “The right to bear arms shall not be infringed, in a well regulated militia” — rather different from the actual article in our founding document.

The case U.S. v. Miller (1939) that has been used by liberal lawmakers to enact dozens of gun bans in various locales, was about interstate commerce and the transportation of sawed off shotguns across state lines.

Jack Miller and Frank Layton ‘did unlawfully, knowingly, willfully, and feloniously transport in interstate commerce from the town of Claremore in the State of Oklahoma to the town of Siloam Springs in the State of Arkansas a certain firearm, to-wit, a double barrel 12-gauge Stevens shotgun having a barrel less than 18 inches in length, …

The ruling stresses that a shotgun was not a military weapon, and was therefore unsuitable for use in the militia. Since it appears that in Miller the court was attempting to strike down the sale and ownership of a weapon on the grounds of its being unsuitable for military use, one must ask, “Then on what basis did the congress the pass the assault weapons ban, H.R. 1022: Assault Weapons Ban and Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2007 ?” This ban was not only patently unconstitutional prior to Miller it was even more so after Miller.

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a ’shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length’ at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.

The gun control advocates at the Brady campaign tell us that the assault rifle ban does not outlaw all semiautomatic weapons, “Only semi-automatic guns with multiple assault weapon features are banned.” In other words the scary looking ones. The 2nd amendment was enacted not to protect the right of us to hunt white tail dear. It was enacted so that a free state would remain a free state. The personal phobias of liberals do not trump this prerogative.

Of further amazement to me is that McReynolds goes on to state the following in Miller:

The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense.

Which begs the question how did any legislator ever construe the above plain text reading as a call to ban the legal ownership of weapons? Nowadays I am sure Gloria Steinham, would demand we replace ‘males’ with ‘persons’. None the less if all able body adults are eligible for militia duty, how does the fevered liberal brain conjure up a ban from U.S. v. Miller given the language cited above?

The court went on to site the character of various militia’s with respect to composition and eligibility. The court also cited the following in Miller:

‘In all the colonies, as in England, the militia system was based on the principle of the assize of arms. This implied the general obligation of all adult male inhabitants to possess arms, …’

The case being made is the expectation of the militia to be armed and all able body males to be part of the militia. This only deepens the mystery, as all the documentation cited in Miller, from Adam Smith to legislation passed by the Common Wealth’s of MA, NY and VA, supports or requires that the individual be armed.

It is the following single statement by the court in Miller that allowed the rights of millions of Americans to be abridged.

Differences in the language employed in these have naturally led to somewhat variant conclusions concerning the scope of the right guaranteed.

The court in U.S. v. Miller did strive valiantly to protect the rights of the individual to own a weapon. While the ruling was flawed in its inception by its erroneous conclusion that the barrel length of a shotgun could render it ineffective as military instrument, Justice McReynolds was clear in his intent that the general rights of the individual were to be upheld.

Reading of the body of the decision is an eye opener, due to the length that the court went to in its attempt protect the right of the individual to bear arms, outside its desire to ban the sale of sawed off shotguns. Yet, this effort has been proven ineffective as evidenced by all the guns bans that have been imposed upon a free people.

To deny the continued necessity of a free state’s needing an armed militia is to deny the reality of human nature and the quest of politicians for ever more power. Such denial only leads to eventual enslavement.