Internationalizing the Second Amendment
Sharon Stone Coleman, a Federal judge in Illinois, has ruled that an illegal immigrant has the right to own and carry a firearm. Without going into the details of the ruling, which is based on a Supreme Court decision that firearms regulation must be in accord with American traditions, it is difficult to agree with gun advocates who have endorsed it.
The right to bear arms is a civil, not an international or natural right. It is based on the 2nd Amendment, which was itself a response to events that triggered the uprising of New England militia men against the British Army. Civil rights, as everyone used to know, are the rights of cives, that is, citizens not aliens, much less aliens who have entered the country illegally. The fantasy that aliens have constitutional rights was the product of the muddle-headed Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. When Marshall began venting on the rights of aliens, most commentators scoffed, but at the time I pointed out that it was a trail-blazing opinion that would produce much mischief down the road.
Illinois has one of the strictest gun codes in the nation. You have to have a special license even to possess a weapon, even an historic 19th century weapon, as my wife found out when she inherited an unrifled musket from the War Between the States. Of course, Illinois' FOID Card requirement is a rule for citizens. The illegal alien gunowner might be telling the truth that he feared for his life during the George Floyd riots. He might be a solid asset to the community, but he is not a solid citizen, because he broke into this country like a thief in the night. The only right such people possess is the right to leave the country before they are deported or imprisoned.
Just in case anyone thinks that Judge Coleman is a conservative Second Amendment supporter, please take note that she was in fact appointed by Barack Obama. Her most notable decision was to allow members of the same sex to marry even before the new state law granting permission went into effect.
The Gun Lobby is no stranger to Constitutional hocus pocus. The Second Amendment, as anyone who can read plain English understands, forbids Congress from passing a law restricting firearms. It says nothing about the states.
Judge Coleman's ruling and the positive reaction from some gun advocates is one more bit of proof--as if we needed it--that not only do we no longer live under the rule of law but, worse, no one cares. Her ruling is of a piece with the arrest of a woman in New York for changing the locks on a house she owned in an attempt to evict squatters. We are dealing with an affirmative action mentality in the political class that privileges designated minorities, especially the incompetent and the criminal, over everyone who pulls his weight, does his job, pays his taxes, and obeys the law.
So long as it is your favorite issue--the imaginary rights of the unborn, aliens, pets, the planet Earth--those rights trump all considerations of the Constitution, the Common Law traditions of our ancestors, and common sense. "If I can stop one heart from breaking," or save one chicken from slaughter or one microbe from extinction; so long as I can find doctors venal enough to say vaccines, masks, social distiancing, and hibernation will save lives--no sacrifice of wealth, time, freedom, or reason is too much to demand.
Where to even begin with this ruling. Perhaps it’s just another step toward a mercenary armed force comprised of illegals, since they can’t recruit enough real Americans to serve in the woke-intoxicated forces of empire. This will give them an introduction to firearms, with helpful training exercises such as robbery, hijacking, et al.
As a gun owner and firearm enthusiast, I am appalled that some second amendment supporters see this as a positive. So many are guzzling the Kool-Aid of rights, the responsibility of citizens component has been forgotten. I think some second amendment folks mimic the pro-lifers in that they can be their own worst enemy.
Didn’t Eric Holder already establish this precedent when he gave all those guns to Mexican cartels during Fast & Furious? Meanwhile, they’re proposing a bill to criminalize armed church security teams, because the last thing they want is for actual Christians to not die when a crazy person starts shooting at them.
It’s so stupid it would be funny if it weren’t so malicious and evil.
This could backfire on the Democrats as their constituents increasingly are victimized by these invaders. One might not be too surprised if it turns out that the first rebellion happens in a Democratic stronghold because they push the people there too far. Big city blacks are already becoming incensed over it.
Good to see someone pointing out the first word of the Second Amendment.
Good to see someone pointing out the first word of the Second Amendment.
Yes, I’d guess everyone here is aware of the incorporation doctrine.
I find it extremely doubtful that the original intent of the framers of the Constitution included one branch of the general government being equipped with the power to innovative law and subvert the Constitution by a mere “opinion” in a case.
Josh, yes. One of the biggest mistakes made by self-described conservatives is to defend the constitution and then, when it suits their purposes, assert the entirely false interpretation of an amendment that was never legally passed. It is as if great scholars like Raoul Berger and Forrest MacDonald never existed. My old friend and colleague Steve Presser is one of the few prominent conservative law professors who continues to expose the constitutional nakedness of the 14th Amendment. One is reminded of Jeremy Bentham’s condemnation of natural rights and state of nature theories as not mjust nonsense but nonsense on stilts.
PS Rumor has it that you have a book out. Make sure we get a copy and help me find a reviewer.
It means that the invaders will be allowed by the feds to carry weapons to terrorize us with while the establishment tightens gun laws on the rest of us, or tries to do so, in order to disarm us and leave us at their mercy. They will do the same with CBDCs. Invaders get free cell phones, and when CBDCs come in, the invaders will get lots of free digital fake cash to spend while we have to work for ours if we have jobs, and get our fake cash taken away if we get out of line by doing things like defending ourselves from the invaders or buying the wrong books, eating the wrong food, or criticizing our rulers. Anarcho-tyranny indeed.
I have deleted and shall continue without fail to delete comments that irrelevant, misleading, and boorish.
In such a case as this, citizenship will come to mean less and less. Assuming a higher court or SCOTUS doesn’t strike this manifestly ridiculous ruling down, what can a state do about it? Striking down the 14th Amendment itself will never happen barring drastic changes in the system. The only thing I can think of is state nullification which also doesn’t seem very likely.
Either Judge Napolitano or Robert Barnes (or perhaps both, I can’t remember) have said that Justice Roberts and one or two other Justices have realized that these leftist nuts in the federal judiciary are destroying what little credibility the court system has left. So maybe they will do something about this should it make it that far up in the system.
The only other option is a purge of the courts. The problem with that is that it might take not a Trump, but rather a Stalin, and we don’t have a Stalin handy. But if the feds continue on the path they are on we will get one who will not be to our liking.
The gun advocates seem to be becoming as nutty as the anti-abortion nuts.
I never thought I would ever be making an argument in favor of gun laws, but such is our bizarre country today.
The trouble lies with all those who say that their goals trump not only all other goals but any rules, laws, or traditions. The Bill of Rights, as every schoolboy knows, was devised by the initially skeptical Madison, who (like many people) was concerned that the enumeration of rights everyone took for granted might be an invitation for intervention at the national level. Still, as he told the Congress in its first meeting under the Constitution, a large number of Americans opposed ratification of the Constitution out of fears that it would deprive the sovereign States of their authority. Hence the somewhat redundant 10th Amendment, the key to the rest, was meant to reassure the Anti-Federalists. When Gun Nuts and rabid Anti-Abortion activists ignore the plain meaning of the Amendment and hide behind a later invalid Amendment that has been grossly misinterpreted against the explicit statement of the man who drafted the 14th Amendment, they are basically rejecting the rule of law in the hope that the Judicial branch will break the harmonious joint-tyranny of the three branches that rule the Helots. That assumes there are Roger Taneys around and not just John Robertses.