The 2nd Amendment: Who Decides Its Meaning?

The Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment II:  “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.”

It isn’t a matter of whether the government bureaucrats and politicians understand the phrase “shall not be infringed” or not, but rather a matter of they don’t acknowledge the basic tenet of the Constitution or any of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights.

Barack Obama has called the Constitution a “charter of negative liberties”, meaning it was written as a bad thing not a good thing because it limits the authority of government.  He was referring to the redistribution of wealth at the time but has since applied this same demented opinion to every liberty guaranteed to We the People.  Obama sees himself as above the Constitution and the law of the land.  He sees himself as a dictator, giving and taking away at his discretion.

The 2^nd Amendment is under serious attack from both state and federal governments, on many fronts and by a diverse group of people.  It is no secret that the Democrats have long desired to establish their dictatorship by first disarming We the People.  This battle has been going on for years and isn’t anything new.  One new aspect, however, is the Veteran’s Administration sending letters to veterans stating they may not be mentally capable of handling their own affairs and therefore also not mentally capable of owning firearms.  There is an appeals process but that will result in the desired outcome; veterans “deemed” mentally incompetent and left without the means to defend themselves, their families, and their God-given rights, stripped of every right they fought to preserve for others.

What is frightening is the new allies of the Marxist Democrats.  House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA-22) has come out and stated that gun control and immigration “can be done without help from Republicans”.  Odd, I thought McCarthy is a Republican, but says he will work with Democrats against Republicans. It seems as though neither political party much cares what the Constitution says, nor what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote it.  Now we find the Republican Party establishment coming out in favor of various gun control schemes, all designed to ultimately render We the People as slaves of an autocratic dictatorship.

Several states, including Illinois, New York, California, and now Colorado, have come out with legislation that is clearly unconstitutional yet politicians on both sides of the aisle “deem” themselves wiser than our Founding Fathers and have decided they have the authority to make such decisions.  They will decide who can protect themselves and how that can be accomplished.  Some of the more prominent self-defense suggestions have been whistles, call-boxes, scissors, ink pens, wetting one’s pants, and it gets ridiculous beyond here.

As government officials at the federal and state levels seek to disarm We the People, they have ramped up the quantity, and lethality, of weapons possessed by such defense oriented agencies as the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA). YEP, that’s right! the group that forecasts hurricanes.  I am not sure why they need full automatic M-16’s and billions of rounds of ammunition but who am I to question the “elitists” in Washington????   Local areas are finding IED-proof armored cars popping up and helicopters flying over their cities firing machine guns.  The Department of Homeland Security (sic) just acquired 2700 armored vehicles, plus thousands of full automatic rifles, handguns, and several billion rounds of hollow point ammunition.  For the novice, hollow points cannot be used in war; they have been banned by the Geneva Convention.  And while there is some discussion about who these “Urban Rescue Vehicles” (with gun ports) actually belong to there is no question they are being fitted for urban warfare in American cities.

Much has been said and written about the eventuality that a Supreme Court case will once again decide if We the People can defend ourselves or not.  With the decision of John Roberts on Obamacare it is obvious the 2^nd Amendment is in danger.  Who can citizens depend on to stand up for the Constitution and the God-given rights it guarantees?  We know Democrats despise liberty and will stop at nothing to enslave us.  We are reminded quite often that the Republican Party is no better.  The Republican establishment would rather “get along” with Democrats than do their duty to “uphold, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States of America”.

I believe that the freedoms engrained in the Constitution are OUR freedoms, given by God, and only acknowledged as such and guaranteed by said Constitution.  Those who decide what the 2^nd Amendment means are We the People.   If We the People allow any governmental entity; the federal government, state government, any court, or any politician, to determine our ability to defend ourselves from evil we will find ourselves as slaves to those who make such decisions.

Rights are given by God to individuals.  Those individuals confer authority and responsibility to others to govern in the best interests of We the People.  When government, at any level, “deems” themselves the final authority over our lives we find tyranny, suffering, poverty, and slavery.  The rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights are MY rights.  The Constitution does not give rights to government, it sets limits.  It limits the action government is allowed to take and provides for the people to be the final arbiter of what is legal or not legal.  Those sitting in their ivory towers making rules for We the People to live by are stepping well across the line of Constitutional bounds in a number of categories.  They have decided they are wiser, smarter, and more worthy of deciding what is or is not permissible, and the Constitution be damned.

We the People must stand strong against this tyranny.  If allowed to fester, tyranny will envelop all it touches and grow a cancer that is fatal to a Republic.  When those seeking ultimate power are the ones who are judge, jury, and executioner justice will never prevail.  It is up to us, We the People, to stand up for the rights, values, and responsibilities given to us by Almighty God.  It is up to us to band together to preserve a liberty bought with the blood and lives of thousands of our predecessors.  It is up to us to preserve that liberty for our descendants.  If we cower in fear or dismiss the danger and allow this to go on unchallenged we will see generations of Americans living under the yoke of oppression such as has been seen in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China, North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, and other dictatorships.  I will not allow the Supreme Court, or any other government agency, to make me a slave.

I, for one, will not stand by and let this happen.  We the People have seen the greatest nation to ever exist slide into disrepair due to our neglect of our responsibilities to insure liberty for future generations.  WE have been asleep at the wheel as tyranny has been implemented slowly.  Now that We the people are awake it is incumbent that we act to preserve what liberty is left and fight to restore that which has been lost

I submit this in the name of the Most Holy Trinity, in faith, with the responsibility given to me by Almighty God to honor His work and not let it die from neglect.

Bob Russell

Claremore, Oklahoma

March 12, 2013