THE DAILY BLADE: Second Amendment Rights For Me, But Not For Thee
Several states permit judges to pack heat in court for their own protection. These states include Florida, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, and Texas. On Jan. 1, Kansas is set to permit judges to carry concealed firearms in the courtroom. State senator and practicing attorney Phillip Journey, who wrote the bill, tells The National Law Journal, "Guns are like lawyers: Better to have one and not need it than need one and not have it."
No doubt citizens in those states feel the same way, and judges in most of them do not enjoy Second Amendment rights that state and municipal governments have curtailed to the point of irrelevance for everyone else. Kansas and New York are the exceptions.
Here’s a brief summary of gun control laws in these states:
† Citizens in Florida need a permit to carry handguns.
† Nevada, Oklahoma and Texas require a permit to carry a concealed weapon.
† Kansas does not permit citizens to carry concealed weapons; a handgun must be in plain sight when a person walks about armed.
† In New York, permits are required to purchase, register and license handguns; a permit is also needed to carry a concealed weapon. In New York City, it helps to be rich, famous or politically connected to get these permits (Donald Trump, for one, reportedly has a concealed carry permit); criminals don’t bother with stinkin’ permits.
In another gun law development, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit began hearing arguments in a lawsuit challenging that city’s
handgun ban as unconstitutional.Other cities have bans on automatic weapons and sawed-off shotguns that withstood legal tests pitting individual rights v. states’ rights. But the District of Columbia is a stateless city - and the only city in the US that bans all side arms - so this case rests entirely on what the Founding Fathers meant by "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."
Whatever the outcome, the case is likely to be taken up by the Supreme Court, which has not decided a Second Amendment case in nearly 70 years.
The case now before the three-judge appellate panel involves six city residents (Shelly Parker et al.) living in high-crime neighborhoods who were told by a lower-court judge in 2004 that they did not have a constitutional right to own handguns for their protection.
Defending the city’s ban and the earlier ruling, Todd Kim, the District's solicitor general, argued that the city interprets the Second Amendment "in military terms," and that the right to bear arms applies only to militias, not to individuals. That line of reasoning did not appear to sit well with one of the three judges, according to The Associated Press: "Show me anybody in the 19th century who interprets the 2nd Amendment the way you do," Judge Laurence Silberman said. "It doesn't appear until much later, the middle of the 20th century."
However, it greatly troubles The Stiletto that Silberman and Judge Thomas B. Griffith questioned the Second Amendment’s continued relevance since the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. In today’s America, they wondered, is a well-regulated militia is still needed? Is the right to bear arms still necessary?
The Stiletto will type this very slowly so liberals – and activist judges - can understand: We, the people, are the militia.
A well-regulated militia is comprised of individual citizens who own guns and know how to use them, banding together into militias in times of national emergency. If all the guns in the land are cached inside armories and distributed to the public only when the country comes under attack, there is little chance those unaccustomed to handling firearms will be effective as citizen soldiers. The armories themselves would be targeted by insurgents or enemy forces for takeover or destruction.
So, what’s the emergency? Right now throughout the United States there are an unknown number of "jihadi camps" in full swing training Islamofascists in the art of terror. We know they exist because from time to time the FBI busts them up and the government prosecutes the terrorists who run them.
Should "sudden jihad syndrome" break out all over America one day, armed citizens will help stop the murder and mayhem. Unless, that is, state and local governments - aided and abetted by the judiciary - delete the Second Amendment from the Constitution.
Even those who think this is a far-fetched scenario would have to agree that it is better to have a Constitutional right that you don’t need, then not to have it when you need it most.
Behold The Manly Man
Stand-up comic and born-again Christian Brad Stine, 46, thinks there’s way too much kumbaya in church. Stine preaches a high-testosterone brand of worship he calls "GodMen." He’s not alone: Though still on the fringes of their faith, some Christian men have come to the conclusion that traditional church worship is emasculating, reports the Los Angeles Times:
The virility crusade is, in part, a response to a stark gender gap. Though churches have tried all sorts of gimmicks to attract men — even sponsoring clubs for motorcycle riders and paintball players — more than 60% of the adults at a typical worship service are women. That translates into 13 million more women than men in the pews on any given Sunday, according to David Murrow, author of "Why Men Hate Going to Church." …
As for the music, "Onward, Christian Soldiers" is long gone. Instead, there are ballads about Jesus' eternal embrace. "Very Barry Manilow," says Mike Smith, Stine's manager. …
Stine argues that the genteel facade of a Christian nice guy inhibits introspection and substitutes cliches for spiritual growth. GodMen is his attempt to encourage men to get real. His speakers admit to masturbation and adultery. A workshop called "Training the Penis" encourages men to talk openly about temptation and bond with guys who share their struggles. …
A similar — though less ribald — approach is taken by Men's Fraternity, which was founded in Little Rock, Ark., in 1990 and has expanded around the world, with hundreds of chapters meeting weekly at 6 a.m. in churches, office buildings, even car dealerships.
"It's testosterone-friendly," says Rick Caldwell, global director of the program. He urges chapter leaders to have NFL bloopers on the big screen when the men come in, and oldies or country-western on the radio. "No opening prayer. And for heaven's sakes, don't ask the guys to take the hand of the guys next to them. That scares them to death." …
"Do not think Sunday morning worship," Caldwell says. "Think Saturday afternoon tailgate."
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March 12, 2007
The Stiletto wrote:
"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." When they crafted the Second Amendment, did the Founding Fathers intend that only those citizens already formed into militias have the right to bear arms to protect the State? Or that all citizens have the right to bear arms so that they may be formed into a militia to protect the State? If you’re a liberal or gun control advocate, the first interpretation makes sense. If you know how ...
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