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.
Just a few questions this morning.
Typical anti-2nd amendment arguments:
We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government. In today's world, that idea is somewhat anachronistic and in any case would require weapons much more powerful than handguns or hunting rifles. - ACLU position
OR
"Standing armies," ran the decree disbanding the Continental Army after the Revolution, "in time of peace are inconsistent with the principles of a free people, and generally converted into destructive engines for establishing despotism."
Knowing the strong feelings of the Founding Fathers on this matter makes it seem less odd to find no provision in the original Constitution for an army. What the Founding Fathers had high hopes for in case of a national emergency was that everyone would drop what they were doing, grab a rifle from over the fireplace, and rush to the aid of their country.
They were much too idealistic, however. A civilian militia simply doesn't work--and never has. The problem is divided between self-interest and lack of discipline. The average militiaman, the Founding Fathers discovered, would head back for his farm as soon as the immediate emergency was over--or sooner, if he thought his farm or family needed him. And the citizen-soldier felt no qualms about deciding he'd had enough in the midst of a battle. - Opinion piece in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, 1 March 2006
OR (from our Friends at the Brady Campaign)
In the 20th century, the Second Amendment has become an anachronism, largely because of drastic changes in the militia it was designed to protect. We no longer have the citizen militia like that of the 18th century.
Today's equivalent of a "well-regulated" militia - the National Guard - has more limited membership than its early counterpart and depends on government-supplied, not privately owned, firearms. Gun control laws have no effect on the arming of today's militia, since those laws invariably do not apply to arms used in the context of military service and law enforcement. Therefore, they raise no serious Second Amendment issues.
The anti-gunners suggest that the National Guard is the militia referred to in the Second Amendment.
Who is the Militia?10 USC Sec. 311 01/19/04
TITLE 10 - ARMED FORCES
Subtitle A - General Military Law
PART I - ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL MILITARY POWERS
CHAPTER 13 - THE MILITIA
-HEAD-
Sec. 311. Militia: composition and classes
-STATUTE-
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied
males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section
313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a
declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States
and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the
National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are -
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard
and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of
the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval
Militia.
-SOURCE-
(Aug. 10, 1956, ch. 1041, 70A Stat. 14; Pub. L. 85-861, Sec. 1(7), Sept. 2, 1958, 72 Stat. 1439; Pub. L. 103-160, div. A, title V, Sec. 524(a), Nov. 30, 1993, 107 Stat. 1656.)
Is the
organized militia serving in the United States right now, or is it largely overseas?
DoD officials today consider the reserves an "operational reserve," as opposed to the Cold War's "strategic reserve," when the reserves would be called up only in the direst circumstances, Punaro said.
Today, the reserves are an integral part of the operational force. Already more than 500,000 reserve-component personnel have served in the global war on terror.
Are the
United States Military and Naval Forces (the full-timers) in a position in this country geographically to handle an attack - or all there too many soldiers, sailors and Marines overseas?
The Associated Press reported that an unreleased study conducted for the Pentagon said the Army was being overextended because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and may not be able to retain and recruit enough troops to defeat the insurgency in Iraq.
As In the report obtained by The Associated Press, Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote it under Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency.
As evidence, he pointed to the Army's 2005 recruiting slump - missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 - and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives.
Is there an attack on American soil expected soon?
The fatwa serves as a reminder of a specific warning given to the U.S. Congress last year that an oil tanker could be used to transport a nuclear weapon to a port in the U.S.
“The Middle East is the dominant source of anti-American terrorism,” explained the report by Jonathan Medalia, specialist in national defense, foreign affairs, defense and trade. “The United States imports an average of more than 2 million barrels of crude oil a day from Persian Gulf nations. “This crude oil is transported by ship, and it would be very difficult to detect a bomb inside a supertanker.”
The report very specifically is referring to a nuclear bomb.
Such a device could not be readily detected by gamma rays because of size of supertankers and the thickness of their steel. Neither could neutron activation detect such a weapon with any certainty because neutrons would be absorbed by the oil, explained the report, titled “Nuclear Terrorism: A Brief Review of Threats and Responses.”
Not only would this be an ingenius means of getting a nuclear warhead to the U.S., says the report, but the effects of detonation of the weapon would be magnified by the location.
“A bomb in a tanker could devastate an oil port by the blast and by secondary fires in nearby refineries and oil storage tanks,” it explains. “A tanker bomb might be used against other maritime targets, such as the Panama Canal. And, if a bomb in a shipping container could lead to the shutdown of container traffic, seriously damaging the world economy, a tanker bomb might by the same token lead to the suspension of crude oil shipments, with similar results.”
AND
As G2B reported exclusively earlier this year, government officials are increasingly concerned about the threat of this kind of electro-magnetic pulse attack that could cripple cities and entire regions of the U.S. by knocking out electrical grids and computer technology.
EMP attacks are generated when a nuclear weapon is detonated at altitudes above a few dozen kilometers above the Earth's surface. The explosion, of even a small nuclear warhead, would produce a set of electromagnetic pulses that interact with the Earth's atmosphere and the Earth's magnetic field.
G2B first reported the shocking findings of the U.S. EMP commission that rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, have the capability of launching an undetected, catastrophic EMP attack on the U.S. – and are actively developing plans.
"These electromagnetic pulses propagate from the burst point of the nuclear weapon to the line of sight on the Earth's horizon, potentially covering a vast geographic region in doing so simultaneously, moreover, at the speed of light," said Dr. Lowell Wood, acting chairman of the commission appointed by Congress to study the threat. "For example, a nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 400 kilometers over the central United States would cover, with its primary electromagnetic pulse, the entire continent of the United States and parts of Canada and Mexico."
The commission, in its work over a period of several years, found that EMP is one of a small number of threats that has the potential to hold American society seriously at risk and that might also result in the defeat of U.S. military forces.
AND
Al-Qaida's prime targets for launching nuclear terrorist attacks are the nine U.S. cities with the highest Jewish populations, according to captured leaders and documents.
Won't the
Federal Government keep us safe in the event of an attack, rapidly providing aid and protection to devestated communities? Doesn't this include the National Guard?
Five days after Hurricane Katrina devastated three Gulf states of the United States leaving thousands dead and one million homeless and in deep distress, President George W. Bush flew in. The horrifying spectacles of suffering and the immensity of the calamity were far worse than he imagined. The US president witnessed needs of Third World proportions and a state of anarchy, with armed gangs looting, robbing and raping refugees, that recalled the streets of Somalia. Patients were dying unattended in the hospitals where even medicines had been stolen in violent attacks...The effect of this lapse of authority, which came for all the world to see, was predictably demoralizing. National Guard officers, some of whom had served in Iraq, refused to patrol the disaster zones “because there are gunmen on the streets.” The Louisiana police chief admitted many of his men were resigning. They had lost everything to the hurricane and now they were being shot at.
Won't the
police keep us safe in such an emergency?
“With looters, rapists and other thugs running rampant in New Orleans, Ray Nagin issued an order to disarm all law-abiding citizens. With no law enforcement and 911 available, he left the victims vulnerable by stripping away their only means of defending themselves and their loved ones. " - NRA
NY Times, 3 September 2005: Reeling from the chaos of this overwhelmed city, at least 200 New Orleans police officers have walked away from their jobs and two have committed suicide, police officials said on Saturday.
Some officers told their superiors they were leaving, police officials said. Others worked for a while and then stopped showing up. Still others, for reasons not always clear, never made it in after the storm.
The absences come during a period of extraordinary stress for the New Orleans Police Department. For nearly a week, many of its 1,500 members have had to work around the clock, trying to cope with flooding, an overwhelming crush of refugees, looters and occasional snipers.
P. Edwin Compass III, the superintendent of police, said most of his officers were staying at their posts. But in an unusual note of sympathy for a top police official, he said it was understandable that many were frustrated. He said morale was "not very good."
Who will defend our neighborhoods and help to protect the citizenry if and when this attack hits the United States?
Isn't that the purpose of a militia? The anti-gunners love ripping a militia, but someday they may realize how bad we need one.
2nd Amendment ,
Militia
