A well-regulated militia(1), being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people(2) to keep(3) and bear(4) arms(5), shall not be infringed(6) .
1. The whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military service - militiaman..
2. The mass of a community as distinguished from a special class (disputes between the people and the nobles)..
3. To have or maintain in one's service or at one's disposal..
4. a: To move while holding up and supporting. b: To be equipped or furnished with..
5. A means of offense or defense; esp: FIREARM.
6. a: DEFEAT, FRUSTRATE. b: to encroach upon in a way that violates law or the rights of another [infringe a patent], synonym - see "TRESPASS"
From Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary
"Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck, using surveys and other data, has determined that armed citizens defend their lives or property with firearms against criminals approximately 1 million times a year.* In 98 percent of these instances, the citizen merely brandishes the weapon or fires a warning shot. Only in 2 percent of the cases do citizens actually shoot their assailants. In defending themselves with their firearms, armed citizens kill 2,000 to 3,000 criminals each year, three times the number killed by the police. A nationwide study by Kates, the constitutional lawyer and criminologist, found that only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The "error rate" for the police, however, was 11 percent, over five times as high."
From "A Nation of Cowards" by Jeffrey Snyder.
* That is in his book "POINT BLANK: GUNS AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA" (Aldine de Gruyter, 1991). His later studies indicate that defensive uses of guns by citizens occur about 2.5 million times per year. M.T.B.
From:
Jeff Cooper's Commentaries Vol. 2, No. 4 et all
Previously Gunsite Gossip
22 March 1994
Amid all the dismal news that we acquire daily about the state of the nation and the world, some dim but promising lights appear. For the first time since the reign of Roosevelt II, people are beginning to notice the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Much as liberals may laugh, that Article is still on the books. It establishes beyond any question that powers not granted to the U.S. government by the U.S. Constitution are specifically unlawful and need not be obeyed.
Note this from the Sixteenth American Jurisprudence, Second Edition, Section 177:
"The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having formed in nature of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void and ineffective for any purpose, since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment and not merely from the date of decision so branding it. An unconstitutional law in legal contemplation is as inoperative as if it had never been passed. Such a statute leaves the question that it purports to settle just as it would be had the statute not been enacted."
"Since an unconstitutional law is void, the general principles follow that it imposes no duties, confers no rights, creates no office, bestows no power or authority on anyone, affords no protection and justifies no acts performed under it."
"No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it."
"Most of America's assault rifles are in the attics, basements, and closets of patriotic Americans who never fire them and to whom war against their own government would be an unthinkable nightmare."
"The problem is that millions of such weapons are now being stored in the homes of ordinary Americans, especially in the Western United States. Assault rifles have a military appearance and contribute in a subtle, psychological way to growing resistance to government oppression. Most farmers, ranchers, and loggers who see their lives and families entirely destroyed by Babbitt and retainers will never fire a shot. The existence of these weapons, however, makes resistance, even legal resistance, more thinkable to these victims."
"The bureaucrats and politicians do not fear armed criminals or armed political zealots so much as they fear peaceful Americans who will probably never use their assault rifles - but whose mental toughness may be enhanced by possession of military weapons."
"The gun controllers are not deterred by the facts about guns and crime, because their primary fear is not of criminals. They fear ordinary Americans whose lives and freedom their policies are destroying. In this fear and in their world, they are on target." Arthur B. Robinson, Ph.D. Access to Energy, July 1994, Vol. 21, no. 11
"Slavery in the modern world implies the absolute deprivation of the individual's liberty, while possession of weapons and mastery of their use are means to the individual's liberation. We do not perceive how a man may be armed and at the same time bereft of his freedom." John Keegan, in "The Face of Battle"
Remember when Kennesaw, Georgia, made it mandatory for all households to be armed, and the media viewed this with dismay? Well note further that in Kennesaw, Georgia, where there used to be very little armed violence, there now seems to be none.
What was it that Heinlein said about an armed society?
(Mike's cheat line: "An armed society is a polite society.")
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