Mrs. Obama Reminding Us 2A Rights are One Liberal SCOTUS Judge Away from Destruction

Justice Stevens & Mrs. Obama Reminding Us our 2A Rights are One Liberal SCOTUS Judge Away from Destruction

National Rifle Association
National Rifle Association

FAIRFAX, Va. –-(Ammoland.com)- In case any reader of our weekly Grassroots Alert has not decided how to vote in the 2012 presidential election, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens and First Lady Michelle Obama have volunteered to help him make up his mind.

Recently, Time magazine asked Stevens what he would fix about the American judicial system. Stevens’ response: “I would make all my dissents into majority opinions.” Fair enough, since he’s entitled to think he is right, even when a majority of his former colleagues and a larger majority of the American citizenry disagree.

But then Time asked Stevens to single out one issue in particular, and he said, “I would change the interpretation of the Second Amendment.” Referring to the Court’s decisions in the Heller and McDonald cases that the Second Amendment protects individuals from federal, state and local infringements on their right to possess and carry arms, he added “The court got that quite wrong.”

In his dissent in Heller, Stevens claimed that “there is no indication that the Framers of the [Second] Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution.” And in his dissent in McDonald, he claimed that even if one assumed the Fourteenth Amendment protects a general right to self-defense, that didn’t mean that a person has a right to have a handgun. As if to suggest some logic to his theory, Stevens said “while some might favor handguns, it is not clear that they are a superior weapon for lawful self-defense.”

We have earlier noted the comment of another of the four justices who dissented from the majority’s Heller and McDonald opinions, Stephen Breyer, to the effect that District of Columbia residents who don’t like the city’s onerous gun laws should go to Maryland. And Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, another of the Heller and McDonald dissenters, has publicly indicated her hope that a “future, wiser court” will reconsider the Heller decision.

Of course, Justice Stevens and another of the four dissenting justices in Heller, Justice David Souter, have since retired and been replaced by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who dissented from the majority’s decision in McDonald, and Justice Elena Kagan, who joined the Court in August 2010 and who had a clear anti-gun record during her service in the Clinton White house.

Sotomayor and Kagan were nominated to the Court by President Barack Obama, of course. And not long ago, during a pre-2012 campaign event, First Lady Michelle Obama asked some of the president’s most ardent supporters to remember the Court’s two newest justices when they go into the voting booth next year. In the upcoming election, she said, “we’re going to make a choice that will impact our lives for decades to come . . . let’s not forget what it meant when my husband appointed those two brilliant Supreme Court justices . . . let’s not forget the impact that their decisions will have on our lives for decades to come.”

Obama supporters will not forget, and neither should supporters of the Second Amendment. The Second Amendment’s margin of safety on the Court remains intact by merely one vote. Given the likelihood of at least one retirement from the Court during the next presidential term, the future of the amendment could easily hinge on Election Day 2012

About:
Established in 1871, the National Rifle Association is America’s oldest civil rights and sportsmen’s group. Four million members strong, NRA continues its mission to uphold Second Amendment rights and to advocate enforcement of existing laws against violent offenders to reduce crime. The Association remains the nation’s leader in firearm education and training for law-abiding gun owners, law enforcement and the military. Visit: www.nra.org

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Mike A. Mechill

He's right the 2nd amendment was never intended to protect the individual right to self defense (against criminals). It was intended to protect the collective right of the citizenry to protect themselves against the government. What if there had been a spectacular terrorist attack that caused chaos across the country like a small nuclear device set off in New York city or a massive poisoning of metropolitan water supplies that caused unrest and panic nationwide? And what if the Bush administration decided that in the interests of national security we couldn't change leaders in the middle of a national crisis… Read more »

Clay

Are you folks capable of thinking about anything but guns?

AmmoLand

@Clay Uhh… No we are the Gun Lobby…DUH

Sculptors

Obama likes guns so much he's happy to supply them to the cartels with the tax payers footing the bill.

I prefer shrinkrap h

Yes yes – the same Obama from whole TYRANNICAL REIGN we have only seen gun rights INCREASED – yeah he has this huge anti-gun agenda… Yeah right. Those Brady Bill thumpers have rightly given Obama an "F" because he has made NO EFFORT at all to increase gun controls, and NO EFFORT to fight bills that relax them. Its awefully easy to veto something that doesn't pass with a veto-proof majority – you know if you actually oppose it. He signed these things into law. Obama isn't anti-2A at all. He never was. All he ever has done was pander… Read more »

PrincessSparklePony

Last week some felons tried to break into the double-wide to steal my collection of Hummel figurines and Thomas Kincade paintings. I used my marine core training and debrained them with my Mossberg Persuader 12 gauge, but then I found out it was just some neighborhood kids walking home from school. But they were darkies, so it was OK anyway.

And this Mossberg, I love it and all, but isn't Mossberg a jewie gun?

Legion7

Wow! A handgun may not be the best self-defense weapon? Really? Lets ban handguns as long as we have a clause that says I can carry my Mossberg Persuader 12 guage ANYWHERE I go and I'm all for it. Until then, I'll take my CCW permit and my pistol, thanks.

And please, all you douche liberals that want to let scumbag felons out early, and yet take my pistol, wear signs so I know who NOT to protect at the mall when one of your "creations" starts shooting the place up! Maybe a pink armband…

billy

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

billy

"Gun control is dead, the and is settled law, and our gun rights are safe.

Righties need to find some other ooga-booga issue to scare each other with.

How about Sharia Law – that’s always good when you want to terrify a dumbass!"

That's the kind of thinking that got us where we were in the Clinton era. We must be ever vigilant or we will loose all of our rights forever.

Drew Curtis

Gun control is dead, the and is settled law, and our gun rights are safe.

Righties need to find some other ooga-booga issue to scare each other with.

How about Sharia Law – that's always good when you want to terrify a dumbass!

N.

It's pretty probable that 2A wasn't so much intended to grant a personal right as to leave the issue to the states. 2A probably shouldn't be a fully-incorporated right (and thus shouldn't bind the states, where the citizens are much more capable of lobbying the legislature to make a policy that is appropriate for that state), and the Federal gov't shouldn't really be doing any more than restricting WMDs, anti-materiel weapons, explosive weapons, etc. Essentially, things that there can't be a legitimate reason for private citizens to own. Self-defense is probably a fundamental preconstitutional right (much like parenting your children… Read more »

Wrangler Jim

I own a handgun and several small caliber hand me down rifles. I like them. That being said I have no problem with qualified owners having a handgun or a hunting rifle. Now I do believe you should be licensed and the guns registered. You are also solely responsible to control that gun and see that it does not fall into the wrong hands or a substantial penalty if you do not report it stolen or lost and it is used in a crime. Nobody needs an automatic weapon. Nobody. Special licenses maybe but very restrictive. I personally do not… Read more »

COMALite J

Hey, Judge Stevens (and Beyer and Ginsburgh and Sotomayer and Kagan), how about you actually READ the words of the Founding Fathers before you make such silly statements as “there is no indication that the Framers of the [Second] Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution”? I suppose that that statement is TECHNICALLY true, IF you’ve never read even one word of the writings nor recorded speeches of the Founding Fathers (including the earlier drafts of the Second Amendment itself! They specifically define the “well regulated Militia” as being, and I quote, “COMPOSED of the… Read more »

billy

When I compare: "An amazing interpretation considering the actual words of the framers themselves! But they don’t want those to count because it destroys any vestige of truth or reality which they pretend they are presenting to the public. The removal of freedom is the protection of freedom. Wonderful logic and sensible principles." to: "Jesus tapdancing christ, whoever wrote this sounds like a huge wussie with a persecution complex. Fartbongo wants to take my guns!!!1! Ammoland=tiny, tiny shriveled penis" I see that the Intelligent Quotient of the former far outweighs the latter. If all you can do is ridicule without… Read more »

Drew Curtis

Jesus tapdancing christ, whoever wrote this sounds like a huge wussie with a persecution complex.

Fartbongo wants to take my guns!!!1!

Ammoland=tiny, tiny shriveled penis

White Purrr

AMEN brothers! Get that darky out of there!

He's trying to take our guns. He already tuk ar jerbs!

I mean it's not like you're just a bunch of paranoid nutballs fabricating your own reality.

oobahdoobah

An amazing interpretation considering the actual words of the framers themselves! But they don't want those to count because it destroys any vestige of truth or reality which they pretend they are presenting to the public. The removal of freedom is the protection of freedom. Wonderful logic and sensible principles.

They know that they are liars with treasonous hearts but they want what they want and don't care how the get what they want.

billy

“while some might favor handguns, it is not clear that they are a superior weapon for lawful self-defense.”

Then why, pray tell, do police carry handguns?

FrankInFL

Is this a plea to elect Republicans? Let's ask what kind of justices President Romney might appoint.

brent

I don't respect Americans that submit to being groped or radiated in the chertoff easy bake "ovens" prior to boarding a plane, leaving a bus or allow their cars and personal effects to be searched at highway weigh stations or dui checkpoints. If citizens will not stand up for their 4A rights, what makes anyone hold out hope citizen's will demand their 2A rights regardless, how a future court decides? I strongly am opposed to applying for a permit to carry concealed when such right is a civil right. A felon that has completed their sentence likewise, should have all… Read more »

Gayle Crenshaw

I believe the Constitution meant for us to Protect ourselves by any means necessary. We use guns to hunt and to protect ourselves. We have to Protect ourselves even more now than ever since the Government has allowed Laws to protect the guilty and for the guilty to sue if they injure themselves while breaking into your home. The Government is trying to make us into BIG BROTHER Nation where the Government is fully ruling and we can not have a say in anything or protect ourselves. Look at History…Russia and Germany.