AmmoLand News Quoted in the New York Times, on Second Amendment

Second Amendment
Second Amendment

U.S.A. -(Ammoland.com)- My words seldom appear in the New York Times. It is interesting when they do. It shows, to use a phrase of the Left “we are making progress.”  This occurrence was from the article published on Ammoland about the Third Circuit failing to protect Second Amendment rights.  From nytimes.com:

The 49-year-old Judge Bibas, a former law professor, won plaudits for his dissenting opinion. “It is easy to see why President Trump chose to appoint him,” said an article on the website ammoland.com that appeared under the headline: “Third Circuit: Second Amendment Is a Second Rate Right.” John O. McGinnis, a well-known conservative professor at Northwestern University Law School, writing on the Law and Liberty website, called Judge Bibas’s dissent “the judicial equivalent of a perfect game, a first-round knockout, or a checkmate within 10 moves.” He added, “It will not be the last opinion of the Trump appellate judges that will shake the judiciary from its dogmatic slumber.”

The author of the opinion/editorial above is Linda Greenhouse, a self-proclaimed progressive. Linda Greenhouse is a longtime, highly awarded leftist journalist with a law degree from Yale. She is the ultimate in Supreme Court insider journalists.  She is, unsurprisingly, a doctrinaire Progressive who views the Constitution as a document to be shaped and changed by judges as they see fit.   Consider her writing on Clarence Thomas. From that column:

So no, the court’s future is not already here, not yet. Those of us on the progressive side of the street are unlikely to look back on Justice Kennedy’s final term with nostalgia. But soon enough, we may decide that it was the best we’re going to see for a long time.

She is entitled to her opinion. There is great danger and has been considerable damage from a Supreme Court considered merely as another political power center, instead of an enforcer of the Constitution as written.

The Supreme Court has been a Progressive power center for the last 70 years.

Progressive dogma is the elites here to tell us what to do and how to do it.

The Supreme Court is there to enable the elites to change the rules as they see fit, by changing the words and public understanding of the words through control of the information flow. The concept of the Court as protecting natural law and limited government must seem alien indeed, to Progressives. The freeing of the information flow from the control of, for, and by Progressives, must be disorienting and disruptive to those who see Progressive control of mass media as natural and inevitable.

I suspect Linda Greenhouse would point to Supreme Court decisions protecting freedom of speech, as examples of how a Progressive court protected limited government.  Those examples have occurred as the Progressive mass media held control over the flow of information; those same Progressives now call for tight suppression of free speech, under the umbrella of “hate speech,” now they have lost control of the narrative.

Progressives were all for freedom of speech when it enhanced their power. They have turned against it now that they have competition. It is nearly impossible for adults to change their assumptions of how the world works when confronted by evidence to the contrary.

Linda Greenhouse read the dissents she writes about. She is a competent scholar and award-winning writer. She likely has a difficult time comprehending that the dissents she disagrees with may be correct. They invalidate core assumptions she has about reality; beliefs she has held her entire adult life.

One of her principle arguments against Justice Thomas’ writing, is he uses precedents from the 19th century to argue against cases today. It is a core belief in Progressive circles that what is old is wrong.  (But not all “old”; if a precedent can be found to validate a change desired by Progressives, then it is “good.”)

If you accept the idea, that the Constitution is a written contract between the people, the states, and the federal government, then the words and meaning of the Constitution are what is important, not the age of the document.

If you believe the Constitution, as written, impedes good government; If you believe it must be reinterpreted to change with the times; then information from a hundred years ago, or 10 years ago, or 10 minutes ago can be ignored; when a different outcome is desired.

The core issue about the Second Amendment is whether we will have a Constitution that means something, instead of an ephemeral document that is re-interpreted, law by law, day by day, to meet the temporary political opinions of the people on the Court.  Or, in opposition, if justices on the Court should do their best to maintain the Constitution as what it meant at the time written. That doctrine is known as being an originalist and textualist.

I understand Linda Greenhouse is embarrassed by the Second Amendment. She much preferred when it was locked away in a forgotten attic of the law. She probably read Sanford Levinson’s The Embarrassing Second Amendment, written in 1989.

The movement to restore limited government and Second Amendment rights is moving toward the last phase of the wisdom misattributed to Ghandi:

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

Those who value government power above all things attempted to ignore Second Amendment supporters. That gambit failed. They made jokes about Second Amendment supporters. That gambit failed but is still attempted. They are fighting Second Amendment supporters in the Courts, in the Legislatures, and in the Congress.

I believe Second Amendment supporters are winning. I think Linda Greenhouse agrees with me.


About Dean Weingarten:Dean Weingarten

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.

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TJ

Nice echo chamber you have going here! Sorry I stumbled into such a closed minded group. I am banishing myself. No further discussion required. Sick of the pontificating from on high as though no one else has ever read history, Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine. Your condescension is intolerable!!

Big Kahuna

WTF? Are you commenting on another article?

Wild Bill

@Kahuna, I don’t know why he even bothered to write. Wasted effort. He could have just gone. No one would have even noticed.

Big Jim

Its because TJ is short for Total Joke.

Nodixe

Our chamber may not be as gargantuan and megalthic as your chamber but its definitely nicer, being that yours is absolutely overflowing with the epic amount of deceptive and toxic bs that is the echo. Did we just find some common ground?

walter kelly

Your articles have continued to serve as purpose and clarification! You’re a pillar to the American way of life! May your name be emboldened and remembered for all citizens who claim to be American and Patriot!

#FreeThe2ndAmendment
#ConstitutionalCarry

LeVerne A Doran

The MSM = Prestitutes have already been OCCUPIED by the SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST/DemocRATic Peoples’ Party. This is why you hear 90% on the news speaking AGAINST President D. J. Trump and We the People.

The Revelator

Prestitutes…. Now that is an accurate definition.

Wallace Freeman

I tend toward pessimism, always seeing the glass as half empty with liberals attempting to shatter it. I felt better after reading this piece but I’m sure the next article I read about another liberal attack on liberty will put me on the defensive again. However, in the spirit of the best defense being a good offense I’ll be contacting my Texas state legislators demanding their support for Representative Stickland’s bill, HB 357, finally recognizing the right of Texans to constitutional carry of firearms. Ask yourself what you can do to put a liberal on the defensive today.

The Revelator

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

Good luck in Texas sir. We in Ohio are still working for ours as well, and we just got a step closer but are still a long ways from home.

God speed

willy d

It is like I always say WITHOUT THE 2nd THE FIRST WILL BE GONE ALSO!!!!!!!!!! Quickly!!!!!!!!!!!

Jim

IT IS STUPID SIMPLE! The Bill of Rights was written SPECIFICALLY AND EXCLUSIVELY to protect the rights of individual citizens FROM the power of the government–it really is just that simple. This is NOT rocket science!

Mart3

Unless you are a brainwashed 3rd generation decedent of a commie infiltrator…..

Steve B

Just finished the article and read the comments. Thanks to all for starting my day off right!!!

Will Flatt

Ok, everyone, share this with all your gun friends when you discuss what the Leftists will do after they disarm everyone, and WHY WE MUST NEVER LET THEM DO IT:

That’s 25 MILLION, MINIMUM.

Mark

Who are those people that Mr. Grahwohl is taking about?

Frank

The weather underground. It was basically a U.S. terrorist organization in the 60’s & 70’s. They did some bombings and other communist activities.

Richard L

Bill Ayers and wife, some of Obozo’s best friends.

Dave in Fairfax

I’m guessing that you weren’t around during the ’60s. Here is the blurb from under the video: This video shows an interview of Larry Grathwohl who was an FBI agent assigned to investigate the Weather Underground. William Ayers is the founder of the Weather Underground. This man is speaking about William Ayers. It was in William Ayers’ living room that Barack Obama launched his political career. He is talking about the Weather Underground’s leadership Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Look them up on the web, they are now well thought of profs. These are the people who were plotting the… Read more »

Wild Bill

@mac, Really? You have never heard: “You don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind is blowin’.”

The Revelator

Wow, seeing that guy…. I guess We know where Nick Offerman got his ideas for the look of his “Ron Swanson” character.. That hair and mustache. Almost a doppelganger.

Coelacanth

An armed citizenry will never be unwillingly forced into railroad boxcars at gunpoint.

Macofjack

Can someone tell me why liberals can’t understand the words that are written down? Seems VERY, VERY clear to me.

Mark R

It isn’t they do not understand, they simply have their own agenda and anything that gets in their way is either a mute point or ignored; as in the Constitution. The Founding Fathers wrote with precise words and language so anyone would clearly understand its contents. It is the communists who pretend as though they have a better understanding or decide whether or not to adhere to its principles. It is in their way to global communism so they must destroy it or change it to suit their agenda. “The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the… Read more »

The Revelator

@mac R Don’t forget there are those on the right who have their own agenda and ignore the constitution. They will argue for things like the unrestricted use of the Commerce clause, or that Civil asset Forfeiture is needed to fund law enforcement, and those who have attempted to defend the bump stock ban even though there is no room for argument on it that it is indeed unconstitutional. I’m less worried about those on the left than I am those enemies who are made out of self imposed ignorance, and who routinely try to tell us they are on… Read more »

Wild Bill

One can not unfuck the minds of people like Linda Greenhouse. They will always be a danger to our Constitutional Civil Rights because they have a goal in mind, and believe that their goal is the one goal that is correct. This is called tyranny.
Sic semper tyrannis.

John Galt

Like the article………….not so sure we’re winning. (Red flags, failure of reciprocity, bump stock ban, failure of AG to enforce 2A on states, etc)

Wild Bill

@John Dunlap G. Even if we were flat out losing, it would be no reason to quit. Trump has the Senate. He can spend his time filling fed. judicial vacancies with strict constructionists, while the libtards can only sit by and whine.
In 1950, eighty-five percent of the population believed that handguns were just murder weapons. Now, look at us!

To Cor

@wild bill I agree. The focus of the administration should be appointing judges, breaking up the ninth circuit court of appeals, protecting out borders, and fixing 14th amendment birthright citizenship

Dave in Fairfax

You may be right, time will tell. Despite that, surrender is never an option. You won’t like the housing in a re-education camp. Live Free or Die is more than a slogan, it is a choice each of us must make.

Mark R

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”
― Norman Thomas

The above quote says it all.

Chiefton

It is so hard for liberals to see that our constitution is as etched in stone as the 10 commandments. If our forefathers wanted the courts to have the ability to change the constitution then they never would have had the need to put in a very deliberate system for changing it. All other arguments end at that point.

Big Jim

Thanks DW, 2 thumbs up!

Jbirdo69

The 2nd Amendment, just as the 1st Amendment, was written plainly, so that it would not be misunderstood. It was written to take any authority pertaining to it out of the government’s jurisdiction. I believe that ANY decisions made about the 2nd Amendment by the Supreme Court are null and void. It was written so as to be “untouchable” by our government. The only way it should be able to be touched at all should be a direct change to the Constitution.

Dave in Fairfax

It was written at a time when lawyers were not allowed in some of what would become our states. There’s a lesson there.

dwest

Well said (per usual).
I personally don’t care about the noise on the “news” and find comfort in the thought killary isn’t selecting Supreme Court justices. Oh look, Notorious RBG is circling the drain. The progs are gonna have a sh!tf!t when Trump gets a 3rd justice. Amy Barrett’s destiny awaits 😉

Gary Munn

Thank you Sir for a factual and informative article.
Constitutional conservatism is necessary to preserve the integrity of a free Republic such as this great nation.
G.M.

Will Flatt

For Progs/Leftists, they know full well the import and veracity of the ideas that challenge their narrative, which is why they now argue against speech now that speech is being wielded against them. It isn’t just about moving the goalposts of the meaning of words or the ephemeralness of a document; it is about the accumulation and retention of RAW AND ABSOLUTE POWER, the ability to FORCE OTHERS TO DO AS YOU SAY. So when true conservatives score telling points in debate or in court decisions, it’s not that Leftists don’t comprehend. It’s that they don’t care and will make… Read more »

Wild Bill

@wjd Flatt, Yeah, never in my life did I ever think that our First Amendment Civil Right to free speech would be suppressed. One would think that the MSM would be fighting the democrat national socialists, tooth and claw.

Mark

Where is the ACLU when you need them! Oh ya, never mind they never defend conservatives since they have been high jacked by the left

Free Helicopter Rides For Commies

The MSM, sadly are entirely comprised of said socialist democrats. The federal government dismantled our internal security apparatus and let the commies take over academia, the press, Hollyweird, the music industry, the charitable foundations, the legislatures, the courts, et cetera, ad nauseam. We’re gonna be in for a long hard war removing every last commie from the country. It might be a smart idea if someone were to grab the marxist, I mean demoncrat, voter registration lists so we know who the bad guys are. If I were a commie, I know I’d want to ID whom I’d be going… Read more »

Christopher Columbus

In your 5th paragraph from the bottom your write

maintain the Constitution as what it meant at the time written.

How can something written over 200 years ago still be relevant to this time here and now?

Preamble to this constitution also says “in Order to form a more perfect union”, sounds like they meant it to be maleable?

m.

it was cast in stone to preclude d-sucker dhimmi-crat tyrants

James Russell Bailey

I strongly suggest that you read how the formation of the Constitution came about, specifically pertaining to how the founders were educated, what documents they read and how those documents impacted the writing of the Constitution and the formal agreement to the final draft. The foundational construct of the Constitutional safeguards against tyranny, is found in the fact that the founders understood that Human Nature has never changed and will not change in this temporal construct. They knew and understood from the writings of Cicero, Julius Caesar Thomas Aquinas, Cato the Elder, Saint Augustine, et al, that human nature does… Read more »

TJ

Where does it say military grade? Aren’t you reinterpreting it yourself?

Jim

At the time of the writing of the Constitution there was no standing Army. Defense against invasion or insurrection was handled by calling up the Militia. To be a member of the Militia required you to poses your own rifle, powder and ball. The Founding Father fully intended for citizens to own weapons capable of being used to repel invading armies. That is where the “military grade” comes from.
The Progressives argue that you do not have the right to own “military grade” weapons when that was exactly the intent when the Constitution was written.

The Revelator

@jh45gun

Great reply, and good job sticking to the facts.

TJ

I followed and in fact already knew about no standing armies and the use of militia however I do not come to the same conclusion as you do. Back at that time there were no military grade guns, just guns period. The founding fathers could not have intended the citizenry being armed with different types of guns or military type guns. They only conceived of people using a flintlock and carrying powder & ball. How dare you even pretend to know what the founding fathers intended in some future situation in a future world! Ridiculous and egotistical to say the… Read more »

James Russell Bailey

@TJ, You really do need to educate yourself concerning the history of modern firearms in Terms of technology and who owned them, especially as it relates to what the founding fathers wrote about Firearms ownership and Technology. You seem to be willfully ignorant of how technology has affected history, especially in the sphere of firearms. Artillery was owned by private citizens, the other term for that Weaponry would be called cannons. It was these privately owned artillery pieces which were part and parcel of the Revolutionary War against the British. There was a technology race, otherwise known as an arms… Read more »

The Revelator

@JAMES Russel Bailey Good Post. Indeed, don’t ask those arguing on emotion to try and debate the puckle gun or the Girandoni rifle. History is quite clear. The fact that they had a single barrel 20 shot repeater at the time of the Revolutionary war, that was silenced by comparison to conventional arms at that time, and had rifling which meant it could outrange the common military musket would be lost on those not smart enough to take the time to educate themselves. Of course, never let facts get in the way of opinions. TJ will be upset. @TJ, You… Read more »

The Revelator

Indeed TJ, It does not say it. It does however say No Infringement at all. You seem to forget that at the time the Citizenry was better armed than the Military equivalent. Think about it. The Revolution forced the British Empire to re-evaluate and update their weapons. They had been the most powerful (militarily) country in the world at the time. A bunch of backwoods farmers and businessmen with fewer numbers beat them Military Technology at the time was the Smoothbore musket. Plain, simple.. Civilian technology put the military to shame, rifles able to outdistance and kill at range in… Read more »

Jason Maceyko

TJ
I said that they could not have meant military grade weapons. How so? How do you come to this conclusion? Actually, the opposite would be true. They intend the citizens to be able to fight off armies and possibly our own government. Are you saying they intended for us to have sub-standard weapons ? No line is to ever be drawn. I should be able to have ANY weapon I please.

Jason Maceyko

T.J.
Obviously you don’t realize they had many different types of weapons back then. Not just flintlocks. There was even a version of a gatling gun back then !! Do your research before you spout off, parroting false narratives and liberal arguments.

Jim

@TJ The Founding Father knew there would be advancements in weapons technology that is why the 2nd Amendment says: ” Keep and bare arms” not flintlocks or muskets. The words were chosen very carefully, that is why it took 11 years after the war to write and radify the Constitution. They also disliked the idea of a standing Army. To keep and bare arms is a clause that would advance with newer weapons such as the rifled barrel muskets and the repeating rifles that showed up during the Civil War. How did they know firearms would advance, it was not… Read more »

tomcat

@ C.C. The reason the Constitution and BOR are relevant today as it was 200 years ago is because as a nation we have survived and prospered with the guidance from the founders in the form of the laws of this nation. You can not dispute that this is the most successful nation the world has known. It is because of how it was formed. Your progressive coat tails are showing and as Dean wrote in his article these laws are not changeable from day to day at the whim of some moron who sees an advantage to changing them.… Read more »

Dave in Fairfax

The end of that sentence is, “do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” That means that it is now done. It doesn’t mean, as Justice Storey assured Hamilton, that it could be altered by men. THAT was the beginning of judicial activism. The bible was written more than 200 years ago, is it no longer relevant? What about the Magna Carta or any other of the foundational documents of western civilization? Furthermore, in the Declaration we find, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by… Read more »

Wild Bill

CC, First, the founders’ concept of “perfect” was not malleable. Second, it is as possible, today, as it was in 1812, that the job of repelling an invading force would fall to We the People, the militia. Many nations want our land mass, and it is our only so long as we can defend it.

Jason Maceyko

Nope. They created a method of changing the Constitution and it is extremely difficult for that reason. It was to be a standing document, so that it couldn’t be changed whenever the wind changed direction. That is the fail safe default position of the Constitution. To keep the people in power, not the government. The government serves the people, not the other way around. We tell THEM what to do !

Nottinghill

Me likes! Ammoland where we stand together despite our disagreements in discourse.

Tank you Ammoland. Thank you Dean.

Nottinghill

That’s Thank… but Tank is good also.