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by Don Azarias
February 1, 2013
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests”—Patrick Henry
Those are the immortal words of Patrick Henry, one of the country’s Founding Fathers, a politician and an orator during the movement for American independence. He is remembered for his “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!” speech.
In other words, what he meant is that “the government did not write the Constitution to give rights to the people. The people wrote the Constitution to limit the government’s power.”
Now, a vast majority of U.S. citizens and the U.S. government are embroiled in this bitter debate about the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution which is part of the United States Bill of Rights adopted on December 15, 1791.
The Bill of Rights, as we know it, is a series of limitations on the power of the U.S. federal government, protecting the natural rights of liberty and property including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, a free press, free assembly, and free association, as well as the right to keep and bear arms.
In 2008 and 2010, the Supreme Court issued two landmark decisions officially establishing this interpretation. In District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to possess a firearm and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home and that firearm possession is consistent with the Second Amendment. In McDonald v. Chicago, 561 U.S. 3025 (2010), the Court ruled that the Second Amendment limits state and local governments to the same extent that it limits the federal government.
The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights are the law of the land. Any government, government agent, representative or entity, regardless of position, rank, title, uniform, that violates the Constitution, is considered a criminal.
Now President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and their Democratic allies who are our elected leaders who swore an oath to obey, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution are the ones on the verge of violating it.
The audacity of the Obama administration to use those tragedies involving innocent children to push through its anti-gun agenda is galling. And now we are finding that this president is going to try to go around Congress to declaw the Second Amendment through an executive order. Isn’t that akin to dictatorship that the Framers of the U.S. Constitution were trying to prevent? Obama who claims to be a Constitutional Law professor from the University of Chicago should know better. Unless he is afflicted with amnesia, he should know the U.S. Constitution forward and backward.
As a footnote to Obama’s claim that he was law professor, Richard Epstein, a former long time professor and interim dean of the University of Chicago Law School, said Obama was never offered tenured faculty position. Now, who is really telling the truth on this matter?
Meanwhile, former U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese III said in a televised interview that President Barack Obama could easily be impeached if he bypassed Congress and enacted gun-control legislation by executive order—a step Obama said he was “confident” was “within his authority.” But Meese, who served under President Reagan, says it would not be legal or constitutional: “If he tried to override the Second Amendment in any way, it would be an impeachable offense.”
It’s my personal opinion that executive orders issued for the purpose of overriding the Second Amendment have no Constitutional basis. Article 1, Section 1 of the U.S. Constitution clearly says, “All legislative powers shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which consists of a Senate and House of Representatives.” It says “all”’ It doesn’t say “some” or even “most”.
And how many of you still remember during the 2008 Democratic presidential campaign when Biden, in trying to ingratiate himself to the NRA, said, “they can’t take my guns away from me” in his response to then Democratic rival Obama? What a liar this man was and still is. If he is not putting his foot in his mouth he is shooting himself in the foot.
What makes Obama and Biden think that criminals are going to abide by any new laws they want to enact? They can’t even control their own neighborhood. Washington, D.C., of all places, has strict gun control ordinance yet it leads the nation in gun violence. Heck, it seems like this administration is more concerned with CITIZEN’S RIGHTS control than they are about GUN control.
What makes Obama and Biden think that they can go after millions of legal gun owners but claim they can’t go after millions of illegal immigrants?
What makes Obama and Biden think that gun control will stop criminals from killing fellow criminals and law-abiding citizens? Taking guns out of the hands of law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves and their families from those criminals accomplishes nothing. It only helps those criminals to carry out their evil intent.
What makes Obama and Biden think that going after law abiding citizens rather than tackling the problem of people with mental illness and criminal mind is the right thing to do?
What makes Obama and Biden think that having U.S. Attorney-General Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder at a meeting about guns adds to the credibility of their administration? Isn’t Holder the one to blame for putting high-powered guns in the hands of Mexican criminals?
Isn’t it a shame that Obama just signed a legislation providing lifetime Secret Service protection for himself and his spouse but doesn’t seem to have any qualms about taking away our ability to protect ourselves and our families from criminals?
As a law-abiding citizen, I’ll say this straight from the shoulder: “I don’t own a gun to kill people. I own a gun to keep myself from being killed.”
It is my Constitutional right to keep and bear arms to protect my life and my home. And I do believe that gun ownership is an inherent right of every law-abiding American citizen because the Second Amendment says so.