Posted at RenewAmerica
One thing that I cannot abide is the use of something meant for
the common good, warped into a tool of repression and ill intent. The left is
hell bent on depriving Americans the wherewithal to protect themselves and they
find no slander too repugnant in their pursuit.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for
light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
Isaiah 5:20
The target of the lefts latest calumny is the Second Amendment to
the Constitution. Leftist politicians and pundits repeat ad nauseam that they
do not really want to infringe on our right to bear arms. Claiming to seek only
practical solutions to stem the tide of gun violence.
I could write an entire article just on the inherent silliness of
the left’s desire to slow gun violence by going after with the most vehemence,
the class of firearm least used in American crime. But I won’t because
semi-automatic rifles are just the tip of the spear; they want all guns out of
the hands of civilians.
I was born in the middle of the last year of the Baby Boom, 1964.
Growing up in Detroit in the 1970’s, I didn’t know a single father who did not
own a gun. It would be absurd to suggest to a man back then that he shouldn’t
have the means to protect his family.
My father owned a .38 Special and an M1 Carbine, both of which he
taught me to use, care for and fire.
These weapons were no mystery to me, so I never felt the desire to touch them
without my father’s supervision. He didn’t hide them, I knew exactly where they
were. In fact he wanted to be sure that if something occurred when he was away
from home, I knew what to do.
All of my friends lived in similar circumstances and the whole neighborhood shot their guns off on New Year’s. We even brought our empty brass to school to show each other My Uncle died last summer and we discovered, to
protect my aunt, he had guns we never knew about, distributed all throughout their house.
So this latest leftist stratagem offends me to no end, namely,
the inane notion that the 2nd Amendment was meant as a means to perpetuate the
institution of slavery. This is nothing less than an attempt to sway Black
Americans to the anti-gun side of the ledger by associating the right to bear
arms with the nations greatest past evil.
This salvo began in earnest with the pig ignorant statements made
by Hollywood Actor Danny Glover. A man whose greatest financial successes came
in films like the guns a blazin’ western Silverado and the wildly popular
“Lethal Weapon” (the irony almost takes on physical form) films. Recently
whilst speaking to students at Texas A&M, Mr. Glover stated:
I don’t know if you know
the genesis of the right to bear arms. The Second Amendment comes from the
right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native
Americans.
He continued, a revolt from
people who were stolen from their land, or revolt from people whose land was
stolen from, that’s what the genesis of the Second Amendment is.
In an attempt to curb violence in Venezuela, Last June, Danny
Glover’s pal Hugo Chaves outlawed all private ownership and sales of firearms.
Only the military, police and certain entities like security and private
investigation firms can now possess guns in the Latin American nation. And then
they can only purchase arms from the government.
In 2011 Venezuela had some 19,000 murders, in 2012, the year of
the ban it jumped to over 21,000. But don’t confuse the left with facts.
Glover is not alone; I read an article by a Thom Hartman on a
site called Truthout that attempts to make the same
assertion in a more scholarly manner. To prove his point, Hartman quotes
Patrick Henry (among others) who opposed the language James Madison intended to
include in our Constitution with respect to civilians bearing arms:
In this state, there are
two hundred and thirty-six thousand blacks, and there are many in several other
states. But there are few or none in the Northern States. . . . May Congress
not say, that every black man must fight? Did we not see a little of this last
war? We were not so hard pushed as to make emancipation general; but acts of
Assembly passed that every slave who would go to the army should be free.
Hartman goes on to quote Madison who rightly expressed
incredulity at Henry’s fears: I was
struck with surprise, when I heard him express himself alarmed with respect to
the emancipation of slaves. . . . There is no power to warrant it, in that paper
[the Constitution]. If there be, I
know it not.
Mr. Hartman’s article is titled: The Second Amendment was Ratified to Preserve Slavery. The title
argues intent. Another thing I cannot abide is bad scholarship, especially when
it is used to advance a very dangerous idea like gun control.
James Madison wrote both the Constitution and the 2nd
Amendment--it is impossible for you to say protecting slavery was the 2nd
Amendments’ intent when as the article points out, Madison, the author himself
expressed surprise that Patrick Henry would consider it in regards to slavery
and suppressing abolition.
All one needs to do is read Federalist #46, again written by
Madison before the Constitution and the subsequent 2nd Amendment, to know
exactly what the purpose of the Amendment is:
Let a regular army, fully
equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the
devotion of the federal government; still it would not be going too far to say,
that the State governments, with the people on their side, would be able to
repel the danger. The highest number to which, according to the best
computation, a standing army can be carried in any country, does not exceed one
hundredth part of the whole number of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the number
able to bear arms. This proportion would not yield, in the United States, an
army of more than twenty-five or thirty thousand men. To these would be opposed
a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their
hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common
liberties, and united and conducted by governments possessing their affections
and confidence. It may well be doubted, whether a militia thus circumstanced
could ever be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.
What Madison expressed was a combined might of the whole nation
to repel a potential tyrannical Federal Government. This can by no means be
construed as a measure used by slave states in an attempt to halt the steadily
encroaching abolitionist movement enflamed to end chattel bondage.
Madison himself knew that slavery had to end:
American citizens are
instrumental in carrying on a traffic in enslaved Africans, equally in
violation of the laws of humanity and in defiance of those of their own
country. The same just and benevolent motives which produced interdiction in
force against this criminal conduct will doubtless be felt by Congress in
devising further means of suppressing the evil. -- James Madison,
State of the Union, 1810
You don’t call something evil that just a couple of decades earlier you created an Amendment to
preserve. But the left counts on emotion ruling the day rather than reason and
truth. As was pointed out to me earlier this week by a friend, it is far easier
to fool people than it is to convince them they have been fooled.
The left often uses such measures because they truly believe that
you can obfuscate and lie and that doing evil can and will result in good. In
other words, the ends justify the means.
However, tragically, all too often, the ends that the left lusts after
are in and of themselves evil and therein lies the philosophy of the faithless.
My fellow American Black folks, the liberals think we are stupid
and will believe anything they feed us, please don’t prove them right by
accepting lies! The Second Amendment to preserve slavery is just one more
scheme to manipulate and control Black Americans. We don’t have to stay
victims.
Digital Publius
Digital Publius
