The 2nd Amendment

"shall not be infringed."

What follows is my plain English understanding informed by Federalists Papers, Supreme Court opinions for and against, and intellectual writings separate from court opinion, and my own opinion formed by the aforementioned and 7 decades of thoughtful deliberations.

My analysis is drawn from the understanding of the meaning of words, ideas and history, at the time Madison wrote it and events since.

First, let's examine the phrases set apart by commas, which I assume is what the framers intended.

"A well regulated militia," to me means a militia kept in check.  I think the biggest concern at the time of the adoption of the Bill of Rights as Amendments was having armed citizens able to resist tyranny from any opposing force, even Local, State or National police and military organizations gone rouge attempting to violate the most basic human rights enumerated in the Constitution.

Secondly, "being necessary to the security of a free state," means regulated by an opposing force of citizens to secure the conditions that allow the existence of a free state.  Without an armed force powerful conspirators could become tyrannical and run roughshod, violating every preciously secured right over isolated locales or the entire country.

Next, "the right of the people to keep and bear arms," is the right of a free people to secure, protect, and assure a free state by keeping and bearing arms as necessary; not a militia, but in opposition to unlawful gangs or lawful militia gone bad.

Finally, "shall not be infringed." means precisely what it says.  Nothing is authorized that modifies this right of a citizen; not significantly, or not slightly, shall not at all be infringed upon.

A Supreme Court decision established that convicted felons and crazy people should not have this right that the 2nd Amendment plainly and definitively states, "shall not be infringed."  I do not disagree that convicted violent felons might be stripped of this right, but crazy could easily be determined by the state to be anyone that opposes the party in power at the moment.

There are lots of mental and emotionally challenged persons that function without danger to the state or other citizens; to strip this right from them without empirical evidence of potential harm to themselves or others, would be infringement which "shall not" be allowed.  Tyrants, bigots, zealots could easily select a chosen behavior or affiliation and demonize it often and loudly, saying the poor souls who have chosen badly are crazy and therefore should all be stripped of their 2nd Amendment Rights; imprison them and seize their lands, personal property (guns and ammunition), livestock, and accumulated wealth, without the due process rights assured in the Constitution.

A few examples of groups of affiliates that could easily be demonized are, National Rifle Association members, Meat-eaters, non-Christians, elected politicians, teachers, or American Socialists Party, Green Party, or Radial Extremists Democratic party members, or any identifiable group could be characterized and easily determined to be "Crazy".

Incidentally, I would submit there are several mentally ill persons in Congress in any year, House and Senate; and most assuredly many in the party that nominated them, by any reasonable definition of the term "crazy".

The millions of people who admit to owning guns, and the millions who do not, but use them for hunting, competitive sport shooting, home protection, collecting, or just because they have the right to; have about 400 million working and non-working personal property firearms that have never killed or injured anyone.  This estimate does not include the military, National Agency Assault Teams (DOJ, TSA, IRS, NSA, etc.), or State police/militias.

Here is some interesting data and estimates from official sources, not news media or other anti-firearms advocates.

US Deaths by firearms:

Justified Police homicides 2017 - 429
Justified citizen homicides 2017 - 353
source: FBI

Suicides by firearms
2016 - 22,938 CDC
2017 - 23,855; 50.57 percent of all suicides (47,173)

Accidental or unintentional deaths by firearms
2013 - 505
2014 - 461
2015 - 489
2016 - 495

Undetermined reason, by firearm
2013 - 275
2014 - 275
2015 - 282
2016 - 300

Executions
2010 - 1, Ronnie Lee Gardener, In Utah at his request.

Homicides by Firearm, as a crime, or during the commission of another crime.
2016 - 14,415 CDC

Sources
CDC - Center for Disease Control, Deaths, Final Data 2016, tables 6 & 7
FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation

In no case did a firearm load itself, aim itself, or fire itself.  All events absolutely required deliberate human action prior to the resulting death.  No unloaded weapon discharged a single solitary cartridge.

There is No Free Stuff,

There should not be Prohibited Stuff

 Both, Free things and Prohibited things are wrong, although the unintended consequences are different, both have them.  I grew up in the fifties.  We knew nothing was free by simple observation, and that someone had to have paid for it or it wouldn’t exist.  The only commonly known prohibitions were driving without a license, buying booze, and gambling for money.  We knew there were other laws that affected adults, but we only cared about those constraining us.

As a child growing up in a small desert railroad town on the way to Las Vegas we knew that gambling was prohibited for those of us under 21 years of age; but in a railroad town train crews laid-over in alternating directions for the next train.  With lots of free time there was always a poker game in room 103 of the Lay-Over Hotel.  I learned to play poker and cheat for money from off duty Rails willing to take a 12 year old kid’s money for amusement. 

As a 14 year old I bought beer, at 15 I bought Gin and malt liquor, at 16 I bought any liquor I wanted with fake Identifications stolen from Marines and modified to past as 21 year olds with out of state drivers licenses.

At 14 I bought a partially disassembled motorcycle from a junk yard and fixed it up, drove it to work with my father’s permission, staying mostly on utility roads, and off-road, avoiding local police and state highway patrol for almost 2 years before I had a learners permit.

Prohibitions create big black market businesses, have for thousands of years, and always will.  If there’s enough demand there will be providers.  If there is strong enough need, there will be many violators.

So much for Prohibitions!

Now, how about Free stuff; as a carefully observant young person, I noticed I never got anything for free.  If it seemed to be free, I knew someone must have paid to create it.  I didn’t work for free.  I didn’t know anyone who made stuff for free.  I never got anything for free that didn’t eventually cost me alot money, or misery or both in some way.  Subsidies are stupid also; just more artificially free stuff.  

How are these two alike?  They are artificial, fake, and phony. 

An attempt to limit dangerous mistakes made by children doesn’t require more ridiculous laws; it requires more effective education and more responsible parenting.

Attempting to limit dangerously ignorant behavior by adults is a foolish and expensive waste of time and money.  STOP IT, and stop deceiving ignorant people by implying that things can be FREE.

Non-Christian Conservative

Some may be alarmed that there is such a thing.  I’ve been a Conservative all of my adult life, in spite of most of my far flung family and relatives being Democrats, Liberals and Socialists.

I am a fiscal Conservative and don’t care about social issues in the political forum; a Cultural Libertarian.

I’m a social Libertarian and do not believe do-gooders and the governments have any business dictating personal choices for anyone in our cultural; unless they are receiving entitlements.

I’ve been a non-Christian more than fifty years.  I’m religious, just not a member or believer in any organized Christian church.  I don’t believe I need any self-ordained intermediary, middleman, or broker to speak with God.  I’ve never asked God for anything for myself and never will.  I’ve never asked God to bless our country or its government, only its people; and never will.  I’ve never asked our Government for anything except for the careful use of the vast amounts of money I’ve sent them, and the enormous amount of land and other resources we have allowed them to use, though it certainly has imposed a lot on me and my family.

One need not be a believer in any religion to be a Conservative.  They need only believe in the care and careful use of the things that our Creator has made available to us, and truly doing things for people that in the long run genuinely benefit them when they are truly in need, not just when they want them, or think they are owed something they haven’t earned.

I believe in using but not wasting what I’ve earned.  I believe in preparing for our and our family’s needs, and helping them avoid some of the calamities and miseries of fate, tyranny, conscription, crime and violence.

I believe in individual taxpaying citizen freedoms and minimum government.  I believe our Federal, State, County and City governments should be much smaller, much less intrusive, much less expensive, and focused on the defense of our country and its borders, and protection of our lives, our rights, our liberties, and our properties.   

Religious bigots need to stay out of politics; it just tarnishes what noble beliefs they may have, and the truly religious have no business seeking association with the vile and tawdry worlds of politics or government.

What I choose to do privately that affects only me or no other non-consenting adults; or what I choose to think, or to say, or to write; or what I choose to believe or not believe; is certainly no one else’s business

I’m just a Conservative that values our inalienable rights, and abhors tyranny, waste and corruption; and respects the honor and dignity of other hard working, wealth creating, law abiding citizens of the world.    

            

A Few Words

Recently I’ve been too busy to blog, but it hasn’t kept me from being agitated by a few things; one thing has irritated me often.    

President Obama gave a speech today at a memorial in Texas for those who died at the chemical storage facility explosion.  In my opinion, it was the best speech I’ve ever heard him deliver.  Whoever wrote it for him to read did an excellent job.  It was and should have been without political insinuation.  I could not find a single hint of usual cowardly demonizing of someone.  No slurs, not a cleaver double entendre or his incessant self aggrandizing that he usually finds necessary.  And even I must admit I found him Presidential for a change. 

Expect for one minor flaw, which was repeated by others earlier at the George W. Bush library dedication in many speeches by former Presidents, other officials and dignitaries, and frequently by many others throughout my life; and here it is with my suggestion.

Many well intentioned speakers close with “May God Bless America”, and I sincerely hope It might.  But, I won’t pray for something so shallow and unimportant.

I do not like them asking God to bless the unholy government of any country, or many of the things a country does that surely should not blessed by a god.  I don’t think our nation or government should be so audacious as to ask anything of God, except maybe forgiveness.

I wish they would close with “May God Bless the People of America", or “May God Bless Americans".

I know it’s a small and perhaps petty thing, but I wish they would stop trying to imply that God somehow, approves of anything our government of its officials have done or might do, much of which I don’t find remotely worthy of a blessing.

And may God continue to bless all of our citizens; especially those who pay taxes.

Is It News

Or Propaganda?

Watching for the “News” coverage of the most recent tragic mass murders in Aurora, Colorado, it occurred to me that almost no new news was being treated as “Breaking News” on broadcast, cable and satellite TV.

What is “News” and what isn’t, seemed like an important question to me? 

Recently I’ve seen many people getting their News from the Internet via You Tube, Facebook, Blog sites and web pages, some dedicated to news coverage of world and national events and some just using their Internet access to exhibit their photos or videos of events in which they were either witnesses or victims.  

Some I saw were from Libya, Syria, and Colorado.

These were News!  At that place and that time in the direction that that camera was pointed, assuming it was not a staged event, to the extent its visual content and context was self evident with little chance of misinterpretation; it was News.

Most contained no expression of opinion, just statements of fact, like the time, the date, the place name, and distances and cardinal directions.  The destruction, foreboding, terror, mayhem, and fear were evident by the actions of the people in the video.  Little commentary was needed.  No commentator feelings, value judgments, assumptions or opinions were needed or wanted.  Although some showed up from self proclaimed, “Major news” organizations days later standing in front of ruins speaking as though they knew something about what happened there

That is as close to news as I have seen in several decades.  It’s no wonder to me that millions of young and old have turned to the Internet to get first person unadulterated, un-amended, mostly unbiased, un-manipulated event audio and video. 

On NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN and even FOX provided almost no factual data, and went immediately to conjecture, insinuation, musing and supposing things about which they had not a scintilla of facts, data, or even second person information, and brought on agenda driven personalities and celebrities with even less news and more opinions.

And they all moved immediately to accusing one faction or another (NRA or businesses) implying involvement by insinuation, or by asking why would a seemingly intelligent advanced degree student from a liberal university go crazy and start killing people like a disgruntled middle aged white male conservative, or the big one; can’t we now get some more new gun and ammo control laws, so that those crazy people who won’t give up their religions or 2^nd Amendment Rights can stop causing our children to be killed by these poor misguided unfortunates.

All about feelings, agenda, demonizing, attitude, accusation, insinuation, mischaracterization, and in ABC’s case misidentification of a 59 year uninvolved man as the 22 year old, immediately arrested, perpetrator.

Virtually no news was provided.  Just the gun control mantra repeated in various ways and by various representatives from among the well-meaning pretending that inanimate objects, not a deranged liberally educated person, animated, loaded, aimed and fired itself spontaneously and was responsible for the terrible deaths and mayhem.

Assumptions, accusation, insinuation, agenda, and opinion is, they apparently think, Good News.  

Terrible Murders;

But It’s People That Need Controls, Not Guns

These very terrible murders and many unfortunate woundings at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado recently have brought out the gun control crazies and the well meaning in huge numbers.

That too is very unfortunate.  Things don’t need more controls; people do.  Guns, vehicles, chemicals, hammers, chainsaws and butter knives don’t need more controls; people do.

As usual, it’s what you’re not hearing that is more interesting.  Little is being said of the failure to enforce existing laws.  Few are asking what’s wrong with these people or our culture and society.

Nothing is being said of failed policing.  Or, the failure of some states to report to the national data base.  Or, the failure by psychologists and psychiatrists to identify, house, and treat the mentally deficient; or the failure of academia to educate professionals with the insight to identify the criminally insane, or the courage to institutionalize them; or the failure of institutions to maintain confinement of the dangerously deficient; or the complete failure of a supposedly intelligent individual who was completely incapable of recognizing and doing something responsible about their own personal deficiencies and behavior.

Nothing is being said about increased evaluation, containment, incarceration and treatment of the seriously mentally ill and emotional deficient.

Listen people; stop blaming other things and other people for your deficiencies.  Learn to assess your skills, intellect, health and mental stability accurately.  Get in touch with reality.  Stop deluding yourself.  Don’t believe feel good crap fed to you by the “socially just, politically correct or the well-meaning.”  Learn to think for yourself, if you cannot, it’s an indication you need more evaluation and training. 

If you are thinking about and planning the murder and maiming of dozens of people; go get mental care.  If mysterious voices in your head are telling to do bad things, and you think you should be doing what they tell you, go get mental care.  Turn yourself into a state run hospital for containment and further evaluation.

Stop blaming your personal circumstance, condition, inadequacies, incapability’s, bad behavior and poor choices on something or someone else.

If something bad happens to you; you allowed it and probably helped cause it.  Even most accidents are partly caused by your choices or behavior.  Rarely, does fate, chance or luck alone intervene in your life.  You make your choices; don’t blame things, don’t blame others, real or imagined.

If disappointment, disease, misery, and disaster constantly occur in your life without occasional good, helpful, valuable things that you have earned; then something is wrong; change your life choices, get professional help.

Don’t take some tools or devices and start slaughtering other people.

And, if you are one who thinks these kinds of problems need more government laws controlling inanimate objects, especially if you are having trouble understanding effects and their correctly associated causes, then….

You should check yourself in for a complete mental evaluation. 

Affirmative Action,

When Will It Be Enough?

For more than forty years now, reverse racial discrimination for jobs and educational opportunity, and many other things, has been the practice in the US.

Is it working?  If so, when will it be enough?  When will it begin diminishing to allow its benefactors to adjust their behavior to fair and equal competition?  And how long will it take to get rid of the stigma of having to be subsidized?

How many years of reverse discrimination are necessary, to prove that more discrimination against others will not work and isn’t what’s needed?  It doesn’t change history.  Demeaning others doesn’t elevate you.

It doesn’t stop the incompetent, ignorant, weak or lame from using the excuse that they are disadvantaged because of things that happened to their great-great grand parents, great-grand parents, grandparents, and that somehow has kept their parents children from, learning, working, saving, investing, practicing good health, or obeying our nation’s laws; and that some sort of secret hidden agenda conducted in plain sight but unseen from all others, especially whites, thwarted their quest for success.  This cleaver cabal is seen behind every social slight, accident, twist of fate, cause and affect, or logical outcome that befalls them from having chosen poorly.

It could not possibly be their own deliberate ignorance.  It must be the ignorance forced upon them by the evil white dominance conspiracy.

It could not possibly be they are broke because they managed their money badly.  It could only be generations of discrimination that forced them to spend all their money on drugs, booze, buying expensive popular fashion clothing, dancing and cavorting with loose women.  Oh, and because of police profiling harassment and corruption. 

It could not possibly be they didn’t work, save or invest in themselves and their future.  It must have been the deliberate disadvantages forced upon them by whitey that made them spend foolishly, made them steal and sell drugs, got them falsely accused, took their money for bail, made them stay up late, oversleep, lose their jobs, over-eat fat foods, and spend their available time seeking or having sex instead of working, saving and investing while obeying the laws of the land.

It could not be possibly that ignorance has caused their poverty.  Their behavior choices, their culture taught them from generations of prejudice, harassment, discriminating, violence and murder and social exclusion passed on to them by genetics or osmosis; I guess, forced upon them by white culture, white business, white justice, white people in a giant coordinated conspiracy; you know, everything and anything white.     

Stop subsidizing incompetence!  If you must subsidize something, try extra training and education, try changing their culture of ignorance, try changing their tendency toward easy money and criminality, try instilling work, business and economic understanding, and try developing some ethics; like dignity, responsibility, honesty, merit, and respect for women.  Try; learn, earn, save, invest, and set aside some resources for your future, and then play hard.

Try knowledge, skill, work experience, intellect, ethics, effort, responsibility, earned merit, drop the “poor us” group loathing, reject hollow false advantages, and become a responsible, no excuses, meaningful, contributing, individual. 

Famine

Starving to Death

The ignorant and weak are starving in the lawless parts of Africa and elsewhere again.  It has happened on a large scale several times in my life time.  The correct solution has been offered each time, but never embarked upon.  So again today, millions of poor souls, mostly the children, the old and the sick are starving to death. 

There are a few simple facts that maybe relevant: 

Nutritious foods can be grown nearly anywhere that irrigation water can be available during the growing season, which is nearly everywhere even in deserts.  Water can be collected, stored, or hauled, or piped from rivers and lakes, or pumped from underground.   

Agriculture requires land, water, seed, equipment, transportation, security, labor, ownership rights, storage, trade, fair markets, rule of law, little corruption, much forethought, dedication, knowledge and hard work; not just hunger.

Investments are essential; time, energy, attention, dedication, education, private property, and some money for tools, equipment and supplies.  All investments require safeguards and protections; like guards, guns, ammunition, pesticides, and fences.  You must be able to prevent looters, thieves, and marauders from stealing your crop from the field or next seasons seed from storage.

So what is missing that is starving people to death? 

Ignorance (corruption and poverty), beliefs (culture, philosophy, religion), bigotry, prejudice and discrimination, lack of private and personal property rights, storage and  transport, security, fertilizer and pest control, forethought and discipline, free and fair markets, less government (subsidizes, tariffs and embargoes) and much less taxation and regulation.

The answer:

Keep government out of food production and sale.

Provide agricultural education.

Ensure personal and real property ownership rights.

Get rid of government and military corruption.

Arrange for low cost agricultural water system financing.

Assist transport, storage, seed, fertilizer and pest control financing for all.

Ensure open market access for all.

Make genocide, slavery, and religious persecution a national crime.

Encourage sustainable methods and productivity beyond subsistence.

Food for free is not a human right.  It needs to be earned.  Starvation is caused by mistakes of ignorance and malice.  Make people buy or work for food and stop begging for it; and stop giving it away or withholding it as though it’s a right or a favor for political patronage.

See, it’s easy, and it will eliminate so much unnecessary suffering and death.

The knowledge and resources are available; behavior changes are required.

People will quickly learn to provide for themselves and their families.

          

New York City and Washington DC

I Don't Care What They Do

Do these people understand anything about the other 200 million people (counting unlawful immigrants) that don’t live in the metropolitan Northeast or a large coastal city? 

I doubt it.  Nothing that happens there is important to rest of us.  It’s not our financial center.  It’s not the cultural or social center of anything that matters, even occasionally, to most of us.

Nor, should we let Northeast Media personalities (TV, Newspaper, magazine and Internet) tell us what to believe, feel, think or do, and for whom we should vote or why.  

I don’t think so and here’s why.  They are not the reason for anything important to our inland citizens.  Those people have almost nothing in common with the rest of American’s residents.  Most of us don’t share their dreams or hold their same values, or live their kinds of lives, or care what celebrities think or do, don’t find anything remotely interesting or amusing about New York City, or think everything worth seeing is within walking distance of our flat, whatever that is.

For instance, personal vehicular travel in the inland west; some county seats are more than 150 miles from our homes.  Some families live 50 miles from the closest paved road.  Many technicians must drive hundreds of miles each day to get to work sites.  Most have never been to New York City and have no reason to ever go, and never will; and have no interest in Washington DC aside from visiting monuments and museums.  And don’t care what New Yorkers think, do or want.  Many wouldn’t go to a Broadway Play if they were there and it was free.  About half have never been on mass transit.  Most will live their entire life having never taken a train to and from work, and wouldn’t give up their truck, car, motorcycle, boat, plane, bicycle, or horse even if there was a subway station within hundreds of miles.  

In my case we live in the middle of a desert, so everything must be brought or collected from great distances; food, clothing, medicine, all consumer products by truck, car, train, or plane.  The closest mass transit station is 105 miles away, the closest airport 90 miles away, and our county seat is 94 miles away.  My county is roughly the size of the whole State of Delaware.  It is 150 miles to Las Vegas or Los Angeles.  Every commodity requires fueled delivery, even our gasoline and diesel fuel are mostly delivered by trucks.  There is no subway station, no mass transit, no park and ride; personal transportation, our own trucks and cars are essential.  Annual driving of more than 24,000 miles is required for the most conservative life styles.  Shopping for goods, tools or appliances, or medical care can easily involve a 300 mile round trip.  A special lunch date or a movie, can easily reach 200 miles, or 500 miles on a weekend for entertainment, amusement or sporting events.   

In my little town, homeless people and transients don’t urinate and defecate in our doorways.  Whores don’t work our street corners.  Big time drug dealers and violent street crime are rare.  Bribery, corruption and extortion rarely occur.  Crimes occur, but police brutality hasn’t been alleged in decades.  Two homicides in the same year, it must certainly have been transients.  We straddle what must be the nation’s busiest Interstate highway with more than 55 million vehicles per year and most of our crime comes to us on their way elsewhere.

Abundant, low priced fuel is essential.  Start drilling and pumping our nations abundant fuels, and stop taxing the life blood out of our inland towns and rural citizens.

And someday, when there is an efficient, practical alternative to the current fossil fuels, we’ll buy it, without subsidy, tax or tariff.

In the mean time, stop acting like everyone in the country lives and thinks like New York social celebrities and a few thousand of their closest friends, or would ever want to.