Ratification Debates, thats all you need to know..lol
The Executive Branch has attempted to peal off a bit of the authority of the Judicial Branch by dividing the "Judicial Process" definition into two types: that of the current "Judicial Process" involving the requirement for warrants to invade personal space or homes and seize personal property, trial by jury of ones peers with the right to cross examine accusers, etc..., and the new version called "due process" defined by AG Holder in which the POTUS, by Executive Order, has the "right" to declare any citizen on American soil a "terrorist" and have him or her executed without Judicial Process. The "due process" Holder referred to takes place entirely in the mind of the POTUS. It is EXACTLY the kind of "due process" that is used by Kings and Tyrants. Holder was forced to back down but the E.O. has not been revoked.
Meanwhile, we now have a stream of warrantless searches taking place in homes, on persons, at "DUI" road stops, VIPER stops, all backed up by law enforcement officers who have been given military grade equipment and many show no hesitation using it against ordinary people who are considered guilty until THEY prove themselves innocent. Some seem to enjoy their ability to abuse power with military grade equipment. The government has ordered thousands of drones to supplement their warrantless seizure of emails and personal information from ISPs (Google refused!), credit card companies, phone companies, some libraries, and their monitoring of ALL internet traffic using the grandson of Echelon. The worst abuse is the NSL, authorized by the hypocritically name PATRIOT Act, which prevents the accused or their attorney from mentioning the accusation oir chages against them to anyone, including spouse or family, prevents them from seeing the evidence against them (to protect "national security"), and subjects them to trial in a special court with a specially trained judge, exactly the kind of court and judge Hitler made extensive use of. A jury of peers is not welcome. Local law enforcement, especially in cities with strict gun control laws, are attacking law abiding citizens who video tape their public activities on public land, filing bogus "resisting arrest" charges when no crime or suspicion of crime is evident, and then destroying the video record. In cases where secondary videos were revealed in court challenges the video record destroyed the testimony of police who often claim they were attacked first, or the accused was at a place or doing something the second video repudiates.
We are on the edge of slipping into a police state, for our "own safety", or "for the children". Despots always surround their public images with children or victims, real or imaginary.
Wikipedia relates the attitude of the Framers of the Constituion, especially the 2nd Amendment:
A foundation of American political thought during the Revolutionary period was the well justified concern about political corruption and governmental tyranny. Even the federalists, fending off their opponents who accused them of creating an oppressive regime, were careful to acknowledge the risks of tyranny. Against that backdrop, the framers saw the personal right to bear arms as a potential check against tyranny. Theodore Sedgwick of Massachusetts expressed this sentiment by declaring that it is "a chimerical idea to suppose that a country like this could ever be enslaved . . . Is it possible . . . that an army could be raised for the purpose of enslaving themselves or their brethren? or, if raised whether they could subdue a nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty and who have arms in their hands?" Noah Webster similarly argued:
Before a standing army can rule the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.
George Mason argued the importance of the militia and right to bear arms by reminding his compatriots of England's efforts "to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them . . . by totally disusing and neglecting the militia." He also clarified that under prevailing practice the militia included all people, rich and poor. "Who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people, except a few public officers." Because all were members of the militia, all enjoyed the right to individually bear arms to serve therein.
The framers thought the personal right to bear arms to be a paramount right by which other rights could be protected. Therefore, writing after the ratification of the Constitution, but before the election of the first Congress, James Monroe included "the right to keep and bear arms" in a list of basic "human rights", which he proposed to be added to the Constitution.
Patrick Henry, in the Virginia ratification convention June 5, 1788, argued for the dual rights to arms and resistance to oppression:
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
While both Monroe and Adams supported ratification of the Constitution, its most influential framer was James Madison. In Federalist No. 46, he confidently contrasted the federal government of the United States to the European kingdoms, which he contemptuously described as "afraid to trust the people with arms." He assured his fellow citizens that they need never fear their government because of "the advantage of being armed....
"A well regulated militia being the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
Those opposed to the 2nd Amendment are now in a battle not to infringe it, but to REPEAL IT. Considering it is they who want to use "due process" instead of "judicial process", who are now flying drones, seizing and searching our private communications, making warrantless road stops, and home searches and arrests, and doing all the other things the "Kings Men" did, we should be concerned about what their true motives are. They took an oath to "protect and defend the Constitution from ALL enemies, foreign and domestic, willingly, without mental reservations or purpose of evasion". That they are now doing their best, against their own oath, to infringe that which should not be infringed indicates that they have other motives.
It isn't about "assault" rifles, because those were banned in the 1980s, and the vast majority of mass shootings taking place in "gun free zones" were committed by psychotic individuals carrying semi-automatic pistols, not assault weapons or even semi-automatic rifles. Honest, law abiding citizens did not commit those heinous crimes, and the "assault weapon ban" from 1994 to 2004 did NOT reduce the number of mass shootings. In the 17 years before than ban there were 16 mass shootings. During that ban there were 26. Since that ban sunset there have been 27 more shootings. The ban had NO affect, and new bans will not be any more effective. The shootings reveal a pattern that only an ideologue with an agenda could miss: the shooters are on psychotic drugs! It is not law abiding citizens, or even armed felons, who are doing the shooting in areas where guns are not supposed to be carried.
That doesn't seem to give THEM a clue that while the shooters are mentally disturbed, they are not so stupid as to not realize that they won't be fired upon while killing innocents in gun free zones because law abiding citizens will not carry arms in those zones, even to their own peril or death.Now, Colorado has passed their solution, which increases the number of gun free zones and further disarms law abiding citizens so that they will be an even more vulnerable prey to the psychotic shooter or the merciless thug, neither of which care a whit about gun laws. It should be more obvious than ever that their real agenda is to replace our Republic with their version of a Socialist Utopia in which the citizens are unarmed benefactors of their "benevolent" good will and "social" justice reigns supreme, unless you not on their "entitlement" list.
