"Guns and Ammo" supports gun control?

[Deathstyle]

From Truth About Guns website:

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/11/robert-farago/guns-ammo-supports-gun-control/


Guns & Ammo Supports Gun Control

 By Robert Farago on November 2, 2013

Click here to download a pdf of Guns & Ammo?s column Let?s Talk Limits. Technical Editor Dick Metcalf [above] penned the editorial for the December issue. Metcalf, a writer whose technical knowledge (or lack thereof) has earned him brickbats before, bases his editorial on a distinction between ?infringement? and ?regulation.? ?I bring this up,? Metcalf writes, ?because way too many gun owners still believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement. The fact is that all Constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.? That, dear reader, is a major WTF moment. One of many . . .
 


Metcalf?s dietribe [sic] turns to the antis? favorite justification for infringing on our natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear  arms: you ?Can?t yell ?FIRE!? in a crowded theater.? Yes. Yes you can. It?s just that you?re legally responsible for what happens next. And what happens next in Metcalf?s editorial is bizarre?especially for an article that appears in a gun magazine:
 

Many argue that any regulation at all is, by definition, an infringement. If that were true, then the authors of the Second Amendment themselves, should not have specified ?well-regulated.?
 
You?re kidding, right? Metcalf doesn?t know that ?well-regulated? is ?referring to the property of something being in proper working order?? That it has nothing to do with government regulation? No way!
 
Way. Sure Metcalf?s bone-headed, uninformed, patently obvious misinterpretation of the Second Amendment?s introductory clause isn?t as bad as the antis? assertion that the 2A only applies to Americans in a militia, but it?s the next worst thing. Coming from a gun guy, a man who trumpets the fact that he co-wrote The Firearm Owners Protection Act and taught college seminars on Constitutional law, well, I?m speechless.
 
Too bad Metcalf isn?t. Once again, he turns to the antis? well-worn fundamentally flawed pro-regulation arguments to advocate gun control. He deploys ye olde auto analogy to defend state-issued carry permits against readers who believe that Second Amendment is the only authority they need to bear arms.
 

I wondered whether those same people believed that just anybody should be able to buy a vehicle and take it out on public roadways without any kind of driver?s training, test or license.
 
I understand that driving a car is not a right protected by the Constitution, but to me the basic principle is the same. I firmly believe that all U.S. citizens have the right to bear arms, but . . .
 
I?m going to stop there. Anyone who says ?I believe in the Second Amendment but?? does not believe in the Second Amendment. They are not friends, they are not frenemies, they are enemies of The People of the Gun.
 
More than that, whether or not these nominal gun rights supporters (e.g., President Obama, Senator Charles Schumer) ?believe? in the Second Amendment is irrelevant. As stated above, the right to keep and bear arms is a natural right, stemming from our natural right of self-defense. It doesn?t require belief, faith or political justification.
 
Equally, the right to keep and bear arms is a civil right. Wikipedia defines the term thusly:
 

Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals? freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one?s ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.
 
Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples? physical and mental integrity, life and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as race, gender, national origin, color, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, or disability; and individual rights such as privacy, the freedoms of thought and conscience, speech and expression, religion, the press, assembly and movement.
 
I have a major issue with the word ?unwarranted? (wikipedia won?t let me delete it). But the point is made: Americans have a civil right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by . . . wait for it . . . the Constitution. Specifically, the Second Amendment. This despite the fact that . . .
 

Civil and political rights need not be codified to be protected, although most democracies worldwide do have formal written guarantees of civil and political rights. Civil rights are considered to be natural rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America that ?a free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.?
 
So civil means natural, and natural means inviolable. Except by people who support their violation. People like Dick Metcalf, who ends his pro-gun control polemic by asserting that Illinois? new carry law?mandating that citizens must complete 16 hours of training to ?earn? the right to bear arms? is not ?infringement in and of itself.?
 
?But that?s just me . . .? Metcalf closes. Yes it is. And I believe that anyone who supports a gun magazine that prints this kind of anti-gun agitprop is supporting the diminution and destruction of our gun rights. Or is that just me? [h/t b0b]

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/11/robert-farago/guns-ammo-supports-gun-control/

[Grudgie]

I don't have any statistics in front of me, but I'm pretty sure the vast majority of American gun owners believe in at least some kind of regulation. I personally do not. I believe we have the right to own any piece of military hardware including flying fortresses and WMDs. But who are we to boycott a magazine just because we don't believe in his opinion to how much regulation there should be? We've got to realize that we might not know what we think we know. The world isn't black and white but many shades of grey.

[rah45]

The world isn't black and white but many shades of grey.

I've been told there are fifty shades of grey, but I digress.... 



I don't know about WMD's, but I believe you might as well let people own whatever they want. If they want it badly enough, and have the money to get it anyway, there's always a way to get it. IMO, if it is legalized and normalized, proper training and responsibility in the majority of the culture soon follows, and things even out.

[JohnyMac]

Please remember that before the NFA of 1934, all citizens were allowed to own anything that the military used. This was the law as most American citizens since the revolution were afraid of a Coup De Tat by the military.

Due to Prohibition ending in 1933, the Dept of Treasury had nothing for the revenue agents to do.  So Secretary Morhenthau (Secretary of the Treasury) pushed Congress to pass the NFA using the St. Valentines massacre and other such gangster shooting's as an excuse.

Post the acts passing, his agents were not laid-off or reassigned. Power means everything in D.C.

Then in 1938 (I think) a case called United States vs. Miller was presented in front of the USSC. Miller was arrested with a "sawed off shotgun" using the '34 NFA by the Treasury agents. Miller's lawyer appealed the arrest because sawed off shotguns were used in WWI by the US military so his client was not in violation of the new NFA law (Or something like that). I forget but either Miller didn't appear the day for the appeal to be presented before the USSC or the lawyer didn't show up to make the case. Regardless, Miller's arrest was held up in court.

IMO, any sportsman (Hunter) who is willing to give up ANY firearms rights does not completely understand America's history and why the Second Amendment exists.
 

 

[rah45]

A related article, from Bearing Arms:

Dick Metcalf has been a writer and editor covering the shooting sports for a very long time, and currently makes his home at Guns & Ammo. You can read some his most recent columns online, and make your own judgments about him.

The Truth About Guns purports to have a copy of Metcalf?s December print magazine column (PDF) and seem intent on collecting Metcalf?s scalp as a traitor to the Second Amendment.

I?ve read Robert Farrago?s commentary at The Truth About Guns, and I?ve read Metcalf?s column.

Perhaps despite my belief that citizens have a constitutional right to suppressed machine guns, I?m not enough of a purist, either, because I think I understand where Metcalf is coming from, and I don?t think he should be burned at the stake for what appears to be a sloppy attempt to have a valid conversation about rights and responsibilities.

    A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

As a shooting community, we seem to be huge on the latter half of the Second Amendment, and not so much on the first half. Find a Second Amendment rally anywhere, and you?ll hear cries of ?the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed!? You won?t hear many cries (if any) for ?a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state!? Do you ever wonder why that is? While I don?t purport to speak for everyone, I have a hunch.

I think it has to do with the uncomfortable fact that the first half of the Second Amendment suggests an obligation and a duty.

A ?well regulated militia? would require people to sacrifice, to get in shape, learn small unit tactics, hike with heavy packs in deplorable weather conditions, give up modern conveniences, and generally suffer to become something that might pass as the sort of militia that would have a hope of surviving in today?s fourth and fifth generation warfare. As the technology of firearms have changed in the past 200 years, so have the realities of war. Necessarily, the tactics of a modern militia, whether the formal militia of the National Guard and Reserves, or the unorganized militia to which the majority of us belong to as our birthright and moral obligation have also changed.

A modern well-regulated militia?one that is smoothly functioning and in proper working order as an irregular small unit militia force of the kind the John Mosby and Max Velocity train?requires blood, sweat, and tears. It?s hard work. It?s exhausting duty. It?s a promise to future generations that you ready, willing, and able to fight and live (any unprepared idiot can die) to preserve liberty for posterity.

On the other hand, ?shall not be infringed,? taken without any responsibility, is a hedonist?s choice. It implies no responsibility, obligation, or duty. It is the cry of, ?Why, we should have anything and everything, just because!?

Some of us are very selective in cherry-picking which parts of the Second Amendment we want to support, aren?t we?

I disagree with the conclusions Metcalf has drawn in his column (fairly strongly, in fact), but he at least has made an attempt to look at the entire Second Amendment. Most of us in this line of work are too cowardly to even make that attempt, fearing a backlash from those who want all of the liberty, but none of the responsibility.

[Kentactic]

A related article, from Bearing Arms:

Dick Metcalf has been a writer and editor covering the shooting sports for a very long time, and currently makes his home at Guns & Ammo. You can read some his most recent columns online, and make your own judgments about him.

The Truth About Guns purports to have a copy of Metcalf?s December print magazine column (PDF) and seem intent on collecting Metcalf?s scalp as a traitor to the Second Amendment.

I?ve read Robert Farrago?s commentary at The Truth About Guns, and I?ve read Metcalf?s column.

Perhaps despite my belief that citizens have a constitutional right to suppressed machine guns, I?m not enough of a purist, either, because I think I understand where Metcalf is coming from, and I don?t think he should be burned at the stake for what appears to be a sloppy attempt to have a valid conversation about rights and responsibilities.

    A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

As a shooting community, we seem to be huge on the latter half of the Second Amendment, and not so much on the first half. Find a Second Amendment rally anywhere, and you?ll hear cries of ?the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed!? You won?t hear many cries (if any) for ?a well regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state!? Do you ever wonder why that is? While I don?t purport to speak for everyone, I have a hunch.

I think it has to do with the uncomfortable fact that the first half of the Second Amendment suggests an obligation and a duty.

A ?well regulated militia? would require people to sacrifice, to get in shape, learn small unit tactics, hike with heavy packs in deplorable weather conditions, give up modern conveniences, and generally suffer to become something that might pass as the sort of militia that would have a hope of surviving in today?s fourth and fifth generation warfare. As the technology of firearms have changed in the past 200 years, so have the realities of war. Necessarily, the tactics of a modern militia, whether the formal militia of the National Guard and Reserves, or the unorganized militia to which the majority of us belong to as our birthright and moral obligation have also changed.

A modern well-regulated militia?one that is smoothly functioning and in proper working order as an irregular small unit militia force of the kind the John Mosby and Max Velocity train?requires blood, sweat, and tears. It?s hard work. It?s exhausting duty. It?s a promise to future generations that you ready, willing, and able to fight and live (any unprepared idiot can die) to preserve liberty for posterity.

On the other hand, ?shall not be infringed,? taken without any responsibility, is a hedonist?s choice. It implies no responsibility, obligation, or duty. It is the cry of, ?Why, we should have anything and everything, just because!?

Some of us are very selective in cherry-picking which parts of the Second Amendment we want to support, aren?t we?

I disagree with the conclusions Metcalf has drawn in his column (fairly strongly, in fact), but he at least has made an attempt to look at the entire Second Amendment. Most of us in this line of work are too cowardly to even make that attempt, fearing a backlash from those who want all of the liberty, but none of the responsibility.

Well we lost the ability to organize a respectable sized militia before I was born. Put 1000 men in one state with organization and a strong training schedule and you'll have the feds all over their ass. I'm all about militias. The first half of the 2A is GONE.. all we have left is the second half. They revoked the first half already not us.

I'd love to start a push back on the first half of the 2A. If we get that back we might have a chance at preserving the 2A.

If anyone forgets to mention the first half of the 2A its the government.

[JohnyMac]

Well written Ken! 

[rah45]

  Ken



Militias are generally frowned upon today. People associate them with anti-government intentions and label them as right-wing extremist groups. Militias DO have a role to play in opposing tyrannical government actions, but that is only one part of their responsibilities. Militias were intended to provide local security for county- and town-size areas, due to many threats. One such threat was French or Spanish military forces, or Native American or (regrettably) African American (i.e., slave revolt) threats. Today, our military is strong enough to smash most opposing militaries without question, but the unorganized militia has always been expected to provide that underlying backbone, especially in case of fighting on our home soil. A second use of a militia, one we have definitely seen the need for over the past couple of decades, is during civil disturbances or calamities of nature (hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc.). The local, county, state and federal government cannot always respond as they are needed, and a local militia could be very helpful in securing trouble areas, aiding in search and rescue, and other miscellaneous actions.

I understand that the National Guard has tried to take the responsibilities of the militias, has tried to organize, centralize and strengthen the militia concept into a better fighting force. The problem with relying on the NG instead of well-regulated local militias organized at the state level, is placing the control over the activation and coordination of the NG units at the state and federal level. Problem #1: Placing the militia, the unit designed as a resistance force sourcing at the local/county level in the hands of a state or federal level, seems counter to one of the main reasons for the existence of the militia - resisting tyrannical actions from a powerful, centralized government and its military. Problem #2: Maybe the sheriffs of X and Y counties don't want to wait four days for the governor to sound the alarm and call up the NG. Perhaps those counties need help RFN, and until state and federal resources can arrive, the local resources are all they've got. Militias who truly fulfill their intended roles should be on operating terms with their local law enforcement agency(ies), and should the sheriff contact them for aid in a crisis they should be ready to go.

Personally, I've considered serving as a reserve sheriff's deputy. You would have the authority of the sheriff's department, you would be called upon in a crisis just as a militia would, you would be able to utilize training available to LEOs, etc. Except for answering directly to the sheriff, it seems a lot like a militia unit would be. Has anyone else considered it? The sheriff answers to his county, that's it. If he feels like he has the legal obligation, he can (in theory) tell the governor and the president where to shove it regarding his county, and those people who elected him. Has anyone else considered this? I'd appreciate your thoughts.

[JohnyMac]

Rah you bring up a good point that ThatGuy and I were talking about one day. Specifically, don't go around saying you are anti-government join a volunteer fire department. Or reserve sheriffs dept.

Doing this you accomplish so much for your community beside the obvious of just helping. You are a voice of what needs to be done and get some great training too.

Thanks Rah