ARE “REASONABLE RESTRICTIONS” CONSTITUTIONAL?
by Michael Gaddy, ©2016, blogging at The Rebel Madman
(Feb. 21, 2016) — “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee…” Hosea 4:6
Yesterday, I received an email touting the defense of our Constitution by recently deceased Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The first paragraph went on to sing the praises of Scalia although no evidence of this support was found in the body of the email. The author of this piece then claimed Scalia to be the greatest person to ever wear the black robe, with the possible exception of John Marshall.
The author of this email did remark with praise on Scalia’s defense of our Second Amendment Rights. Scalia, in D.C. v. Heller, did confirm the right to keep and bear arms was an individual right and not a collective one. This would place Scalia in the “Captain Obvious” category for sure, along with the other 4 members of the court who voted in support. 2A supporters naturally cheered wildly, not reading the entire decision. Scalia also stated these rights were subject to “reasonable restrictions” by federal and state governments.
With the two words “reasonable restrictions,” Scalia and his cronies set the Constitution and Bill of Rights on its head. Not to be found in any of the organic documents of this country does it state individual rights are subject to restrictions by the government whose primary job is to protect those rights, not restrict them. What Scalia did with this declaration was to place all of our Individual Rights as listed in the Declaration of Independence and our Bill of Rights subject to reasonable restrictions by people with the wherewithal (money) to win an election. I can assure you what you and I would deem “reasonable” would vary differently from the same definition of the word from Obama, Hillary, McCain, Romney, Bernie or Loretta Lynch. But, it is not our definition that would hold the weight of the law according to Scalia; it would be the definition arrived at by of one of the above, or some other sleazy politician.
Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the founding era of this country would know that almost without exception, all discussions of what would become our Second Amendment were conducted in concert with discussions of what our founders feared would be the primary instrument of tyranny: a standing army. Our founders knew well any standing army and the federal or state sheriffs mentioned by Patrick Henry would be under the dominion or control of government officials. For this reason, our founders guaranteed to the people of this country a right to be armed in order to protect themselves from the standing army, federal and state sheriffs. Scalia, if he had any knowledge of the founders, knew this. He also knew to allow those who would be in charge of that standing army to set restrictions on the rights of the people to protect themselves from that selfsame government was to completely ignore the intent of our founders.
“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 bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.” ~Noah Webster
The complete theory stated by Noah Webster above has been neutered by “reasonable restrictions” instituted by our government since the founding of this country. The “whole body of the people” have been virtually disarmed with reasonable restrictions. The people are denied the right to have weapons equal to those of the current standing armies in this country. Even the local police have arms that previous “reasonable restrictions” have denied to the individual.
When LaVoy Finicum exited his truck on that fateful day in Oregon, he was outnumbered and outgunned and had already been fired upon by members of our government’s federal and state sheriffs. The same federal and state sheriffs Patrick Henry had mentioned in the Virginia Ratification Convention.
“The Federal Sheriff may commit what oppression, make what distresses he pleases, and ruin you with impunity: For how are you to tie his hands? Have you any sufficiently decided means of preventing him from sucking your blood by speculations, commissions and fees? Thus thousands of your people will be most shamefully robbed: Our State Sheriffs, those unfeeling blood-suckers, have, under the watchful eye of our Legislature, committed the most horrid and barbarous ravages on our people…”
Justice Antonin Scalia was not an instrument of Freedom and Liberty; he was not a constitutionalist, strict constructionist or defender of the Bill of Rights; he was an instrument of government, a shill for the oppressors and tyrants. He publicly stated our inalienable rights were subject to “reasonable restrictions” by the very government our founders intended the people to be armed to protect themselves from.
Those so-called “conservatives’ who are worshiping at the feet of the tyrant with their countless accolades for Scalia are despicable and ignorant of what our founders intended this Republic to be. Again, ignorance is not bliss; it is the “loss of free and responsible government on this continent.” It is the triumph of the banks and the military/industrial/congressional/judicial complex over the Creator-granted rights of the individual.
To further illustrate this gross ignorance, the comparison of Scalia with Chief Justice John Marshall must be examined. In his 34 years on the Supreme Court, John Marshall probably did more to destroy the intent of our founders in the formation of a Republic than any other figure in history.
It all began with Marbury v. Madison. First of all, Marshall, like Scalia, refused to recuse himself from court proceedings in which he had a conflict of interest. Marshall was Secretary of State when then President John Adams appointed Marbury to a Justice of the Peace position near the end of his presidential term. As Secretary of State, it was Marshall’s duty to deliver the appointment to Marbury, a task which Marshall failed to complete. When Marbury learned of this appointment after Jefferson had been sworn in as president, with Madison as his Secretary of State, Marbury sued Madison for this appointment. By this time Marshall was Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall ruled the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction in this case and that should have ended it. But, Marshall used this opportunity to establish the scourge of freedom “judicial review.”
Marshall had been a delegate to the Virginia Ratification Convention and had repeatedly heard fellow delegates Edmund Randolph and George Nicholas state the only powers the federal government possessed were those that had been “expressly delegated” to it. Marshall, at this convention, promised the federal courts would never interfere in the laws of the states. Marshall also challenged Patrick Henry’s prediction of what Henry referred to as “federal and state sheriffs.”
Read the rest here.