Thursday, August 17, 2017

Actions like Charlottesville should not be condoned.

Taken in Charlottesville, a block from Emancipation Park, by @HouseofRuin

The Neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville was not covered by the First or Second Amendments as the above picture demonstrates.

The US Supreme Court decision, Presser v Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S.Ct. 580, 29 L.Ed. 615 (1886), made this clear:
It cannot be successfully questioned that the State governments, unless restrained by their own Constitutions, have the power to regulate or prohibit associations and meetings of the people, except in the case of peaceable assemblies to perform the duties or exercise the privileges of citizens of the United States; and have also the power to control and regulate the organization, drilling, and parading of military bodies and associations, except when such bodies or associations are *268 authorized by the militia laws of the United States. The exercise of this power by the States is necessary to the public peace, safety and good order. To deny the power would be to deny the right of the State to disperse assemblages organized for sedition and treason, and the right to suppress armed mobs bent on riot and rapine.
Presser needs to be brought back into the "Second Amendment Jurisprudence", although it seems to boggle the mind that anyone could claim an armed assembly to somehow fit within the definition of "peaceably assemble".

We can go a bit further to the claim about one belonging to an "unorganised militia" leading to Second Amendment rights, but Presser made it clear that neither Presser nor the Lehr und Wehr Verein "had no license from the governor of Illinois to drill or parade as a part of the militia of the state, and was not a part of the regular organized militia of the state, nor a part of troops of the United States, and had no organization under the militia law of the United States."

Presser made it clear that:
The right voluntarily to associate together as a military company or organization, or to drill or parade with arms, without, and independent of, an act of congress or law of the state authorizing the same, is not an attribute of national citizenship. Military organization and military drill and parade under arms are subjects especially under the control of the government of every country. They cannot be claimed as a right independent of law. Under our political system they are subject to the regulation and control of the state and federal governments, acting in due regard to their respective prerogatives and powers. The constitution and laws of the United States will be searched in vain for any support to the view that these rights are privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States independent of some specific legislation on the subject.
We can also get into the historic events which led to the adoption of the Constitution, one of which was Shays' Rebellion, along with the text of the Constitution to see that somehow trying to turn the "well-regulated militia" into a mob, which the insurrection theory does, is an absurdity.

The right needs to abandon its absurd interpretation of the Second Amendment, in particular that it somehow gives licence to rebellion.

Even more importantly, it needs to see where this absurdity has taken us. Time for this shit to stop.

See also:
The Chilling Effects of Openly Displayed Firearms

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