Friday, November 26, 2021

Domestic violence, Gun Regulation, and yet another reason that "Gun rights" is a fallacious concept.

 One of the many reasons I don't identify with people in the US who like to claim they are "conservative" is that they aren't. There are a lot of issues with Kyle Rittenhouse's actions that a true conservative would have problems with: the primary one being that he took a deadly weapon into that situation. He is quite lucky that his legal problems were the only fallout from his idiocy.

That said we have a lot of fun with constitutional interpretation if we include the “domestic violence clause” (Article IV, Section 4) for a couple of reasons. First off, the trend is to use popular meanings of terms such as “bear arms”. In this case “domestic violence” means something drastically different today from what the founders intended, which is a bunch of people deciding to overthrow the government.

Kyle Rittenhouse's unilateral action of going to Kenosha with an intent of exercising "self-defence" is not the intent of the US Constitution, which makes it clear that only an official band, the militia, are supposed to do that. Please don't comment until after you have read Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252, 6 S. Ct. 580, 29 L. Ed. 615, 1886 U.S. LEXIS 1760 (1886) and understood it. Also, look at US Constitution Article I, Section 8, clauses 15 & 16, which are the miltia clauses and understand their relationship to other clauses in  the Constitution, such as Article I, Section 8, clauses 12-14, Article II, section ii, and Article III, Section iii. But back to Article IV, Section iv:

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.

This doesn't deal with spouse battering. Instead it is discussing the people who for whatever reason have decided that the US is a tyranny and wish to use violence to overthrow it. The Constitution makes it clear that it was created to:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

 Unfortunately, most people can't get past the first three words, which is amusing since anyone familiar with the Constitution's drafting and adoption know it was anything but a popularly written document.

Anyway, like calling an unauthorised gathering of armed people a militia, the US Constitution is pretty clear that having a gun for the purpose of "fighting tyrannical government" isn't intended in any way. As the US constitution says in Article III, Section iii:

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have Power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

You can't make it any clearer than that.

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