Speaking with Fox News Sunday, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Bryer said “If you look at the values and the historical record, you will see that the Founding Fathers never intended guns to go unregulated.” Funny that there’s no mention in the historical record of any call for firearms regulation. Of any sort. Never mind. Apparently, we can ascribe this looney tunes analysis to the father of the first ten Amendments, James Madison. Justice Bryer reckons Jimmy Boy went along for the ride on the Second Amendment to allay opponents’ fears that Congress would call up state militias and nationalize them. I know: who cares? What difference does that make? OK, ready?
“If you’re interested in history, and in this one history was important, then I think you do have to pay attention to the story,” Breyer said. “If that was his motive historically, the dissenters [against the Heller case striking down Washington D.C.’s handgun ban] were right.”
WTF? Would that be the same James Madison who wrote “Protecting Our right to bear arms and protect ourselves in militia activities American have the right and advantage of being armed unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms”?
The Founding Fathers’ support for the Second Amendment, for the principle of the citizens’ right to bear arms, is clear and unequivocal. (Which is kinda why we have one in the first place.) For the sake of those not familiar with the Founding Fathers’ belief in the unfettered right to bear arms (cough Stephen cough), click over to dojgov.net.
OK, so, did I just hear a Supreme Court Justice say it was OK to water down a Constitutional amendment because he believes that ONE of the framers didn’t really want it? Wow.
But wait! The Justice has a back-up rational for restricting the right to bear arms. “As the Founding Fathers did not foresee how modern-day would change individual behavior, government bodies can impose regulations on guns.” Simple right?
“The difficult job in open cases where there is no clear answer is to take those values in this document, which all Americans hold, which do not change, and to apply them to a world that is ever changing,” Breyer said. “It’s not a matter of policy. It is a matter of what those framers intended.”
He suggested that those values and intentions mean that the Second Amendment allows for restrictions on the individual, including an all-out ban on handguns in the nation’s capital.
“We’re acting as judges. If we’re going to decide everything on the basis of history — by the way, what is the scope of the right to keep and bear arms? Machine guns? Torpedoes? Handguns?” he asked. “Are you a sportsman? Do you like to shoot pistols at targets? Well, get on the subway and go to Maryland. There is no problem, I don’t think, for anyone who really wants to have a gun.”
Wow X2.