It certainly is not a perfect world we live in, as people of a nation that has the Constitution, the birthplace of all concepts of American democracy and freedoms, to protect their lives.
In a land where we are supposed to have freedom of religion, we find people who take that right and impose it upon others, declaring other religions ungodly and untrue empowered by their religious belief that THEY hold the only true word and will of their God(s).
We find people who grasp the right to freedom of speech and abusing it upon others, often seek to repress that same right in those they count and hold as opponents, or mostly abusing their right of free speech by not being responsible for what they say or do while exercising that right.
So too with the right to bear arms.
In an attempt to resist regulatory control and laws regarding weapons, they insist on the very thing that challenges that right, the ownership of military styled weapons of mass carnage. They misquote the very amendment that gives us as citizens the right to bear arms, they abuse that right in selfish stubbornness, which empowers the very forces they fear to take extremes to control not the peaceful aspect of gun ownership but to curb and control the illegal sales and usage of firearms and rifles or ownership of weapons beyond the scope of self-defense and protecting oneself.
The amendment reads:
“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.”
Now realize that to this day, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has struggled to define the actual definition of the law, whether to approach the law as one sentence as in:
Under a controlled militia, the citizens have the right to bear arms…
or
The citizens of each and every individual State, their cities and municipalities, have a right to bear arms and to carry said arms
and also
under a controlled militia, for the state to issue gun rights to its citizens to empower said militia.
To determine the history of the second amendment, something many gun activists actually refuse to do, simply ignoring the total or in part definitions and grasping the one power they wish to express, we have to understand the time surrounding the creation of that law.
Why so? Simply put, at times SCOTUS has made slavery legal, or the internment of anyone of Japanese ancestry a legal option of the government so we need to undestand WHY the 2nd amendment was created and what the timeline was to press our forefathers to write into the Constitution that particular amendment.
Also, never let conspiracy theorists put into your head that there is some larger scope of the government slowly creeping up on your rights to take away guns from the people. There is per say NO government as they attest to, that acts as an ominous power that seeks to prey upon your rights.
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SCOTUS is more of a threat to your rights than any legislative or executive power can be. The Citizens United case proved that, when it gave power to corporations and industrial powers to act as political entities and fund with unlimited resources their political opinions and options, undermining the very concept of democratic political environs which are to be free of ominous influence or oppressive distortions.
On the other side of the fence, the president also is no REAL threat in that he can create NO NEW LAWS through executive decision, (thus any executive decision can be overturned once dealt with in Congress or simply after he is out of office) in that he can merely implement existing laws by decree and/or strongly suggest to Congress to pass new laws, in addition to ordering the immediate and prejudiced (strong) execution of laws already on the books.
More a danger than a president who can only serve two four year terms are the prejudiced legislative members who can be voted back into office time and time again until they retire from old age, as proven by the way that the far right portion of the Republican political engine (a stubborn minority of the legislative branch) has kept the nation in political turmoil and paralysis leading to the lowering of our nation’s credit rating as given by Standard and Poor.
Now take the timing of the 2nd Amendment and why it was created in the first place.
The Second Amendment holds the distinction of being the only amendment to the Bill of Rights that essentially goes unenforced. The U.S. Supreme Court has never struck down any piece of legislation on Second Amendment grounds, in part because justices have disagreed on whether the amendment is intended to protect the right to bear arms as an individual right, or as a component of the "well-regulated militia."
Yet SCOTUS has always reasoned that the right the bear arms is fundamental to the nation's scheme of ordered liberty, given that self-defense was a basic right recognized by many legal systems from ancient times to the present, and that individual self-defense was "the central component" of the Second Amendment right.
Also consider in that timeline that Thomas Jefferson wished to have no real active military in power under the control of the federal government.
However, two distinct facts pertain to the creation of the Second Amendment Rights…
The newly born country had just emerged from a nation oppressed and plagued by a foreign army’s rule, thus it was worried of a future plagued of military rule;
Secondly that a militia need be formed to protect each state individually in that at the time the Whiskey rebellion had left Bedford, Pennsylvania unprotected in that the Federal Government could not readily procure at a moment’s notice, a protective federal standing army to meet each state’s emergency request depending on what might transpire.
In September 1791 the western counties of Pennsylvania broke out in rebellion against a federal “excise” tax on the distillation of liquor. After local and federal officials were attacked, President Washington and his advisers decided to send troops to assuage the region. On August 14, 1792, under the militia law, Henry Knox (secretary of war) had called for 12,950 troops composed of a militia, citizens armed for the orderly execution and purpose of a militia under George Washington. At no time did the 2nd Amendment give the citizens of the nation the right to bear arms against the government itself in a disorderly rebellion but in fact was purposed to strike down such rebellions
So a nation empowered by its armed citizens as a militia was a necessary implementation of survival, but only through orderly enactment of such. In order to empower a militia, the citizens were given rights to bear arms.
Yet in today’s standards, each state not only has a National Guard whose personnel are citizens of its boundaries, but it fully arms that militia. Owning a gun as part of empowering a State militia is not a legal clause to their argument.
Do we have the right to own firearms in order to rebel against an oppressive government?
To put it bluntly NO! At no time, much to the angst of gun owners who envision themselves as armed protectors of our freedoms, will any act of insurrection or rebellion be legal, no matter the excuse of the radicals, militants, activists, revolutionaries or protesters We have the legal channels set up by our Constitution and legislative powers to protect our freedoms and prevent our country from ever falling into the hands of an oppressor. Congress protects us in all channels and avenues from such oppression, and SCOTUS protects us from Congress and all other possible future threats to a free nation.
Any attempt by a president to exercise executive powers beyond the scope of his legal rights would be overturned and put down by Congress and any acts to disregard our Constitutional rights attempted by a tyrannical majority held Congress would be overturned by SCOTUS or the Senate or the House of Representatives. So don’t let the disillusioned dreams of a minority of gun owners (in comparison to the rest of our populace), who tout and proclaim a disastrous Armageddon of a militarily ruled oppressive government taking over, ail you emotionally as that is their very goal and purpose, all to merely own a type of weapon that they would never need.
No amount of military styled weapons capable of inflicting mass casualties, owned by the average citizen, could turn down an active military protective force presented by our troops in full gear and armament to turn down any rebellion or self-imposed militia. We have already seen the results of such terminal militias in our recent history, the effects such militias affect upon the peaceful public surrounding them, and the way such militias steal and oppress the Constitutional rights of others to live peacefully and securely, free from threat and harm.
So we see the need for the active government of the time to define that right to bear arms and regulate not that freedom but the way in which people choose to exercise that freedom. Take for example the way in which mere fertilizer has been regulated and controlled after the Timothy McVeigh bombing of the Federal building in Oklahoma City, OK. Many could have argued that such regulatory control oppressed a farmer’s rights to freely grow and produce, to seek a life of freedom and happiness free of frivolous law suits and oppressive government. Yet we can see where regulatory control was needed to protect the public. We can easily see where that side of government is necessary to protect the common good.
In like, the members of government who seek to regulate and control firearms are in their legal rights. The degree that they can regulate and control will be decided by Congress and not by the president or through executive order. As t turns out, Obama has released his 19 acts without using any illegal power to do so. Then SCOTUS itself will decide if such results subjugate our Constitutional rights.
At no time will the threat of illegal militant use of force be accepted to change the tide or course of such democratic proceedings. Any such actions will be considered a threat to the peaceful, safe and free lives of the people.