The Insecurity Of An Unfree State
“Florida’s law banning adult, law-abiding citizens under the age of 21 from purchasing firearms of any kind is unconstitutional under the Second and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution,” a complaint filed by the National Rifle Association against the state for its age-discriminatory gun ban explains. The ban was enacted in a “we must do something” panic after the Parkland school massacre, sending previously NRA-endorsed Republican legislators and “A+”-rated Gov. Rick Scott into a frenzy to see who could surrender the most to the gun-grabbers without a fight.
The complaint involves four counts, but for the purposes of this analysis, focus on just one observation in its introduction:
“[M]ale citizens in this age-group are designated members of the militia by federal statute … and may be conscripted to bear arms on behalf of their country.”
“The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and … under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard,” the code titled “Militia: composition and classes” establishes as a matter of law. “The classes of the militia are— the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.”
That means, per Article. 1. Section. 8. of the Constitution, “the supreme Law of the Land,” at 17 a male citizen (and current application of law could hardly exclude females) is subject to being “call[ed] forth [by the Congress] to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.”
True, a derelict Congress has consistently (and deliberately) failed in its duty “to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia.” That in itself does not invalidate the rights and duties of citizens. As the Supreme Court in United States. v. Miller noted “the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense … were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.”
We can’t appear with ‘em if we ain’t got ‘em.
The Florida “law” and similar edicts in other states intending to impose a firearm prohibition on lawful members of the militia is absolutely an infringement. And it gets worse when they impose so-called “assault weapons” bans, as many have. One such effort is developing in Oregon in the form of a ballot measure.
“The people of the State of Oregon find and declare that a reduction in the availability of assault weapons and large capacity ammunition magazines will promote the public health and safety of the residents of this state,” the proposed edict lies, as if the socialist drafters of the measure know better than the Founders that which is “necessary to the security of a free State.”
Perhaps the word “free” is the hang-up.
Beaver State gun-grabbers seek to ban semi-automatic rifles and pistols with features such as grips, barrel shrouds, thumbhole and folding or telescoping stocks, flash suppressors, muzzle brakes and … you get the picture. They don’t like guns – at least in the hands of the people the Constitution says are the ones entitled to have them.
That brings us back to the “in common use at the time” admission from Miller. That was quoted by Justice Scalia in the Heller decision, and has been used ever since by a lying disarmament lobby to claim it empowers them to dictate what you “need” for hunting and sport shooting, neither of which factors into the core purpose of the Second Amendment.
Per the Miller Court, “the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear … ordinary military equipment … that … could contribute to the common defense.” It’s beyond curious that the monopoly of violence zealots behind the semi-automatic bans justify them by screaming they are “weapons of war.”
Those, of course, are precisely what the Founders deemed necessary for members of the citizen militia to keep and bear. To insist otherwise is to maintain their purpose was to have the “whole people” called forth to be slaughtered – hardly a prescription for a secure or a free State.
“Congress: Do your duty and revive the militias,” former diplomat and conservative political activist and author Alan Keyes” wrote in anticipation of the Florida sellout. “They ought consciously and carefully to devise and enact legislation that revives the organization of local militias throughout the United States, as the Constitution expects them to do.”
This seems like a bill an honorable representative could introduce and rally gun owners around. Base it on equal protection for young adult citizens under 21, and on U.S. Code for all of us to claim our right to “ordinary military equipment [that] could contribute to the common defense,” and put an end to this cowardly and/or treasonous foolishness that only serves to abet “all enemies foreign and domestic.”
