Tag: Second Amendment

Second Amendment Week

Here in Mississippi we have a special tax free week for the buying of guns and ammo…..and we are in the middle of that tax free week.

A sales tax holiday is an annual event during which the Mississippi Department of Revenue allows certain items to be purchased sales-tax-free at any participating retailer within the state.

Mississippi allows you to purchase the following items tax-free during their annual sales tax holidays: $100 worth of clothing and footwear in July; all firearms, ammunition, archery, and certain hunting supplies in September.  (we got started early this year)

The September firearms and hunting supplies sales tax holiday is officially called the Mississippi Second Amendment Weekend (MSAW).

This is not something new….Mississippi has had an annual “Second Amendment” sales tax holiday since 2014. This tax holiday is meant to encourage participation in the upcoming hunting season, and enables sportsmen to purchase guns, ammunition, and other hunting supplies tax-free. 

There you go an incentive for people to buy more guns and ammo….just what this state needs….more idiots packing heat in a time when we have a major problem with gun violence….it all seems so logical (sarcasm)….

I do not know if other states have this benefit for gun lovers….I just know that my state does not need an incentive to sell more guns.

But what can I expect from a deep Red State where logic is a dirty word.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More On The Second Amendment

The US House has done a bold move (or is it?)…..

The House passed legislation Friday to revive a ban on certain semi-automatic guns, the first vote of its kind in years and a direct response to the firearms often used in the crush of mass shootings ripping through communities nationwide. Once banned in the US, the high-powered firearms are now widely blamed as the weapon of choice among young men responsible for many of the most devastating mass shootings. But Congress allowed the restrictions first put in place in 1994 on the manufacture and sales of the weapons to expire a decade later, unable to muster the political support to counter the powerful gun lobby and reinstate the weapons ban. Speaker Nancy Pelosi pushed the vote toward passage in the Democratic-run House, saying the earlier ban “saved lives.”

President Biden hailed the House vote, saying, “The majority of the American people agree with this common sense action.” He urged the Senate to “move quickly to get this bill to my desk.” However, it is likely to stall in the 50-50 Senate, the AP reports. The House legislation is shunned by Republicans, who dismissed it as an election-year strategy by Democrats. Almost all Republicans voted against the House bill, which passed 217-213. The bill comes at a time of intensifying concerns about gun violence and shootings—the supermarket shooting in Buffalo, NY; massacre of school children in Uvalde, Texas; and the July Fourth shootings of revelers in Highland Park, Ill.

The bill would make it unlawful to import, sell, or manufacture a long list of semi-automatic weapons. Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-NY, said it includes an exemption that allows for the possession of existing semi-automatic guns. Reps. Chris Jacobs of New York and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania were the only Republicans to vote for the measure. The Democratic lawmakers voting no were Reps. Kurt Schrader of Oregon, Henry Cuellar of Texas, Jared Golden of Maine, Ron Kind of Wisconsin, and Vicente Gonzalez of Texas. Among the semi-automatic weapons banned would be some 200-plus types of semi-automatic rifles, including AR-15s, and pistols. The restrictions would not apply to many other models.

Was this just a move to garner support for the upcoming election…..we all know that it will not fly in the Senate…..so what was this passing all about.

Then there will be the debate on the 2nd amendment……

I know–I know—-haven’t we had enough debate on the guns thing?

I say no because it is an issue that needs resolving one way or the other……

There have been more mass shootings in the last five years than in any other five-year span since 1996.

According to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident where four or more people are injured or killed, there have been 2,403 mass shootings from 2017 to 2021, with 2,495 dead and 10,225 injured. The group’s data reveals a steep rise in recent years: 692 mass shootings in 2021, up 66% from 2019’s total of 417.

As of July 6, the group has recorded 320 mass shootings, putting 2022 on track to finish as one of the deadliest years in US history.

According to the CDC, 124 people die every day in the US in acts of gun violence.

Time for a re-think?

Years ago I made my thoughts known to my readers on the 2nd amendment……

Why The 2nd?

But that is just my opinion on the creation of this amendment….but let’s look deeper shall we?

Amid today’s heated debates about gun laws and the Second Amendment, what many people may not realize is that the phrase “the right to keep and to bear arms” is older than the Bill of Rights. It was penned years before the United States won its independence from England. 

In 1779, Founding Father and future president John Adams wrote this phrase at his law office in Quincy, Mass., as he drafted the Massachusetts Constitution — the oldest in the world. He did so a decade before the phrase appeared in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 

James Madison argued on behalf of an armed citizenry as a bulwark to federal overreach in Federalist No. 46, published in 1788 as debate took place over shape of the new American government.

A national army of 25,000 to 30,000 men “would be opposed by a militia amounting to near half a million citizens with arms in their hands,” wrote the statesman often dubbed “Father of the Constitution.”

https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/gun-laws-story-right-keep-bear-arms

That was from the FOX point of view…..now let’s look elsewhere…..

The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1791, 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.” Responsible readings of this sentence note that it locates gun rights within the framework of militia service, not as an individual entitlement. By contrast, the 5th Amendment, ratified the same year, says that “No person” shall be denied due process.

Militias aside, there is also the “keep and bear” part of the 2nd Amendment to consider. In the founders’ era, to “keep” meant to own and possess something inside one’s home, while “bear arms” referred specifically to shouldering a musket or rifle in an army or militia.

Nowhere does the amendment declare or suggest a right to “go armed,” the term used in that era for carrying a weapon such as a pistol or dagger, either openly or in secret. Going armed was not legal. It was a form of misdemeanor known as an affray, from the French effrayer, to make afraid. Indeed, many of the new states responded to a disturbing rise in violence in the early republic with more restrictions on those carrying firearms and other weapons.

In part, that uptick in violence can be attributed to dueling, an aristocratic custom that the haughty officers of the Continental Army learned from their British and French peers. While duelists at least had the decency to count 10 paces and take aim before firing, the so-called “blades” of the southwestern frontiers simply swaggered around with pistols and cane swords, demanding that everyone treat them like royalty on pain of a beating or shooting.

Contrary to romantic mythologies about the frontier, neither duelists nor blades were very popular. Then as now, most people just wanted to go about their lives without getting shot, stabbed or bullied. And they were willing to stand up for their right to do so.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2022-06-22/gun-rights-control-second-amendment-supreme-court

Just a few more looks into the 2nd amendment….will this end the conversation (if it can be called that)?  Probably not but all aspects of this amendment should be studied.

There has got be common ground and soon…..for daily mass shootings keep happening and we are basically shrugging them off and moving on to something else.

Hopefully you will give the articles a read….and hopefully engage your brain for deeper thought that the shallowness we have today around guns.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Gun Debate Op-Ed #4

Part 4 of my limited series on the gun debate…..as I have stated I will present both sides of the dialog as I do not wish to influence one’s thinking only to inform for a better understanding.

This op-ed is about the Second Amendment……

Gun-control advocates in the United States are experiencing quite a bit of Canada envy, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced this week that he will be banning import, sales, and transfers of handguns. He also announced legislation to require citizens to turn over their “military-style assault weapons” in a mandatory buy-back program. As of now, there is no legal definition of “military-style assault weapon,” so Canadians with guns will presumably be alerted when they become criminals on a TBD basis.

This is in addition to the banning of 1,500 rifle models in the wake of a 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia, were 22 people were killed. It’s part of an “ever-expanding” list of prohibited models maintained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

The proposed legislation also includes tighter red-flag restrictions, provisions for confiscation and disabling of banned guns, and a blanket restriction of magazines to only five rounds.

Why can’t we enact Canada’s wish list of restrictions in the U.S.?—our gun control activists wonder.

 

Well, it’s not the gun lobby. The National Rifle Association (NRA) has been seriously weakened, is floundering in corruption accusations, and has filed for bankruptcy in the past two years. But it was also never the primary strength of gun-owners’ side of the argument. That strength lies in the Second Amendment, which whatever you think of its protections of Americans’ right to a firearm, is a hard fact with which activists must contend.

If the goal is to significantly curtail the number of guns—or even slow its growth, which is the purported goal of many activists—they must deal with the Constitution. No matter how “commonsense” you might consider some gun regulations, they have to pass constitutional muster to become a reality.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/im-pro-second-amendment-but-if-the-libs-want-to-get-rid-of-it-heres-what-theyd-have-to-do

Now I know somewhere someone has a rebuttal to this proposal…..

Watch This Blog!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Is This Truly A Good Idea?

I understand the right to bear arms…..even if I do not agree with it whole- heartedly….I still see the rights of people to do so…..but there comes a time when some limitations have to be considered…it is like that example of freedom of speech which does not give one the right to yell FIRE in a crowded area……but I digress….recently several states have passed new laws, laws that make me shutter….

Tennessee is one of four states, along with Arizona, Georgia and Virginia, that recently enacted laws explicitly allowing loaded guns in bars. (Eighteen other states allow weapons in restaurants that serve alcohol.) The new measures in Tennessee and the three other states come after two landmark Supreme Court rulings that citizens have an individual right — not just in connection with a well-regulated militia — to keep a loaded handgun for home defense.

Experts say these laws represent the latest wave in the country’s gun debate, as the gun lobby seeks, state by state, to expand the realm of guns in everyday life.  (From a piece written by Malcolm Gay of the NY Times)

And I still ask….is this truly a good idea?  I spent many years working in the bar business and I have seen incidents of a spill beer degenerate to a fight that had to be stopped before someone did serious bodily damage to another…..and now guns are allowed in bars……what part of this is rational?

Are we so afraid of the world outside of our doors that we must carry weapons to protect ourselves from those meanies waited around every corner?  May I say that if you are the afraid of life, then become a hermit…lock yourself in your abode and stay safe….and if you must carry a gun to feel like a man then you have lost that battle a long time ago…..

The GUN does NOT make you a man,,,,but rather a pathetic piece of protoplasm…..

Have Gun–Will Travel

Just like the 60’s western, some people travel with their gun to make a point…

I have heard all the news and debate about the guy who was outside the Hew Hampshire townhall….that he was on private property…..that he left before the pres arrived…..that he is a libertarian…….that he was exercising his 2nd amendment right (that I am still working on).  He was also holding a sign that said the tree of liberty needs watering….with a don’t tread on me snake adorning it.  I also heard the argument that he should have never been allowed to a tense situation with a gun.

No matter what the opinion of my reader is about the gun issue there is something that has been left out of the debate.  In an article written by Robert Anglen for the Arizona Republic, there is more to this guy and the story:

William Kostric, 36, formerly of Scottsdale, stood outside the New Hampshire meeting on health care with a gun holstered at his thigh and holding a sign proclaiming that “it is time to water the tree of liberty.” State law permitted Kostric to openly carry a licensed handgun.

The quote, often referenced by those in separatist and militia movements, refers to Thomas Jefferson’s famous call for vigilance: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of tyrants and patriots.”

Web sites indicate that Kostric is a “team member” of the Arizona chapter of We the People Foundation, which has a stated goal of “returning America to its founding principles.”

On its Web site, We the People’s founder Robert Schulz says, “Our recent initiatives have focused largely on questioning the federal government’s abuse of its Constitutional powers to incur debt, tax labor, create currency by fiat, conduct war and police the peace.”

The group maintains that it is not concerned with politics or personalities in office. But Schulz supports the so-called birther movement, which promotes the idea that Obama wasn’t really born in the United States and shouldn’t be president. We the People joined a lawsuit that unsuccessfully challenged Obama’s presidency based on the citizenship claim.

So as usual, there is always more to the story than the beltway pundits want to include into the conversation.  This guy may have attacked in a civil and peaceful way, but how will the next gun nut act or recat to the situation?  It has been reported the Obama gets between 20-30 death threats a day….who is to say if the next wingnut will not act on a threat?