Guest Post by Ann Coulter
Must we really respond to the “musket” argument again?
Apparently so. It’s all the rage among Democrats right now.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (Democrat) and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (Democrat) both think it’s quite brilliant to claim that, if we care what the framers of the Constitution meant, then the Second Amendment applies only to “muskets”!
In The New York Times, a couple of professors (Democrats, but you knew that) asked: “Is a modern AR-15-style rifle relevantly similar to a Colonial musket? In what ways?” They liked their argument so much, the op-ed was titled, “A Supreme Court Head-Scratcher: Is a Colonial Musket ‘Analogous’ to an AR-15?”
[Frantically waving my hand]: Yes, professors, it’s exactly analogous.
The Second Amendment does not refer to “muskets”; it refers to “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” “Bear” means to carry, so any handheld firearm carried by the military can be carried by the people. Just as the musket was once carried by our military, the AR-15 is a handheld arm (technically, the less powerful version of the automatic M-16) carried by our military today. As soon as the U.S. military goes back to muskets, then muskets it is!
But I’m not here to refute idiotic arguments. These guys may as well claim that the First Amendment protects only speech delivered in pamphlets and sermons, but nothing communicated on television, the internet, or with poster boards and Magic Markers.
The Second Amendment is nearly the only prescriptive policy in a document that liberals have been trying to pump their nutty ideas into for 50 years. Unfortunately for them, there’s nothing in the Constitution about a right to dance naked in strip clubs, contraception, marriage or sticking a fork in a baby’s head.
But on the right to bear arms, our Delphic framers were nearly Tolstoyian with their explosion of words: “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.” (An earlier draft of the amendment specifically defined “militia” as “composed of the body of the people,” but was rejected as redundant.)
In the boldest affirmation of their worldview, the framers announced our natural, God-given right to self-defense — against the government, against criminals, and against assailants the government can’t or won’t stop. Free people prepared to defend themselves are the nucleus of the republic. It’s the most beautiful thing in the whole Constitution. Here, at last, the Founding Fathers told us something specific they want us to do: Teach the boys to shoot.
The “right to bear muskets” crowd — protected by taxpayer-supported armed guards, or cordoned off from the public by phalanxes of security officers in the lobby of, for example, NBC’s television studios in Rockefeller Center, before they return to their homes in crime-free, lily-white neighborhoods — tell us to focus on the freakishly rare mass shooting.
The highest estimates of mass shootings — including by gang warfare, drive-bys, drug wars and domestic murder-suicides — put the number of deaths at under 400 per year, or approximately the same number of Americans who drown in swimming pools every year. Four hundred, out of more than 20,000 murders annually.
Which is why, despite the media’s best effort to terrify suburban moms about weirdos shooting at crowds, nearly half of Americans prefer self-reliance to the government taking away our guns and promising to protect us.
In 2020, the Year of Our Floyd, gun sales went through the roof. The previous high for gun sales was in 2016, with about 16 million guns sold. But in 2020, as BLM tore through our cities, Americans bought 22.8 million guns. The following year saw the second-highest record for gun sales, at 19.9 million purchases.
By now, 44% of Americans report living in a gun-owning household. Thirty-two percent say they personally own a gun.
As much as I’d like to institutionalize the crazies — for their sake, as well as ours — the risks from bad faith actors at present are too high. With anti-gun zealots on the rampage and the U.S. attorney general siccing the FBI on parents who complain at local school board meetings, the most likely result would be marijuana-crazed schizophrenics continuing about their days unmolested, while gun owners get locked up.
In any event, it appears that the lunatics aren’t heavily armed, anyway. Here’s a demographic breakdown of gun ownership in 2022, according to Gallup:
Republicans 50%
Democrats 18%
Conservatives 45% (Oddly, Gallup calls them “self-identified conservatives,” as if Gallup would never use this cruel epithet without consent of the accused.)
Liberals 15%
Men 45%
Women 19%
Southerners 40%
Eastern residents 21%
Gallup left out one category. The subgroup most likely to own a whole buttload of guns, but not admit it: gang members and other recidivist felons protected by George Gascon and other Soros D.A.s.
Being a rational people, Americans are more worried about those guys than the random rifle-bearing psycho in a woman’s dress.
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In exchange for the right to keep and bear arms, here are all the places you aren’t safe any more:
Schools, churches, hospitals, supermarkets, army bases, movie theaters, parades, bars, factories, offices.
How many more elementary schoolers have to die for the right for people to LARP as minute men who would never raise a gun against their beloved LEOs or military?
Dear Mr. Counts.
Criminals are notorious for not following the law. Ban yes or ban no, the “solution” does not adress the problem.
All of them.
Ask the FBI.
If only we had some laws against violence and murder.
That would solve everything.
Run along, Half-wit. IQs went down just reading that drivel.
Every gun (I used to own until the canoe tipped) is precisely for use on
LEO and military running amok except when I’m procuring protein in the wild.
OH! And those places you so witlessly listed aren’t safe because
EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM (save some sane churches who allow carry
and have stopped dozens of attempted shootings because of that)
are all “Gun Free Zones” where a crazy knows he won’t be confronted by
anyone else armed. If only we had more “Gun Free Zone” signs,
all the unhinged maniac shootings would end.
Right?
Where I live, there is no law that you can’t carry concealed in a supermarket, or any type market or store, theaters, bars (although if you indulge you shouldn’t), churches, factories, or offices except government buildings. Sure there might be signs that say you can’t but that doesn’t make it illegal if you do.
“the AR-15 is a handheld arm (technically, the less powerful version of the automatic M-16) carried by our military today”.
Ahhhhh, not less powerful Ann, just no automatic function on the AR-15 .
BTW, are the current M-16s/M-4s still limited to 3 shot bursts on automatic? I think they are (?)
They all can be converted to rock and roll …even the lowly
The Ruger is a decnt rifle,prefer the mini in 7.62 model.
Had a Mini for over 30 years. Never a fail-to-feed even once. The newer ones are much better with thicker barrels and better sights. A binary trigger shim can be had.
Here in Canuckistan, dear leader outlawed those by decree. So f’n stupid as I have several Tula refurb SKS. Actual, been in war and probably killed someone, military semi-auto rifles. Functionally the same as 7.62 Mini that, as far as I know, have never been used as war weapons.
Gun laws by by people without a fucking clue about guns. Not that there should be “type” laws. Criminals don’t care and the law abiding were never going to be a problem in the first place.
Nothing “lowly” about that fine weapon.
The military weapons have a three position switch, semi auto, 3 round burst, and full auto.
You forgot safe. The A2s were 3 round burst capable, M4s have auto in place of that now.
Yes, because 3 round bursts are stupid and wasteful, and it is only worse with full auto. But we all know this, they just pretend it fools some ignorant suburban women somewhere, with their bugaboo gun features.
“An earlier draft of the amendment specifically defined “militia” as “composed of the body of the people,” but was rejected as redundant.”
Not only was the militia “composed of the body of the people,” but when called to the field the militia was frequently required to provide their own arms, powder and ball, clothing and other equipment. Some jurisdictions stated that the arms brought by the men (and sometimes women as well) should be of the gauge or caliber issued (when available) to the federal troops.
The Dems know the truth; the whole musket issue is just a ploy.
Not convinced that “Dems know the truth.” Otherwise, spot on. Cheers
Which is what is meant by Regulated. Regulated in the meaning of the constitution meant provisioned not controlled.
Say “Regulated” and every pol gets a stiffy. They live to impose restrictions on others. The same restrictions they feel entitled to ignore, being “better than the mundanes”.
The framers were explicit in their desire for ordinary Americans
to have the same arms as the military as they were one and the same.
The 2md was written so as the citizenry had the ability to defend themselves
AGAINST a tyrannical army.
And the drooling houseplant masquerading as president is wrong yet again.
Plenty of wealthy colonialists had private cannons.
The politically brainwashed are intentionally ignorant of facts that tend to exist beyond their perception of reality. World events, hard science, economics, history … all manipulated for their own hypocritical ends. Yes, the truly informed ones know and the truth isn’t debatable.
Anyone familiar with the War Between the States will remember the Henry rifle and how it was allowed to be carried as a weapon of war by certain units of the Northern Union and how it was regarded by Rebels. In my opinion, nothing has fundamentally changed that wouldn’t require reasonable people to own a modern-day equivalent.
Shouldn’t have brought a list of preferred pronouns to a gunfught.
Liberals? Really? Still?
The more I think about it ol’ Billy was right, let’s kill all the lawyers – kill ‘em tonight! ~ sung by prolly as lib a lawb (the wizard of oz is one because-because-because! Because of the wunnerful things he does!) as they come, too!
Lawberals.
It’s a way of “thinking” that usta be more commonly called sophistry. Its forked tongue wordgames – wordwars, actually – waged against the normie-conformie who is all too often not much more than a wordslave, in over his head & dogpaddling for deer (in headlights) life.
Among other innate & inherent enslavements. Jack McCall:
Nothing more pathetic than a grown man who is anti gun. These people are delusional and immature. They believe their television no matter how ridiculous the narrative. After much research, it appears as though almost every nationally recognized so called mass shootings are nothing more than staged drills passed off as real. Until that is realized by a larger percentage of people and brought into the limelight, they will continue.
‘..“Bear” means to carry, so any handheld firearm carried by the military can be carried by the people..’
If it qualifies as ‘arms’, it qualifies.. A Howitzer is ‘brought to bear’. A division of tanks can be ‘brought to bear’, and so on. And if the argument rests on what can be carried, God invented trucks, trains, ships and aircraft for just such a purpose.
The ‘right to bear’ means the right to ‘bring to bear’. Otherwise, what’s the point of bearing?
While we’re on the subject of what gives our betters sleepless nights, let’s not forget the ‘shall not be infringed’ part..
As an aside, when the document was written, there was no shortage of citizens who had a cannon or two in the family, every bit as cutting edge as anything a king or gubmint may have had.