Monday, October 5, 2015

The 2nd And 3rd Words Of The 2nd Amendment Are "Well-Regulated"

-- and the 4th word is "militia," so it can be argued, and has often been argued, that as long as there's a state militia where you live, the 2nd Amendment doesn't give any protection to civilian gun ownership whatsoever.

I don't know whether Warren Burger ever said that the gun lobby's misinterpretation of the 2nd Amendment was "fraud, I repeat fraud" perpetrated against the American people. Maybe he did. Googling it so far, all I see are quotes with no reference to when and where he said it -- it looks hinky to me. [PS: HE REALLY SAID IT! MacNeil Lehrer Newshour, 1991. Thank you, Lauren G Wright!] Which makes me wonder whether Ronald Reagan really said the strongly pro-gun-control things he's being quoted as saying in some memes flying around.

President Lincoln was a very wise man.


I just think it would be very ironic if it turned out that there was a campaign to fight fraud which did so by using mis-quotations.

At this point, if PT Bernum were around and if he were a part of the gun-control side of things, he might have a couple of toughs beat me up, and look on as they did so, and remark that HE found it ironic that I was more concerned about whether a certain Internet meme was accurate in quoting someone than whether it was effective.

And he might be right. Even more ironic when you consider what an ends-justify-the-means, morality-is-subjective, I-see-much-more-grey-than-black-and-white kind of guy I am.

Still, I don't much care what Burger and Reagan said. They were reactionary old coots, and Reagan was senile before he was elected POTUS. I don't want to get into the habit of quoting him to support my political positions. I'll stick with the man who freed the slaves and warned us all about checking the accuaracy of quotes on the Internet. And anyway, we all know exactly what the 2nd Amendment says, which is where I came in.

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