TexasCHLforum.com

snatchel wrote:Hmm.

Interesting how you linked the original intent of the founding fathers as, "the law." I suppose since they were the ones who wrote it, it is the ultimate authority on what is just or unjust. It's only natural for my train of thought to lead me to your thesis,"an unjust law is no law." Slick. And I like it.

And... I guess I can't really find fault in the argument. Do I agree with it? To be determined, and I appreciate you granting me a minute to think before responding. It would be unwise for me to immediately agree, especially considering the significance of what you are saying.

So this leads me to my next question. Are you implying (i'm not trying to put words in your mouth.. so feel free to check me. I think we are past that in our relationship) that any original amendment in the Constitution should not be amended on the premise that they are founded by the original forefathers?

Or maybe you are just suggesting that amending the 2A alone would be unjust->no law. Maybe it's late and i'm confusing everything. Can you explain it a bit more for me? Either way, I agree that the 2A should remain as it is.... but you threw a monkey wrench into what I thought was a pretty well thought out rant....

Snatchel, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. The founders, in their wisdom, included the means of altering the document within its words. AND, they made it deliberately difficult to do, so that the Constitution would be less likely to be buffeted by the winds of passing fancy. In other words, any change made to it could ONLY be made after ensuring a long and protracted public debate, and then a 2/3 majority in Congress, AND THEN ratification by 3/4 of all of the state legislatures. This ensures that states with large populations don't have the power to ram constitutional amendments down the throats of states with smaller populations. Rhode Island's and Vermont's vote to ratify or not ratify a new amendment has exactly as much weight as does California's or New York's. For this reason, it would be almost impossible to amend the Constitution to delete the 2nd Amendment.

IF this were to happen, I would disobey the Constitution, because the Constitution did not create the right, it enshrined it. The right was deemed to preexist the founding of the nation. It is God-given, or natural, if you prefer that term. And it isn't just an American right. It is a HUMAN right. But I want to stress that this outcome will never happen........UNLESS it was first amended to alter the requirements for amendment. There are 50 states, and it would take 38 of those states to get rid of the 2nd. Given that 49 of the states have some kind of concealed carry law, of which only 8 are "may issue" and the rest are "shall issue" states, the likelihood that 38 of those 49 states (plus Illinois) would overturn the 2nd is extremely slim. Also, Prohibition was ratified, and just 14 years later it was reversed; so even if the 2nd were overturned, it could just as easily be restored a dozen years later. In any case, the point of the 2nd Amendment is not that it grants us the right to keep and bear arms, but it ensures that the preexisting right continues to be protected. So even if the Constitution was first amended to make amendment easier, I would still insist on my right to keep and bear arms. I would just have to not get caught, and hold on until wisdom prevailed and the amendment to facilitate the amendment process was reversed and the 2nd was restored.

But since that isn't likely to ever be an issue, the REAL problem is unconstitutional laws, which are unjust. And if they are unjust laws, then they are no law at all and I will not obey them. I am an adult, and I'll accept the price of non-compliance, but I WILL NOT comply—any more than Martin Luther King Jr was willing to comply with Jim Crow laws. Government exists to serve ME, not the other way around. Government exists to protect and promote the free exercise of MY rights, not the other way around. People who argue for abridging or removing the 2nd Amendment remind of that twisted logic from the Vietnam war when zealous command staff told reporters that they "had to destroy the village to save it."

I am a 2nd Amendment absolutist. The free exercise of the right has ALREADY been severely compromised. I am not willing to compromise any further. It is time for gun-banners to start compromising by giving up their fascistic insistence on contravening my rights. Here's my compromise counter offer to fascists: stop trying to crush my rights, and I promise not to tar and feather you on sight.

Does that explain it better?

bdickens wrote:What the Founders did was illegal.

Until they won.

There it is.

snatchel wrote: I'm vehemently against any work to amend the 2nd Amendment. On the same token, I am an American, and will abide by the Constitution which I have defended. ....

..... or leave.

I'm guessing that you mean that you will abide by it, even if it is changed by using the amendment process to change it. But what if, instead of changing it, politicians simply bypass it and pass laws that do not pass constitutional muster? You took an oath to defend the Constitution.......from both foreign and domestic enemies. I'm not suggesting that you should do anything illegal, but when the law conflicts with the Constitution, which will you follow? Don't feel like you have to answer that here, but it IS something that you have to answer for yourself.

The 2nd Amendment is a civil rights issue. Yesterday, Patriot Post published an open letter from Ken Blackwell to Colin Powell in response to Powell's gibberish interview on Meet the Press in which Powell waxed on about "republican racism," blah blah blah. Blackwell responded with all the evidence of democrat racism. In any case, here is what Blackwell said about Martin Luther King, Jr.:

And when he wrote his famous Letter from the Birmingham Jail, he cited St. Thomas Aquinas to make his case that an unjust law was no law at all.

http://patriotpost.us/opinion/16265

I want to repeat that: "an unjust law is no law at all." When we adhere to the Constitution in all things, justice is preserved. When we say that we are under the rule of law, not of men, we mean that we are a constitutional republic whose laws must adhere to the Constitution, and hence justice is preserved. When we come under the rule of men, we are governed at their whim for they no longer feel bound by the limitations that the Constitution places upon government. Since it is impossible for a law which adheres closely to the Founders' intent to be unjust, it follows that unconstitutional laws must be unjust. And as Martin Luther King Jr. leaning on St. Thomas Aquinas tells us, unjust laws are no kind of law.

I want to think of myself as a law-abiding citizen, but by the strictest interpretation of the term, Martin Luther King Jr. was not, and neither were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, or John Adams—ALL of whom were deliberately civilly disobedient, even to the point of violence against authority in the case of the last four so named. That is not bad company to be found in.

Again, snatchel I'm not saying you need to publicly proclaim your intent, and you certainly don't have anything to prove in defense of the nation. You've given enough, and certainly more than I have, I'm just saying that, given the current political climate and the absolute insanity on the part of ignorant democrats (bordering on treason with highly-placed elected democrats), and given that this administration still has FOUR MORE YEARS to try and grind us down and force through their fascist vision of America, intelligent and thinking patriots need to answer that question for themselves: "will I obey an unjust law?" Everything else flows from that.