Yet another example from the Houston Chronicle, though, in fairness, they were merely reporting on someone else's bat-guano interp. of the 2A...
Leave the interpretation to the pundits.That was the motto of Cathy Travis, the longtime spokeswoman for Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, while writing her first book, Constitution Translated for Kids.
...She said some people who have seen the book dislike her handling of the Second Amendment — "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."
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the original intent of militia just means the National Guard, she wrote.
The guys on the left want to know why I didn't make it clear that only the National Guard can have guns," she said. "The guys on the right are unhappy with me including the phrase about the militia. In politics, when both sides are unhappy, you've hit it straight down the middle."
mmmk, boys and girls, it's off to the races, yet again...
I'd say she has the leftists more or less pegged. It's leftists and Democrats (Gun Control Act of 1968, anyone?) who have been agitating for more "gun control", well, in at least in the years since the thugs at HCI and all the other gun prohibitionist organizations, and their ideological soulmates, started rearing their ugly heads on Capitol Hill and statehouses across the fruited plain.
As for "the guys on the right (being) unhappy...with (her) including the phrase about the militia," well, she has it partly right. It's not so much the inclusion of the phrase as it is an incomplete explanation of it. Had Travis been more complete, she would have included the fact that the National Guard was established some 150 years AFTER the Second Amendment was ratified, thus throwing into question the wisdom of the Supremes' rulings on original intent. She would also have informed her reader that, according to the United States Code, the "militia" is defined as all able-bodied males ages 17 and older -- NOT the National Guard. And then, of course, there's the fact that the rights enumerated in the other nine amendments in the Bill of Rights have all been taken to be individual -- not collective -- rights. It would seem that the Second Amendment is seen as the lone exception. I know well what Warren Burger has said about the 2A, the treasonous sack of guano, but it is the interpretation of the Second Amendment as a collective right that is the biggest -- and arguably the most dangerous -- fraud ever perpetrated on the American people. And for Ms. Travis to sit there and pat herself on the back, saying she has it split right down the middle, seems to me to be just so much shameless self-aggrandizement. Such should be expected from those cretins on Capitol Hill, but still, it's maddening just the same. Misinformation to the left of us, deception to the right, here we are, stuck in the middle, and it's a hell of a place to be, and not in a good way...
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