THE SECOND AMENDMENT: STRAIGHT IN THE CROSSHAIRS!

With the latest tragic shooting incident – this one taking place at an obscure community college in Oregon on October 1, 2015 – the Mainstream Media is, once again, ever again, thrusting the public’s attention onto guns. Oh, What to do about guns! Well, Carolyn Maloney, Democrat from New York, has a plan. Maloney introduced a bill, back in May of this year: “The Firearm Risk Protection Act.” If this bill were to become law, a person would be required to have liability insurance to purchase a gun or face a $10,000.00 fine. The cost of that insurance would, of course, add to the overall cost of the firearm. But, then, the salient point of Maloney’s bill is to make gun ownership such an onerous, expensive proposition that the American public would be dissuaded from making the purchase of a gun in the first place. But, suppose a person is willing to tighten his or her belt and expend the money. What, then?Just imagine: your firearm is stolen by a psychopathic “gangbanger” or a psychotic, homicidal maniac and that person injures or kills someone, or injures and/or kills several individuals with that weapon. The injured party or parties – or the family or families of individuals killed by the “gangbanger” or maniac – files a lawsuit against you, and not the “gangbanger” or maniac, because liability for the injury or death accrues to you and to you alone by virtue of “The Firearm Risk Protection Act;” and, you, after all, are the deep pocket through the liability insurance coverage on your firearms -- that you were forced to obtain.Now, your insurance company does indemnify you, the insured, against the damages claims. And that’s all well and good. But your insurance premiums go up or, worse, insurance coverage is thereafter denied to you altogether as a result of an astronomical payout to the injured party or parties or to the family or families of the parties suffering harm at the hands of the “gangbanger” or maniac. And that isn’t so good. But Maloney doesn’t wish to talk about that possibility.You decide that it is simply too costly to protect yourself and your family with a firearm, or, perhaps, you have no choice in the matter. But, if you are denied firearm liability insurance coverage, you can no longer lawfully own and possess a firearm. So, then, what do you do? You decide to invest in a Louisville Slugger. Insurance, fortunately, isn’t required for that. Thank you very much, Carolyn Maloney, for your The Firearm Risk Protection Act.Maloney’s bill, will not, of course, pass. Indeed, with Republicans controlling both Houses of Congress, fortunately, the bill will not even make its way out of Committee. Indeed, the bill, has not, as of this date, six months since its introduction by Maloney -- made its way out of Committee. Still, for her effort, introduction of the bill will endear her to those few frightened, lost little lambs who are forever looking to Big Government to protect them from others and, for that matter, who are looking to Big Government to protect them from themselves.But, apart from Maloney’s bill and many other ludicrous ideas of late, concocted by antigun zealots to erode the Second Amendment at both the federal and State levels, there is something more sinister afoot that threatens the Second Amendment directly – something worse than Maloney’s bill, awful as her bill is, even if the bill did gain traction in Congress, which it won’t.As alluded to in the first sentence of this post, the Mainstream Media has provided wide coverage of the latest “mass shooting.” But, we would be wrong to dismiss the impact of this latest incident out-of-hand The reason for this is that so-called “mass shootings” are the impetus behind specific kinds of restrictive firearms language that denies firearms’ access to extremely large segments of the American population. And, the antigun establishment, and President Barack Obama, and Democratic Presidential Candidate, Hillary Clinton, intend to turn this latest incident into a “tipping point” for restrictions on gun possession.The NY Times has pulled out all the stops with the latest incident in Oregon through a series of articles designed  to affect the emotions – not the intellect – of its readers. The October 4, 2015 Sunday edition of the newspaper is replete with articles – news accounts and editorials – by such ostensible “luminaries” as Frank Bruni and Nicholas Kristoff, who feel obliged or, perhaps, were asked, to weigh in.What the NY Times news reports and commentary boils down to is this: since it is difficult if not impossible to ascertain with any degree of certainty who will become a “mass murderer,” the better course of action is to remove firearms from the American citizenry in totality, and in double-quick time.” What is the rationale for this?Well, we, humans, are, after all, beings of emotion as well as intellect. We react to life’s events emotionally as well as intellectually. Each of us, at one time or another, expresses hope and fear, joy and sadness, compassion and resentment. Sometimes we get angry, or we fall into fits of depression or anxiety. Perhaps we lost a loved one, or a job. Perhaps we express concern – much concern – over the manner in which our Government spends our hard-earned tax dollars. Thus is our human-ness expressed.The vast majority of us deal with the vicissitudes of life stoically. A few of us do not – apparently cannot. The NY Times has written a lengthy polemic, posted on line, October 3, 2015, “How They Got Their Guns.” It is curious, though, that no photographs of the individuals who perpetrated the violence are shown – in the digital version of the NY Times article which, clearly, is expected to receive the largest audience and “most hits.” Instead, the NY Times thrusts large, high gloss, high resolution – almost three-dimensional – graphics of firearms upon us – something that the publisher cannot do cost-effectively in the print version of the newspaper. The NY Times' use of large, high gloss, high resolution graphics is not accidental. The Times is suggesting, subliminally, that it is the firearms themselves that are the real sentient actors of the violence, and not the individuals who actually wielded the weapons. But, for all that, our intelligence tells us, contrary to what the NY Times article strongly suggests, that it is individuals, after all, and not inanimate objects, who are the real perpetrators of the violence that occurred.And, what of those perpetrators? The antigun zealots and fanatics intend that those few poor souls, bereft of mind and spirit, who are the cause of violence, whether committed with guns or with any other implement – in a population of millions of law-abiding, sane, rational gun owners – are to be the measure – the standard – by which our Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is to be finely calibrated. But, most Americans do not expect, certainly do not demand, indeed would not ever wish that Government utilize, as the standard of measurement, the lowest common denominator among us upon which the vast majority of us is to be judged and found wanting of the ability to handle firearms responsibly. But, that is exactly what is happening. And, let there be no mistake: the antigun forces through their stooges in the mainstream media have the entirety of the Second Amendment in their sights.NY Times reviewer, Frank Bruni, in his op-ed, published on October 4, 2015, titled, “Guns, Campuses and Madness,” did not mince words, when he stated: “This is madness. When it comes to guns, we have lost our bearings in this country, allowing misguided chest-thumping about a constitutional amendment penned in an entirely different epoch, under entirely different circumstances, to trump all prudence and decency.” The Bill of Rights, according to Bruni – who is obviously speaking on behalf of the antigun establishment – has no meaning, no purpose, except in the context of a particular place and a particular time. The Bill of Rights – our Bill of Rights – must, consistent with Bruni’s argument, be rewritten, sans any mention of one, particular right pre-existing in Man himself. And, the entirety of our jurisprudence must be reconsidered in light of a new global view of law, as argued by Justice Stephen Breyer in his recently published book, “The Court and the World: American Law and the New Global Realities,” consistent, too, with trade policies, such as the pending, “TPP,” that make mincemeat of our Nation’s laws and of our Constitution.But, no other Country on the face of this Earth has ever expressed a right to keep and bear arms existent in a Country’s citizenry. So, is the U.S. wrong, and every other Country right? Were our Founders so mistaken to profess to create a Bill of Rights, embracing “the right of the people to keep and bear arms” that was deemed to express a sacred right existent in Man for All Time and not just for a particular epoch? Is it time to repeal the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution as the antigun establishment, both in this Country and abroad, hope for and are strenuously working toward? And, were that to happen, what, then, becomes of the United States? Would it even be accurate to still call the United States a Free Republic at that point, as that notion was envisioned by our Founders?[separator type="medium" style="normal" align="left"margin-bottom="25" margin_top="5"] Copyright © 2015 Roger J Katz (Towne Criour), Stephen L. D’Andrilli (Publius) All Rights Reserved.