Gallup Poll: Nearly 3/4 of Americans Can Read the Constitution
I still don’t understand the argument that prompts a poll like this:
A solid majority of the U.S. public, 73%, believes the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the rights of Americans to own guns. Twenty percent believe the amendment only guarantees the rights of state militia members to own guns.
Of course the Second Amendment is an individual right, and not a state’s right. That’s what the amendment actually says. I am at a loss to understand how anyone could read the Second Amendment, then read the other nine in the Bill of Rights and say, “Well, you know. I see that nine of these Amendments empower the individual and abridge the government, but this one, well that’s different!” That just doesn’t make sense to me. I think it takes a mind-boggling stretch of common sense and plain English to introduce a government right into a document that everywhere else restricts the government’s power over the individual.
I know that plenty of smart people fall in that twenty percent, but their thoughts are entirely alien to me.
(via memeorandum)
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Category: The Good Old US of A
Very interesting. Have you seen if this bit of "news" has seen its way into the MSM yet? You can bet if a poll said that 73% of Americans believed that any number of liberal "pet" issues was actually protected by a constitutional right, we'd hear about it night & day for a week. That would be trued for abortion, stem cell research, free health care, gay marriage, etc.
I doubt they will play this up much lest the other 27% see that huge number & start rethinking their own position is flawed. We'll see what happens.
The joke of the gun grabbers is quoting "well reglated militia" which in the parlance of the times meant well equipped. The real whammy is the militia was self equipped, there could be no muilitia if the individuals did not own weapons. The founding fathers well understood that the threat to liberty came from government and intended for the the people to have the means to defend their liberties.
Someone posted on a SC decision that stated that part of the fact that blacks were freed men included the right to own arms. I'm not sure where I saw this, but it was a clearly stated part of the court decision. That seems to me to pretty much wipe out any possibility of the right to own arms being only if you're in the active militia – even if it wasn't already pretty clearly stated in the 2nd amendment.