 Minuteman Monthly Newsletter Issue 108 July 2010 |
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Welcome to this issue of the Minuteman Monthly Newsletter. This is the monthly communication from my Web site at www.SaveTheGuns.com. Thank you for reading this month's issue and for passing it on to a friend. The ruling in McDonald v Chicago is in. In another close 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the 2nd Amendment extends the right to keep and bear arms to apply to both the fifty states and their municipalities, through the application of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment. Read on... SaveTheGuns.com Quotes of the Month "They don't seem to
appreciate the full scope of gun violence in America," Daley said.
"That will continue until we understand that there are reasonable
and responsible steps we can take as a nation to help end the needless
gun violence and harm that irresponsible people bring on our friends and
our family and our loved ones."
"The Second Amendment --
as every citizen's constitutional right -- is now a real part of
American constitutional law. The NRA
will work to ensure this constitutional victory is not transformed into
a practical defeat by activist judges defiant city councils or cynical
politicians who seek to pervert, reverse or nullify the Supreme Court's
McDonald decision through Byzantine labyrinths of restrictions and
regulations that render the Second Amendment inaccessible, unaffordable
or otherwise impossible to experience in a practical, reasonable way."
"This decision makes
absolutely clear that the Second Amendment protects the God-given right
of self-defense for all law-abiding Americans, period. Ironically, while
crime in Chicago runs rampant and lawmakers there call on the National
Guard for help, Mayor Daley has insisted on leaving the residents of his
city defenseless. Today's opinion puts the law back on the side of the
law-abiding. We will be watching closely to make sure that Chicago
abides by both the letter and the spirit of the Supreme Court's
decision."
"A people armed and free
forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for
"Let us contemplate our
forefathers and posterity and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed
to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the
times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection,
deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that 'if we
suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and
involve others in our doom.' It is a very serious consideration that
millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event." Upwards of twenty four million (24,000,000) Americans claim to identify with the message of the National Rifle Association and claim to be members, but only just over four million (4,000,000) are active members in good standing. Membership in the NRA would increase by five hundred percent (500%) if everyone who identified as an NRA member actually joined. JOIN THE FIGHT, GET ONTO THE BATTLEFIELD AND STOP MERELY OBSERVING. JOIN THE NRA SaveTheGuns.com Gun Safety Tip of the Month Please contribute this month if you have not done so before. More than 90,000 children have learned something about gun safety from my Web site. Please contribute when you can so I can reach another 90,000 in the future. A significant portion of accidental firearm discharges that result in very painful injury and sometimes death, are due to the person handling the loaded firearm being under the influence of alcohol and/or narcotics. Everyone within the sound of my voice here in this newsletter can heed this warning or disregard it as you will. But the incidence of unintentional firearm-related injury and death drastically increases if the gun handler's brain is under the influence of alcohol or narcotics or even both. It is one of the Ten Commandments of Gun Safety. NEVER handle a firearm after drinking alcohol, taking or smoking narcotics or even some prescription medications. Your life or the life of a loved one may depend upon it. JOIN THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION
Factoid of the Month The Factoid of the Month is a feature of this newsletter that you might find useful in your individual efforts to support and defend the 2nd Amendment and its original intentions. The term barrel when referring to a firearm barrel was used as early as the year 1323. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_barrel The first firearm barrels were made in the latter 1100's. They were not normally strong enough to withhold the pressures developed when firing a bullet. The actually had to bind metal and leather bands around them to keep them from bursting, hence the term baril. JOIN THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION. JOIN THE UNITED STATES CONCEALED CARRY ASSOCIATION ISN'T IT TIME TO GET ONTO THE BATTLEFIELD AND JOIN THE NRA OR JOIN THE USCCA? STOP WATCHING AND GET ON THE BATTLEFIELD WITH US. AN ASSOCIATE MEMBERSHIP IN THE NRA IS ONLY TEN DOLLARS ($10.00)
NRA Membership Recruiter Corner http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR017807 This link above will take you directly to the checkout page at the National Rifle Association to make it easy for you to renew your current membership, give an NRA membership to a friend or family member or join the fight for the first time. Using my link will save you TEN BUCKS ($10.00) on a one year membership. The normal one year membership is $35.00, but it's only $25.00 through my special link above. Just the NRA discounts on auto rentals or hotels can pay for your annual membership dues of just $25.00, but you have to use my special links to get there. Otherwise membership in the National Rifle Association will cost you $35.00. SaveTheGuns.com is one of thousands of NRA Membership Recruiters across America. As an NRA Recruiter, I'm officially a subcontractor for the National Rifle Association of America and not an employee. I make a small commission whenever you join, renew or give an NRA Membership as a gift. Please use the link above for all your NRA Membership needs. If your NRA Membership expires within ten weeks, I encourage you to renew your membership early using my convenient link that lands right on the appropriate page at the National Rifle Association. I have written a Web page with more information on membership in the National Rifle Association. It has a list of benefits as well as membership options and prices. For your convenience the above NRA Membership link is there as well. Learn more about NRA membership benefits and pricing here: http://www.savetheguns.com/nra_membership.htm P.S. Remember, my link goes directly to the NRA Membership check out page. Using my special link is a lot more convenient than trying to find the page yourself. As of this issue of the Minuteman Monthly Newsletter, I've recruited 1,158 NRA Members through this link. 143 NRA Members were recruited in 2010 so far. Please use my convenient links for all your NRA membership needs and pass it around to others. http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR017807 This is the link you need, pass it on... "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little." Contributions to SaveTheGuns.com Please consider a contribution today. On my Contributions page, I now have easy-to-use links to send me a contribution of $5, $10, $20, $50, $100, $500 or $1000. There are convenient links for each amount through my Amazon.com Payments page or through your PayPal account. Visit my Contributions page today and consider a donation toward keeping SaveTheGuns.com online and active.
To write me a personal check, it's easy! Write out a personal check made payable to Marc H. Richardson. Sign it and put it into a stamped envelope addressed to: Marc H. Richardson My contributors have kept this informative Web site going for more than eight years. Become a contributor today... please? Active contributors are the only thing keeping www.SaveTheGuns.com online. Thank you very much for your financial support in 2010! ALL JULY CONTRIBUTIONS WILL GO TOWARD A LOCAL CHURCH GROUP WHO IS PLANNING A CHRISTIAN MISSIONS TRIP TO NAMIBIA, SOUTH AFRICA. THEY ARE CURRENTLY ABOUT $4000.00 BEHIND. E-mail me with suggestions or comments Item of the Month This is the Minuteman Monthly Item of the Month. The Truth About Self Protection by Massad Ayoob The item of the month is a book that I have had in my bookcase for years and years. This book is available for as little as $12.95. Published in 1983, it is a little dated, but it is still a great overview of the world of self protection. The main sections in this book are Understanding The Dangers, Passive Safety Measures, Countervailing Force and Postvention which refers to the aftermath of having to utilize self defense measures.
It is Massad Ayoob's The Truth About Self Protection. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0936279133/savethegunsco-20 GET YOUR COPY TODAY. D.C. v Heller News & McDonald v Chicago News Here is a link to the NRA's political action arm called the Institute for Legislative Action or NRA-ILA. They have created a special page for District of Columbia v Heller updates and links. From the following Web page, you can visit a link to hear the oral arguments in the case, read all of the Amicus Curiae Briefs, download the opinion of the court and much more. Download and save the transcript of the oral arguments in the Heller case with the URL below. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts/07-290.pdf Once the Obama Administration begins to launch significant gun control efforts, you'll likely hear many pro-gunners pointing at the Heller case. Have your own copy of the Heller case ready and also have your own copy of the Heller Opinion here: http://www.nraila.org/media/PDFs/HellerOpinion.pdf GET YOUR 2ND AMENDMENT AMMUNITION BY DOWNLOADING AND SAVING THE HELLER OPINION TODAY. Both the oral arguments and the opinion are in pdf format. Sure, the Heller case wasn't perfect, but it was a whole lot better than losing. It is our solemn responsibility to hold our elected officials to the opinion of the majority in D.C. v Heller. McDonald v Chicago News The ruling is in. If you have not heard this yet, you are living under a rock and I cannot help you. Here is a link to the ruling. http://www.savetheguns.com/PDF_Files/mcdonald-v-chicago-08-1521.pdf http://www.nraila.org/mcdonald/ Here is a link to the transcript of the oral argument. http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/McDonaldvChicagooral.pdf See more information here: http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=5237 See the National Rifle Association's Amicus Curiae (friend of the court) Brief here: http://www.nraila.org/pdfs/NRA08-1521.pdf Congressional Brief in support of McDonald: SAF & ISRA Amicus: JOIN THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION. For Activists Only Please remain active in your own state. The Founding Fathers wrote and passed the Bill of Rights to specifically apply to the federal government and Congress. They simply assumed that people would be entirely engaged in the affairs of their own states. Today, that is not the case. Today, many pro-gunners are simply not paying attention to the political affairs in their own state. GET ACTIVE IN YOUR OWN STATE!!! Please keep an eye on your own state's firearm, hunting and self defense legislation. Since it has been tougher to get a gun control bill through Congress, anti-gun activists have increased their focus on the states. Please stand tall and defend your own state through activism. http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/State/ Go here, choose your state and sign up for the alerts. I have the national NRA-ILA alerts running constantly under the navigation bar at www.SaveTheGuns.com. Visit and act today. Minuteman Monthly Newsletter Aiming Point The votes, the text of the opinion of the court, the dissents and the reaction of Chicago's Mayor Richard M. Daley could have been written by those who are engaged in this fight, many months ago. I personally could have written the news releases on this ruling at some point in the last six months. The votes of Stevens, Breyer, Sotomayor and Ginsburg deciding that the right to keep and bear arms essentially means what they say it means and with Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas and Kennedy saying that the 2nd Amendment actually means what it says, was hardly a surprise by anyone who is really following this issue. It was a pleasant surprise to read Associate Justice Antonin Scalia's rebuttal of Associate Justice Steven's dissent in the case, in light of how Scalia totally dismantled Steven's dissent. I was smiling throughout the entire reading. Read the U.S. Supreme Court's two hundred fourteen (214) page opinion here: http://www.savetheguns.com/PDF_Files/mcdonald-v-chicago-08-1521.pdf It was of no surprise at all that the opinion of the court made it abundantly clear, as they did in the D.C. v Heller opinion that this ruling will not dismantle such laws as those that keep felons and the mentally ill from lawfully purchasing firearms at retail. We
made it clear in Heller that our holding did not cast doubt on such
longstanding regulatory measures as “prohibitions on the possession of
firearms by felons and the mentally ill,” “laws forbidding the
carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government
buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the
commercial sale of arms.” Two specific things are abundantly clear in looking at both Heller and McDonald. Firstly, that handgun bans are not consistent with the words or spirit of the United States Constitution, nor are such total prohibitions consistent with the opinions of the Framers in their letters to one another and in their speeches. Secondly it is also clear that the United States Supreme Court is not willing to stand against measures that fall short of total prohibition, but still prohibit certain people from lawful ownership, such as felonious thugs and the mentally incompetent. The McDonald v Chicago ruling is a victory, but it is a very narrowly defined victory. Heller and McDonald only clearly state that outright bans of handguns in the home are not allowed. Both decisions and both opinions of the court, leave most other commonly found firearm regulations in some undefined gray area. D.C. v Heller and McDonald v Chicago merely defines the bottom floor of the 2nd Amendment. The rest of the structure will have to be defined over decades of future rulings. The anti-gun liberals on the progressive left only have to wait for an anti-gun U.S. President to replace either Roberts, Alito, Scalia, Thomas or Kennedy in order to reverse all of the groundwork we have so far accomplished. Whether paramilitary semi-automatic centerfire carbine restrictions fall within the boundaries of the 2nd Amendment, is unknown at this point. Are prohibitions on concealed carry, as in Illinois, Washington D.C. and Wisconsin okay with the U.S. Supreme Court? Are laws that keep law abiding citizens from buying more than one firearm per month consistent with the 2nd Amendment? It is troubling when you see how far we still must go to gain back our true right to keep and bear arms. There are a mountain of legal and legislative battles ahead of us. To flush out the outer boundaries of the 2nd Amendment and to have those boundaries come into the full light of day, will take decades of future litigation. Heller and McDonald only say that to keep a handgun in the home for defensive purposes is protected by the 2nd Amendment and that the federal government, federal enclaves as well as states and municipalities must not prohibit handgun ownership in the home. I have personally never been an absolutist 2nd Amendment warrior who stands against any regulation of firearm ownership, purchase or carry. For one to claim that infringement of the 2nd Amendment includes any and all legislation on the subject makes no sense to me at all. Firstly, all males between the ages of 16 and 60 years old were compelled into militia service when Madison introduced the Bill of Rights to the U.S. House of Representatives on June 8, 1789. While engaged in such militia service, training, marksmanship and regular drilling were quite mandatory. Background checks of militia members were not necessary because the vast majority of American families were intact and in church, but I guarantee that militia leaders knew who was a trouble-maker and who was not. In addition to that, the Founding Fathers knew that religion, morality, national virtue and a coast-to-coast firm adherence to biblical principle and the Ten Commandments were absolutely necessary for freedom and liberty to flourish and yes, even to survive. With the rampant disregard for religion, morality, national virtue, the Ten Commandments and the words of the Bible over the last half a century and more, some individual liberties must diminish and fade as a result of our general unwillingness to conduct our lives within the boundaries of religion and traditional views of biblical morality. I know that I will catch some flack for those last two paragraphs, so allow me a moment to quote the Founders on this topic, which is where I have obtained much of my own opinions on the matter. "Of
all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man
claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great
pillars of human happiness."
What the Founding Fathers were saying here is that the radical personal freedoms that were given to the American people through the U.S. Constitution and 18 months later, the Bill of Rights, depended upon the American people conducting their lives and those of their families with self control and within the traditional boundaries of morality and religion. In light of these opinions of the Framers and the fact that such a large segment of society disregards religion, morality and virtue as absolutely essential to liberty, I am not upset that the rulings in both Heller and McDonald make it clear that some firearm regulations are consistent with the original intention of the 2nd Amendment. Some may disagree with me on that point and that is fine with me. But I stand firm in my belief that American morality has declined enough in the last 221 years to warrant some degree of legislation to prohibit gun ownership to people who have provided sufficient evidence by their conduct and actions that they cannot operate their lives within the rather firm boundaries of religion and morality. Now, to conclude this month's newsletter. Here is the statement of Wayne LaPierre on the McDonald case. It is quite clear that this is going to be a long road, but that this is a bottom floor victory. Monday, June 28, 2010 Today marks a great moment in American history. This is a landmark decision. It is a vindication for the great majority of American citizens who have always believed the Second Amendment was an individual right and freedom worth defending. It is evident that Chicago Mayor Daley has some tendencies toward megalomania. (A psychopathological condition characterized by delusional fantasies of wealth, power, or omnipotence.) He seems to crave control over his constituents. Despite huge volumes of evidence that prohibiting the free exercise of the 2nd Amendment makes a municipality more dangerous, he will tenaciously refuse to allow firearm liberty to grow in the City of Chicago. How this man is able to retain his authority in the City of Chicago should be a study in and of itself. The City of Chicago under the leadership of Mayor Daley will do everything it possibly can to make the exercise of the 2nd Amendment impossible, while adhering to the opinion of the court in McDonald v Chicago that is linked above. The National Rifle Association will not rest until the 2nd Amendment is able to be exercised in the City of Chicago and throughout the United States. But with only five percent (5%) of American gun owners being active members of the NRA, what they can accomplish will be largely up to American gun owners who value freedom. The people of the City of Chicago and its suburbs have gained a victory for individual freedom. To see that victory through to its conclusion, will take an investment of time, money, energy and individual activism. Yes, this is another great victory for freedom. But this is not time to rest. The result of the McDonald v Chicago case does not mean that victory has come, the war is over and it's time to retreat to our normal lives. This case should bolster our energies and give us renewed strength to push forward. The laws concerning firearm ownership, purchase, carry, transfer, transportation and storage now all have to be held up to the light shed on the law from their decision in McDonald v Chicago. There are more than 20,000 other laws that now need to come down. There are still many semi-automatic centerfire carbine prohibitions, mandatory gun storage laws and much more that we intrinsically know are not consistent with the Constitution. Now is the time to join or rejoin the National Rifle Association and press on toward true victory. Thanks for reading this issue and especially for passing it on to others. STAY ACTIVE, STAY INFORMED, STAY UNITED AND KEEP YOUR NRA MEMBERSHIP CURRENT. LET'S STAND IN THE DOORWAY TO TYRANNY TOGETHER. THERE'S STILL PLENTY OF ROOM, I'LL PUSH OVER. JOIN THE NRA AND FORWARD THIS ON TO YOUR NON-NRA FRIENDS AND FAMILY. http://membership.nrahq.org/default.asp?campaignid=XR017807 Help me recruit five hundred (600) NRA members in 2010! We can do it! To learn more about the National Rifle Association, its goal and benefits of membership, please see my "NRA Membership" page: SAVE $10.00 SAVE $10.00 OFF A ONE-YEAR MEMBERSHIP TO THE NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION. NORMALLY THE CHARGE IS $35.00. THROUGH THE FOLLOWING WEB PAGE, IT IS $25.00. http://www.savetheguns.com/nra_membership.htm Closing Comments Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read the Minuteman Monthly Newsletter. I encourage you to pass it on. You may use this newsletter as you see fit. You may post it, blog it, print it, forward it and publish it. The only thing I ask is that somewhere in your material, make sure the URL www.SaveTheGuns.com appears prominently. Thanks, I support responsible e-mail compliance: This email cannot be considered spam as long as I include contact information and instructions on how to remove yourself from my address book. This message is being sent to you in compliance with the current Federal legislation for commercial e-mail (H.R.4176 - SECTION
101 Paragraph (e)(1)(A)) AND Bill s.1618 TITLE III passed by the 105th U.S. Congress. Marc Richardson
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