Local blogger Raging Red and I don’t often agree, though that doesn’t stop me from enjoying her blog. However, on the topic of Desmond Clark, I agree with her completely.

For any non-local readers who aren’t familiar with the story, Desmond Clark is a scumbag who, despite his colorful criminal history, was free on 7/5/2008 to kill his girlfriend, Na’lisha Gravely in a local Taco Bell (Gravely had run into the Taco Bell fleeing from Clark, and hid in a closet, where Clark found her and shot her several time).

Apparently, part of the reason the courts have been so lenient with Clark in the past is because the police requested leniency, due to Clark’s status as an informant. That’s where Raging Red’s post comes in:

Exactly. She probably felt helpless. She’s not going to testify against him knowing that the police are cutting him breaks, because if she does, she’ll just get beaten and abused even worse.

…

This is a guy who tracked her down at her grandmother’s house and dragged her out to his car and forced her into it, firing a warning shot. In another incident, he forced her into his car, shot at her, then drove around for hours until she managed to escape the vehicle. During a traffic stop, do you think she’s going to lean over and say, “Excuse me officer, could you help me?” She wouldn’t be paranoid to think that Clark might just drive off if she did that. Based on Clark’s history of always getting released, why would she think that asking a police officer for help would make her any safer?

The whole post is worth a read.

Law enforcement and the judicial system exist to protect the citizenry, and in this particular case, they failed us miserably. I am not generally one of those who believes that the police should prevent every crime — the amount of power and presence they would need in order to do so is undesirable. Still, they should do their best to investigate crimes and prosecute those crimes to the best of their ability. By doing nothing to get this violent criminal off the streets, the justice system in Charleston let all of its citizens down, not just Na’lisha Gravely.

he American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) believes that the Second Amendment protects a “collective right”, not an individual one:

Given the reference to “a well regulated Militia” and “the security of a free State,” the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court’s 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view.

As I believe I’ve made clear in other posts, I disagree vehemently with the ACLU’s interpretation of the Second Amendment, as should anyone who learned how to parse a sentence in English class. The reference to a well-regulated Militia was used by the amendment’s writers to explain why such a right was of the utmost importance in their minds, but the pertinent part of the amendment is that “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Given that the phrase “right of the people” is interpreted to mean an individual right everywhere else in the Bill of Rights, it is disingenuous to imagine that it suddenly means something else in the Second Amendment.

Similarly, there is no grammatical structure in the Second Amendment to indicate that the right is somehow dependent on the relationship between a well-regulated militia to the security of a free state. Just because many people no longer believe that a well-regulated militia is necessary for the security of a free state does not negate the right’s protection in the Second Amendment.

I also disagree with the interpretation of the United States v. Miller. In Miller, the Court held that the federal law in question was legal not because the right was “collective”, but because the “arms” in question were not of the sort that would be used in a Militia. Effectively, Miller could be read to indicate that weapons that were of ordinary military use could not be legislated. It is also noteworthy that the federal law in question (The National Firearms Act of 1934) did not ban these bans outright — it merely imposed a tax (one that was, arguably, excessive) on them. Also of note is that Miller had died before the case made it to the Supreme Court, and that only the “United States” side of the case was presented to the Court. The case did not touch on the nature of the right enshrined in the Second Amendment, only on the types of weapons to which it applied.

That said, I don’t really care about the ACLU’s opinion on the Second Amendment, or, to be honest, anything else. The ACLU is famous for standing up for civil liberties, provided they agree with the particular liberty in question (and, sometimes, provided they agree with the person exercising that liberty). What caught my attention today was that the ACLU believes that the right is a “collective” one. The “Collective Right” interpretation of the Second Amendment is one that is commonly used by Gun Control Activists, but it’s not one that I’ve ever given any thought to, until today. What, exactly, is a “collective” right?

Let’s assume that the ACLU is correct, that the Second Amendment only guarantees a collective right, and that it guarantees this right only to members of the militia. As defined at the time of the passage of the Second Amendment, the militia was every able-bodied man within a certain age range. Being of more enlightened times, I will define “militia” as every able-bodied adult, whether male or female. The militia was never intended by the Framers of the Constitution to be a government-run group^[a].

So, the militia consists of a group of civilian adults who are healthy enough (physically and mentally) to wield weapons safely. This group has a collective right to keep and bear arms, in the ACLU’s view. What does that mean? Does the ACLU honestly believe that these people have a right to keep and bear arms, but only collectively? How big of a group does one have to have to be a “collective”? Do we have to have a hive-mind, like the Borg?

And how does a group keep and bear arms? Do the weapons have to be registered to a group of people, like a corporation? Can they only be stored on group property? Do they have to be jointly carried (bore) by more than one member of the group at a time?

1. In fact, the fact that it was government-run would run completely counter to what the Framers saw as the most important purpose of the amendment, which is spelled out in the very phrase the ACLU is using to try to undermine the right — the well-regulated, armed Militia was necessary not to protect us from criminals or foreign invaders, but to protect us from the government. [↩]

I’ve seen this mentioned on several blogs lately — a government-funded advisory group in England says that nursery schools should report racist incidents involving children. Racist incidents could include things such as saying “Yuck” about an unfamiliar food. Anyone who disagrees with the measure is themselves a racist, as evidenced by their disagreement.

The best reaction I’ve read comes from Rachel Lucas, who writes:

Setting the bar for racism so ridiculously low dilutes the meaning of the word to the point that it has no meaning at all.

She’s absolutely right, of course. That’s probably the most frustrating and annoying part of these sorts of policies, which have many, many frustrating and annoying parts — they make accusations of racism utterly meaningless. When “racism” is defined in this way, it becomes something completely not serious. The problem is, racism remains a serious issue, and diluting that issue with “racism” is unconscionable.

What makes it worse is that the people coming up with this nonsense probably have their hearts in the right place, and actually believe that fighting this sort of “racism” actually does something to benefit the fight against real racism. This is idiocy that is founded in good intentions, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is idiocy.

Public schools are failing us.

In his dissent on Heller vs. DC, Justice Stevens wrote, “The court would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the Framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons.” Obviously, Justice Stevens does not believe that the framers of the Constitution made such a choice. One has to wonder how Justice Stevens ever got through high school history, much less made it to be a sitting Justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.

The fact is, the Framers had every intent to “limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate” pretty much anything. That’s the entire purpose of the Bill of Rights (and, arguably, the Constitution as a whole). It limits what the government can do, by keeping it from treading on those things that the Framers considered to be fundamental, natural rights. Anyone who ever took a single American History course should have had that drilled into them. The people who were most involved with the founding of this country and laying the framework for its government were not at all interested in giving the government a lot of power to regulate anything.

A lot of people (most of them lawyers) will insist that a layperson (such as myself) isn’t really qualified to comment on the meaning of the Constitution, because laypeople aren’t trained to understand the law. The fact is, though, the Constitution is not written in technical jargon, nor is it constructed in such a way as to be unreadable (as many modern laws written by legislators and rulings written by judges are) — it’s pretty simple and clear, as any honest, half-educated person can tell you.

“…[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” That seems pretty clear to me. Yet, Stevens seems to be saying that he believes that laws that effectively ban the ownership and carrying (the “keeping and bearing,” if you will) of firearms don’t violate the Second Amendment, which is absolutely crystal clear, using language that can’t possibly be mistaken. “…[T]he right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” If he honestly believes that this is not supposed to “limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons,” Justice Stevens must have failed English as well as History.

To be fair to Justice Stevens, he isn’t the only one making the public schools look bad. Just take, for instance, Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois, who must have failed Civics:

“It’s a big blow to those of us who believe in common sense gun laws,” Gov. Rod Blagojevich said during an appearance at a West Side community agency to announce a summer jobs program. “And as a result, it’s the wrong decision.”

Blagojevich would have us believe that the Justices made the wrong decision because they supported gun rights, which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the Supreme Court even does. The Supreme Court Justices, when considering this (or any other) case, had absolutely no right to consider whether they personally believed that individuals had a right to self-defense. They had no right to consider whether they personally believed that guns were fundamentally evil devices that caused murders. Considering the rightness or wrongness of a position has absolutely nothing to do with what the Supreme Court is supposed to do.

This is Civics 101, kids. The Supreme Court’s job in the federal government is to rule on the Constitutionality of a law, not on whether they personally like the law or not. If a politician (such as Blagojevich) doesn’t agree with what the Constitution says, he has two options: 1.) work to change the Constitution, or 2.) Find a country whose foundations are more suitable. Passing laws that ignore or subvert the intent of the Constitution is illegal (and dishonest, besides), and is precisely what the Supreme Court is there to prevent.

I’m reminded of a scene from Duck Soup, in which Groucho Marx’s character, Rufus T. Firefly, is presented with a report from one of his underlings. “It’s perfectly clear,” he says. “A four-year-old could understand it. Someone get me a four-year-old. I can’t make heads or tails of this.” (Quote is from memory and may not be 100% accurate.) Someone needs to get a high school graduate (or even just a high school student — maybe those who are competing in the We The People competition, for instance) to explain the Constitution to Gun control activists, especially the parts about a.) the job of the Supreme Court, and b.) the Second Amendment.

Please note that I’m not saying that those who believe in gun control are idiots who should not have passed high school^[a]. Instead, I am criticizing those who believe that gun control should be (or even that it could be, legally) passed, even though it is in clear violation of the Constitution, without first changing the Constitution. Of course, these tend to be the same people who think it’s a wonderful idea to have judges legislating in many other legal arenas (see: homosexual marriage), so I’m not particularly surprised.

1. Though, I do wish those taking that position would review this data, presented in Dale Franks’ “Heller Wrap-Up” over at Q and O shows:

   According to the FBI, in 2006, Illinois—a state that has fairly strict gun laws—had a violent crime rate of 541.6 per 100,000. Meanwhile, down in gun-totin’ Texas—twice the population, but with very similar demographics—the wild-eyed cowboys managed to tote up a rate of 516.3 per 100,000.

   Indeed, similar rates carry through across the board:

   Murder:
   IL: 6.1
   TX: 5.9

   Robbery:
   IL: 185.3
   TX: 158.5

   Aggravated Assault:
   IL: 318.4
   TX: 316.4

   To be fair, TX still has the lead in forcible rape, at 35.6 compared to 31.8 in IL.

   Meanwhile, in DC:
   Murder: 29.1
   Robbery: 658.4
   Aggravated Assault: 789.1

   Although, DC is still a relatively genteel place for the ladies, with the forcible rape per 100,000 coming in at a Chicago-style friendliness of 31.8.

   Maybe, just maybe, the problem isn’t “guns”. Perhaps there’s some human factor that could explain these numbers. If only we could understand what it might possibly be…

   Despite all this, gun-control advocates often insist that gun control works, and that the gun ban in DC was/is actually keeping the crime rate low. [↩]