Grey Matters

Hillary sez:

“I am not here to make promises I can’t keep. I am here to tell you I will use every single minute of every day, if I am so fortunate enough to be your president, looking for ways that we can save lives, that we can change the gun culture.”

Problem is that Hillary mistakes gang culture for the gun culture. She knows nothing of the gun culture she wants to change.

I’m a card carrying member of the gun culture and today I ran roughly 600 rounds of 9mm ammo through my full auto Uzi. No one was injured. I doubt that those expending 600 rounds of gang culture gunfire can say the same. Nor would they want to. And this is why gang culture is nothing like the gun culture.

Using an automobile for a drive-by shooting does not make gangsters members of the car culture. Simply owning or using a gun does not make one part of the gun culture.

As a group, we in the gun culture are safer than many hobbyists. We have the Four Rules.

I wish that Hillary and people like her would get their facts straight and stop blaming the gun culture for the things that Bad People do.

And as long as I’m wishing, I wish that people would consider defensive uses of guns by Good People which more than offset the harm done with guns by Bad People.

<https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FOwy9OWfnAM>

As I noted elsewhere, all the fretting over the meaning of “A well regulated militia” within the Second Amendment is actually of no consequence as far as the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (RKBA) is concerned. The “collective right” advocates are finding in the Second Amendment a restriction that does not exist. It is politically motivated ignorance of grammar and long discredited.

Some notes:

The Constitution does not confer a Right to Keep and Bear Arms. If the Second Amendment did not exist, the People would still have a Right to Keep and Bear Arms preserved by the Ninth Amendment, there being no explicit power granted to FedGov to infringe that right.

The militia consisted of men who kept their own military-grade arms and who were expected to bring those arms when the militia was mustered.

Remember those old “Regulator” clocks? Well Regulated meant in good working order, accurate. “Well regulated” was in common use and as applied to the Constitution, “well regulated” referred to being competent with their weapons, hence it was expected that citizens would practice their marksmanship and be proficient when called upon to serve. Keeping and bearing arms is pretty much a requirement to practice with those arms.

All the concern over the meaning of “A well regulated militia” is letting the tail wag the dog. The first thirteen words are purely explanatory and neither add nor subtract or restrict what follows: that the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

“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.”

Imagine the First Amendment if it too had an explanatory clause. It might read: “A well informed electorate being necessary to wisely chuse its leaders, Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; …”

Would the usual idjits claim that freedom of speech or of the press belonged only to the “well informed”?

The Second Amendment could as well read: “Because guns are fun to shoot, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” In terms of what the Second Amendment means about RKBA, the “guns are fun” version is equal to the original – the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. At least in theory.

Now we need to work on “infringed.”

<https://www.billwhittle.com/firewall/most-shameful-injustice>

This is not “the legacy of slavery.” It is the legacy of social welfare programs that destroyed so very many black families and created an angry culture of dependency and victimhood.

As Trump’s chances of winning the Republican nomination on the first round grow ever slimmer, My Guy’s (Cruz’s) chances are looking better and better. With Rubio out of the picture, Cruz has been trouncing Trump. The Not Trump movement may actually pull it off.

Unfortunately, My Guy does not meet the constitutional requirement (Article II) of being a “natural born Citizen” of the USA to be President. Of course, that shouldn’t be a problem unless Trump’s lawyers make it one.

Seven years ago, I pointed out that Obama is not a “natural born Citizen” either and the requirement was not enforced upon him so I think My Guy will get a pass too.

I have to admit that seven years ago I was mistaken as to the meaning of “natural born Citizen” believing, mistakenly, that the founders adopted the English practice of assigning nationality based on the allegiance of the father. I now know better.

To assist with finding the correct legal terms, Ben Franklin brought to the constitutional congress a copy of the book Law Of Nations by Emer de Vattel which says, in Section 212: “Natural born citizens, are those born in the country, of parents who are citizens.” That’s it. Two citizen parents at the time of birth (jus sanguinis in Latin, “of the blood”), in the country of the parents’ citizenship (jus soli in Latin, “of the land”).

For constitutional purposes, that means born in the USA to parents who are both U.S. citizens.

In a letter written in 1775 by Ben Franklin to Charles Dumas (Dumas had provided three copies of Law of Nations to Franklin) Ben thanked him and told him, “…the circumstances of a rising state make it necessary frequently to consult the law of nations. Accordingly that copy, which I kept, has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress, now sitting…” The letter is in the National Archives.

The Term “natural born Citizen” is used only once in the Constitution, as opposed to “citizen” used in numerous places. In fact, in the entirety of U.S. Law, “natural born Citizen” appears in only one place — as a requirement to hold the position of President Of The United States.

There is good reason to believe that, in the context of the Constitution, the term’s meaning is that from Law Of Nations, with which the Founders were certainly familiar.

Certainly, “natural born” has some meaning setting natural born citizens apart from other citizens, but you’d never know it given the way the requirement is ignored.

Were Obama’s eligibility to be president ever challenged in court, it wouldn’t get far as it could lead to a genuine constitutional crisis. So the courts will continue ignoring those parts of the Constitution they find inconvenient.

I’m cross-dominant – right-handed, but left-eyed. This leads me to shoot long guns as a lefty although I shoot pistols right-handed.

When buying long guns, one thing I look for is ambidextrous or switchable controls. My Beretta CX-4 carbine, for example, can be switched from ejecting to the right to ejecting to the left. Likewise, the magazine release can be switched. The safety, by contrast, is a cross-bolt safety and thus ambidextrous. Depending on the weapon, there may be ambidextrous controls or switchable controls.

Anyway… In the course of researching various guns that have ambidextrous controls or features or ambidextrous conversions that can be added to rifles built for right-handers, I’ve watched a great many YouTube vids and noted that probably 2/3 of the people featured in videos mentioning ambidextrous controls or features include an “i” in ambidextrous (“ambidextrious”). I mean, seriously, isn’t the word complex enough already? Is it really necessary to add yet another syllable?

I surmise that they pronounce it that way because other people pronounce it that way. Taking that to its logical conclusion, after some years, “ambidextrious” will be accepted as a proper variation of ambidextrous.