The court decisions of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor have brought 2nd Amendment rights to national prominence once again.

by Michael Naragon

“The right to possess a gun is clearly not a fundamental right,” reads the decision of the three-judge panel, of which Sotomayor was a part, in the 2004 case of U.S. v. Sanchez-Villar.  While Barack Obama’s first high court nominee may not have penned those words herself, the decision was unanimous.

Also unanimous in its decision was a three-judge panel, again including Sotomayor, of the U.S. Second Circuit, which ruled in January of this year that the 2nd Amendment “imposes a limitation on only federal, not state, legislative efforts” in the case of Maloney v. Rice.

Some analysts have called Sotomayor’s positions on gun ownership rights disturbing;  liberals have called them merely a distraction.  What is troubling is that they appear to be more in line with the beliefs of Sotomayor’s biggest cheerleader, Obama, and less in line with the Constitution or recent decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Obama has given lip-service to his support for the 2nd Amendment, but his record has been anything but supportive of a federal protection of citizen gun ownership.

In 1996, while running for the Illinois state senate, Obama indicated on a policy questionnaire that he supported state legislation to ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns, ban assault weapons, and institute manditory waiting periods and background checks.  Later, Obama’s campaign claimed that he had not actually filled out the form, and that the answers had, instead, been filled in by a staffer.

During the 2008 campaign, Obama phrased his 2nd Amendment beliefs this way:

“As a general principle, I believe that the Constitution confers an individual right to bear arms. But just because you have an individual right does not mean that the state or local government can’t constrain the exercise of that right, in the same way that we have a right to private property but local governments can establish zoning ordinances that determine how you can use it.”

One of the Constitutional problems with this statement is that there is no explicit mandate in the Constitution to ensure a right to property.  The 5th Amendment states that an individual’s property can’t be taken for public use without just compensation, but this statement is made in the context of criminal cases and due process.  The 2nd Amendment is very overt in its grant of the right to own firearms:

“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.”

There is no similar statement in the Constitution to protect the right to own property, so the president’s comparison is invalid, although perhaps the students in Obama’s constitutional law class may disagree.

Liberals like to take the first part of the Amendment, mentioning the militia, to attempt to make the case that the Founding Fathers only intended a militia be allowed to keep arms.  The mandate for the right of the people to possess firearms, however, is clear.  In the Constitutional ratification debate in Virginia,  Patrick Henry said that the right of the people to be armed was necessary for securing rights and liberties.  How can a people resist tyrants, Henry asked, if they are not armed?  Several other state conventions echoed Henry’s sentiment.

If the 2nd Amendment is, therefore, designed to create a federally protected right with the goal of discouraging despotism, then it is logical to assume the Founding Fathers would not want it precluded by state regulations.  A zoning ordinance on a piece of property, to use Obama’s comparison, is vastly different from a ban on firearms, or stringent regulations designed to create a de facto ban.

The Supreme Court has recently supported this idea.  In the landmark case of District of Columbia v. Heller, the Court ruled that the

“Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home… the District’s ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense.”

The NRA is currently pursuing an appeal of a U.S. Seventh Circuit decision in a similiar case (NRA v. Chicago) in which the lower court ruled that the 2nd Amendment didn’t apply to state or local regulations, a decision in line with Obama’s stated beliefs.

I believe firmly that Patrick Henry was right.  I think Barack Obama believes it, too.  This is why he, and other liberals in national office, in order to avoid backlash from gun-rights activists, have tried to paint the 2nd Amendment as a states’ rights issue, an interesting position to take for those who advocate the preeminence of the federal government.

One of the things standing in the way of the federal government becoming the overriding authority in the lives of every American is the fact that the threat of armed rebellion still looms.  I am not advocating such a rebellion, and revolution seems unthinkable to those of us in the West who have lived in stability and comfort for over 200 years.  However, Jefferson and his compatriots knew this was a distinct possibility, which is one reason why they explicitly protected the right for the people to exercise that potential.

If the president and those like-minded fail in their attempt to paint the 2nd Amendment as a jurisdictional issue, their next attempt will come from foreign sources.  The Inter-American Convention Against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives and other Related Items, known by its Spanish acronym CIFTA, has been endorsed by the president and members of Congress, including Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN).  The treaty would subvert the U.S. to the sovereignty of other nations, make records of gun owners available to every member nation of the treaty, and make gun owners potentially liable for extradition and prosecution.  The 2nd Amendment would no longer have relevance for Americans, as treaties endorsed by the federal government take precedence over the Constitution (Art. VI).  The treaty is so distasteful that even Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in fear for his career, has opposed its adoption.

I am not what some would call a “rabid” gun owner, although I do own guns and would love to pick up a Remington Model 798 .30-06, if anyone has one to give away to a financially strapped patriot.  However, it is in every American’s best interest to fight for the right of gun owners to remain as such.  If we allow the federal government and liberal publications, such as The Nation, to enact restrictions in this area, the subsequent disarming of U.S. citizens will result in the unchecked domination of an ever-oppressive Washington.