The following was a response to a letter written (can be found at the bottom of this article, in deep Red Font) by a person living in the wealthy town of Manhasset. This person would have had access to excellent education, likely had a privileged upbringing and surrounded by a community that would be mostly progressive. I believe that in this region—Nassau County, Long Island that very few people would have an interest in guns, very few hunters etc. There might be a few skeet shooting clubs, but that is about it. In-spite of all of this we still find nut-jobs with deadly stupid views.

Response to E. Rose of Manhassat.

As you must know, being such a constitutional expert, the chances of removing the 2nd Amendment are very remote.

If that day ever happens it might well be indicative of America rejoining other developed countries and the U.S. Constitution evolving, (rather than remaining moribund) as the Founding Father had always intended.

You are wrong to suggest that the 2nd Amendment, like the constitution, is unambiguous. A. The 2nd amendment is not unambiguous, plus there remains controversy over the precise grammar that impacts its intentions, b. the Constitution by definition changes every time the Supreme Court makes a ruling, and there have been such rulings and most importantly c. if any action taken by the government is unconstitutional — then that is why we have the Supreme Court, rather than idiots with opinions, in the first place — so what the hell are you worried about.

Like all things GOP/Stupidparty — it is simplistic sloganeering to rile up an uninformed fearful base.

The tyranny that small-minded people fret about inevitably comes from the right.  Most Terror domestically comes from the right, whether domestically or not. OH you think it is progressive Islam that love to use guns? You think our problems come from overseas. Here is an idea—try looking at some facts, people lives depend on it

75% of Terror is home grown stupidparty disciples.

You can argue that China and Russia were supposedly communist and the initial inspiration, in Russia at least, was communism. But ultimately Stalin, Hitler and Mao, were not remotely interested in anything but power for themselves and their small cliques of oligarchs. Today, Russia is the most right-wing country in the world, a Trumpian dream, with the USA desperately trying to match them. 

You mention your “deep state” fears (code for Trump is not a colluding law breaking traitor) indicative of a fearful conspiracy mindset, happy to overlook bigotry, lies and disinformation at awe-inspiring levels — which has likely turned you into a fake patriot, a “what is wrong with being friends with Russia any way” type of idiot. Trumps actions? That is Mueller’s job, with juries and due process — let him do it.

If Conservatives like you ever had anything to offer, such as supposed strong national defense, fiscal discipline and free trade –well you dropped all that without a second thought.

You harp on about your ability to resist a Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Obama? with your guns.

I suspect you think that if Jews had just had guns in 1938, all would have been copacetic. That simply does not happen. Your gun will get you shot, the moment your best buddy and or your own brainwashed kid reports you to the authorities, to protect their damn stupid “great again fatherland.”

The moment anyone uses their guns against the government, and if that person does not get dealt with — that is the moment that the rule of law is over, that is the moment when fascism will fill the void.

You talk nonsense about the UK. Guns and bullets are not banned. Discussing its hate speech laws should not be for the feeble minded. I could not find a practical instance of actual jail for passive speech, and the UK is party to international human right laws, and European laws, providing many more layers of protection compared to America’s very suspect system, where minorities are regularly shot dead or incarcerated for crimes they did not commit, or for fake crimes, such as marijuana usage, inspired by the politics of voter suppression.

Also, some context is important — if America had suffered as many terror attacks as the UK — American society would have unraveled as all Muslims would not simply be barred from entering the country but rounded up, roughed up and interred by Trumpian appointed fascist thugs with their great again armbands and lapel pins. You quote Scalia and Thomas, as people who should be respected. Scalia is highly questionable god before country and common sense, literal constitutionalist and Thomas is unfit to serve.

The one thing that you say that might have some merit is the notion that gun law tweaks can solve the problem of “you” and your ilk—it won’t. The fact of the matter is that the USA has the most infantile gun culture in the world by a massive distance. The fact that 5,600 kids get seriously injured or killed a year is because of people like you. You really seem to believe that more guns will make people safer — this is a deadly stupid opinion. There may be pockets where guns for safety is not absurd—but it is societies job, not the NRA’s job, to address those exceptions.

You quote a study about guns making owners safer –and by doing so you endanger anyone who breathes in your toxic oxygen—

 “there have been several dozen peer-reviewed studies—punctures the idea that guns stop violence. In a 2015 study using data from the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for example, researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University reported that firearm assaults were 6.8 times more common in the states with the most guns versus those with the least. Also in 2015 a combined analysis of 15 different studies found that people who had access to firearms at home were nearly twice as likely to be murdered as people who did not.”

Good Guys with Guns:  

• Drivers who carry guns are 44% more likely than unarmed drivers to make obscene gestures at other motorists, and 77% more likely to follow them aggressively.
• Among Texans convicted of serious crimes, those with concealed-handgun licenses were sentenced for threatening someone with a firearm 4.8 times more than those without.
• In states with Stand Your Ground and other laws making it easier to shoot in self-defense, those policies have been linked to a 7 to 10% increase in homicides.
• Owning a gun has been linked to higher risks of homicide, suicide, and accidental death by gun.
• For every time a gun is used in self-defense in the home, there are 7 assaults or murders, 11 suicide attempts, and 4 accidents involving guns in or around a home
• 43% of homes with guns and kids have at least one unlocked firearm.
• In one experiment, one third of 8-to-12-year-old boys who found a handgun pulled the trigger.

(The above bullet points were not included in the letter)

The NRA leadership is an odious collection of fanatics who actually have zero interest in representing the views of their members. 80 percent of NRA members are actually quite pragmatic.

But people who accept money from the NRA should be hounded from office by 24/7 noisy protests. It is also likely, though not yet proven, that the NRA has been used as conduit by overseas agents in their ongoing and successful campaign to weaken America’s standing in the world – with America’s only remaining ally being Netanyahu. How the prime minister of Israel thinks it is a good idea to have as its one and only ally, a bunch of White Supremacists in the USA, is beyond me.

Like anyone with an impaired ability to think you take an incident in a country to create a false narrative. Next, you will saying that Norway, that usually has zero mass shootings, has a gun problem. They do not. Nobody has America’s problem. Norway has a small slither of white nationalists, remnant Nazis, from World War II that hit pay dirt one day. That is not a pattern. But what is a pattern in America, is domestic terrorism, usually by white male gun toting idiots with a confederate outlook believing in Alex Jones type conspiracy theories and an infantile fear of the erosion of the second amendment. People who feel the need to carry a gun are cowards. Most people are brave enough to go outdoors and out of their caves, equipped with nothing much more than a pencil. Carrying a gun puts everyone at risk, especially the gun owner and his family. The logical extension of this mental midget NRA mindset, suggests everyone should carry a gun. Oh, except bad guys. There is no such thing as a civilian good guy with a gun, in a populated area.

You argue that schools can easily be protected by having every child, parent, teacher, visitor—line up, strip off, and walk through a metal detector. That is just one of many confused ideas that people who are comfortable with America’s gun culture come up with. School buildings have countless windows and multiple entrances, covering acres of land—anyone motivated enough, could either smuggle a gun into the building or simply shoot the sitting ducks standing in line, or the kids playing soccer—the shooter is not picky.

But let’s take a closer look at your mental acuity shall we?

Arming teachers, or having more armed security guards is a new level of brain-dead, promoting more guns in schools is just sick. Have you considered just some of the potential problems? Accidental shootings?  A “bad” teacher with a gun, (because they are just so easy to spot! But any teacher that wants to have a gun in a classroom, is either a moron or a bad person — either way they should not be a teacher); that teacher has kids who now have access to more guns (bad person = bad parent); the teachers kids have friends too, all these kids have more interest in, tolerance and awareness of, and access to—more guns. What kid cannot run rings around their parents to gain access? Who does not understand chaos theory? A good teacher off their meds, or on too many meds, an alcoholic, or a soon to be unmasked pedophile — suddenly becoming a bad teacher — or is it the security guard with similar issues, or a careless teacher leaves the gun unattended, a weak teacher gets disarmed by a manic kid, a security guard entering a room—is the teacher the shooter? Is the security guard the shooter? The heavily armed police arrive at the scene. They see two people in the room with a gun, may be three or more—which one is the shooter? Which one is the bad guy? The black kid; that must be it, bang! Just shoot at anyone with a gun. 

And since when does the shooter give a damn anyway? More guns in the school — this does not create a hurdle, rather an opportunity, a motivation — they mostly kill themselves regardless, either that or they know their capture is inevitable. The more guns the merrier, it will be just like that final scene out of Butch Cassidy—now how cool would that be? Stupidparty land, your land—how it is meant to be.

In any normal country if you dislike your teacher you might be disgruntled in class or write something nasty about the teacher on social media, play a prank—but in America, it so much easier, why be creative? Just shoot the person, guns are easy come easy go, shootings are a dime a dozen — so why not; any other solution shows weakness or a lack of commitment. Hate your teacher? Well bait that teacher into pulling out their gun, even better if they shoot you — you just won that debate. Perhaps there is a nasty fight in class—simple fix, whip out that gun. But who’s the bad guy now?

Now what about the scenario that aging white male Trump loving gun nuts dream about —it might actually happen, but only because of the massive number of shootings; a real live bad guy shooter, (he’s wearing KKK fashion statements to make life black and white — a good guy teacher armed with a cross and a make America Great again baseball cap and a gun — now what are the odds that the good guy will not freeze, miss, sing out the national anthem first, hit a bystander, get shot by another teacher with a gun—or that disoriented security guard who just has no clue who to shoot.

Perhaps the KKK guy is the good guy, wearing a Halloween outfit, perhaps the teacher is a Trump voter — suddenly the tables are turned.

Kids dead, so many, because of so many idiot parents—virtually any civilian parent that actually believes that more guns at school, at home, at the mall, at a poker game equals enhanced safety. Yes, because of those idiots 5,800 children under the age of 18 get seriously injured by gunshots every year. How do I put this in perspective, how do I show how massively stupid such people are compared to the rest of mankind? Try this one — America has 5 percent of the world’s population—so if Americans were to claim to be worthy of peer group status—then they should see 5 percent of the gun deaths. But you already know that that is not the case.

“Ninety percent of women, 91% of children aged 0 to 14 years, 92% of youth aged 15 to 24 years, and 82% of all people killed by firearms were from the United States.”

Bad right? But I am being nice, which seems rather pointless when dealing with the deadly stupid. So just imagine if I compared America with developed nations (a rapidly receding notion). You are 25 times more likely to be shot to death in America than any other developed nation. But I am still being far too nice—because not all of America is truly Stupidparty land. Take Mississippi the least smart state in the country (yet Alaska, Alabama and Louisiana did have more gun deaths per 100,000), has four times more gun deaths per 100,000 than say Massachusetts. Thus it would be more than reasonable to state that Stupidparty land is 5,000 percent more stupid (regarding gun culture at least) than Europe.

Finally, you go on about progressive authoritarian. But non one confronts you with sick world view:

You fret because you have a conservative brain, a fearful brain that has lost the ability to think critically. You mention a dystopian future—well chew on this: Approximately 0.00001 percent control about 50 percent of the money that goes into politics, now check on the income discrepancy trends over the last 25 years. Having considered that, now ask yourself this one simple question — if such trends continue how can the country possibly escape a fascist state. As to you –we all know how you would have voted if you were living in Germany in 1933.

Kids die in school because people like you, who not only promote the most infantile gun culture in the world, but who also now want to double down on that stupidity.

In the above rebuttal I avoided getting into the semantics of the constitution -by my technical rebuttal can found here 

Second Amendment Cry Babies – Meet Your Maker

Here is the offending letter – replicated in full.

Easier answers to school attacks than removing 2nd Amendment freedoms

The “gun control” narrative of the left is that they support the Second Amendment but there must be “reasonable common sense” limits on firearms ownership.

But what does the Second Amendment mean? The founding fathers did not intend that the Constitution be so complicated that it would require legal scholars to interpret it.

In the prefatory clause, the “well-regulated militia” is clearly armed citizens organized and practiced in military operations as a safeguard against tyranny.

Tyranny can come from any level of government, and that was the issue of that day.

The claim that any level of government required a constitutional amendment to establish a military is preposterous. Included in the definition of militia is a rebel force in opposition to a standing army.

Any standing army, including a state’s “national guard,” which can be and is often used as an arm of the federal government.

Justice Scalia, in the Heller decision, recast 2A’s meaning as an individual right that, at its peak, is a personal defense in the home.

This re-casting was due, in the opinion, to its’ original intent no longer being practical in the contemporary due to the government’s advanced military technology.

My contention is that the court does not have the power to do that. It is my belief that this was a political compromise to appease Justice Kennedy, who was, at that time, neither a “progressive,” nor a strict constructionist but had his own ideas.

Justice Scalia did this knowing it would be a 5-to-4 decision that would pivot around Kennedy.

This sort of creative re-casting of the law was something that Justice Scalia would normally have railed against, but the decision going the other way was unthinkable to him (and me), so (in my opinion) he did what he needed to do.

But going back to the talking points of the left, and their “support” of 2A with “reasonable common sense limits,” what are those limits?

They seem to propose that what is central to the Second Amendment is hunting. A ridiculous assertion on its face. Did the framers fear that hunting would someday be outlawed?

It conforms with neither Heller nor the original meaning.

A modern semi-automatic rifle, like an AR15, in the original meaning of 2A would not just be implicated, but would be central to its intent, and a lower, not an upper limit.

The Heller decision version of 2A clearly defined protected firearms as those “in common use”. The left continuously sites the content of Heller that allowed for “reasonable regulation” (which it does), and that Justice Scalia even gave an example of an M16 as a reasonable limit.

But an AR15 is very different than an M16 in that it cannot fire in fully automatic mode. Any ambiguity around Justice Scalia’s intent is immediately made clear by the case of Friedman vs The City of Highland Park (SCOTUS, 2015).

This was a challenge to an “assault weapon ban” where the appellate courts applied a lowered standard of review (the “balancing test” embraced by leftist judges to turn Constitutional law on its head and advance the progressive agenda with impunity.

See “The Balancing Test”, McFadden, Boston College Law Review, volume 29, issue 3, number 3, 1988). The high court refused certiorari to the case. Justice Roberts made a hard left turn after President Obama scolded the court over Citizens United.

I believe he was “pressured” by the deep state, but I can’t prove that. There is no depth to which the left will not stoop.

Justices Scalia (the author of Heller), and Thomas issued a furious decent in Friedman vs The City of Highland Park and made clear that the semi-automatic rifles that were at issue ARE protected by the second amendment.

From a public policy perspective, none of the mass shooters would have been stopped by a NICS check except maybe the last guy in Florida had the government done its job.

Thirty-two people were murdered by a maniac with two ordinary Glock pistols at Virginia Tech in 2007. In 1966 Charles Whitman killed 14 and wounded 31 in the infamous Texas tower shooting with an old bolt action rifle…. And on.

So you don’t need an AR15.

In Niece France, a maniac killed 86 and injured 458 with a truck! So you don’t need a gun. Obama’s own CDC commissioned study found that you are far less likely to be injured as a crime victim if you own a firearm, and the numbers are estimated in the millions.

That was a real study, and not a progressive fraud where only defensive incidents where the firearm is discharged were counted. The vast majority of the time it is the presence of the firearm that saves the defender without the necessity of a discharge (thank God).

On the question of the relevance of the Second Amendment as a deterrent to tyranny, it is the progressive left, the would-be tyrants of the authoritarian collective state themselves, that cast the possibility of a tyranny as ridiculous.

That narrative serves their ends. These are the people who weaponized the IRS and the FBI against political enemies.

Look at England, where you can be jailed for one bullet, or for ideological speech!

Is that not tyranny? How about the progressive left takeover of universities with their goon squads that act like the Hitler Youth and enforce idealogical conformity with physical violence.

Does that not speak volumes of the left?

I once went to a pro 2A rally in Albany, and a lone anti-gun woman with a big sign ventured right into a large crowd of pro-gun mostly men.

She was absolutely safe. No one even confronted her for debate. Try that on the campus of NYU, or USC, or Columbia.

We all feel terrible for the tragedies at these schools, but public policy must not be based on emotion and hysteria. Mr. Pollack, the father of one of the victims came out and said that gun control is B.S. It’s real easy to make the school safe. Just make it like the airport and the courts with one guarded and secured entrance.

Those things don’t happen in those places anymore. What is a mind-numbing outrage to me is how you can get a rifle into a school!

It has been said that if you agree to trade freedom for security, you will end up with neither.

Progressive authoritarian collectivism will not be a utopia. It will be a dystopia as it has always been everywhere it has ever been implemented.

The American Constitutional Republic is far from perfect, but it is the best social order yet to date.

E. Rose.

Manhasset