Sunday, November 04, 2007

The right to bear arms is for The People, Not for Corporations.

Hijacking the Second Amendment:

“From my Cold, Dead Hands”, said Charlton Heston, star of the classic movie “The Ten Commandments” and spokesman for the NRA (National Rifle Association) at one of their rallies, trumpeting the importance of freedom and security in peoples ability to resist tyranny.

This appeal to rugged individuals, at face value “uniquely American” and courageous, is misleading and deceptive. Much of the driving force behind the “Gun Lobby” is the “Arms Industry” (corporations that use or sell machines that kill and destroy). This mercenary Death and Destruction industry is, in many cases, competing directly with natural persons (real people) for the right to bear arms under the second amendment.

Because corporations are inherently dictatorial government structures, and because the second amendment explicitly defines its purpose as to defend a free state, it logically follows that corporations should not have the right to bear arms; and that armed corporate dictatorships are precisely the kind of tyranny the second amendment is intended to protect us against.

Here’s the Second Amendment:

"
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.
"

“Well-Regulated” refers to oversight and control by the people, managing their own community defense through their own elected local governments.

“The People” is different from “people”. “People” bearing arms, while not co-dependent on their neighbors, might well pose a threat to each other. “The People” is our community, collectively managing itself. The Second Amendment thus refers to municipalities having the ability to muster men and firepower for the purpose of defense against tyranny and other disasters. One modern manifestation of this is the “National Guard”, which would be more rightly called the “State Militia”. It might very well be the best deployment of militia to have the population at large in possession of their own arms, as in Switzerland. Militias should never be deployed overseas, as they are today under the rein of George W. Bush.

Today, while the municipalities can barely survive shootouts with street-gangs, and the corporate radio calls for government’s further destruction, firms like Blackwater U.S.A. and CACI are roaming city streets, oftentimes better armed than our own elite military. This modern-day Praetorian Guard must be dismantled immediately if our republic is to survive.

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