If you’re like me, you’ve wondered (more than once) what in the world happened in our country that so many people have absolutely no understanding of rights, especially the Second Amendment. After all, when I was a kid, I was taught the basics of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and taught them in a way as to understand that those documents, as they are written, are clearly in place to protect American citizens.
Once you look into the situation, though, it becomes clear that at least part of the situation is that law schools these days don’t actually teach the Constitution or the Bill of Rights and the underlying thinking behind those documents.
If you doubt that statement, then, I think that you’ll want to read the quote below. You’ll find it both appalling and enlightening.
Now, here is the context, from an interview by Julia Robbins:
Professor Leila Sadat is the James Carr Professor of International Criminal Law at the Washington University School of Law and a recipient of the University’s Arthur Holly Compton faculty achievement award. She is the Special Adviser on Crimes Against Humanity to the International Criminal Court Prosecutor, and the Director and Founder of the Gun Violence and Human Rights Project and the Crimes Against Humanity Initiative at WashU. Editor-in-Chief Julia Robbins spoke with Sadat about her research into the field of human rights and gun violence following a shooting at a St. Louis high school in October.
Sadat said,
The current focus in the United States is almost entirely on the “rights” of individuals wishing to purchase and wield arms, which they frame as “gun rights” guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the US constitution. I like to say there’s no such thing as gun rights because guns don’t have rights, people do. And that’s not just me being professorial, it’s a fundamental point. You have to look at the entire framework in which the Second Amendment is embedded. It is part of a Constitution premised upon the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and none of us experiences those rights if we’re shot or terrorized by gun violence.
I can feel an eye twitch coming on when I read that quote from Sadat because of the underlying assumptions and the viewpoint that is so one-sided and fundamentally skewed. Sadat also goes on to say that pro-2A people in the U.S. aren’t looking “at international human rights law” when it comes to firearms. As if non-U.S. laws are relevant to the issue of laws in the U.S. that are in the U.S. Constitution (which supersedes any other laws on U.S. territory).
You’ll notice that Sadat, like typical ignorant anti-2A advocates, only looks at this issue from the viewpoint of unarmed people attacked by criminals. She doesn’t address defensive use of guns which are typically woefully unreported but with reported numbers that are vastly higher than violent crime numbers. So, you have to ask: Is Sadat unwilling to allow people to protect themselves from violence? She’s only looking at a portion of the issue, and she’s looking at it without the real-world contexts of defensive gun use, of criminals not obeying laws anyway (that’s what makes them criminals, by definition), and of the need for the government to remember who is in charge in the U.S.: the people (which was the purpose of the Second Amendment in the first place).
Sadly, Sadat isn’t untypical of law professors in the U.S., though, and she is promoting a fundamentally flawed analysis of what a right is and of the purpose and use of the Second Amendment.
The pathetic state of legal education in the U.S. isn’t the entire cause of the fight over the Second Amendment in the U.S, but it is one of the biggest hurdles.
This is why you need to teach your children about the legal basis for gun rights. They’re pretty unlikely to get that information in school.
The Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, does not tell the PEOPLE what they can or cannot do, it’s tell the GOVERNMENT what it can, and cannot do!
THANKS SCOTTY NOW IF WE CAN GET THE MORONS IN THE WHITE HOUSE TO UNDERSTAND THIS !
They understand it perfectly well. They just don’t care. They realize that an armed society can not be browbeaten into submission.
HOW TRUE !!! The Founding Fathers thought that Government was a NECESSARY EVIL rules to limit it hence the US CONSTITUTION …
Thanks for expounding on a FUNDAMENTAL aspect of the Bill of Rights. Those Rights protected are Natural, or GOD-given rights, not any doled out by government. They preexisted the Constitution and even the nation.
When it comes to the 2nd Amendment, I believe SCOTUS Justice Joseph Story, appointed by Pres. Madison, provided one of the best defenses of it. He stated that;
“The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons, who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers. It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enormous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. THE RIGHT OF THE CITIZENS TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS HAS JUSTLY BEEN CONSIDERED, AS THE PALLADIUM OF THE LIBERTIES OF THE REPUBLIC (EMPHASIS MIINE); since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them. And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations. How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.”
To put it succinctly, Justice Story made it clear that without the 2nd Amendment there’d be no other means by which citizens could protect the rest of the Bill of Rights against a tyrannical government. When it comes to a power-hungry behemoth, is this not what it fears?
This pathetic excuse of a professor should be asked a few very elementary questions, ones even undergraduate political science students should be able to answer, or used to be able to do so once upon a time. What constitutes the primary law of the USA? Is its meaning malleable? What can be done if one disagrees with its provisions? But I dare say that I surmise she’d have neither the integrity nor cojones to answer such “difficult” and “politically incorrect” questions.
By the way, it’s Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution which ENUMERATES its authority and powers. Sadly, by abusing, confusing, misusing, and discombobulating the Preamble, Proper and Necessary, Commerce, and Sovereignty Clauses the federal government has expanded to something the Founders and Framers would neither recognize nor support. As a matter of fact, it was their concerns over such that the Declaration of Independence was written.
Again, my thanks for your all so important statement.
AMEN Brother! I do not believe that this idiot named PROFESSOR LEILA SADAT. has even read the US Constitution as her statement is total something blown out her ass and I would say that to her face!
To use her same logic about guns not having rights i would like to see these two words re-arranged. Gun violence! It isn’t the gun that is violent but the person. Let’s clean that up and call it what is is. People violence!!!
bingo!
Unfair! That’s too logical. 😉
That is such a key point. Another one is that I do have the right to self-defense by any means I deem necessary to protect those under my care and others who may not be able to do so. Just because there are people willing to relinquish their rights and trust others to do it for themselves, doesn’t mean I have to give up mine.
sadat ought to go back to grammar school ,and maybe hit a few dozen civics classes ,more ask the experts BS .should think with her brain ,instead her nether regions
Here’s something for you to do. Go read the Preamble to the Constitution, paying particular attention to the last part, “….do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America”. Got it? Now go get the definitions for the words “ordain” and “establish”…. Just for grins, start with looking up Google, our good old liberal friend, , on your iphone. Aside from a short mention related to the making of a priest or minister, you’ll see some very direct, and to-the-point definitions, none of which look like suggestions. Now go to any, repeat any, dictionary, and look up those same definitions Clear, and no question as to what the Founders meant. Last thought – – -Since the Constitution is referred to as the highest law of the land, that makes the Constitution FEDERAL LAW. (in which case, violating the Constitution would be a federal crime, wouldn’t it?
Ask what the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment was: Citizen protection against but not limited to protection from an ABUSE GOVERNMENT! Follow that with the question “Who fears an armed population the most”?
Criminals or those whose agenda is total control of the people they are supposed to represent?
Ask what the real purpose of the 2nd Amendment was: Citizen protection against but not limited to protection from an ABUSIVE GOVERNMENT! Follow that with the question “Who fears an armed population the most”?
Criminals or those whose agenda is total control of the people they are supposed to represent?
“.. IT IS PART OF A CONSTITUTION PREMISED UPON THE RIGHT TO LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS, AND NONE OF US EXPERIENCES THOSE RIGHTS IF WE’RE SHOT OR TERRORIZED BY GUN VIOLENCE.” Isn’t that a defense of the right to bear arms, not an argument against it? The right to bear arms is the right to possess the means to defend against being terrorized or shot. Bear in mind that “terrorized” is not limited to an assault with a gun. In a recent case at least one of four victims fought off a knife wielding assailant with a knife. And she was without a gun. Motor vehicles, too, have recently been used as weapons.
I am so tired of those professionals that think they know better than the Constitution and the rights of Americans. go away law trolls.
They’re UNPROFESSIONAL professionals.
I do not doubt that the lawyers are spouting the correct response according to the indoctrination they have experienced. They do not take into consideration that the supreme court has ruled numerous times that law enforcement has no duty to protect the lives and property of citizens. Who then will provide defense against marauders, rioters, criminals, or any other sort of thug who seeks to take life and property or render the helpless into slavery? The right to keep and bear arms makes everyone equal.
Thus the Second Amendment.
Why The Gun Is Civilization by Marko Klooz
Calling the gun violent is like saying that Cain didn’t kill Able, the ROCK did.
People kill people, if they don’t have a gun, then some use their SUV, are we going to outlaw SUV’s, hammers, knives, and oh yes, ROCKS?
bonjour….merci…..
i to as a kid, was taught the basics of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in fact to Graduate High School…
Knowing the Constitution and Bill of Rights made you an informed Citizen …
What doesn’t she under stand about the 2nd. Amendment, its written in plain english ( granted some words are outdated ) and punctuated …
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
Take Militia, ( the people of an area ) ( comma is a pause ) …
Then being necessary to the security of a free State, ( the people are the last line of defence ) ( pause AGAIN ) …
Then the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, ( keep: purchase and own ) ( bear: carry or have available ) ( arms: any weapon ) ( pause AGAIN ) ….
Then the big part shall not be infringed. ( NO LAWS AGAINST IT ) …
Put another way, the first part of the 2nd Amendment is a PREFRACORY CLAUSE; a clause meant to explain the reason for the rest of the Amendment.
In other words, the right of the people to bear arms (including automatic weapons, cannons, and ships) is to establish militias (not State Guards) in order to insure a free state (not particularly hunting, sport, or against common criminals) from government tyranny
Thanks.
And this is what we have teaching (indoctrinating) our children.
We had better get this shit stopped NOW!! And do it by whatever means it takes.
Methinks Shakespeare’s character, Dick the Butcher, in the play Henry VI, had the right idea.
My brother, being a lawyer, prosecutor, and a judge, wasn’t fond of that. 😉
This BRAINLESS law professor is just another “USEFUL IDIOT” to be employed by the potential tyrants now ensconced in our institutions (government, educational. law enforcement, legal, etc.) to force THE PEOPLE, who are REALLY in charge of this REPUBLIC into a position of subservience (by use of force or creation of dependence or implementation of fear0 so that THEY MAY BE RULED BY A TYRANT !
Fortunately, tyrants have NEVER been successful in history, even with a populace nowhere nearly as well-armed as the U.S,A. It appears that they never learn, and unfortunately for us they may have to be taught again ! It would have been easier for them if they had learned history correctly, the first time, or not been taught a bastardized version by leftist teachers !
I’ll bet she has no issue with the phrase “gun violence” when anyone with an IQ above 10 knows inanimate objects can’t be violent or non-violent, only people can.
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