ACLU & 2nd Amend

G

Gunfounder

New member
Just received the following letter from the Detroit Office of the ACLU in response to my request for assistance regarding a constitutional matter. The letter is dated July 1, 1999, I received it on July 10, 1999. The letter had obviously been opened and resealed with scotch tape. First I have a couple of questions since I live less than 100 miles from Detroit why did it take 10 days to arrive, secondly, who is reading the mail while in possession of the USPS. That having been said here is the letter, it is a canned letter with the date and my name hand written.

July 1, 1999

Dear. J. McKenney,

Thank you for contacting the American Civil Liberties Union regarding the Second Amendment. The ACLU has often been criticized for ignoring the Second Amendment and refusing to fight for the individual's right to own a gun or other weapons. This issue, however, has not been ignored by the ACLU. The national board has in fact debated and discussed the civil liberties aspect of the Second Amendment many times.

We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias in order to assure their own freedom and security against the central government. In today's world that purpose is somewhat anachronistic and in any case would require weapons much more powerful than handguns or hunting rifles. The ACLU therefore believes that the Second Amendment does not confer an unlimited right upon individuals to own guns or other weapons nor does it prohibit reasonable regulation of gun ownership, such as licensing and registration
Thank you again for contacting the ACLU to express you concerns.

Sincerely,

Sarah Burns
&
Emily Fleury
_____________________________________________

Sounds to me like the national board in their closed debates have determined that the constitution is only to be upheld when it suits their purpose. To apply the Second Amendments rights as a collective right reserved for the state militias seems a bit strange coming from such scholarly individuals. Apparently, the ACLU doesn't understand that the state militia is the people, those capable of serving on juries, taking up arms to defend the state and themselves. Nor; Do they seem to understand that what they regard as a militia (national guard) is subject to federal activation at the discretion of the President and congress.
This then places the state militia under the control of the "Central Government" that their interpretation of a collective right is supposed to defend against.

I guess what they mean by "In today's world that purpose is somewhat anachronistic and in any case would require weapons much more powerful than handguns or hunting rifles." To me this indicates the ACLU must be in favor of private ownership of them things that make you glow in the dark for they are certainly collective and non-discrimnatory.
You can be resassured that I am not and have never been a fan of the ACLU, but any port in a storm seemed to have application in this particular instance.

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John L. McKenney
 
That's right. ACLU's official "policy" has been for some time "no individual right to KBA". They are extraordinary hypocrites of the worst kind. They are selective libertarians. They know they are losing money from the true freedom crowd (gun owners) but I speculate that ACLU figures if they embraced the second, they would lose a lot of contributions/support from establishment & academia liberal types, who all want to love everyone. They strongly believe in defending the right to fund "Piss Christ" with taxpayer money, but don't believe anyone has the right to kill another human in self-defense under any circumstances.
 
It's also interesting how every amendment refers to individual rights in their eyes Except the second amendment.

How convenient.
 
What's the saying? Something along the lines of... "If liberals read the Second Ammendment like they read the rest of the constitution, gun ownership would be mandatory." I kinda like that one.
 
just had an idea, if nobody objects when this posting gets enough comments I will print it and send along with my reply to them. Let me know if you object.
 
Gunfounder...

Do a search here on this topic, as it has been discussed before and has many more "comments" ;).

It should also be noted that the States don't really have individual militias (by the modern definition)...the National Guard is annexed to the Feds, another clear Constitutional violation. Thus...the ACLU supports an interpretation that in itself is corrupted by the unconstitutional actions of the Federal government

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"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes"
 
It reminds me of the movie "american president" where the president is talking about how he is a member of the ACLU "A organization devoted to upholding the constitution" then the next thing he says is " we need to ban assault rifles and handguns"

HELLO!!!!!!! You mean uphold most of the constitution!

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"We should definitely get you out this month." - Bushmaster Customer Service 06/04/99

I still have not recieved my order!
 
Gunfounder,

I didn't, for a minute, mean to suggest that I believed any of that, I just thought it was pretty funny. The Onion is much more fun than real life. Real life gets depressing. :)
 
When I was little I attended church regularly. One member of our congregation was a rather overwhelming widow in her sixties.

Well educated, well-versed in the Bible, she took it upon herself to "correct" and "educate" any other member of the congregation who could not escape her "assistance".

We got a new preacher - a young man who was very pleasant, very helpful, and very easy to talk with. The widow lady took to going to his house during the week to discuss the Bible. She had to "straigten him out" on some things in the Bible that just couldn't be true and to explain to the young preacher "what really was meant".

Finally, after a couple years, the preacher presented the widow with a beautifil Bible. But it looked thin. She opened it up and page after page had parts cut out of it! And some pages were completely missing!

The widow was startled and began to complain loudly that some heathen had desecrated the Bible and cut it all up.

The young preacher smiled and quietly explained, "We've been talking together for about two years. Every time you told me about a portion of the bible that did not apply to us or just could not be true, I cut that area out of this Bible. I thought you should see how little you actually believe."
-------

I believe our Constitution and Bill of Rights is similar to the Bible in that story. You either believe these are the rules for our government - or you don't.

As one TFLer put it, "It's a package deal." It's not a smorgasboard where you can pick and choose the parts you like and disregard the rest.

By picking and choosing what it believes in, the ACLU has proven itself to be a hypocrite. The same as the old widow.
 
One thing the ACLU and most liberals/socialist seem to have forgotten. The Constitution does not confer any rights on we, the American citizens. As a document, it confers certain rights on the government to regulate certain activities. On the whole, its purpose is to limit the government only to certain areas of our lives and is supposed to keep them out of all others. The limitations of the Bill of Rights don't apply to we the people, they apply to the government, whether it be federal, state, or local. The 2nd Amendment never purported to give us the right to bear arms, we have that by nature. It specifically prevents a government from hindering our right to bear arms. How far we have strayed.

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Dorsai
Personal weapons are what raised mankind out of the mud, and the rifle is the queen of personal weapons. The possession of a good rifle, as well as the skill to use it well, truly makes a man the monarch of all he surveys.
-- Jeff Cooper, The Art of the Rifle
 
If the second amendment is a collective right intended for the states, why does it say "the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms"? The use of the word people in all the other amendments refers to individuals. I don't understand the ACLU...

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Join the NRA!!!
 
IMO the ACLU's "collective" interpretation of the Second Amendment is nothing but a smokescreen. Leftist dogma, not constitutional law, is the basis for the ACLU's excluding the RKBA from the civil liberties it defends. That is, the ACLU needs to hide behind a smokescreen, because it has to mask this glaring exception to the no-exceptions rule it affects for the defense of civil liberty.

Once we accept that the ACLU is politically biased, its selectivity is easier to understand, but is no less an outrage.

My $0.02.
 
The ACLU is an amazingly hypocritical organization. They sued a small town in Kansas to remove the 10 commandments from the lawn in front of the City Hall, but they don't seem to mind that those same 10 commandments are engraved in stone above the Supreme Court.

HMMMMM, can you say cowardly peice of sh*$?
 
Okay. So I'm getting "old-timer's" disease.

What was the issue a couple years ago where the NRA and ACLU actually stood together on the same side?
 
The ACLU agenda is un-American. Left to go to it's logical conclusion would leave us with a society no one wants to live in.

The best thing you can do is help destroy the organization. Speak bad about it at every turn, expose them for what they are. "closet socialists" and homosexuals who think you should not spank your children, tech God or religion to same, keep the government in control over all aspects of your life and a group out to destroy normal social values and morality. Even if they did support the second amendment I wouldn't support them....not even if my life depended on it. They are part of what is wrong with America today and are part and parcel responsible for its slide into moral and social decay. I really HATE the bastards. Yes, I said HATE. I wish I could think of a stronger word to describe it.
 
I was disgusted when I read the ACLU's position as well. I got even more mad when I read some material in which they ridiculed Florida for passing a law "allowing" people to shoot car jackers in self-defense.

I think the ACLU does some good things, but it's obvious their view of the consitution is selective, and they get WAY out of hand on some issues. The most recent one I recall was that, I think, they were suing a school for renting their auditorium to a church on weekends...I do believe the government should be neutral in religious matters, but that's crossing the line to being hostile.
 
The Anti Christian Libertys Union.........these guys,90% of the time,fight for everything thats wrong with America. If they had their way,there would be no churches,no freedom to worship,no religious expression ANYWHERE. This organization is of the Devil and I have no qualms about saying that one bit............stay away from them and fight them when ya can............
 
If you want to learn about the real history of the right to keep and bear arms, try 'That Every Man be Armed' by Stephen Halbrook. I'm sure the ACLU lawyers have never considered the true history of the concept, including the context of the 2nd Amendment.
 
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