Senator Feinstein's views on the matter.

G

Glock 31

New member
I recently wrote an email to Mrs. Feinstein's California website using my old navy address so it would appear as though I was a californian thus ensuring she would respond to 'one of her own'. I addressed my thoughts on the second and wanted to know just what it was 'exactly' she was trying to do to everyday law abiding citizens who carry firearms for the defense of their lives. Now I am very unfamiliar with specific case laws and outcomes so i'm not sure I understand all of it, but I think her opinion is that the national guard are the only ones covered under the second amendment. This is what I recieved in reply. Your thoughts on her response.:cool:

"Thank you for writing to me about the Second Amendment.
I have spent a great deal of time working with this issue and would
like to share my thoughts and analyses.

The National Rifle Association would like people to
believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution gives
every individual the right to own any kind of weapon, no matter
how powerful or deadly, and that the government has no right to
regulate in this area. However, the record is clear: the Supreme
Court has never struck down a single gun control law on Second
Amendment grounds. I feel strongly about correcting what I call
Athe Second Amendment Myth,@ so let me go through some facts
regarding this debate.

The Second Amendment says: 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.

The National Rifle Association (NRA) rarely mentions the
words Awell-regulated militia@. In fact, most of their literature
shortens the clause so that the amendment simply reads A... the
right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.@
Clearly, the NRA is leaving out half the story B the story of a time
when our Founding Fathers wanted to ensure that individual States
would be able to protect themselves from a tyrannical Federal
government by arming well-regulated State militias B in other
words, today=s National Guards.

The meaning of the Second Amendment has been
well-settled for more than 60 years B ever since the 1939 U.S.
Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Miller. In that case, the
defendant was charged with transporting an unregistered sawed-off
shotgun across state lines. The Court held that the Aobvious
purpose@ of the Second Amendment was Ato assure the
continuation and render possible the effectiveness@ of the state
militia. Because a sawed-off shotgun was not a weapon that would
be used by a state militia (like the National Guard), the Second
Amendment was not applicable to that case, said the Court.

All told, the Supreme Court has only chosen to address this
issue two more times after the Miller case. And each time, the
verdict was clear B the Second Amendment is not a bar to gun
control laws. In 1969, in Burton v. Sills, the Supreme Court
dismissed a challenge to New Jersey=s strict gun control law, Afor
want of a substantial federal question.@ Then, in the 1980 case of
Lewis v. United States, the Supreme Court held that AThese
legislative restrictions on the use of firearms are neither based
upon constitutionally suspect criteria, nor do they trench upon any
constitutionally protected liberties.@ And the Court continued that
Athe Second Amendment guarantees no right to keep and bear a
firearm that does not have >some reasonable relationship to the
preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia.=@

In the early 1980s, the Supreme Court had another
opportunity to address this issue, but simply ruled to leave the
established precedent in place, rather than take up the Second
Amendment argument. Furthermore, at least twice -- in 1965 and
1990 -- the Supreme Court has held that the term Awell-regulated
militia@ refers to the National Guard.

And the history is clear through countless cases in the
lower federal District Courts and Courts of Appeal as well. Let me
just cite a few recent examples. In 1999, in the case of Gillespie v.
City of Indianapolis, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals held
that there is no individual right to bear arms.

Also in 1999, the Ninth Circuit even more specifically
addressed the Amilitia@ question, clarifying that only a State militia,
not a private militia, is covered by the Second Amendment.

In the 1998 case of Peoples Rights Organization v.
Columbus, the Sixth Circuit refused to overturn an ordinance
banning assault weapons on Second Amendment grounds.

In U.S. v. Scanio, also in 1998, the Second Circuit held that
the Second Amendment provided only a collective right to bear
arms for States in organizing militias, and not an individual right.

The Third Circuit held in the 1996 U.S. v. Rybar case that
the defendant=s possession of machine guns was not connected
with militia-related activity and that the Second Amendment
furnished no absolute right to firearms.

The list of cases goes on and on B dozens of instances in
Federal Courts of Appeal around the country, and countless others
in the lower Federal District courts.

Perhaps this history is what led former Supreme Court
Chief Justice Warren Burger in 1991 to refer to the Second
Amendment as Athe subject of one of the greatest pieces of fraud, I
repeat the word >fraud,= on the American public by special interest
groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime...[the NRA] ha(s)
misled the American people and they, I regret to say, they have had
far too much influence on the Congress of the United States than as
a citizen I would like to see -- and I am a gun man.@ This was
Warren Burger B a Nixon appointee to the Court.

Burger also wrote, AThe very language of the Second
Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee
every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon...urely
the Second Amendment does not remotely guarantee every person
the constitutional right to have a >Saturday Night Special= or a
machine gun without any regulation whatever. There is no support
in the Constitution for the argument that federal and state
governments are powerless to regulate the purchase of such
firearms...@

And the NRA is clearly aware of this history. Despite all
of the NRA=s rhetoric and posturing on this issue, they know that
the Second Amendment does nothing whatsoever to limit
reasonable gun control measures. In fact, in its legal challenges to
federal firearms laws like the Brady Law and my Assault Weapons
Ban, the National Rifle Association has made no mention of the
Second Amendment.

Nonetheless, many on the other side of this issue may point
to the one, single, lone exception to the long history of Second
Amendment jurisprudence.
On March 30, 1999, a United States District Judge in Texas struck
down a federal law making it a felony to possess a firearm while
under a domestic restraining order. In the Texas case, a man in the
midst of a divorce proceeding was accused of threatening to kill
his wife=s lover. Although put under a restraining order and
therefore barred from possessing a firearm under federal law, the
man was subsequently caught with a gun and indicted for violating
the ban. U.S. District Court Judge Sam Cummings dismissed the
indictment, in part because the federal law, he said, had the effect
of Acriminalizing@ a Alaw-abiding citizen=s Second Amendment
rights.@

This was the first time such a decision was made by a
federal judge, but it is important to note that this decision has been
appealed. There is absolutely no reason to believe that the
Supreme Court, if the case reaches that level, would uphold this
decision. Since that 1999 decision, two federal courts, including a
higher Circuit court, have ruled that the Second Amendment does
not guarantee an individual right to keep and bear arms.

Once again, thank you for writing me with your concerns.
I have given a
great deal of thought to this issue and so I hope this letter serves to
clear up my position on this issue.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

P.S. How's this for covert intelligence on the enemy?:D
 
OK, so americans should not have the right to own guns because for the last 65 years, the courts have been ani-gun?
The very language of the Second
Amendment refutes any argument that it was intended to guarantee
every citizen an unfettered right to any kind of weapon...urely
the Second Amendment does not remotely guarantee every person
the constitutional right to have a >Saturday Night Special= or a
machine gun without any regulation whatever. There is no support
in the Constitution for the argument that federal and state
governments are powerless to regulate the purchase of such
firearms...@
Click to expand...

Except for that irrelivant little snippet about "shall not be infringed." Sounds like somebody needs to rush up their reading comprehention skills. :rolleyes:
 
My god, that woman is abhorrently misinformed! (Either that, or she is an unrepentant liar.)

For starters, she says, "The National Rifle Association would like people to
believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution gives
every individual the right to own any kind of weapon, no matter
how powerful or deadly..."


No properly informed person would speak of the Bill of Rights "GIVING" anyone anything. This moron does not even know how to properly phrase her lies! Anyone who is educated about the issue of constitutional rights knows that the BOR guarantees rights that are understood to have existed and been ours prior to their enumeration.

Then she talks about so-called "Saturday night specials" as though they're particularly deadly. :rolleyes:

I notice that she did not go anywhere toward explaining what she wants to do about guns/gun rights. She DARE NOT. We all know that she wants an unequivocal BAN on as many kinds of guns as possible, and hopes dearly for a TOTAL BAN on civilian gun ownership. (Except for the government elite, of course. :barf: )


-azurefly
 
At least she wrote back. I mailed seven letters to CA state assembly members in support of repealing the CA AWB back in May. The assembly members were on a committee where the bill was being looked at and were considerably anti-2A. I never heard anything from them. I pay CA taxes because I am military and that is where I joined, so they should have had the common courtesy to at least send me a form letter, but I never got any kind of reply. Makes me glad I help pay their salary. :mad:
 
I'm sure that is a paste from a word document that she had some aide write...

She would not take the time to write all of that herself...


She's way too busy polluting other issues


.
 
Well regulated in the 1700's had a completely different meaning than it does today.Unless shes a complete and stupid idiot,Feinswine knows this.Unfortunately she is a complete and stupid idiot.:mad:
 
Master Blaster - Her views were forged from the murders of former mayor of San Francisco, George Moscone, and city councilman (and homosexual activist) Harvey Milk by a disaffected former police officer and city council member, Dan White. As I recall, and anyone who remembers better please correct me, White resigned his council seat in a fit of pique. His resignation was accepted by the then mayor, Moscone. White later repudiated his resignation but Moscone would not relent and refused to reinstate White. Milk supported Moscone in the matter as well. White armed himself with his former duty weapon, entered the city offices housing both Moscone and Milk through an underground garage. He confronted Moscone in his office and murdered him in cold blood. Then he calmly walked down the hall to the office of Milk and shot him to death as well.

Feinstein was deputy mayor at the time (or next in line to acceed to the office of mayor should he no longer be able to serve). She rallied the shaken residents of San Francisco and thus began her rise to national prominence. Her entire subsequent career has been built upon doing everything she can to destroy the Second Amendment as we have come to know it and as the Founding Fathers intended it. Her position has been attacked by many including famous liberal Constitutional lawyer and law professor, Lawrence Tribe (Google him to learn more). He opines the Second is indeed an individual and NOT a collective right. Feinstein is simply flat wrong. She has been the leading proponent of civilian disarmament in the United States and continues to be. As a native Californian of almost 60 years and veteran, I regard her as an extreme embarassment at the least and certainly a demagogue at best. An opportunist who would sell out your Constitutional rights for political gain. She has been successful in CA, a virtual one party state.

I think she still has a carry permit and armed security to ensure her safety unlike her constituents.
 
Would some inmate of Cali please ask the good senator what kind of firearm she packs? I'd love to see what kind of taste in firearms she has. :D
 
Probably a highpoint.:barf:

I would post the letter that got a response but unfortunately it was done on a form section of her website and not through yahoo so I didn't get a copy of it. But I can sum it up in that I was very respectfull, in fact I praised her on some of her other endeavors such as funding for cures for diseases. Funding to get more police officers on the job, and some other stuff that I quoted off her own website. But since it WAS from HER website she could just be blowing smoke up her own @$$. I simply stated that I am a gun owning citizen of California, (am a gun owning citizen of California, am a gun approving citizen of an undisclosed state that spent some time IN California, what's the difference right?) and that I wanted to know if she really thought that people like me, (lawabiding good natured people who only want to defend their lives if necessary) should not have the right to carry handguns with applicable documentation. And yadayadayada in so much words justifying my reasons to own guns. I wasn't about to try to convince her of our merits. That's like trying to convince a brick wall it's Rick James. Anyway that's about what I wrote give or take.
 
Note that she does even bother to list crime prevention as part of the reason for gun control, at least she's honest on that point.

It's purely to strip Americans from having the power of armed resistance to her, and the liberal/left's, agenda.
 
For some reason I feel compelled to point out that the Honorable Senator from California has done far more damage to our country than parroting collectivist nonsense about the RKBA. She seems intent upon selling us to China (so her husband, banker Richard Blum can prosper?) and she continues to do so.

Here is her voting record so you can see for yourself. http://feinstein.senate.gov/allvotes.html

PKAY, respectfully I think the views were previously formed by her political relationships; the murders were a good excuse to give them the color of reason.

Waitone it is my understanding she used to carry a S&W .38 but at this late stage she may have switched to something made in the Peoples Republic of China. (The discussion of her weapons choice is a little below the portrait of her waving the AK.)
 
Feinstein's belief system isn't actually a system, much less anything with a moral core like Judaism. It's a mishmash of commie to liberal convictions, sometimes contradictory and always subject to change with the public opinion polls. Above all, it's completely resistant to logical argument.
 
Fineswine certainly deserves the name, no?

Such ignorance in a public official is dangerous to say the least. :mad:
 
You know, they used to lock up people like her and make them wear straight jackets.:( I'd loan her my brain, but I want it in good condition when I get it back.
 
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