TEXANS - What do you know about Alberto R. Gonzales?

[45 Long Colt]

This is from an article in the The Washington Post.:

Behind the scenes, Gonzales clashed frequently with Ashcroft's Justice Department. He felt blindsided when Ashcroft, early in the administration, announced that the department would embrace, for the first time ever, a view of the Second Amendment that regards gun possession as an individual right on a par with freedom of speech or religion.

Actually, I've spent my whole life believing that gun possession was precisely that: an individual right on a par with freedom of speech or religion.

 

[C_Yeager]

announced that the department would embrace, for the first time ever, a view of the Second Amendment that regards gun possession as an individual right on a par with freedom of speech or religion.

THis guys needs to buy a clue. If the second amendment is somehow LESS important than any other right in the BOR then why is it listed with equal prominence? This guy is going to be all sorts of fun.

 

[Danindetroit]

From some snippets I saw on a pro gun site, it has seemed that the debate over guns, and the militia, has been going on since the start of the country.

"The Constitution shall never be construed...to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." - SAMUEL ADAMS, Debates & Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1786-87

"A militia, when properly formed are in fact the people themselves...and include all men capable of bearing arms." - RICHARD HENRY (LIGHT HORSE HARRY) LEE, Additional Letters from the Federal Farmer (1788) at 169.

"A free people ought...to be armed...." - GEORGE WASHINGTON. Speech of January 7, l790 in the Boston Independent Chronicle, January 14, l790

"When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually." - GEORGE MASON - Virginia's U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788

"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" - PATRICK HENRY, 3 Elliot Debates 168-169.

I do not see with info such as this that anyone can say that the right to bear arms was not meant to be an idividual right, and not as the gungrabbers say, only the right of a state, or fed militia. I would think that a lawyer should know this info. It also seems that any type of guns should be included also, as some people maintain that the constitution is static and only the guns available at the time can be kept by individuals. I think that the evolution of firearms from matchlock to flintlock, and other improvements being generally well known the founding fathers had to guess that weapons would improve even more. Another arguement being that with the philosphy of the gun grabber only printed info, and acting seen in person in a play type setting would be the only type of free speech allowed, since radio, tv, etc. were not yet invented. Thank you for reading my rant