Danny Glover said WHAT???

Actor Danny Glover was invited to speak at Texas A&M. During his speech, he made some odd statements about a few different subjects. But the topic of the day seems to be about gun control lately, so Mr. Glover weighed in with the following:

 "I don’t know if you know the genesis of the right to bear arms,” he said. “The Second Amendment comes from the right to protect themselves from slave revolts, and from uprisings by Native Americans.”

“A revolt from people who were stolen from their land or revolt from people whose land was stolen from, that’s what the genesis of the second amendment is,”  

When I hear statements that seem outrageous, I start looking for sources. How did this person come up with that idea? So I started looking to see where Glover could possibly come up with this notion, after all, he doesn't just sit there and dream these things up himself does he?

To look for the "genesis", I thought it wise to look at the federalist papers. Federal Judges use the Federalist papers as a way to understand the intention of the framers of the Constitution. So that seems reasonable to go to the federalist papers.

In No. 28, the writer say that when a government amasses too much power and becomes tyrannical, the people have the right to self defense by fighting the tyrannical government.

No. 29 says that an armed citizenry is the best and only real defense against a standing army becoming large and oppressive.

No. 46 says that the ultimate authority resides in the people and that if the government got too powerful and overstepped it's authority, the people would develope plans and resort to arms.

It becomes clear that the "genesis" was not about protecting themselves from slave revolts, but rather about an oppressive government. Remember, those that wrote the Constitution had just fought and won for  themselves freedom from one tyrannical government,

But what about slavery? Many from the south, fought against those in the north that wanted to eliminate slavery at the time of the Declaration of Independence. Slavery could have held us back from independence because of the southerners, even at the time of the revolution. So while we can claim that we gained independence, independence was not all inclusive in our Declaration because the slaves were left out. They were not considered people by enough of the Continental Congress. They were considered property. Since they weren't considered people, they were not considered citizens.

Property does not own nor possess firearms. I can't think of one person that goes out to buy a weapon for their plow horse to defend itself and unfortunately, the slaves were similar in stature to plow horses in those days.

The idea of slavery has always been a problem for this country. While the founding fathers had to give in and keep slavery to achieve the Declaration of Independence, and the slaves were considered property and not citizens, they contradict their own statements when they armed some of the slaves to fight in the revolution and granted them their freedom after a specified term of service.

Glover has it all wrong. The second amendment was about protecting from a tyrannical government. Any government can become tyrannical at some point.

If I take this a step further, why is Glover in favor of gun control? Imagine if the slaves were allowed to own guns from the time they first came here. Even if they were still slaves, eventually they would have taken arms up against the tyrannical government that held them in the bonds of slavery. Yes, even our founding fathers were tyrannical to a point because they allowed for slaves to remain slaves so that non slaves could attain their freedom.

After the success of the Colonies against King George, wouldn't the slaves then turn around and fight for the same independence from slavery against our new government had they been armed? Slavery could very well have been ended 82 years earlier than it was.

The second amendment was not about slavery. It was and is about the people protecting themselves from a tyrannical government. Danny Glover could make a case that George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were tyrannical over the slaves, despite that all three were in favor of freeing slaves.

Glovers own argument, false as it is, should have him in favor of the second amendment, not creating falsehoods to justify President Obama and the others in government trying to confiscate guns.

You're welcome to comment.


Brett

Protect Yourself you Racist

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security”

The above quote comes from the Declaration of Independence. Now before anyone start screaming that I’m looking to overthrow the government and that we should have a second revolution, let me clear this up immediately. I’m not!

However, if our declaration says that it’s not only our right, but our DUTY, isn’t it also our Duty to fight back against the actions taken by government (even the best government on the planet) to protect ourselves from having to go to the extreme of a second revolution by standing up and raging against actions taken by the government that can be a step towards taking away freedoms?

I think of the recent “fiscal cliff” talk and subsequent signing. The White House and both Houses of Congress co-opted the term fiscal cliff from its original meaning. The original meaning had to do with the destructive path we’re on financially in this country over the coming months and years. Massive debt. Massive deficits. They changed it to mean the increased taxes, and huge reduction in spending that they didn’t want.

Another action is the recent gun control talk. They want to enact legislation that prevents you from being able to shoot more than ten rounds without reloading. Their reasoning that they state? The kid that shot up the school kids in Connecticut. But what nobody seems to want to talk about is that Adam Lanza, the shooter, didn’t use that weapon. He left that in the backseat of the car. Yet Senator Diane Feinstein (D) California, is pushing that the weapon not used be illegal because it was there in the neighborhood during the shooting. As though the weapon had some sort of mind control over the shooter from the back seat while the shooter was in the school taking aim with two guns that are not talked about being banned.

There is a reason that we have the freedom to have guns in this country. We were under tyranny at one time. Not us individually, but us as a country. I know, there is nobody left alive from that time. After all, it was 238 years ago that the first shot of the war was fired. But who says we can’t get a tyrannical government again?

I’ve heard the questions on some talk radio programs asking “why do you need a gun that shoots that many times in such a short time?”  When some come back and say because we need to protect ourselves from the government, the talk show hosts (some) then turn it around and say it’s a racist mentality because sales set records in 2008 and again in 2012 both times after Obama was elected.

It’s not racism. It’s because it is well known that Obama is a Democrat and Democrats have for years had as part of their agenda, ‘gun control’. We didn’t have record sales of guns in 2000 and 2004 because George W. Bush was not in favor of gun control. Why would people be worried about a guy that believes as they do?

Why the gun with the ability to shoot many rounds without reloading? Because the government has those weapons. If people are buying guns to defend themselves against a tyrannical government, wouldn’t it make sense to have the same arms they have? If you’re really worried about the government attacking you it would be silly to arm yourselves with spitballs when the enemy has nuclear weapons.

We have corruption in government. We have a government that looks out for themselves first and the people they are elected to represent second. To think that can’t get worse is to be foolish.

We have Congresspeople that actually stand up and say that this is a great Congress because it’s the most diverse we’ve ever had. Diversity doesn’t make good government. This was stated before the 113^th Congress was even sworn in.  Another Senator says that the record number of women will cause the negotiations to be less confrontational. She said “less testosterone. Are you kidding me? If they are going to talk about less testosterone, would I be wrong in saying we had less PMS with more men in the Senate? Both thoughts are not just ridiculous, but outrageous.

I think a good House and Senate would be one that represents the people and is not self serving and probably one that passes less laws. The adults aren’t in Washington DC. They are in the fifty states. They are the people. Those people need to be able to fight back against the possibility of tyranny coming from the more and less diversified elected leadership.

You’re welcome to comment.

Brett