When it comes to Hillary Clinton and the Second Amendment, be very afraid

Cover 4Warning! Warning! Warning! Okay, two warnings really. The first warning is that Hillary is out to get your guns. The second warning is that I’m going to use this post to shill my collection of essays, Our Second Amendment Rights In Ten Essays. I consider the second item something of an antidote to the first.

The other day, Hillary appeared on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, who is a dedicated Hillary water carrier. Despite his lobbing softballs at her about her stand on gun rights, Hillary got tangled in the weeds of her own words, veering behind incoherence and scariness. What she wanted to say was “You have no gun rights.” Knowing, though, that this wouldn’t for a large number of Americans, she vomited up this mess of words:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s talk about the Second Amendment. As you know, Donald Trump has also been out on the stump, talking about the Second Amendment, saying you want to abolish the Second Amendment.

I know you reject that. But I — but I want to ask you a specific question.

Do you believe that an individual’s right to bear arms is a constitutional right, that it’s not linked to service in a militia?

CLINTON: I think that for most of our history, there was a nuanced reading of the Second Amendment until the decision by the late Justice Scalia and there was no argument until then that localities and states and the federal government had a right, as we do with every amendment, to impose reasonable regulation.

So I believe we can have common sense gun safety measures consistent with the Second Amendment, and, in fact, what I have proposed is supported by 90 percent of the American people and more than 75 percent of responsible gun owners.

So that is exactly what I think is constitutionally permissible.

And once again, you have Donald Trump just making outright fabrications, accusing me of something that is absolutely untrue.

But I’m going to continue to speak out for comprehensive background checks, closing the gun show loopholes, closing the online loophole, closing the so-called Charleston loophole, reversing the bill that Senator Sanders voted for and I voted against, giving immunity from liability to gun makers and sellers. I think all of that can and should be done and it is, in my view, consistent with the “Constitution.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: And the “Heller” decision also does say there can be some restrictions.

But that’s what I asked.

I said do you believe that their conclusion that an individual’s right to bear arms is a constitutional right?

CLINTON: If it is a constitutional right, then it, like every other constitutional right, is subject to reasonable regulation. And what people have done with that decision is to take it as far as they possibly can and reject what has been our history from the very beginning of the republic, where some of the earliest laws that were passed were about firearms.

So I think it’s important to recognize that reasonable people can say, as I do, responsible gun owners have a right — I have no objection to that. But the rest of the American public has a right to require certain kinds of regularity, responsible actions to protect everyone else.

Who knew you could get dizzy, indeed positively motion sick, from reading an interview transcript? (I just have to say Hillary’s fussy, busy, ineffective approach to these easy questions reminded me strongly of the German Shepherd in this classic video; Trump, of course, would have been the Golden Retriever.)

Pushing aside the endless incoherent chaff in Hillary’s answers, let’s get to her few substantive points:

I think that for most of our history, there was a nuanced reading of the Second Amendment until the decision by the late Justice Scalia and there was no argument until then that localities and states and the federal government had a right, as we do with every amendment, to impose reasonable regulation.

[snip]

But I’m going to continue to speak out for comprehensive background checks, closing the gun show loopholes, closing the online loophole, closing the so-called Charleston loophole, reversing the bill that Senator Sanders voted for and I voted against, giving immunity from liability to gun makers and sellers. I think all of that can and should be done and it is, in my view, consistent with the “Constitution.”

[snip]

STEPHANOPOLOUS: I said do you believe that their conclusion that an individual’s right to bear arms is a constitutional right?

HILLARY: If it is a constitutional right, then it, like every other constitutional right, is subject to reasonable regulation. And what people have done with that decision is to take it as far as they possibly can and reject what has been our history from the very beginning of the republic, where some of the earliest laws that were passed were about firearms.

Let’s put that into English: According to Hillary, America always clamped down tightly onto people’s access to guns. This changed only recently when the Supreme Court discovered some magical, theoretically constitutional right that individuals can bear arms. This terrible decision, which found some sort of theoretical constitutional right to bear arms that Hillary even doubt exists (“If it is a constitutional right”), was the nefarious intellectual product of a single Supreme Court justice who just happens to be dead. This means that, if you elect me, I’ll replace him with someone who feels as I do: That there is no individual right to bear arms under the Constitution and, if there is some sort of right, it must bow down to as many government dictates as I decree.

I think I got that right. Hillary is wrong in every respect, of course. The

The Heller decision was a model of perfect constitutional exegesis and proved definitively that there is now and always has been in America an individual right to bear arms. Indeed, one of the insufferable acts King George committed against the colonies was an attempt to restrict the colonists’ access to arms and gunpowder. When states attempted in the early 19th century to restrict citizens’ access to arms, Americans instantly rose up to oppose those laws and did so with

When some states tried in the early 19th century to restrict citizens’ access to arms, Americans instantly rose up to oppose those laws and did so with fury. Although there were some court decisions holding that the Second Amendment was a collectively right, there were few controls in America — other than those trying to keep guns out of blacks’ hands, laws that were common in the Democrat South. It was only after John Kennedy’s assassination (by a Communist with a high-powered rifle), Robert Kennedy’s assassination (by a Palestinian activist), Malcolm X’s assassination (by Nation of Islam soldiers), and Martin Luther King’s assassination (by a petty criminal and white supremacist) that the United States starting drafting one gun law after another, a trend that got a boost after the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan (by a deranged obsessive).

Hillary’s also wrong about the burden placed on the government when it attempts to limit one of the rights included in the Bill of Rights. Despite being a lawyer, Hillary truly lacks the mental equipment to understand inherent rights. Hillary’s worldview is blinkered. For her, as for Mussolini, “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.” The idea that rights can adhere to the people naturally, and that the state must beg, plead, and above all prove extraordinary good cause to limit those rights simply doesn’t enter her mental universe.

But I’m going to stop here. If you’d like more of my insights into the Second Amendment’s incredible importance and the fallacies underlying all of the gun grabbers’ arguments, I urge (suggest? beg? plead? whine and cry?) that you buy my short, informative ebook, Our Second Amendment Rights In Ten Essays, priced at an affordable 99 cents (which is the lowest price Amazon allows).  So far, I’ve earned in the low two digits on sales from my book.  I’d like to earn more but, more importantly, I’m arrogant enough to believe that the ideas expressed are worth reading and I’d love for more people to become conversant with the facts and arguments in the book.