The Voldemort Amendment

The new name for the 2nd Amendment – I like it.

This term, the Supreme Court may finally take up the Voldemort Amendment, the part of the Bill of Rights that shall not be named by liberals. For more than 200 years, progressives and polite people have avoided acknowledging that following the rights of free speech, free exercise of religion and free assembly, there is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.”

Now, there are some “progressives” that acknowledge the 2nd Amendment, but I will agree that they are not in the majority. The essay that I’ve linked to in McPaper USA Today is actually an excellent argument for the 2nd Amendment, and I strongly encourage you to go over there and read it.

Principle is a terrible thing, because it demands not what is convenient but what is right. It is hard to read the Second Amendment and not honestly conclude that the Framers intended gun ownership to be an individual right.

Honestly, go read the rest of the entry.  There are few things I enjoy more than reading about how a progressive/liberal/whatever has really seen the light.

7 Comments

  1. I love it when they see the light! Even if all they’ll admit is a dim glow. The most aggravating error in the entire piece to me is,

    “More important, the mere reference to a purpose of the Second Amendment does not alter the fact that an individual right is created.”

    I would expect a law professor to know that the rights specifically listed in the Constitution are enumerated, not created.

  2. At least he was moving in the right direction, GBW… baby steps, baby steps :). At least he was willing to honestly admit that even a cursory reading of the Second Amendment yields the result that it was intended to be an individual right… Funny how more and more people are realizing that.

    I love the new moniker given to the Second Amendment, though. Darned thing just will not die, will it?

  3. I don’t know about other states, but the militia challenge to a regular citizen’s right to bear arms does not hold up in Indiana.

    Article 12 of the Indiana Constitution states:
    “Section 1. A militia shall be provided and shall consist of all persons over the age of seventeen (17) years, except those persons who may be exempted by the laws of the United States or of this state. The militia may be divided into active and inactive classes and consist of such military organizations as may be provided by law.”

  4. It actually shouldn’t hold up on the federal level either; I can’t recall the exact section but federal law has a clear definition of what the “militia” is, and it isn’t the National Guard.

  5. All males between the ages of 17 and 45 years of age and all those who wish to volunteer.

    What with all the civil rights and equal rights amendments it now applies to females and minorities without question.

    You can find it in USC 10.

  6. Well, there was a post on Dave Hardy’s site about a State militia versus National Guardsmen.

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