Obama's gun extremism harms the nation

By A.J. DiCintio

You aren't likely to hear it from the elite media, but one of the most important observations to be made about the current gun debate is that tens of millions of law abiding gun owners and gun-rights-supporting citizens are being demonized as wild-eyed fanatics when the reality is that Barack Obama's gun extremism ought to be in the forefront of the news.

If you're skeptical or downright disbelieving of that assertion, a single Supreme Court case and Obama's connection to it will convince you of its validity.

Let's turn, then, to reviewing the most important aspects of the 5-4 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), in which the Court's majority found DC's blanket handgun ban in violation of the individual right guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

First, there is this matter of fact:

In dissenting against the majority's finding, the Court's four liberal activist justices argued that the Second Amendment confers no individual right to bear arms whatsoever but speaks only of the right of government to establish armed militias.

Here is their position succinctly stated by Justice Breyer:

". . . there is simply no untouchable constitutional right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to keep loaded handguns in the house. . ."

Since June 26, 2008, therefore, the notion of an individual's constitutional right to bear any kind of "Arms" in America has been hanging by the thin thread of a single vote at the Supreme Court.

But the extremism of the liberal justices didn't end with the stunningly ironic pronouncement that uniquely among the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights, the Second speaks not of a right of the people but a power permitted the government.

It continued to a second act of extremism as profound as the first, a reality that becomes apparent upon reading the following claim made by Justice Stevens in his dissenting opinion, with which the Court's three other liberals concurred:

"Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the [Second] Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution."

What an astounding testament to the human capacity for the maddest of extremism and the foulest of hypocrisy it is when justices who argue that the Constitution's words give off "emanations" which create "penumbras" when they seek to justify a right proclaim that America's Founders and Framers never intended "to enshrine" in the Constitution a cardinal principle not just of common-law but Nature's law.

In stark contrast to the dangerous radicalism of the liberals, the following passage from Justice Scalia's majority opinion reveals a respect for the rule of law and deference to common sense which Jeffersonian judges bring to their interpretations of the Constitution, including the Second Amendment:

"We are aware of the problem of handgun violence in this country, and we take seriously the concerns raised by [citizens] who believe that prohibition of handgun ownership is a solution. The Constitution leaves the District of Columbia a variety of tools for combating that problem, including some measures regulating handguns. . . But. . . constitutional rights. . . [rule out] the absolute prohibition of handguns held and used for self-defense in the home."

Now, the truth is that for a number of profound reasons, among which the constitutional issue is but one, a landslide majority of the American public put the ideas advanced by the minority in Heller on the Frighteningly Extreme end of both the Political and Moral bell curves.

Thinking about the president, that majority will come to realize his judicial ideology deserves the same placement; for the fact is Barack Obama has nominated and, unless hell freezes over, will continue to nominate liberal activists brimming with "empathy" for the Supreme Court – liberal activist judges who, history shows, will agree not just with the minority opinion in the Heller case but other radical decisions of the kind that have sent the jaws of a thoroughly shocked and disgusted American public dropping since the fifties.

Moreover, that vast group of citizens will come to understand that should liberal activist justices overturn Heller, Barack Obama – like every other secretly smiling Democratic and hypocritically uncaring Republican president since the fifties – might gurgle a few empty words but certainly not use his bully pulpit to vigorously urge the nation to rise up and demand passage of a constitutional amendment that sets a perverse decision right.

Finally, in such a real-world climate of inquiry, Obama's pre-presidential history is certain to take on a greater significance for that enormous segment of the population, including the following two historical facts for which we should thank a number of sources, including Keith Koffler, whitehousedossier.com.

. . . In 1996, Barack Obama answered "yes" to a survey question asking whether he would support a law to "ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns."

. . . In 2004, State Senator Obama voted against legislation that would have permitted Illinois citizens to keep a handgun in their homes for self-defense. (Adding superstinking irony to Obama's vote, the bill was proposed after an Illinois town levied a $750 fine against a man who shot a burglar in his home.)

Furthermore, from their own memories, those Americans will recall and bring a deep new insight to the intellectually vacuous, viciously pretentious attack 2008 presidential candidate Obama spewed upon citizens who committed the sin of rejecting his political message when he characterized them as "bitter" troglodytic brutes who "cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them. . ."

It doesn't bode well for bringing sensible reforms to the issue of guns and, more importantly, for instituting policies that reverse the cultural decay ultimately responsible for the nation's violence problem when a great mass of the American people are asked to trust an extremist such as Barack Obama.

© A.J. DiCintio