It’s that time of year again. Or month. Day? Someone with a camera and a microphone has an opinion on the Second Amendment, which is about all it takes these days to spew idiocy all over the internet. The latest is Cenk Uygur from The Young Turks, a YouTube Channel with 2.4 million subscribers. Cenk preached to his audience all the classical anti-Second Amendment talking points. He feathered in a couple of facts, but it’s mostly an Oregon Trail of ox feces. Time for my rebuttal…
Look it, I get it, facts are hard for people who hate facts. After this, I’m starting an awareness campaign for facts. Because their lives matter. Here’s the thing, just speaking your opinion in a semi-athoratarian tone isn’t the same as the truth. I get it, it’s confusing when leftists sound knowledgable. In 2008, a junior senator from Illinois had the tone down to a science. But tones and teleprompter aside, you need actual facts to be factual.
So Merry Christmas. Here’s a crap ton of them. Don’t ever say I didn’t get you anything nice.
Marque and Reprisal
Madison and the Letter of Marque and Reprisal:
During the Philadelphia summer of 1787, James Madison said that war “has the tendency to render the head too large for the body.” Madison concluded, “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty.” Madison was not alone in this belief.
The argument of Madison and others illustrated the potential for letters of marque and reprisal to be used as an alternative. The letters themselves would allow for privateers (vessels which were equipped and commissioned by private individuals) to attack and capture enemy vessels, confiscate property, or engage in military hostilities. The letters served and a beneficial way to augment naval forces and produced positive results in the early stages of the republic.
Marque and Reprisal Clause explained by The Heritage Foundation.
District of Columbia v. Heller (2008 Supreme Court Case on Gun Control)
District of Columbia v. Heller-Case Brief Summary. Here are some points…
RULING: The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia, and to use that arm for traditionally lawful purposes, such as self-defense within the home.
- This interpretation is confirmed by analogous arms-bearing rights adopted in state constitutions immediately preceding and following the Second Amendment. Furthermore, the drafting history reveals three proposals that unequivocally referred to an individual right to bear arms. Interpretation of the Second Amendment by scholars, courts, and legislators from ratification through the late 19th century also supports the Court’s interpretation.
- No precedent forecloses this interpretation. United States v. Miller limits the type of weapons to which the right applies to those in common use for lawful purposes, but does not limit the right to keep and bear arms to militia purposes.
Founding Fathers On the Second Amendment
These quotations from TheFederalistPapers.org
George Washington:
“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent on others for essential, particularly for military, supplies.” – Speech in the United States Congress, January 8, 1790; George Washington: A Collection, compiled and edited by W.B. Allen (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1988), Chapter 11
George Mason, co-author of the Second Amendment:
“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” – Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1778
“That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” – Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, 1776
Samuel Adams:
“And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.” – Debates of the Massachusetts Convention of February 6, 1788; Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1788 (Pierce & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)
Thomas Jefferson:
“No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands].” – Proposed Constitution for Virginia – Fair Copy, Section IV: Rights, Private and Public, June 1776; The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition, Editor: Paul Leicester Ford, (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5); Vol. 2
Sources for Screenshots used in the Video
GunOwners.org column on Second Amendment
NRA Info on Second Amendment
James Madison’s Letter of Marque and Reprisal
AR17 Shotgun
http://www.chuckhawks.com/armalite_AR-17.htm
http://www.shotgunworld.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=347730
Belton Flintlock and Puckle Gun
TIME- Dems pile on Bernie Sanders for Gun Control
HuffPo- Police not Trusted (Note that this is from HuffPo UK)
DailyBeast- Prosecutors Can’t Be Trusted
ThinkProgress-Police Brutality
So I guess Crowder ain’t no friend of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States
Actually, Tom Youngjohn, Crowder has already expounded on the First Amendment correlation, and explained why the example you provided was expressly illegal. Two reasons, actually. First, like yelling FIRE in a theater, it is not simply “speech”, it is a call to action, which is NOT protected speech. Secondly, they were convicted of an attempt to obstruct the draft, another criminal offense. So, there you are.
The “Call to action” idea is good and important and probably a great legal reason, but it can be put even simpler:
You have Rights. If you ABUSE those Rights, then The People, in the form of The State, can suitably **punish** you for such abuse. If you shoot and kill someone with a gun, you lose your right to one. If you commit a crime with a gun, you can and generally do lose your right to own one. If you accidentally cause harm to someone with one, you can lose your right to own one.
Same with free speech. You have free speech. But if you ABUSE that right, then The State can and will punish you for it. If you shout FIRE! in a crowded theater. If you spread lies — slander and libel — about someone, then you can and will be punished.
So note that the LAWS of which he speaks, THEY REFLECT THE RESULTS for a hypothetical case, until YOU, of your own actions, ACTUALLY fail to exercise appropriate use of your rights.
If you have a computer and the internet, you might spread and tell lies about others. Does this mean the government can prevent you from owning a computer and connect it to the internet? If you have a laser printer, and you MIGHT write some falsehoods and publish them in some pamphlets that you then distribute, does the government have the power to register your laser printer and restrict your access to them?
No, this type of action is ONLY allowed once you have DEMONSTRATED A FAILURE to properly utilize and constrain your own usage of those rights.
WHY should a gun be any different than a laser printer or a chromebook?
A: It’s not. If you argue in favor of the former, you are arguing in favor of the latter.
Thank you Mr. Crowder for providing evidence for your arguments. Another court case that destroys the young turks argument is “Warren v. District of Columbia.” Why should we entrust the police to be the only ones to carry firearms when there is no constitutional duty for the police to protect individuals?
Originally militia were the people that left their homes to form with a group of people that left their homes. With them they brought weapon,ammo, and food. They then became a well regulated militia under local leadership.
We are the Militia ! the Citizens ! We Provide Our Own Weapons ! For the general welfare and Defense Of Our Republic ! ! !
Militia? Did you know YOU are probably part of the nation’s militia forces?
If you are able-bodied, male, between the ages of 17 and 45, YOU are part of the national militia!
Title 10 U.S. Code sec 311 – Militia: Composition and classes:
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males of at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in sec. 313 of title 32, under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who are members of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are-
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members f the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
I think Crowder would have had a bit better argument if he would have explained what a militia was back in the day.
The Y.T. guy was all over the place with that. Calling north and south “local” and going from that to national.
The militia was not the police force or military. They were men from the community that got together to do a certain job. So that these community militia could have what they need they need to have arms.
Is this incorrect?
Thanks for your post. I’m just adding to it. Not correcting it.
Cenk does not hate fact. Steven, you hate common sense.
And you come up with as much proof to back your claim as Cenk does. Whereas Steven provides facts to back up his claim. You might want to pay heed to the old adage about being silent and thought a fool,
You lack an argument.
George Mason: “I ask you sir, who are the militia? They consist now of the whole people.” (Elliott, Debates, 425-426)
http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/rkba/ff_militia.htm
Generally, I’ve found that people like this left wing idiot that advocate disarmament want to push others to do their dirty work for them, because they’re too gutless to do it, themselves.
When the government can provide a militia that protects me inside and outside my home and can guarantee that criminals will not be armed, then maybe they can have my gun. Until then, most of us are pretty much on our own because law enforcement can’t respond quickly enough.
http://www.amazon.com/Constitutional-Homeland-Security-Nation-Arms/dp/0967175925
The world’s number one AUTHORITY (He’s done the work…) on the second amendment.
http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2012/12/15/our-moloch/
Art Davila – Can you say troll?????
Cenk is the consummate epitome of a goon.
He didn’t explicitly say this but I think you should have addressed his interpretation on “the security of a free state”. Maybe he thinks security means individuals being protected and free state means America being free but that’s a sad interpretation I would expect from a 9 year old. “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state” means the right to a militia is necessary for people to be a free state. I don’t understand why people read amendments without understanding the context. We fought against tyrannical leaders thanks to the militias and ownership of weapons. People who think that our country has absolutely no possibility of going tyrannical and uses that a reason to take away the second amendment (WHICH IS SOMETHING A TYRANNICAL GOVERNMENT DOES) you don’t deserve to have an opinion on the second amendment.
Exactly! And lest we forget, the “shot heard ’round the world” at bunker hill was triggered because the British were
indeed on their way to “Confascate gun powder and ball “, ie, gun confascation !!!!! So they could’nt be used against them !!!!!!, BTW, where in the 2nd amed. does it say what kind os gun is allowed ??? Duh!!! NO WHERE !!!!!!
I do not believe the police have an obligation to protect citizens from harm. I realize most will disagree but still believe there have been court cases involving such. Remember if they had an obligation, there too would be a liability if harm did come to a citizen. Probably see many law suits for police not arriving in a timely manner and similar issues.
Just Sayin – The Police have NO legal obligation to protect you. This was established in case law, and was upheld by the Supreme Court. See these links: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect-someone.html?_r=0
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_v._District_of_Columbia
The reason people only quote the 2nd clause of the second amendment is the same reason no one quotes the entire 1st amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.” is a lot to remember and quote. Why would I quote all the rights insured, notice I said insured not granted, by the 1st amendment when I only discussing one. The fact that a well regulated Militia, is necessary to the security of a free State is just one rational given to why the people need to need arms. Not the only reason.
What Brandon said. Compare ‘…the security of a free state’ and ‘the security of the people’. The former is what the constitution states and the latter is what people misinterpret its meaning as. The former keeps he country from becoming a nightmare run in tyranny like North Korea and the latter keeps crime under control.
the availability of guns to the average person(including poor and desperate people) does not make crime less likely…look up the crime statistics and compare to other developped countries..theres roughly 4 times more murders in the united states then in any other developped countries that require you to prove you are apt at using a gun before granting you one.
The American government during the revolution had a formal Army and Navy run by individuals such as G. Washington. Washington used the Militia augment his forces, but understood they were not formal military but a ragtag group of men from each community, ready to defend what was theirs. After the revolution, the forefather recognized the importance the Militia played in defeating the worlds greatest power and ingrained the idea in the constitution to warn off future tyranny from within its own ranks – The power of the people to keep its government in check!
thats cute that you think that semi-trained joes with non automatic weapons can keep the government in check
you called your own rebuttal epic? after listening, I think you are delusional. Stick to being a comedian because you struggle to make any sound point..You presume to know why lincoln did not ban firearms when he had to fight militias when you have no clue. You are not even close to qualified to speculate on such things. pathetic. what is your next point? we need guns because the government is coming for your freedoms and you need protect yourself?
Thank you Steven; I think this is well done. I miss Fundip.
I wonder if this f-tard Cenk Uygur has any idea who the young turks were– mass genocidal muslims. Please read this for yourselves..
He should be ashamed to use that name, what a loser.
link below is form wnd . com at long last Armenian genocide recognized
http://www.wnd.com/2015/12/at-long-last-armenian-genocide-recognized/?cat_orig=education
Of course he knows. He was born in Turkey and raised a Muslim, although he claims to be agnostic now. He absolutely knows.
Talk about disingenuous. Shenks not comfortable with the topic and his “tells” are all over when he’s making stuff up. But, his credibility goes in the toilet with AR17 and 13 shots per second.
The right to bear arms does not exist in the government backed militias(18 year military member) or active duty military. game set match.
The young Turks have the same name as the army that murdered 1.5 million unarmed Armenians around 1917. They are just as wicked and would do the same thing to Christians today.
The young Turks have chosen the same name as the army that murdered 1.5 million unarmed Armenians around 1917. They are just as wicked and would do the same thing to Christians today. This is why they spew lies about the Second Amendment.
It is so easy to get what the founders meant by the Second Amendment by reading what they wrote about it. There is no argument. The NRA is correct.
A comma is really the anti-constitutionalists perspective on debunking the most common sense self-defense declaration? Help! Call 911 – there’s a suspicious-looking semi-colon in Article I, Section 8!!!!
“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” – Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1778
“That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that, in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.” – Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 12, 1776
Richard Henry Lee, Anti-Federalist
Mr. Crowder, please also illustrate the “well-regulated” part of the liberal argument. Or language is a living, changing thing. Even today, put a bloke from Liverpool and a cajun from South Louisiana in the same room and see if the can understand each other! Would our founding fathers understand the term “Baby Momma?” I doubt it. If they ever envisioned that they probably would’ve made a law against it. Back to my point, the term “well-regulated” had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with REGULATIONS!!! Or laws, ordinances or executive orders. It had a completely different common usage.
http://www.constitution.org/cons/wellregu.htm
“It referred to the property of something being in proper working order”
Hey Cenk, have you ever read Shakespeare? The language changes over time. Hamilton, Jefferson, et al. never intended this phrase to mean “regulations.” And of course the “militia” meant, well, anybody with a gun. And if you don’t have a gun show up and we will give you one. And a pint of beer.
Also worth mentioning, in discussing “shouting fire in a crowded theater”: the phrase arose in a decision that permitted government censorship of entirely peaceful criticism of the draft in wartime.
https://popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/
And subsequent cases, before the Court came to its senses, permitted government censorship of any criticism of war, if that criticism would “obstruct” the draft.
Thankfully this is quite far from the First Amendment the Court recognizes today. But it’s well worth noting invoking the fire-in-a-theater meme, implicitly invokes the worst sort of censorship of ideas.
Crowder, if i am missing the big picture let me know, i have heard countless arguments over the interpretation of the 2nd amendment. to date yours is the most logically and fact supported one i have heard. to me it is obvious that the second amendment was written to insure that the “people”, meaning the average citizen, had the right to “keep”, meaning they could own, and “bear”, meaning to bring forth “have on their person”, arms. but in addition to this i think it is necessary to point out the reason our founders felt the need to clarify their intent of the constitution. the amendments are these clarifications. since our founders had just overthrown an oppressive government, where they experience first hand, the need for the people to have the weapons necessary to defeat an army being deployed to put down their rebellion. they, through the 2nd amendment, empowered the “people”, you and i, to keep and bear weapons that may be used to overthrow another corrupt government if the need ever arose again. that means having weapons that could defeat today’s modern military. the people do not have a chance of defeating today’s military unless they have the same weapons that the military has. weather that be a fully automatic assault rifle,which would be the equal to a musket back then, or an Abrams tank, the equal to a cannon, setting in the front yard. i know this sounds extreme, but the second amendment was written for an extreme situation. the overthrowing of your own government is an extreme situation, one i hope never has to happen. but this very assault on the second amendment shows we are heading down the path of oppression of our rights.
All of this is overly complicated and overwhelmed with ingrained ignorance and political agenda.. The CONSTITUTION does NOT “GRANT” the “RIGHT”to own, keep and bear arms…period. The Supreme Court has described the RIGHT to KEEP and BEAR ARMS as FUNDAMENTAL….BASIC… INHERENT in our HUMANITY.. Further, the absolute right to SELF DEFENSE is UNIVERSAL. The RIGHT to BEAR ARMS is indispensable to THAT right. In addition, when SCOUS described the “RIGHT” it was acknowledging that the RIGHT is ANCIENT, that it PROCEEDS the establishment of societies or, Governments.. The 2nd Amendment asserts, in no uncertain terms,that the Government is FORBIDDEN from infringing upon that RIGHT.