No Second Amendment Means No First Amendment Either

Who is an adult, and what does it mean to be one? The Left seems to think that a child can make the momentous decision to permanently remove his or her sex organs because he wants to "trans." They also believe that a 14-year-old can make the decision to abort the child growing in her womb without parental consent. But an 18- or 19-year-old, while he can join the Army and carry a gun in war, cannot buy one for himself. This is what is at the heart of a federal lawsuit entitled Escher vs. Mason in Massachusetts.

 Ronald Beaty has an article at the American Thinker highlighting the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) lawsuit against the Massachusetts law banning those adults 18 to 20 years of age from possessing firearms. The article Massachusetts vs, the Second Amendment is about more than just the Second Amendment though. As Beaty points out, the Second Amendment protects the First Amendment and indeed all the other amendments in the Bill of Rights.

The rights acknowledged by, but not granted by, the Constitution are rights granted to each person by our Creator. Think about it for a moment: does the state have the ability to give you something it does not possess?  The state is a construct in which the people agree to grant it certain of their individual powers for the common good.  It is only legitimate so long as it operates within the boundaries of its constitution and that of the Constitution of the United States.  

In Massachusetts, a legal battle is unfolding that should resonate with every conservative who values the sanctity of the Second Amendment. Escher v. Mason isn't just about firearms; it's a litmus test for how we view adulthood, responsibility, and constitutional rights in contemporary America.

The Massachusetts law in question, House Bill 4885, strips legal adults aged 18 to 20 of their right to purchase, possess, or carry semiautomatic firearms and handguns. This isn't merely overreach; it's a direct assault on the clear text of the Second Amendment, which does not discriminate by age among "the people." If we are to take our Constitution seriously, we must defend the rights of all citizens, not just those deemed "mature enough" by the state's paternalistic gaze.

At the heart of this legal challenge lies a fundamental conservative principle: the inviolability of individual rights. The Founders did not carve exceptions into the Second Amendment for age. They understood that freedom and responsibility go hand in hand, which is why 18-year-olds have been historically recognized as adults -- capable of voting, joining the military, and, yes, bearing arms. The Militia Act of 1792, enacted shortly after the ratification of the Second Amendment, explicitly included 18-year-olds in the national defense, expecting them to be armed like their elders.

This historical precedent is not just a footnote but the bedrock upon which the plaintiffs in Escher v. Mason stand. They argue that there is no traditional basis for denying these rights to young adults. The Supreme Court's decisions in Heller and Bruen have made it abundantly clear that firearms "in common use" are constitutionally protected. Semiautomatic firearms and handguns are the dominant tools of self-defense in modern America. To deny these to a segment of the adult population is not only anachronistic but egregiously unconstitutional.

For a greater perspective on the Second Amendment and its relation to the First (and the rest of the Bill of Rights), also read Joachim Osther's post, also at the American Thinker today entitled Protecting the Second Amendment is protecting the First. Osther points to a book which should be in every conservatives library entitled No Second Amendment, No First: God, Guns and the Government.

No Second Amendment, No First is divided into three parts. In the first section, which is aptly titled “How the Biblical Worldview Gave Way To a Progressive Hive Mind,” Zmirak sets the stage by investigating the radical lurch of secularism that threatens the first two Amendments.

The Judeo-Christian worldview that enabled self-governing and was foundational to the development of the Constitution has deteriorated at the expense of secularism. Zmirak uses the Second Amendment “as the test case, the prime example, of how our political masters are confiscating our rights in the name of protecting us from ourselves.”

...snip...

The right to self-defense against despotic governments or tyrants is tied to the assumption that a human life has value. The value of life is derived from a Biblical perspective, and Zmirak uses these chapters to illustrate that this is the “proposition on which America is built… every liberty we cling to, each institution we value, flows from that assertion.” This is why we have the right and the duty to protect ourselves and others.

The most effective arguments for the First and Second Amendments start with the principles and experiences that led the Founders to codify them, and Zmirak articulately unfolds this in Part 3 of No Second Amendment, No First.

Please go read both articles today. Neither will take very long, and both are important. I will be following Escher vs. Mason closely and will follow up as I have time.

The Left's Constant Chaos: Tribalism

 Andrea Widburg today, at the American Thinker has a post entitled Let's talk about Africa, which is where tribalism takes you that speaks to the dangers of balkanization that the Left keeps pushing on America. It's always the same with these people: women vs, men, blacks vs. whites, etc. And notice that all whites are classified under the "white Anglo-Saxon protestant" umbrella. But the term "white" can be applied with equal precision to peoples from Northern Europe, Southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and the Indian Subcontinent. They have a wide variety of skin tones but are all one "race." However, all of the different "races" of men are the same species, and all are created by the same God.

Through recounting three stories from Africa, Widburg shows us the results tribalism has on the fabric of society.

Humans are inherently tribal. We put people into hierarchies of relationships that usually flow outwards from family. As nations developed, the tribal family might encompass all of Germany, France, or Russia, but it was still an “us” versus “them” allegiance. Marx believed that the workers of the world would unite but in 1914, Marxists were shocked to discover that the workers of Germany did not feel any fellowship with the workers of England.

In these old nations, tribalism still had a genetic component, as well as a historical one. I had a Welsh friend whose roots in Wales went back, as she said, “to Caesar’s time.” Tribes were familial, historical, and geographic.

It was different in America, a place to which people came because they were rallying around unique ideas. This does not mean, as leftists like to say, that America “is an idea,” justifying ignoring its borders. It is a full-fledged nation, complete with defined, defensible borders and an overarching rule of law.

However, it’s also a collection of people from disparate families, geographic regions, and historic allegiances who have come for the liberty that underlies America’s institutions (flowing from the Constitution) and its culture. It’s those beliefs that make America a very big tribe.

America is a place where one can move from one part of the country to another and generally be accepted wherever that is. While there are surely regional accents, and common memories that are regional in nature. But one can fit in pretty much anywhere. However, the more balkanized we become, we risk losing this ability.

Please read all of Widburg's stores of tribalism in Africa and what happened as a result. We may not be able to change Africa, but we surely can keep what we have.

Conan the Barbarian comes to mind...

I suppose I have become cynical in my old age.  After years of hearing Democrats describe spending as "investments" and the theft of our hard-earned money under color of law, and at gun point no less, as our "fair share," I have become numb to Democrat outrage.  It is all just Kabuki theatre to me.  Then someone like J. B, Shurk at the American Thinker comes along with a rip-snorter entitled Our Self-Important, Self-Deluding, Self-Unaware 'Elites' and I remember how I felt when I recieved my first pay stub. The notion that the government would take a huge amount of my money, and use it to fund things like "foreign aid" and welfare checks to people who wouldn't go out and earn it outraged me. But as I say, over 70 years I have become numb. But don't you become numb. Read Shurks screed. And whenever you read "Democrat" think "Democrat/socialist/communist." I'll provide some money quotes though:

Our self-appointed “ruling class” is insufferable. Two-plus weeks into the restored Trump administration, and the Democrat/media outrage template has become utterly banal:

(1) Trump delivers on a campaign promise.

(2) Democrats collapse onto fainting couches and wail, “He can’t do that!,” and then

(3) those same sobbing sad sacks get back up, clutch their pearls, and collapse in anguish yet again.

It would be amusing if their funerary pantomime were not so exhausting.

And this:

Unindicted “Russia collusion” co-conspirator and former acting director of the FBI Andrew McCabe ran to the Communist News Network to complain that all his old friends at the Bureau are terrified of being fired. He reported to fellow Democrat traveler Anderson Cooper that FBI officials are worried about how they’re going to pay their bills and take care of their families. “If you get fired,” McCabe explained energetically, like one toddler telling another toddler about the world, “you’re done. That’s the end of your reputation, your ability to get any job. You lose your pay, you lose your chance at a pension, you lose your health insurance.” Baby Cooper agreed with Baby McCabe that those consequences sound scary.

Yet neither had the requisite self-awareness to ponder, “Is this what J6 protesters felt like when the Gestapo FBI hunted down alleged trespassers as if they were America’s ‘Most Wanted’ criminals?” Watching the two Democrat babies cry about FBI agents losing their jobs and reputations after we have seen the Bureau do the exact same thing to law-abiding Americans for years is absolutely surreal!

Did Cooper and McCabe ever shed a tear for military veterans who were treated like domestic terrorists for merely showing up in D.C. on January 6, 2021? Did they call out the federal government’s atrocious actions when patriotic Americans with no prior criminal records were forced to choose between egregious plea “deals” and spending years in pre-trial confinement away from their families? Did they ever stop to wonder how ordinary citizens who don’t have the “elite” privilege of avoiding prosecution (as McCabe did) or the luxury of a side hustle on CNN (because the “most trusted name in news” regards liars and lawbreakers as “reliable sources”) were ever going to pay their bills or provide for their families?

Of course, it wasn't JUST the FBI who persecuted these people. There were the DOJ prosecutors and the Judges who kept people in prison for years without trial. The only reason to keep a person in jail pending trial is that they are a flight risk, or they are so dangerous that society needs to be protected from them. Neither applies to January 6th defendants. But the FBI agents should have refused to go after these people on the grounds that it was an illegal order. Had enough of them stood up, the whole nightmare would have collapsed. They deserve what Trump is handing out. And it is not revenge, it is justice.

Speaking of losers, Senator (up)Chuck Schumer ran to the Senate floor to complain about President Trump’s decision to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (which has always been a CIA front for fomenting revolutions and may have funded gain-of-function research on coronaviruses in Wuhan, China), the Department of Education, and other nefarious limbs of the Executive Branch that essentially launder taxpayer dollars into the bank accounts of bad people. Ol’ (up)Chuck fumed, “This is just the beginning. ...Who knows? Next might be the IRS.” And the people of America rejoiced!

It was obvious even before Democrats started openly grooming children with “drag queen” story hours and encouraging them to have sex “change” operations in the fourth grade that the Jackass Party is totally delusional. But consider just how incurably delusional the Dim Dems must really be for their highest-ranking leaders in government to run to the cameras and cry about the possible elimination of the dreaded, politicized, corrupt, and well armed IRS.

I can't remember the first person who proposed a flat tax, but I have always like the idea. Under the proposal, everyone, with no exceptions, pays a flat 10% of their income to the fed. Someone once suggested, I can't remember who proposed it now, that we could file our income takes on a post card. Here's how much I earned, here's 10% of that amount. Done. The IRS would be much smaller and have much less power. Perhaps that is why the Democrats (read socialists and communists) are so apoplectic about losing it.

Please go read J. B. Shurk's article and enjoy the delicious outrage as Shurk unloads on the Democrats' crying.  Conan the Barbarian comes to mind.

DOGE is legal

According to Andrea Widburg at the Amercian Thinker Trump's attack on the Deep State is spectacular and almost certainly legal. Trump is using the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) as his personal agent to pry out the huge amount of wasteful, often immoral spending in which our government has been engaged. Certainly, a majority of Americans would not spend their own money on these things, which means neither should our government.

In the last few days, Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”) has effectively put an end to USAID, gelded the General Services Administration (GSA) tech division, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and the Treasury, and fired corrupt people in the FBI—and that’s just the short list. With the war on USAID, GSA, OPM, and the Treasury alone, DOGE is saving taxpayers at a rate of one billion per day. All of this has driven the Democrats into a frenzy as they insist that an elected president managing the government is a coup. Unfortunately for them (but not for us), they don’t have a legal leg to stand on.

Widburg is a lawyer and has a lawyer's understanding of the intricacies of the law. She lays out a case for why, despite the wailing and gnashing of teeth of the Democrats, what DOGE is doing is legal. Please read her case. On another note, however, certain people have doxed members of DOGE and even written of committing violence against these people. If Elon Musk or members of DOGE do commit crimes, they can be dealt with through the law. The idea that violence by private citizens should be taken suggests that Musk is correct, and these wasteful payments are indeed wrong. I would also point out that the fact that past presidents signed these things into law without calling out the wasteful spending doesn't speak well for our leaders.

Birthright Citizenship Will Ultimately Be Decided By the Supreme Court

 Ever since Trump signed his executive order ending birthright citizenship for illegal aliens, the Left has been going crazy.  Several states have sued trying to stop him.  Now, COL Allen West has weighed in on the issue at Townhall.com giving us a black man's interpretation of the 14th Amendment. Naturally, West thinks the Amendment was designed to grant citizenship to recently freed slaves, not to people who illegally cross our borders and drop a baby. The heart of West's argument is this:

I find it very perplexing, and hypocritical, that the progressive socialist left, aka the Democrat party, is so interested in the 14th Amendment. Back when it was being created and debated, Democrats were staunchly against the 14th Amendment. Matter of fact, they were against the preceding 13th Amendment which ended slavery in America. These two Amendments, along with the 15th, were legislative endeavors, policies, sought out by Republicans. Yes, the same Republican Party that was established for one single issue, the abolition of slavery. I believe that we should have a strict originalist interpretation of the Constitution, not this living constitution nonsense leftists seek to impart. And they do so for a very specific reason, and that is to manipulate the Constitution to fit into their designed ideological agenda.

And such is the case with the 14th Amendment, especially Section 1.

The 14th Amendment's original intent was to grant citizenship to the Blacks in America who had just been made free by the 13th Amendment. Remember again that the Democrats did not support either of these amendments then, and according to Joe Biden, “No amendment to the Constitution is absolute.” This is the same Joe Biden who delivered the eulogy for a known Klansman, his Senate Democrat colleague Robert Byrd.

...snip...

Now we have these delusional leftists who want us to believe, and accept their “living interpretation” that anyone can just waltz across the border into our Republic and be a citizen. They want us to believe that we have no sovereign borders and citizenship in these United States is a privilege to all, and even a birthright. For me, as an American Black man who has had generations in his family serve this Nation in uniform, and in combat, this is offensive, condescending. The leftists are taking something intended to right a wrong, which they created and did not support, and now manipulating it to the advantage of those entering our Country illegally. And this is being done all to the detriment of the American Black community, hence the protest in places like Chicago.

Now, many experts agree with West, but the question will wind up in the Supreme Court. So what any of the so-called "experts" think is irrelevant. Once again the meaning of the law is being decided by 9 men in black robes. *Sigh*.

The Ultimate Goal of the "Shall Issue" Concealed Carry Movement

 Jeff Charles at Townhall.com has an article entitled Thomas Massie Introduces Measure That Would Be A Game Changer for Gun Rights. The bill introduced by Massie would allow Constitutional Carry nationwide. Given that all the Democrat/socialists/communists would vote against this on general principle, and there are a number of Republicans from anti-gun states, I suspect this is going nowhere. But one hopes that something in the way of nationwide carry can be achieved.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) announced on Thursday that he is introducing the National Constitutional Carry Act, which would protect the right to keep and bear arms in all areas of the country.

If passed, this legislation would be a tremendous win for the Second Amendment.

"Massie's legislation is composed of two major provisions. The first provision prohibits any state or political subdivision from imposing criminal or civil penalties on eligible individuals carrying firearms in public. The second provision invalidates any existing state or local laws, statutes, regulations, or local restrictions that criminalize, penalize, or otherwise dissuade the carrying of firearms in public. In addition to covering all fifty states, H.R. 645 includes the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and other territories of the United States within its scope to ensure that residents of all U.S. jurisdictions enjoy consistent protection of their Second Amendment rights."

I am sure the first thing that states will object to is the potential loss of the revenue stream that concealed carry licenses provide. Sheriffs in North Carolina get $75 bucks every five years for the privilege of carrying a firearm concealed in public. Hell, the sheriffs fought tooth and nail to maintain the $5 dollar permission slip to purchase a firearm. I doubt this $5 fee represents a significant revenue stream, but they defended it as if it was all they got. So, I am sure they will fight this too.

Still, we should watch this and applaud each step the bill makes toward passage. This represents the ultimate goal of the "shall issue" concealed carry movement.  Please go read the whole article.

California Wildfires Negate All Their Supposed "Savings" of Greenhouse Gases

 I noted several days ago in a post here entitled Do Californians Deserve What They Get From Their Leaders? that the wildfires are putting out more greenhouse gases than decades of so called "savings" from the EVs. Now D. Parker at the American Thinker has just reiterated the point with additional data in a post entitled It must be climate change.

First, it was global cooling, then global warming, until they came up with the climate crisis wording that never had to change.

Sometimes, the phrasing is all they need. Back in the 1970s, the ominous threat was from global cooling until things started warming up. Then, they turned on a dine to make it global warming. And that’s still the operative propaganda phrase when the weather is going in the right direction. But then the environmental activists came up with the phrase for the crisis that made it unfalsifiable -- climate change.

So, when there’s a cold snap -- it’s climate change. A heat wave -- climate change. Snow -- well, you get the picture. The funny thing is that for most normal folks, this is becoming a joke, to the point that people started referring to the arsonists accused of starting some of the LA wildfires as ‘climate change.’

...snip...

The state’s record-breaking 2020 fire season, which saw more than 4 million acres burn, spewed almost twice the tonnage of greenhouse gases as the total amount of carbon dioxide reductions made since 2003, according to a study published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution.

Not to mention the fact that others around the globe are failing to curb their emissions, negating the point of all the steps demanded by the environmental activists that only served to destroy our economic future.

Please go and read Parker's post. He packs a lot of information into his post with excellent use of the hyperlink function. Indeed, the use of hyperlink was what attracted me to the internet in the first place. Rather than footnoting articles, one could connect directly to the article in question whether it be a new article or a scientific paper.

On a personal note, I was appalled to learn that the fires are now in Ventura County as well.  We lived in Camarillo for several years, while working at the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, California.  Mrs PolyKahr was born and raised in Oceanside, California.