Julie's Keyboard has been suspended this weekend due to seven Granddaughters occuping all her spare time!
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"Second Amendment Rights" Part III
Well, lets keep digging for a while this weekend and see what purpose our Founders might have saw in the formation of this Second Amendment.
"Homicide is enjoined when it is necessary for the defense of one's person or house. . . . [I]t is the great natural law of self-preservation which, as we have seen, cannot be repealed or superseded or suspended by any human institution.
This law, however, is expressly recognized in the constitution of Pennsylvania: 'The right of the citizens to bear arms in the defense of themselves shall not be questioned.' . . .
[E]very man's house is deemed, by the law, to be his castle; and the law, while it invest him with the power, [places] on him the duty of the commanding officer [of his house].
'Every man's house is his castle . . . and if any one be robbed in it, it shall be esteemed his own default and negligence.'" ~ James Wilson. Wilson, works, Vol. III, pp. 84-85.
The Mayor of New York has announce an ad campaign of 12 million dollars promoting to the public the need for gun control measures. But wait a minute, we have just read that Justice James Wilson stated that the natural law of self preservation which he himself linked to Pennsylvania's rights to bear arms "cannot be repealed or superseded or suspended by any human institution." So I must ask, why are we spending 12 million dollars to do what Justice Wilson said cannot be done? Or in our current state of complacency, should not be done!
Zephaniah Swift, author of America's first legal text in 1792 also confirmed this view saying: "Self-defense, or self-preservation, is on of the first laws of nature, which no man ever resigned upon entering into society." ~ Zephaniah Swift. A system of the Laws of the State of Connecticut (Windham: John Byrne, 1796), Vol. II, p 302.
But the most compelling is St. George Tucker who was one of the leaders of the 1786 Annapolis convention that led to the convening of the Constitutional Convention itself in 1797. He became one of the most distinguished legal scholars in early America, serving as a law professor in the College of William and Mary, a justice on the Virginia Supreme Court, and a federal judge under President James Madison.
That list I think give him a fair amount of authority in speaking upon the subject of the Second Amendment. In his annotated edition of Blackstone's Commentaries Tucker declared:
It seems our view of liberty is something different than that of our founders, It seems that could be a very dangerous thing.
May God bless each of you,
David