The South Dakota Argus Leader seems to have its facts mixed up:
On the front of the National Rifle Association building in Washington, D.C., you will not find the entire Second Amendment. Instead, you will find only the phrase: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
I’ve been to NRA Headquarters, and I don’t recall seeing the inscription. Also, NRA Headquarters is in Fairfax, Virginia. They left the offices at 1600 Rhode Island Ave a long time ago.  The only thing I can recall seeing on the NRA building is “NRA Sports.” Maybe I didn’t look hard enough.
Sixty percent of American citizens mistakenly believe they have a constitutional right “to keep and bear arms.” That is a myth perpetrated on the American people by the NRA.
No, now it’s a fact of law perpetuated by the Supreme Court. You wrote this a year too late, my friend. It’s amazing to me that they are still bitterly clinging to the old notion that it’s not an individual right. That’s settled. Time to move on.  Even the Bradys have put Heller behind them, and are busily fighting the next battle.
This writer grew up on a farm, enjoying hunting for ducks, geese and pheasants, and in adulthood, shot deer while a pastor in Spearfish. No one ever has threatened to take those guns from me. I was an expert marksman in the service during World War II.
However, I am filled with anger by the way the NRA uses false advertising to bully our people and our politicians into supporting the insane practice of keeping all manner of assault weapons available to everyone in our society.
I guess this more of the “I’m a gun owner, but…” meme. I’m very sorry this man doesn’t value the freedoms he fought for, and no doubt some of his comrades died for, more than he does. I appreciate his service in defense of freedom, it’s a pity we can’t agree on what that freedom is.  But what’s more disturbing is that the Argus Leader chose to publish an op-ed that grossly distorts basic facts, and is ignorant of the development in the last year of constitutional law.
Formerly living in South Dakota, and having read the Argus Leader, this does not surprise me. I actually used to throw the paper across the room after reading the opinion section.
I’m shocked that this was written in South Dakota.
To be fair to the Argus Leader this is in their Voices section. It is akin to ‘Letters to the Editor’ sections of other papers. I wouldn’t condemn the whole paper based on this person’s opinion. I bet if we look back through the archives we will find other Voices pieces with the exact opposite views.
RuffRidr, so it is in the equivalent of a “Letters to th Editors” section. Fine. Until, when commenters point out things like the Justices in Heller being unanimous in the “individual rights” view (the dissents were on other grounds) said editors respond, not with acknowledging corrections, but with “hey, it`s opinion, and even if every single fact is wrong who cares.”
I’m not the biggest fan of the NRA personally, but one reason it this notion that the right to keep and bear arms is even remotely dependent on the existence of the second amendment. The right to self defense, and the right to own the tools of self defense, are inherent, natural, “god-given” rights. They cannot give that which they never possessed.
But, for the sake of argument, let’s say the source of all rights is the Constitution, as the Progressive Socialists claim. In that case, the guns already in circulation would be protected from searches and seizures by the 4th Amendment. They wouldn’t be able to ask you if you owned one, or use records to prosecute people who are known to have them, due to protections granted by the 5th Amendment. The States would ultimately be able to decide of guns were legal to possess, produce, use, etc, because of the 9th and 10th Amendments. The 14th amendment would extend these protections to all US Citizens, even in states that specifically forbade the ownership of arms or their use.
The very notion that the Anti-Civil Rights crowd ever had a farts chance in a strong wind of making more than a brief stink is a fantasy that we have allowed them to entertain in their simple minds for far too long. Their goal is to unmake America, so that they may ultimately unmake mankind and turn humanity into the beasts of burden that are so easy to enslave. They have succeeded in other places in the past, they will never succeed here.
I must agree with Matt Groom. We need to be careful how we characterize Heller. Heller did not confer an individual right to bear arms, our “Creator” did (Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence). Heller did not establish or codify that right as an individual, unalienable right immune to any and all federal regulation (infringement), the 2A did. What Heller did (or should have done) was recognize those two propositions as the supreme and inviolabe law of the land for the past 200 years, now and forever. We must be very careful to never give the impression that the Court or any branch of government can create, grant or fabricate unalienable rights, or even, by their own authority, define what those rights are, or else we give our adversaries and tyrants the ammunition to say the courts, et al., can take them away or redefine them out of existence (e.g., marriage). Forgive my fastidiousness and picking nits, but I think this is important and could bite us in the end.
A right my preexist government, but if the government doesn’t recognize it as a right, it’s an interesting philosophical construct, and that’s about it. I agree that the right to keep and bear arms is not created by government, but the Second Amendment is created by, and in theory binds government, and prevents it from interfering with that right. Of course, that’s just a theory if the courts aren’t willing to enforce that limitation on governmental power, or minimize the limitation to a triviality.
RuffRidr Said
Thanks for pointing out it was in the voices section.
As a Okie raised in Sioux Falls, and proud of that, with numerous family still there, I immediately called one of my 4 brothers (didn’t call the one sister still living in Sioux Falls, because I think she is a libtard), and told him to respond strongly.
The problem is, we are losing the votes of the sheeple living in big cities. something about living in a close environment with a bunch of other people, of which a certain percentage are friggin nuts, that makes people cower down and accept servitude to the criminal element.
Not gonna happen where I live. Oh Lord, please let me be right!!!!!
At the risk of sophistry, I should like to expound my previous post. My concern with proclaiming Heller as definitive law on whether the right to arms is individual or collective is that we relinquish to the court an unconstitutional power and authority that the 10th Amendment reserves to us: i.e., to define those rights which are clearly enumerated in the Bill of Rights. If I may be so bold, the government did not create the 2nd Amedment; concerned citizens (mostly anti-federalists) demanded it and prevailed upon James Madison to effect its proposal by Congress for submission to the States whose people then ratified it. Washington called such constitutional amendments the “explicit and authentic acts of the PEOPLE,” not of the government. Jefferson called our unalienable rights “self-evident,” meaning they do not need to be defined or interpreted by the Court or any other branch of government for they are evident to all. The Court’s power is to adjudicate the case before it UNDER the law, not above it, and that includes the rights enumerated in the supreme law. Sebastian asked about the all too real scenario where the government doesn’t recognize the “self-evident” definition of our INDIVIDUAL right to bear arms, or of any right for that matter. In other words, if the government doesn’t acknowledge it, how is that right of any more effect than a blank piece of paper? My only response to that is: what did our forefathers ultimately do when the government of Great Britain refused to recognize the rights and sovereign authorities of the colonies and their citizens as enumerated both in English Law and in the specific colonial Compacts (constitutions) to which the King set his seal? As they did, so must we be prepared to do, to put the teeth back into the true meaning of our enumerated rights. After all, isn’t that what the 2A is for? As Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Joseph Story proclaimed, “The right to bear arms is the palladium (sacred safeguard) of the Bill of Rights.” If the government, including the Courts, does not respect the self-evident scope and meaning of our God-given rights, then we the people must exercise our 2A right to exhort that government to reconsider! Our will rights have real meaning as long as we the people are willing to require their observance by our government. Voting the rascals out is a viable option, but when the rascals have bribed enough welfare bums and “civil employees” to out-vote the tax-burdened patriots of this country such that we CAN’T vote them out, then, perhaps, “an appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us (Patrick Henry).” But we had better purchase those arms now before that right gets “redefined” by a new Court that decides to send Heller the way of Plessey vs. Ferguson! Thanks for the platform. – Arnie