WHY OBAMA SHOULD SUPPORT GUN RIGHTS
By Howard Nemerov
August 12, 2008
NewsWithViews.com
Recently, the Supreme Court of the United States concluded:
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.[1]
Senator Obama doesn’t think Americans should be carrying guns around in public because it could be dangerous:
“I am not in favor of concealed weapons,” Obama said. “I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.”[2]
Besides the implication that Senator Obama doesn’t trust law-abiding gun owners, this is a curious statement because Obama has his own private detail of Secret Service agents who carry concealed handguns and must inspect everybody’s hands when the senator walks along a parade route.[3] (They could mistake a camera for a gun and shoot an innocent person, after all.) One agent’s concealed handgun saved him from a carjacking or worse, when he used it to fight off four attackers who attempted to steal his motorcycle at gunpoint.[4] He could have shot an innocent bystander, after all.
Senator Obama, meet Hygens Labidou, a Black roofing contractor. Mr. Labidou is the kind of man the Democrat party should be proud of, because part of the Democratic Party’s agenda declares: “The Democratic Party is committed to keeping our nation safe and expanding opportunity for every American.”[5] Their civil rights page states: “Democrats are unwavering in our support of equal opportunity for all Americans.”[6]
Mr. Labidou was attacked by two white men, one wielding a knife, who got out of their car shouting racial slurs and tried to pull him out of his work truck. Mr. Labidou, licensed to carry a concealed handgun by the state of Florida, shot both men in self-defense, killing the one with the knife. The Broward County Sheriff’s Office stated:
“These two men approached him with a deadly weapon in an aggressive manner…Clearly, he was inside his vehicle, and he was clearly within his right to defend himself.”[7]
The surviving attacker faced an assault with a deadly weapon charge, which could result in a 15-year sentence. Meanwhile, he was held without bond because he violated his federal probation.[8]
Senator Obama should review history before settling on policy. It used to be that a Black man defending himself against white attackers could have resulted in a different outcome. In colonial times, white settlers enacted laws to ensure Blacks remained submissive. For example a Virginia law from 1640 explained the colony’s support of the militia, but excluded Blacks: “All persons except negroes to be provided with arms and ammunition or be fined at pleasure of the Governor and Council.”[9] In the first half of the 19th Century, southern states enacted more and more Black disarmament laws, even if it meant reversing previous law. For example, in 1843 the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled:
The bill of rights in this State secures to every man indeed, the right to “bear arms for the defense of the State.”[10]
But by 1844, the same court decided it was okay to disarm Blacks:
The Act of assembly passed in 1840, ch 30, entitled ‘an act to prevent free persons of color from carrying fire arms,’ is not unconstitutional.[11]
The court circumvented the right to bear arms mentioned in 1843 by redefining citizenship: “Free people of color in this State are not to be considered as citizens.”[12]
Black disarmament didn’t end with the Civil War. For example, the Mississippi Black Code of 1865 specifically banned Blacks from possessing firearms:
[N]o freedman, free negro, or mulatto, not in the military service of the United States government, and not licensed so to do by the board of police of his or her county, shall keep or carry firearms of any kind, or any ammunition, dirk, or bowie knife…[13]
The purpose of these Black Codes was to force Blacks to live in quasi-slavery despite the new laws of the Reconstruction. As a result, Congress enacted the Civil Rights Act of 1866, so that by “abolishing the badges of slavery, the bill would enforce fundamental rights against racial discrimination in respect to civil rights…”[14]
The history of American gun control is the history of Black oppression. Mr. Labidou’s hard-earned civil rights afforded him equal opportunity to protect his life.
Return on Investment: Why Obama Won’t Support Gun Rights
As of June 30, 2008, Obama received $18,778,413 from lawyers/law firms (1st overall), while McCain received $6,037,593 (4th after Clinton and Edwards). Overall, 76.8% went to Democrat candidates and 23.2% to Republicans.[15] Lawyers/law firms are Obama’s top-contributing industry.[16]
One of Obama’s biggest donors is the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Meagher and Flom, LLP, which contributed $281,163 to his presidential campaign as of June 30, 2008.[17] Skadden, Arps represents the inventors of a “firearm safety system,” patent number 6499243, which adds a biometric activator that links a gun to one owner. The “Summary of the Invention” section of the patent application notes:
The safety system further makes use of a person’s fingerprint data, which is a unique personal property that is highly suitable for tracking and control.[18] [Emphasis added]
Sidley Austin LLP has contributed $305,345 to Obama.[19] Sidley Austin represented the inventors of the “Gun identification kit,” patent number 7380706. This invention provides a way for every gun to have a spent cartidge case made available for entry into a ballistic “fingerprint” database. Of course, such a database is useful only if all firearms are entered into it:
Because the vast majority of publicly owned firearms have not been used in the commission of a crime, they will not show up in [such a] database. It would therefore be desirable to provide a means for increasing the number of firearms for which…information and data is available.
The inventors’ solution to this? Pass a law mandating that every gun is registered (serial number matched with shell casing and owner data, all permanently recorded):
One means of populating [such a] database would be to mandate that ballistic information be obtained and entered into the database for all firearms.[20]
To date, lawyers have contributed $141,970,920 during the 2007-2008 election cycle, topped only by their $183,811,587 spent on the 2003-2004 election cycle. Since the Democrat party appears to be more in favor of larger government, lawyers have spent a majority ($670,756,042, or 73% of the total amount of $925,002,389 between 1990 and 2008) of their campaign contributions on Democrats, including $106,788,108 (75% of the total) this election cycle.[21]
The issue of this industry-wide preference was referred out to a group of pro-rights attorneys for perspective. The consensus is that:
•
Law firms benefit from big government. When Democrats hold the White
House, Democrat partners take a leave of absence to join the administration.
When Republicans are in power, Republican partners (usually big-government
types) go to work for that administration and the Democrat partners
return to work at the firm. Having partners in lucrative federal positions
boosts the firm’s reputation.
• Many firms are now controlled by partners who
grew up in the 1960s with its anti-establishment protests. As a result,
law firms have become more “liberal” over the last four
decades and now represent the new establishment.
This means that law firms generally support candidates most likely to grow the size of government, ensuring prestigious job opportunities no matter which party is in power. The fact that big-government candidates also favor more gun control may be a coincidence, but it may also be one aspect of big government: increasing centralized control of society, its institutions, and the individuals living within it; armed citizens stand in the way of big government. And it appears that Senator Obama, with the financial support of Big Law, stands in the way of your right of self-defense.
Endnotes:
1-
District
of Columbia et al. v. Heller, No 07-290, Supreme Court of the United
States, Syllabus, page 1.
2-
Mike
Wereschagin and David M. Brown, Candidates’ gun control positions
may figure in Pa. vote, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, April 2, 2008.
3-
Associated Press, Obama
& family spend Fourth of July in Montana, New York Daily News,
July 4, 2008.
4-
Clarence
Williams and Martin Weil, Secret Service Officer Thwarts Armed Robbers,
Washington Post, June 29, 2008.
5-
Agenda, The Democratic
Party.
6-
Civil Rights,
The Democratic Party.
7-
Trenton Daniel, Jennifer Lebovich and David Smiley, BSO: Black
driver shot 2 whites in self-defense, Miami Herald, December 19,
2007.
8-
Paula McMahon, No
murder charge in racially fueled road rage incident, South Florida
Sun-Sentinel, January 17, 2008.
9-
Laws
of Virginia, January 1839-1840
10-
State
v. Huntly, 25 N.C. (3 Ired.) 418 (1843)
11-,
State
v. Newsom, 5 Ired. (N.C.) 250 (1844)
12-,
Ibid
13-,
Allen W. Trelease, Reconstruction: The Great Experiment, Harper &
Row, 1971, Penal Laws of Mississippi, Section 1, November 1865, page
212.
14-,
Stephen P. Halbrook, The
Jurisprudence of the Second and Fourteenth Amendments, page 17.
Originally published as 4 George Mason Univ. Law Review 1-69 (1981).
15-,
Open
Secrets, Selected Industry Total to Candidates, Center for Responsive
Politics.
16-,
Open
Secrets, Barack Obama, Top Industries, Center for Responsive Politics.
17-,
Open Secrets, Barack
Obama, Top Contributors, Center for Responsive Politics.
18-,
Firearm safety
system, Patent #6499243, patent issued December 31, 2002.
19-,
Open Secrets, Barack Obama, Top Contributors, Center for Responsive
Politics.
20-,
Gun identification
kit, Patent #7380706
21-,
Open Secrets, Lawyers/Law Firms: Long-Term
Contribution Trends, Center for Responsive Politics.
